143 The story of microfinance is one of revolution. And as has often happened in the history of revolutions, microfinance too, once triggered, exploded from the bottom up, involving the most disadvantaged strata of society on the front lines. But it is also a story of applied research, breaking away from mainstream economic scenarios and disciplines. Modern microfinance was born far from the West, in Bangladesh, through the initiative of Muhammad Yunus, Professor of Economics at the University of Chittagong. In the wake of the great Bangladesh famine of 1974, Yunus began to question the economic theories he taught to his students. He wanted to understand why the models that extol development and shared prosperity in university textbooks were so distant from the reality of his country: outside the university classrooms of Chittagong and throughout the rest of Bangladesh, a widespread presence of people in poverty, relegated to the margins of society, still persisted. Thus, he ventured into the field, to the outskirts of the city, to study the dramatic conditions of millions of his fellow citizens. He experienced firsthand the material shortages in rural areas, the misery of village life. That is how he identified the recurrence of a vicious circle: the lack of ownership of the means of artisanal production by workers – if only the raw material – led them to resort to prohibitive loans, offered directly by retailers or usurers. Yunus then decided to activate a system of small loans – microfinance, precisely – especially to women, to break this oppressive debt cycle. Professor Yunus himself issued the first loans, and microfinance so became a story of revenge for thousands of families. Following the enormous success of this model, he decided to structure this credit modality in what in Bangladeshi means village bank, the Grameen Bank. But first and foremost, microfinance is a story of emancipation, empowerment and capability. Though without any kind of asset guarantee, and without any obligation to repay the loan, the Grameen Bank's clients recorded very high repayment rates. This is the greatest revolution of microfinance: the generation of trust. Loan repayment is indeed perceived as a matter of honour, responsibility and respect. It becomes an empowerment tool with women who, seizing the opportunity of the microfinance to emancipate themselves, recorded the highest repayment rates, astonishing the Grameen Bank operators as well. The echoes of Yunus' teachings still resound around the world today. If, with microfinance, which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, Yunus launched an initial challenge to poverty and global capitalism, the Bangladeshi professor furthered his efforts with the conceptualisation of Social Business, an alternative business paradigm to the dominant capitalist model, traditionally extractivist and oriented towards the maximisation and multiplication of profit at the expense of social and environmental implications. The declared and pursued goal of Social Business is the creation of shared social value through the resolution of one or more socio-environmental problems of general interest. Although, in terms of raison d'être and pursued objectives, business models akin to this paradigm have existed and still exist – consider, for instance, of the Italian cooperative movement – Muhammad Yunus has popularised the concept of Social Business on a global scale.
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