Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus says capitalism can't create sustainable nations

Mumbai: Concerned over the unequal distribution of wealth around the world, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus on Monday said the trend is becoming disastrous and there is an urgent need to reverse this. The founder of the Bangladeshi microlender Grameen Bank also said capitalism is not a sustainable way of creating a nation. “All the wealth in the world is concentrated in a few hands. This is obscene. One percent of the world population owns 99 percent of its wealth and it is getting worse,” Yunus told an event organised by the industry lobby IMC here. [caption id=“attachment_415657” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Muhammad Yunus. AFP.[/caption] Talking about India, he said nearly 73 percent of the country’s total wealth is owned by just 1 percent of its population. “And, next year it is likely to increase to 76 percent,” he warned. Terming the present capitalist system as “disastrous,” he said, “the capitalist system is a machine that sucks everything for the top but the top is becoming smaller and smaller.” Besides concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, the world is also facing another big challenge in rising unemployment levels, which according to Yunus “is artificial”. Calling for entrepreneurship to fight inequality and unemployment, Yunus said job is an obsolete idea. “Job is an end to creativity. Jobs are done by instructions and by limitations. Yell yourself that I am not a job seeker but a job creator.” The Nobel laureate also said poverty is created by the the system and the way to address this is to change the very system.