Fighting poverty with capitalism?

 

The rise of the Habsburgs to the most important and powerful House in Europe originated in the Netherlands.

As heir to his wife, Mary of Burgundy, the later Emperor Maximilian claimed the then wealthiest part of Europe

for his offspring.

 

One of the main reasons why the Netherlands evolved into a proto-capitalist system was the emergence of a capital

market, which provided the economy reliably with cheap capital for the construction of dams and for sea trade.

 

History illustrates that capital is required for the birth of a functioning economy – on every level, even the

most basic one. Without capital, as defined according to economists as property, buildings, means of production

etc, there can be no production.

 

And this sort of capital is massively lacking in many regions of the world, because banks very often just cannot

offer credit, i.e. capital, on a micro level while at the same time covering their costs due to their business

models and controlling systems.

 

In 2006 Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (NOT the one in Economic Sciences!) for

having created a practical solution to this problem: the Grameen Bank. A bank that has replaced traditional

forms of collateral with group guarantees.

 

It has secured its roughly 7mn customers, some of who live in abject poverty, access to microcredits and thus to

the realisation of their entrepreneurial ideas. Reading Yunus’ acceptance speech, it becomes clear how a man with

an academic background could turn into a pragmatic helping hand and how he obviously finds it easy to combine

the worlds of finance, economic development, women und human rights with the successful fight against poverty.

 

Interestingly, Yunus has decided to go down a path that is similar to Erste Asset Management’s approach in

its SRI product range. We do not work against the grain of market economies, but we allow our fund management

team to excel where it is best – achieving a goal in an efficient way.

 

Sincerely

​

Mag. Gerold Permoser

Chief Investment Officer (CIO)