Overview
This session explores practical ways to embed altruism, responsibility, and sustainability into economic life, moving from theory to concrete models in finance, development, and grassroots action. Antoinette Hunziker-Ebneter argues that investors and financial institutions can promote sustainable quality of life by considering social, environmental, and governance factors alongside financial returns, shifting from short-term profit maximization toward long-term, purpose-driven investment and more responsible regulation. Arthur Vayloyan describes microfinance as a way to connect capital with people who lack access to conventional financial services, especially women, showing how small loans, group trust, and locally based institutions can help families build businesses, education, health, and security while still producing modest investment returns. Sanjit Bunker Roy presents the Barefoot College as a radically bottom-up development model that values the knowledge and capacities of poor rural communities, training largely illiterate villagers—especially grandmothers—to become teachers, engineers, and solar technicians and thereby strengthening local self-reliance, dignity, employment, education, and environmental sustainability. The Dalai Lama repeatedly emphasizes limits to material growth, the importance of inner development, and the need for transformation to begin at the village and grassroots level, while Matthieu Ricard highlights the growing role of small, committed NGOs in creating practical, low-cost, community-based alternatives. Overall, the discussion suggests that a more compassionate economy can emerge through responsible investment, inclusive finance, local empowerment, appropriate technology, and institutions that measure success not only by profit but by improvements in human well-being and community resilience.
- Dialogue 205 sessions
- April 10, 2010Kongresshaus, Zurich, Switzerland
- ML20-session-4_FINAL.stamped_doc |docx|
