Unreasonable People

I am currently reading a book entitled The Power of Unreasonable People by John Elkington and Pamela Harrington. The subtitle is “How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change The World.” To introduce the book’s title subject and thesis, the authors quote George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Social Entrepreneurs do not accept the status quo and the traditional system. They are trying to bend Capitalism to also serve the fringes of our economy, where opportunities are scarce and the tradition is poverty. These are intelligent and often well-educated individuals, but rather than spend their ambition climbing a corporate ladder, they spend their ambition on trying to help people get on the ladder who normally wouldn’t. Better yet, they help people build their own ladder. By this last point, I mean enabling impoverished individuals to become entrepreneurs themselves in self-sustaining ventures that the global market will demand.

Social Entrepreneurs are trying to provide money in places where profits do not exist…yet. In my next post, I will share Elkington and Hartigan’s most exciting point: Social Entrepreneurs may be pointing to a very lucrative source of profits: the BOP.