Collaborative Economics: How Working Together Drives Social Impact, Innovation, and Global Change

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the

world."

How does collaboration in (economics) support social impact and innovation?

What will my children eat today? Manoshi Saha, one of many women in the same situation

as her, thought. As a mother and housewife, raising children and managing the household,

she had to support her family financially and morally. She was doomed to remain behind

these unbreakable barriers of gender inequality. Saha's job wasn't made easy by the bank's

refusal to lend her money because of her poverty. She did not give up on herself for her

children, and later on, her journey to increase her family's wealth intersected with Grameen

Bank on 18 October 2006. (Grameen Bank, 2024)

Muhammed Yunus was an economist before he founded Grameen Bank in 1983, and he

received a Nobel Prize in 2006 for his bank. He touched many lives, such as Saha, by

pioneering micro-finance (Yunus, M. 1998). He helped underprivileged people break the

chain and offered small loans to impoverished individuals, especially women, to break this

gender inequality. One woman was Saha, who invested in growing banana trees and fish,

breaking the financial and gender barriers, and becoming a successful independent mother.

97% of his bank became a concrete example of women surviving against challenging

conditions. We can liken this to microorganisms that work together to create a life circle, like

Yunus, who conveyed this principle to the creation of microfinance and helped create

sustainable economic growth.

Cooperation is critical for economic progress because people are the economy's raw

material. Fairtrade is to defend the rights of these producers by keeping human power above

mass production. For fair trade by bringing together local cooperatives such as Mondragon

cooperative (Kasmir, 1982) that includes Fagor Electrodomésticos, which makes

innovations; Caja Labora, a bank that provides financial assistance; Eroski, a cooperative

retail chain that operates markets; Mondragon University offers higher education programs

in the humanities and other fields, such as Ikerlan, a technology center focused on energy,

electronics, and ICT innovation. However, all these organizations have a mutual aim: to

create resistance against mass production.

Silicon Valley, a competitive environment that finds solutions to problems for economic

prosperity and a sustainable world, engages in innovative initiatives created by exchanging

ideas to unite the world. To illustrate, Y Combinator (Y Combinator, 2024) is a cooperative

that provides funding, mentorship, and resources for early-stage companies; this cooperative

has helped many startups, such as Twitch, Reddit, Gusto, and many more. Overall, YC

shows how collaboration among founders and workers within the startup ecosystem can

help startups make innovations and impact the industry with Group Workshops such as

Startup School 2022, where founders from different startups gather and share their

experiences to create collaboration and a thoughtful network.

In a similar collaborative approach among environmentalists, politicians, and economists, the

European Union created a comprehensive strategy for transitioning to a circular economy

under its Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020). As with the United

Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) & Decent Work, And Economic Growth, so

much the same policy recommendations will be made. (United Nations, 2024).

The current state of the global economy, coupled with COVID-19 and the ongoing war in

Ukraine, devastates any idea that tinkering around the edges will suffice. By achieving a

reestablishment of the gold standard or something similar in countries all over the world, we

can then focus our efforts on building an economically efficient, sustainable, and

self-sufficient financial system that ensures prosperity long into the future. May we all work

for a community in which someday we can say: "Yes, a strong minority is the one thing that

has ever changed the world.

References

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● Yunus, M. (1998). Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World

Poverty.

● Schumacher, E.F. (1973). Small is Beautiful.

● European Commission. (2020). Circular Economy Action Plan for a Cleaner and

More Competitive Europe.

● Blank, S. (2013). The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building

a Great Company.

● United Nations. (2015). Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable

Development.

● Kasmir, S. (1982). Mondragon: An Economic Analysis.

● Grameen Bank (2024). Board of Directors. Available at:

https://grameenbank.org.bd/governance/board-of-directors (Accessed: 31 March

2024).

● Y Combinator (2024). Available at: https://www.ycombinator.com (Accessed: 31

March 2024).

● United Nations (2024). Sustainable Development Goals. Available at:

https://sdgs.un.org/goalsv (Accessed: 26 February 2024).