"To be fair to Mr. Yunus, perhaps such utopian rhetoric is meant to motivate support for the more feasible programs he has in mind. His favored solution to making global progress against poverty, unemployment and carbon emissions is social entrepreneurship, the creation of 'self-sustaining' businesses that operate with 'freedom from profit pressures and from the demands of profit-seeking investors,' making 'social businesses viable even in circumstances where current capitalist markets fail.' It's the same principle behind Grameen Bank, which Mr. Yunus founded to offer small loans to the poor, and for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. [...] If you want to motivate support for social enterprise, a utopian promise of A World of Three Zeros makes for a better book title than 'Helping 60 Albanian Farmers Grow Herbs.' And Mr. Yunus's paean to entrepreneurship does indeed deliver inspiration about the power of human creativity. But problematic arguments remain, especially his imprecise criticisms of the current economic system and the implausibility of replacing the whole system with social entrepreneurship. [...] A major problem is one of scale. Mr. Yunus's many social-enterprise examples are all on the same micro level as the 60 Albanian herb farmers. [...] Mr. Yunus prefers to criticize the market system--and mainstream economics--for its celebration of selfish greed as the basis of everything. This is a common misunderstanding of Adam Smith's invisible hand, which privileges individual choice, not individual selfishness. [...] Mr. Yunus also overlooks the benefits of markets in alleviating poverty. He attributes much of the progress so far to the efforts of foreign-aid donors and social enterprises such as the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals [...] The answer isn't to replace the market system with social enterprises, but to target the market failures and enforce laws or regulations against deception in financial markets. Mr. Yunus's call to scrap a system that works, however imperfectly, for a vaguely defined and unproven system that relies mainly on social entrepreneurship, is a far too risky project."

"Muhammad Yunus wants us to know that capitalism is doing just what it is meant to do: create and concentrate wealth. But in his book A World of Three Zeros, Yunus advocates rethinking the basic tenets of capitalism, given that poverty and unemployment demean so many, and that climate change threatens so much. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, known for his creative solutions to alleviating poverty, questions Adam Smith’s assumption that a 'human being is basically a personal-gain-seeking being' and asks us to consider the social dimension to the decisions and investments we make. He lays out a new framework, supported by his own successful economic experiments, for better tapping human capital to solve the world’s problems. The author’s basic premise is that 'people are both selfish and selfless, and that both motivations can be applied to economic activity.' [..] His framework is thought-provoking and has real potential to make a difference, but his strong political views and anti-capitalism rhetoric are likely to turn off some readers. [...] The book is inspirational, but it becomes repetitive if you’re reading for recommendations [...] I was surprised (and somewhat relieved) to read that what Yunus proposes, with changes to laws and regulations, could easily sit next to existing systems in most countries — developed and developing. The topic and the engaging stories of success should interest all types of readers."

"Muhammad starts the book with 'The failures of Capitalism', where he explains the key fail component of Capitalism: it’s misunderstanding of human nature. In Capitalism humans are selfish, we seek only our own benefit. He proposes another vision based on how people dedicate time and money to help others, people who risk even their lives to improve the lives of others. Here is the great opportunity of social business: a business whose core objective isn’t to earn money but creating an impact on human lives. This kind of business show the entrepreneur DNA of humanity, a DNA that could allow us to generate companies that do not accumulate wealth but distribute it while solving humanity (and communities) problems. [...] Overall, the book is inspiring and have shown me a positive outlook for the future. For me, the key is about promoting an education system and a society that encourage entrepreneurs to solve real problems."