I’ve mentioned my antipathy to “too big to fail,” which notably included banks. But Grameen Bank  interests me as much for the anthropology behind it – its view of human nature – as for its localist angle and “Small Is Beautiful” aesthetic:

Dr. Yunus came to realize … that all economic theory was built on considering only half of what men really are. It is built on the fact that men are selfish. And so they are. But that is not all that they are. Men are also unselfish, because without that, no social order—and no economy—would be possible or sustainable. So the good Dr. set out to found an economics, and a bank, built on the whole man, and not just the half-human.