Friday, October 28, 2011

New Rules for Fools - Fairness and Equality

In all these criticisms of the Occupy protests, I see a common trend: critics pick words like "fairness" and "equality" and extrapolate absurd arguments from these words so as to make protesters' outcries look ridiculous. This type of specious argumentation is called "attacking a straw man". It is not as though such people don't understand what those words actually mean. They do. And you can tell that they do because they go to great lengths to misinterpret those words in every ludicrous way possible, carefully avoiding the most obvious, simple and straightforward representation. All just to obfuscate real issues and vitiate the spirit of public discourse by throwing around such red herrings as the suggestion that protesters' messages all boil down to the Marxist principle - "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". Do they, really?

Equal rights. Equal access to opportunity. Fair play. Rule of law. Equality of all citizens under the law. Justice for all. Not difficult concepts to understand, are they? Or maybe they are, for some of those critics. Maybe not all critics are attacking a straw man on purpose - maybe their very understanding of these concepts is nebulous. So here's a new rule that should clarify some of this.

Purpose of New Rule: This rule is meant as a guide for those who don't understand the meaning of fairness and equality, or why it is important for the health of capitalism to preserve and protect such ideals.

Description of New Rule: Think back to when you last took an exam (assuming, at the very least, that you went to school, if not college). Equality means all students answer the question paper under the same set of rules, within the same time period, under the same watchful eyes of the same invigilator. Fairness means that all students are given access to the same learning material and teachers, and in general, the same opportunities to prepare for their exams. Some students have a better grasp of the subject and/ or take the pains to be better prepared, and as a consequence, fare better than other students. That's fair. What would be unfair is if a select few were given an opportunity to be better prepared by "leaking" the questions to them ahead of the exam, or given opportunities to plagiarize, or given extra time to complete their answers. Not all students score the same marks. That's not what equality means! Nor does it mean that students who are less capable but "need" to do well in their exams should score higher marks. Assuming a "normal" distribution, some students will top the class, most will be somewhere in the middle while others will remain stragglers. As long as they used fair means to achieve their distinction, a merit-based outcome is not only an acceptable outcome but the inevitable outcome of a fair and just evaluation system. This is exactly how it works with capitalism. Given a normal distribution and a level playing field, some people will make more money than others. As long as they used fair means to make money, it is not only acceptable but inevitable that their abilities, ambition and industriousness merit their economic rewards. What is unacceptable is when a few people use unfair means to make disproportionately large sums of money. Unfair means such as gaming the system or bending the rules. Or even breaking the rules and leveraging powerful connections to get away with it.

Protesters of the Occupy movement are not against meritocracy. On the contrary, that is exactly what they are asking for - the restoration of true meritocracy. They are decrying the perversion of meritocracy by the few, for the few. Criticism of these protests can only come from those who are so foolish that they just can't get this, or from those who are so guilty (of the perversion of meritocracy) that they just won't get this. Can't or won't, you know who you are.

Post Script, Oct 29 

Having quoted Karl Marx in this post last night, and having come across this other quote from another Marx (Groucho) this morning, I think this says it best: "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made."

Posted via email from HyperActiveX's (Pre)Posterous Posts

Sunday, October 23, 2011

No More Missed Calls for Change

Two recent articles in popular news magazines caught my eye this weekend.

The Economist ran a story on climate change dealing with new evidence on global warming. Hopefully this should put to rest the furious debates triggered by the "climategate" scandal couple of years ago. In hindsight, that scandal was probably a good thing, inasmuch as it cleaned up the scientific research on the subject and served to keep climate change researchers honest. Scientists are, after all, human beings, and like all other specimens of our species, equally fallible and equally prone to fudging data to prove their hypotheses. They may not be as dishonest as an aspiring entrepreneur approaching a Venture Capitalist with a sexed-up business plan, but surely, they're prone to a little bit of disingenuousness here and there. But here's the fresh evidence now, from a squeaky clean team, led by a mild skeptic. Clearly, the "heat is on", to quote The Economist (and the first line from an old song).

The more interesting story was the one in the New Scientist a few days ago. It was about how a group of researchers had analyzed the complex network of relationships between over 43,000 transnational corporations (TNCs) and found that a relatively small number of them (mostly banks) wielded disproportionate power over the global economy. Here's an excerpt:

The work ... revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships. Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters would probably say "not surprising, we've known this all along", but now there's some hard evidence. While economists have already noted the increasingly widening gap in the distribution of income in America, and observers have already commented that "much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless", this is the first study that establishes the nexus of global dominance by TNCs including some big Wall Street players. 

Hopefully this should help establish a clearer perspective on the OWS protests, which have been criticized and supported for all the wrong reasons. And that clarity should help us look past the hype and hysteria, to recognize three simple truths at the heart of the pan-American Occupy protests: (a) It's all about fairness, and not really about equality (b) It's all about redefining capitalism, not about rejecting capitalism (and bringing in communism) (c) It's a "primal scream" of anguished masses, that doesn't require a structured manifesto to be morally valid. Dismissing the Occupy protests as a confused incoherent anti-establishment rant by a loose, louche lot of lazy leftist losers who blame the rich for their misery and who have no concrete solutions to offer, while convenient, would be a big mistake - one that may lead to worse consequences.

To any rational person with an open mind, the common thread that resonates in these two stories is the revelation that we are now at an important cusp of history - a point in time when we seriously need to rework our socioeconomic models to foster a kind of prosperity that will enable future generations to flourish. A global prosperity that will enhance rather than erode social and political harmony around the world, and that will maintain rather than destroy the planet's delicate ecological balance.

These are strong calls for change, backed by hard facts. We've been missing these calls in the past, under some pretext or other. But now it's high time the denial and the deception and the dithering stopped. Let's not keep missing these calls till it is too late to give our children a better future.

Posted via email from HyperActiveX's (Pre)Posterous Posts

Monday, October 3, 2011

At times the pigeon, at times the statue

Thanks to Internet banking and the privilege of having a Relationship
Manager designated to me by my primary banker, I rarely need to visit
any brick-and-mortar bank branch. The other day was one such rare
occasion, when I needed to transact a certain kind of business that
could only be executed at a certain branch of a certain bank.

It took me a while to navigate to the desk of the customer service
officer to whom I was directed, and I got there only to find her seat
vacant. I looked around for a bit and everybody around seemed
extremely busy. At another desk nearby an important-looking officer
was going through a whole bunch of important-looking documents. She
didn't have any customers seated opposite her and I could tell that
she was aware of my presence, but she did her best to avoid
eye-contact. Lest I should bring her more work, I guess. Anyway, since
I was not in a tearing hurry I decided to hang around and look
helpless, hoping someone would notice. I was relieved when at last the
officer I was waiting for showed up. However, she scarcely registered
by presence, and instead immediately started talking to her colleagues
across her carrel partition. Yet another reminder that I have neither
a commanding presence nor a charming personality.

As I was waiting for her to turn her attention to me, I couldn't help
overhearing her complaining to her important-looking colleague (who
suddenly found time to listen to her), about the poor service she got
from her mobile provider's customer support staff. My patience was
rewarded when she finally turned to me, still in an unpleasant mood.
No smile, no warm friendly greeting, no "How can I help you?" -
instead, just a "Yes?" that barely managed to be polite. Before I
could complete my first sentence the telephone at her desk rang and
she answered it with a shudder of exasperation. By the time she was
done with that call and turned to me again, an apparently junior
colleague of hers came to her desk with some papers in her hand,
seeking advice on some other customer's transaction. Long story short,
it took me all of 30 minutes to complete my transaction, which
according to me should have taken not more than 5. Or maybe 10
minutes, at most.

As I was leaving I made a brief comment to her, with a smile - "When
we complain about poor service, as customers, it's a good idea to
introspect a bit about the quality of service we provide to our own
customers, when we act as service providers. After all, we all play
both those roles, don't we?" She was smart enough to get that, and
only then apologized. And even in that, showing herself to be an
efficient but helpless cog-in-the-wheel of a large, chaotic system. I
wanted to quote a line from Bob Dylan's song - "It may be the devil or
it may be the lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody". But
somehow it didn't seem appropriate. For one thing I didn't think she'd
know who Bob Dylan was, and who knows, she might have even found the
quote egregious.

But for you, here's the song. Enjoy! And do remember this little
anecdote .. as much when you're the pigeon dumping on the statue, as
when you're the statue taking crap from the pigeon.