Defining Excessive Greed

The New York Times carried an article the other day, whose headline "Billionaires’ Rise Aids India, and the Favor Is Returned" promised coverage of, say, the top 10 Indians in the Forbes list. However, the article focused on just one of them (save for passing references to a few others) and in doing so read like a PR job for Gautam Adani. By an uncanny coincidence, a day or two later, the Lokayukta of Karnataka submitted a report indicting Adani and others in what appears to be a massive scam relating to illegal mining in that state. More details emerged today suggesting that we have barely seen the tip of the proverbial iceberg up until now. No doubt, the future will bring us even more gory details. And no doubt all parties indicted are innocent till prosecuted in a court of law and found guilty.

That said, this episode reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend around the time the global financial crisis first revealed its enormity, about capitalism and excessive greed and such -- pretty common topic given the context. My friend's thesis, in short, was that capitalism is based on ambition and greed and that there is no such thing as excessive greed because it is impossible to calibrate that scale. So we just have to man-up and learn to deal with it. 

I had a different view. In my opinion, other than psychopaths, everybody has a sense of right and wrong. While this sense of right and wrong may be subjective and may vary from person to person based on culture, religion and various other factors, there exists a common objective notion of business ethics and civic propriety that we all understand. This comes from a secular morality that transcends religion and is based on the self-evident principles of sustainability. It forms the foundation for the legal and regulatory framework of nations. Many of these legal and regulatory frameworks suffer from any or all of the following maladies: they are obsolete/ full of inconsistencies due to constant patching with changes or new laws/ inhibit economic growth by constraining enterprise/ draconian and convoluted enough to promote corruption. The need for reforms in such cases is urgent and there is no disputing this fact -- as times change, we need to change with them. However, the argument that existing laws are not in the best interests of promoting economic growth should not become a ready refuge for the excessively greedy to bend or break rules. 

Which leads us to my proposed definition: excessive greed is when one's ambition overcomes one's values and principles. As long as greed remains within those boundaries, it remains a legitimate driving force to entrepreneurship and economic growth.

Yes, it is that simple. You know it, better than anyone else, when you're making excuses to circumvent your own value system. All you have to do is to look within. Unless, of course, you're a psychopath.

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Minor Observation #8

Contrarians can't stand other contrarians whose contrariety is contrary to their own, just like non-conformists can't stand other non-conformists who don't conform to their style of non-conformism.

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Crowdsourcing Governance Reform

I just came upon this article in PopSci proclaiming that "Iceland's Citizens Are Writing Its New Constitution Online" thanks to a friend who shared the link on Facebook.

Without getting into the whole issue all over again, of Anna Hazare's fast demanding active participation of the civil society in drafting the Lok Pal Bill, I just want to make a point here in this post: in a democracy sovereignty ultimately lies with the People -- beyond the Constitution or Parliament. Iceland's bold experiment is testimony to this simple fact. And this point begs to be made, flying as it does in the face of criticism to the effect that citizens' active (and "official") participation in changing the law of the land: (a) is unconstitutional (b) subverts Parliamentary processes (c) undermines our democratic institutions.

Perhaps it is time to recognize that in today's day and age (relevant zeitgeist: increasing empowerment of common citizens) a purely representative democracy is unsustainable if it does not conflate at least some elements of participatory democracy. Some burning issues just cannot wait till the next elections, especially if the average citizen strongly feels that the establishment and its political processes have failed to deliver clean governance. Clearly, such is the case when it comes to the twin issues of graft and capital flight in the Indian context -- the Government in office has failed to check these chronic maladies over the years (even worse, its officials are suspected to be perpetrators of the same crimes themselves) and the main Opposition party has failed to correct that failure (even worse, is suspected to more or less equally guilty).

I sincerely hope our Indian think-tanks (who are wont to quote Dr. Ambedkar's quip about the "Grammar of Anarchy" at the drop of a hat these days) sit up and take note of the precedent set by Iceland, without bringing up feckless counter-arguments like: "Oh but you can't do that here because only the elite in India have access to the Internet" or "Oh but you can't do that here because the Indian public lacks maturity". We can definitely replicate Iceland's experiment in India (especially considering the urgency of the need to reform our antiquated and obsolete legal and regulatory framework). We have the technology, we have the intellectual capital (what the heck -- we export that stuff!) and we have the maturity too. We can do it, and we must do it. I just hope we will!

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Minor Observation #7

The kerfuffle caused by a certain "Swami" (a.k.a."Baba") Ramdev and his followers recently, inspired me to explore the many meanings and applications of the word "Capital". Here are a few:

Capital Flight: The siphoning out of ill-begotten wealth from the mainstream economy, and then stashing it away secret bank accounts overseas. This forms the main thrust and focal point of Ramdev's crusade: to bring pressure on the Government to "bring back"  that wealth and declare it as a national asset.

National Capital: New Delhi, the place where Ramdev was received like a VIP on arrival, and from where he was unceremoniously booted out a few days later, after he earned the wrath of the high and mighty.

Capital Punishment: What Ramdev thinks the corrupt deserve: the death penalty (he seems to have settled for life imprisonment, in later interviews).

Human Capital: Ramdev's flock -- the several thousands of followers who had gathered for satyagraha at the Ramlila grounds, who a day or two later were gassed, caned and evicted in the dead of the night, some of whom have sustained serious injury.

Intellectual Capital: The one thing that is conspicuously absent in almost everything that almost everybody has uttered on this subject on national television and newspapers.

Capitalizing on Opportunity: What the national political parties are doing against this backdrop, each to further their own political agenda.

Capital 'F' for Failure: Failure of the Government (to check graft and bring the guilty to book); Failure of the Opposition (to ensure that the Government does its job); Failure of Civil Society (to remain civil and shoulder civic responsibilities while protesting against the aforementioned failures); Failure of the Intelligentsia (to develop meaningful solutions before the public at large acts out of sheer outrage); Failure of the Common Citizen (to eschew all forms of corruption in daily life; to stick to the straight and narrow path despite its inconveniences).

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The Fast and the Furious

When I logged on this morning I found that my opinion on the Lok Pal Bill and Anna Hazare's fast unto death, and the furious debate over the last few days among the Indian intelligentsia, had already been articulated in my friend Raj Jayaram's blog post -- and that too with a degree of precision that is astonishing, if not scary. With me in Mumbai and him sitting far away in Singapore, without us exchanging a word on this subject, it seemed as though we were both reading each other's thoughts. It wouldn't have worked better if I had hired an amanuensis. And this is really strange because rarely have Raj and I agreed on something so wholeheartedly, in the many interesting debates we've had on many interesting topics. In fact, more often than not, we end up "agreeing to disagree", and switch to less controversial topics of mutual interest.

So, instead of repeating all that here (per my resolve last night to write out a blog post on Saturday morning regarding this whole business), all I will do here, other than point you to Raj's post, is to reproduce some of my own tweets on the subject. Since I have not mastered the craft of extracting relevant tweets from my twitter timeline and pasting them here, I am reproducing them verbatim in plain text, with links to the originals. A couple of facebook status messages also appear, though without links, since my privacy settings would not permit all to view them.

Hundreds of critiques, hazaar criticisms, but not a single workable option to either Hazare's Yantra or his Mantra #IndianIntellectualElite

If we don't get this less-than-perfect soln., fraught with risks & anxieties as it may be, we deserve the rotten quagmire we are sinking in!

Rather than worry about possible subversion of democracy in the future I worry about bringing to book proven abuse of power in the past.

It is heartening to vindicate the fact that supreme sovereignty in a democratic republic lies with the people, not the parliament or const. 

Expanded on facebook: It is most heartening to see vindicated the fact that supreme sovereignty in a democratic republic lies with the people, not the parliament or the constitution - these are mechanisms and tools the people set up to enable governance. And they can change. They will change, over time. It is inevitable.

Words I watch out for: "misguided" and "self-righteous". People who use them at the drop of a hat usually are both.

I am so glad we moved things along. Dystopia is what happens while we slowly and patiently build Utopia. Vice is more impatient than Virtue.

And now that we are where we are I earnestly hope that the voices of dissent will come forward with constructive feedback instead of sulking

@BDUTT One of the reasons that engagement doesn't happen is cynicism. And one of the reasons behind cynicism is corruption.

@vikramchandra Gandhian methods may or may not be the best, or "perfect", but proved to be most effective, since nothing else has worked

And the last one, on facebook: 

Coercion subversion diversion conversion - pick your version. But I am amazed that a 72 y.o. can fast for so long and still be cool. Me? I turn into a beast if I miss breakfast. You rock, Anna!

Again, for a more detailed discourse please read Raj's post.

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