This guy looks like one of the upper middle class elite: he goes to Columbia, Oxford, Australia and writes about wealth disparity without creating wealth himself as an entrepreneur or living a poor man's life... One wonders how hateful divisive opinions form in society and it is this kind of misguided elitist journalists who are neither wealth-creators nor poor who use words to create doubts in people's minds about hard work. hustling and reward. I give you : Our generation's Indian Karl Marx. I don't even want to read his book .. his article is disgusting. For over 50 years the govt was running things in India driving India into deep poverty ... now with private enterprise poor people's living standards are rising(affordable cellphones and in a matter of time affordable education & health care)... Patience... nation-building needs patience and entrepreneurial hardwork not articles about wealth disparity. If a man works hard and builds a business why shouldn't he make more wealth.. after all he earned it... is he going to eat his money without spending it.. and who gets the money? ..does it circulate among only rich people.. are you kidding me? Instead of focusing on barriers to social mobility he talks about the class system.. Is a self-built Infy Narayanamurthy a master and his lowliest programmer a slave... God! SAve us from elitist socialist journalists and authors! They will take us back to the hell-hole of before the 1991 economic liberalisation
RE:This is how it starts....
by geela parul on May 03, 2008 08:10 AM Permalink
Exactly.....Thanks for this wonderful post. even I tried to say the same thing 2 posts below.
RE:This is how it starts....
by cynic on May 03, 2008 10:06 AM Permalink
Rightly said very soon this guy will receive some million dollars in some or the other literary prize in a swanky 5 star new york hotel. This is what drives the author, not empathy for the poor
RE:This is how it starts....
by Amit Kakri on May 03, 2008 01:46 PM Permalink
Gentlemen, you seem to have completely misread the message Arvind is conveying through his book. Have you ever read about the French revolution; it started when the poor were so poor that they even could find two square meals a day. Well that was a different time and place; far fewer people; but just imagine if 300-400 million poor indians decide enough is enough and decide to revolt against the existing system. This is what he has sought to convey. He is right in pointing out the social structure as it is; the culture and civilisation way of thinking even of the poorest have ensure that no large scale social upheavals have taken place so far! But all of us particularly "THE RICH ENTREPREUNERS" busy flaunting their wealth must realise what is happening in the countryside.
RE:This is how it starts....
by gaida on May 04, 2008 03:59 AM Permalink
Amit, so I should be afraid of a poor man's revolt and keep my money under my mattress? How is that different from hiding my money under the mattress for fear of robbers.. My point is: The first impression that a poor man gets about a rich man driving a luxury car is wrong... the poor man sees that he is unable to buy what he needs whereas a rich man can easily afford life's necessities and more. The way to earn more money is for the poor man to show some initiative to upgrade his skills & actively seek opportunities and for society to enable (mind you: not "guarantee" but "enable") his social mobility in the form of easy access to credit(so he can borrow to learn new skills) & easy access to information(non-profits disseminating information about work opportunities). My irritation with this author and other such socialist writers is that they never talk about how the poor man also has to display initiative. The poor man reads such writings and comes to the WRONG conclusion that his hard work and initiative will be worth nothing as he will always face invisible barriers to his economic progress. Let's talk about those barriers if they are real and let the poor man meet us mid-way by showing some initiative. Blind sympathy for the poor man is what got Russia into trouble when unscrupulous muscle-men took over the Communist party from idealistic do-gooders.
RE:This is how it starts....
by Amit Kakri on May 04, 2008 03:38 PM Permalink
Dear Gaida, all that you talk about sounds very pleasing to the ears; but pray how is it going to happen? You talk about enabling social mobility? Who is going to do that? My point is the celebrity-cult mongering that is going on is only increasing the gap between the haves and the have nots. Look at the amount of space being devoted to the trivial details of these rich celebrities in order to push up their market value further: is this really necessary?? If you have wealth fine go ahead and splurge, but please do not make a song and dance of it! Not in our country at least.
Having said this on the other hand I entirely agree with your point that we should create an enabling environment for the have nots. But who will create it? The celebrities?? Who are so buy flaunting their wealth? Will they accept and tolerate the poor masses who worship and revere some of their stupidites; come up in life and start questioning and critically evaluating their actions??
About the author, in this book he has not set upon himself the objective of offering suggestions on what should be done, not in this book anyway? May be if give him a suggestion his next book will contain a detailed road map on what needs to be done.
Finally your comparison with Russia is simply irrelevant. Russia was a very closed communist society; when it was suddenly opened up without any thought or plan. To compare what happen in Russia with what is happening here is like comparing apples and oranges.
RE:This is how it starts....
by gaida on May 06, 2008 02:12 AM Permalink
Amit It is good to finally argue with someone who writes in a civilized manner without getting side-tracked. Thank you for that. Enabling social mobility is something the government cannot do with quotas and laws. It has been tried & we know the results. It has only caused resentment that is not going away soon. Enabling Social mobility is a mind-set : Individual Indians have to allow other men to live freely which implies you don't put stumbling blocks in a man's pursuit of better living standards especially when it does not conflict with your freedom. If you are in hiring capacity hire a man based on his talent & skill regardless of his background. Don't hire him out of sympathy that he is poor even if he is not qualified. I will make sure I don't hire my idiot cousin when I run my own business. Basically each of us have to set examples by dealing with another man solely on his merits. If you want to help there are tons of NGOs doing the good work of enabling : ASHA for education, Kiva Microfinance etc. Let us stop expecting the government to help. In the name of doing good they will only serve themselves. Atleast you can pull money out of a badly-performing charity or non-profit but you cannot stop paying taxes to a bad government without being put in jail (contd.. below)
RE:RE:This is how it starts....
by gaida on May 06, 2008 02:14 AM Permalink
About celebrities flaunting their wealth : When Mukesh Ambani builds the world's richest house, the crores of rupees do not vanish into thin air. They go into paying the construction worker who will send his son to college, the architect who will send his son to the U.S, the brick layer, the marketing lady, the carpenter, the mason, the contractor, the plumber etc.. etc.. If Mukesh invested all that money outside the country then I'm sure thousands of construction workers will be out of a job in India.moral of the story: more rich people should compete with each other in spending and flaunting their wealth.. that is the only way more poor people will have jobs Same goes when a rich man spends crores on his daughters's wedding or a celebrity spends lakhs pursuing fun .. the money doesn't go down the drain .. it goes into the pockets of poor people
