Sunday Posts

The unacknowledged symptom of middle-class midlife when personal arguments and political choices converge into a farce. So was last week for me! For me, with a 9 year old, it is that time when the conversation about school choice starts. The British middle class wisdom - State (schools) till 8! - knocks on the door. The juggling of post codes, entrance examinations and school ratings overwhelm dinner table conversations. The conversation about happy children looks quaint, and the intense race for 'future' starts.  My protestation that the Secondary school is still a good two years away is pointless. I live within an enclave of Indian professionals, striving suburban middle-classmen who grew up in scarcity and embraced oneupmanship as a positive virtue: I am starting the race for future way too late.  But, indeed, there is some truth in the obsession about schools, and that hits home as I google the local state schools. The story I see is consistent, ranging...

Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics at Columbia University, calls Albert Hirschman's book, Exit, Voice and Loyalty Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States , one of the finest books ever written by an economist. However, while by that description this short treatise stands alongside Keynes General Theory or Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations, it has none of the glamour and recognition of these peers. Yet, in some ways, Hirschman's work has a timeless quality about it - its topic and its exposition appears strangely contemporary despite the frantic transformation of our world and our thinking since the book was published in 1970.  Hirschman was dealing with an unconventional subject in Economics - decline in firms, when they do not do things well - and therefore, his work stood outside the mainstream economics. Mainstream economics, as Hirschman himself pointed out, operates on the basis of 'Consistent Rationality', which means decline of operating pe...