Sunday Posts

I was speaking to someone about behaving well when she turned around and said, "so you are asking me to fake it?" Only then, it dawned on me that there could be a potential conflict between authenticity and decency.  Being ourselves - we have been told - is the goal of life. What this means is less clear, but it's more or less doing what we like, saying what we like and having what we like. This is the modern dream - life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, on our own terms. But what about the others? Can one have life without others? Certainly not without one's parents, at the least, and a lot of other people along the way. No liberty either, without the whole edifice of society and the laws - otherwise the life would be nasty, brutish and short. And, happiness - which includes, at least for most people, other people as well.  Therefore, how is it that being oneself - rather than being one with the world around us - became our dream? I am with Simone Weil when she say...

As our world falls apart, we have learnt to take comfort from Conspiracy theories. Dean Koontz did write about Wuhan-400 years ago, didn't he? Have you not watched the South Korean documentary from 2018 which uncannily predicted just this? How could China contain the virus, one that is tearing apart Europe and the United States, so quickly? Maybe this was accidentally released from the laboratory where they were building up this nefarious bio-agent? After all, Trump and Pompeo have said they have seen the evidence! We live in the age of credulity. We would like to believe what we are fed, without questioning. If something is written in English and published on WhatsApp, it must be true.  Once this crisis is over - and it will be - we will be scarred more by our indulgences in conspiracy theories than this virus itself. That is indeed my case for resistance - I don't want to get into the habit. I would rather keep my brain slightly active and neurons alive and no...

I was protesting against cynical war-mongering by South Asian politicians on Facebook when a friend called me out: He blamed my 'liberal' ideology rather than my oft-expressed and admittedly utopian desire to see a peaceful and prosperous Asia for my ardour. I am used to be called socialist and even some cases, a communist, but 'liberal' is a first and that made me think. The popularity of the 'liberal' label is recent and bears a particular sense: An American one! It somewhat lumps a variety of things, socialism, free-markets and progressivism together for a start, without no other common theme than a belief that things would get better with time (which would have been called 'whiggism' at a different time). In that sense, liberalism should be seen opposed to the beliefs in a coming judgement-day that their opponents generally hold, though socialists, in that regard, should sit in the other side of the fence, in that sense. But then, I am ...

Who wants to really study History anymore? Has it not ended already, as Francis Fukuyama famously declared? And, besides, what role may it have at a time when we are so busy making the future? The questions are personal, as I went back to the University at a late stage to read History, prompting such, and other, derision. It was deemed impractical, idiotic or pompous, based on the kindness of the commentator, but never - even once - useful. Why didn't I do an MBA instead, or, if I really wanted to write, a degree in Journalism? History was unlikely to give me any real skill, and, any reasonable supply of TLAs (three letter acronyms, for the uninitiated), so very crucial for getting ahead in one's career. History is, at best, so dated! However, I actually very much think the opposite, and I shall explain why. This is not about explaining my decision to go back to school - that I have tried elsewhere - but rather why History has become a more important discipline than e...

Is the game over for Facebook? Would this outrage of knowing that the network is controlling us - reading out our most guarded desires and obsessions and feeding and fuelling the same through the mechanics of mind control - drive many to really delete themselves from Facebook? Is that even possible, to let a digital me die unmourned? Someone I nurtured so diligently, someone who anchors me into a different world of digital connections and relationships, affords meaning beyond the day-to-day affectations - can I let the person pass away without an effort?  And, yet, can I allow that person to control my life, my ideas and my engagements with the world? Can I let this digital demon, simply because I can't let go, manipulate the world on my behalf, subverting my most cherished ideals and making me a patsy for secretive billionaires and manipulators? Wouldn't that be an act of incorrigible narcissism, an act of submission to an evil empire, cowardice not unlike thos...

I have argued elsewhere that the expansion of formal higher education is precisely the wrong thing to do at a time of great technological change, as college lacks the inclusiveness and openness of informal learning, and expansion of college discourages spread and persistence of informal learning opportunities ( see the post here ). This prevents the diffusion of technology, as lack of inclusiveness and openness in learning mean a lot of people are left out, unable not just to take advantage of technological change to improve their economic prospects but also missing out on applying the technological possibilities in solving their own day-to-day problems.  Now, I want to take this argument further: The college does not just fail those which it excludes, but also its own graduates. This is because the college, in its current form, does a really bad job at developing two most critical abilities that one needs to succeed in the globalised and automated workplaces (and societies...

When we talk about automation, we usually imagine a future without jobs - except for a few nerds perhaps! Therefore, the conversation about this future centres around two things: One, on STEM training, so that more people can join the ranks of the nerds; Two, Universal Basic Income, or suchlike, on the assumption that the rest of the people will need support. So, if we flip the perspective now, and speak about Careers in the 2020s, how would it sound? Be an Engineer or a Gardener, sounds like the best we could do. But that wouldn't be much of an advice really, because most Engineers today work as number crunchers in Financial Services, jobs that are likely to go first, or Programmers in IT Services, jobs that will go next. As for Gardeners, there is global warming. But, seriously? Human beings have been pretty bad at predicting what happened to them in the future. True, in an earlier age, we did not have people who called them Futurists (though what they do, speculate, ...

Automation is coming, to a factory near you - that really is the news. One may wrap the story with the fancy stuff - Robots or self-driving cars - but automation of less glamorous type is already everywhere: Lines of code, bits of equipment fabricated to labour, all the electronic stuff that sits inside our cars and modern homes to reduce manual work. The humble self-directed Vacuum Cleaner whirring away has taken off a few hours from the immigrant worker's weekly engagement; the Train Guards have been replaced by Cameras all over the train.  The point being, automation is an approach. And it is already here. If that makes one queasy about jobs and people, the consolation is that automation brings new jobs with it. This is not wishful talk, the evangelists point out, there is empirical evidence from what happened last time, the so-called Industrial Revolution. In the Industrial Revolution, the machines were introduced to replace workers - there were protests and revolutio...

Working in Education, I have to confront the conversations about Automation all the time: Are there enough jobs there for us to educate so many people? As with other things in life, there are 'Many Sides' in this debate too. One side of the argument is that there are enough jobs, and the unemployment is resulting from a skills mismatch. As evidence, one can cite simply the number of unfilled positions that the companies report, or the poor applicant-to-job offers ratio.  The other side of the argument is that the jobs are really shrinking and many jobs are being automated, and we should be preparing for a future when most people would not find work. There is strong evidence for this as well: It is possible to show that the job numbers, when compared like-for-like (without counting the new positions created by new companies or sectors), are often decreasing, not only in the developed countries but also in supposedly high growth areas such as manufacturing in China....

Automation is Capitalism's great new prize and its most potent challenge. At once, it breaks the back of organised labour but puts into disarray the carefully constructed social system that we call Capitalism. It is Capital - that's what machines, robots and know-how are - becoming supremely productive and utterly meaningless at the same time. It is the realisation of an utopia, but also a moment of reality. It would potentially expand supply infinitely, as finite Human time will no longer be required, at the same time as perversely limiting demand, as nothing that is produced could be bought. The last bit is indeed the classic Marxist argument, but from the vantage point of 21st century, we see something that Marx did not. First, though Marx made some very insightful predictions, the empire was still only taking shape and at the time of Marx's death, the integration of global economy was still in its infancy. Also, for Marx, the nineteenth century capitalism was a ...

We have grown up with the 'Tragedy of The Commons' programmed in our brains.  If something is common property, no one cares for it - we have taken it for granted. It is because the way incentive systems are believed to work. If something is everyone's property, no one in particular has the responsibility for its upkeep; and yet the person who gets there first and uses it to the maximum, gains most. So a common forest is overfell, common pond is overfished, common field is overgrazed. And, on the other hand, property rights really protect the productive capacities of the resources, and creates common good. How convenient! This looks like common sense that can be so easily proved empirically. We know it from our instincts - from overeating at the buffet or binging at happy hours - that costs for using something makes us more responsible. And, we came to accept the conclusions that followed from this idea: That everyone is better off when the natural resources are pr...

Is it important to have an independent Indian imagination? The question may be too obvious and too jarring at the same time. Too obvious, because the imagination of the Indian Republic was derived from the colonial imagination of India, and the new Republic did not just inherit the colonial laws, polity, ceremonies and buildings, but also its language, geography, ideas and conceptions of itself. But too jarring at the same time, because it is obvious that independence is good and dependence is bad, and the question is attempting to open a debate that is already settled in most people's minds. But independence of imagination is not like independence as a nation state, decoupling the bureaucracies and changing the personnel. It is also different from shifting the power structure, replacing one elite by another. An independent imagination may involve a reinvention of knowledge, questioning what is valuable and how should one look at the world. This is disruptive, but also, in ...

(Image Courtsey: The Economist) As we wait for the Trump Presidency, the transformation of the American Corporatist State into a Corporation, with a billionaire-filled Cabinet. It is one of those fairy-tale moments of capitalism, of singularity of corporate interests with the most powerful institution in the world, the United States of America.  This is a BIG moment! But the hopes and fears that surround it, the language we are speaking, are widely off the mark. Here are some examples: 1. This is the moment of Fascism, liberal politicians and newspapers are saying. Perhaps not. Fascists were pretenders - but Donald Trump and his administration pretends nothing. Their intentions are quite plain, their methods are predictable. This is more of a Corporate Takeover than a Fascist regime, and what we get should make Fascists look benign. 2. This is madness, brought upon us by a crazy 2016! That Hillary Clinton failed to beat Donald Trump is not an aberration: We sho...

The role of social elite within a democratic society is usually resented, because of the republican ideals. It is a problematic concept, as most of those elites in our societies come down from the landed families of the past, except in societies which may have gone through a revolution, like China. The elite is a throwback from the past, a reminder of the past tyrannies and oppression, and worse, their very existence is a symbol of failure of the republican ideals.  However, on the other side, there is this claim, empirically proven through experiences across countries and generations, that an elite class is needed for social order. Even the revolutionary societies in Russia and China had developed their own, replacing the Birth privileges with bureaucratic privileges, but nonetheless maintaining the asymmetry of power and access. In fact, the entire Bolshevik doctrine had, at its heart, a revolutionary elite, that will lead the masses to emancipation.  The American ...

Time is different at different places. I am not restating the Theory of Relativity, but speaking more in social context. In fact, in the more practical sphere of business, this is a relatively unexplored issue. A source of much frustration, in fact, as the concept of time is assumed to be universal, based on which global deals are made and unmade.  Time is an unspoken factor in globalisation. In the middle of all the tensions around globalisation, all the battles around identity and its preservation, the conception of time is a core issue, around which a battle of ideas is raging right now. It certainly deserves greater consideration than it gets now. The job of writing brief histories of time should not only be left to cosmologists. The great historian, Fernand Braudel, spent a lifetime exploring time and space in history. But Braudel was mistimed, if we can use such an expression, as he was working on his groundbreaking studies of history and looking into la longue ...

Here is a paradox that I see: There are too many powerful, smart, successful people who declare their love for the Capitalist, Free Market system, and yet, tries to rig its rules to their own advantage every moment.  Now, a committed socialist may think that this Free Market talk is all rhetoric and no one really likes Free Markets. But, I have not yet reached that level of cynicism. In fact, more confusingly as it may be, those rig the rules think that it is okay to rig the rules as they are only protecting their self-interest. The Invisible Hand would make it alright because all other people are trying to rig the rules as well. There is indeed a difference between protecting one's self interests within the marketplace and trying to rig the rules. The latter is to abuse the trust without which the invisible hand can not operate.  Now, I hear that this is why democracy is important, institutions are important. They ensure that the rules are fair. The democratic s...

I took a 'Political Coordinates Test' on Facebook. This is about answering a few superficial questions on a scale of 5, and then you are placed on a strange Communitarian-Liberal-Left-Right spectrum. I was placed, predictable, slightly towards the left than the right, though right along the middle line of the communitarian and liberal.  Admittedly, this is largely a meaningless exercise, worth attention during a few bored minutes during a train journey, but not much else. What does being indifferent on legalising Marijuana mean to me anyway? Or for that matter, why do I agree on legalising prostitution rather than strongly agree? Besides, there are the question of terminology. Communitarian is a strange label to be put on the other end of being a Liberal, the latter term representing its American meaning, for individualism, rather than the European one, for state provisions. But in any case, these questions allow me to think about my 'political' self, the part t...