Sunday Posts

All our politics is Politics of Welfare. For, all our difference, between Liberals and Conservatives, the Left and the Right, can be summarised as this: 1. The Liberals want the State to tax those who earn and provide Welfare to those who do not, so that those who earn can keep themselves forever on the treadmill and those who do not can be happy with the handouts, and this should keep everyone off politics. 2. The Conservatives do not want to tax those who earn and do not want to give Welfare to those who do not, so that the former is happy and the latter is on the treadmill, and this should keep everyone off politics. These conversations are so common that one may think this was always the case. However, as we know, politics of welfare is not primordial, but rather an industrial age phenomena. At its core, it assumes that everyone can, and should, be able to find work, and it is either Unfortunate (Liberal) or Criminal (Conservative) not to be able to find work...

I wrote a post earlier about my reading enterprise in 2016 ( see here ), something of a narrative account of my book diary and a Goodread's Reading Challenge that I indulged myself with. As an aggregate, it showed a failure - I only finished half as many books cover to cover as I set out to do - and fragmentation of goals and enterprises, as I followed several different agenda and did not complete any of those in any form. In a way, this is fine. I wanted to follow my heart in what I chose to read, and it really could not have been otherwise. In a sense, I want my relationship with my books to be impulsive yet profound, momentary yet forever remembered, free of commitment but laden with meaning. This is what I am, perhaps: Long ago, someone promised me a relationship with 'all the dimensions, but no destination', and though all the details of that conversation have faded, the idea remained with me, and now morphed into a quest for me to be lived in the books. But,...

There is a talent problem in our economies. Speak to any employer in almost any country, and they will tell you how hard it is to find good employees with appropriate skills. And, this happens despite a massive expansion of public education system and rising literacy, an unprecedented level of access to Higher Education and Skills Training. There is also a near total consensus that education has an economic goal - jobs or career - and most employers have existing programmes and expansive plans to engage with education providers at all levels in search of talent. And, yet, the problem persists - and getting worse. Here, I think, we should make the case for a paradigm shift. The recruitment of talent currently happens with a supply chain paradigm. Even in the best of the cases, where employers are deeply engaged with education institutions, they try to shape the curriculum, spot student talent early and do campus interviewing, they are still looking at the educators as passive supp...

I started 2016 with a surprise discovery: That Bill Gates reads a book a week! I love reading books, yes, the old fashioned paper books, and spend most of my time and money on books. And, yet, I struggle to read as much as I would like to, as life intervenes. The work, the chores, the celebrations and the worries, moments social and the solitary, all present their different challenges inbetween me and an undivided and unwavering commitment to my books. And, yet, here is the man, who earns about $150 every second - if that's one benchmark how valuable his time must be - and who, as Michael Sandel explained, may find stopping and picking up a $50 bill if he spots one lying on the pavement a waste of his time, claiming that he accords highest priority to reading, and even sets aside time when life gets too busy! I know the usual explanation: We are not Bill Gates. Yes, when you earn $150 a second, you do not drive your own car. You can choose who you socialise with. And, indeed,...

Everyone, it seems, loves an Org Chart. The little boxes of power, those straight lines of responsibility, that one page definition of the hustle of start-up life - neat, tangible and reassuring! It is loved by those who make them, as they see themselves securely placed in one box or another, and by those who demand them, investors, accreditation agencies and bankers, so that they know how to give credit and how to apportion blame! When they are given out publicly, as is usual in countries that thrive on hierarchy, customers treasure them for writing complaints to the big man at the top and salesmen treasure them to cut the chase. But, it is also one of those old-fashioned things that everybody loves to hate. Particularly in the start-ups, where the rough and tumble of daily lives often do not follow neat structures and fixed boundaries, a secure spot towards the top is as desirable as the lovely cabin at the upper decks of the Titanic. In a world where rolling up the sleeves and...

Massimo d'Azeglio is usually credited with coinage of the expression "We have made Italy, now we must make Italians" (though scholars have now indicated that he never did write this, and the expression originated only later in the current form). Whoever said this, this represents what we may call the ' problem of Italy ' - a new nation state without the corresponding sense of citizenship and belonging. Indeed, most of Italy's modern history is marked by disunity, between North and South, between the Left and the Right, the Industry and the Peasantry and so on. The existence and implausibility of the Nation State in Italy, something that the expression of 'making Italians' indicates, have been the basis of much discussion, not just in academia but in politics: It is no surprise that 'making Italians' was appropriated and popularised by the Fascists who took the project on themselves. In context, one has to note that d'Azeglio, the Poet...

I am something of a veteran being on the losing side of elections. And, with interests in politics globally, I am on the losing side more often than normal. I have indeed no business taking sides on US or Filipino Presidential elections, or the referendum in Italy, but I did want an outcome and ended up being on the losing side. Closer home, I did vote Remain and was stunned by Brexit, and more disappointed than surprised by Indian choice of their Prime Minister in 2014. It is not a good time for people with 'Liberal' sympathies, and I am sure to be in for some more disappointments in 2017, including some major ones in France and Germany, as it looks like. However, I am writing this not to moan my plight, but rather to reflect on what one does when elections produce unpalatable results. I did indeed express my disappointment and question the merit of Direct Democracy in the morning after Brexit, a genuine feeling that I came to regret with time. In fact, now that the disa...