TRANSFORMING CAPITALISM

TRANSFORMING CAPITALISM

Business Leadership To Improve The World For Everyone

ARUN MAIRA

NIMBY BOOKS – MENTOR SERIES 2008

Rs.595         Pp. 214

‘Transforming’ as used in the title, is rather ambiguous. It could be a present participle, which would mean that capitalism has a face which could now be shown as an agent of change. Or it could be a verb, which would imply a process of changing the face of capitalism itself. Or the third possibility (hurrah for the English language!) is that it is a gerund, which would mean the act of transformation of capitalism – into perhaps something more socially acceptable, to use capitalism to ‘improve the world for everyone’.  

Semantics aside, the apocalyptic assertions over the future of the environment and sustainable development evoke little interest, if any, among those who for instance, break boulders for their supper. We either take everyone along the path of development and prosperity or get dragged down somewhere along the way. The ILO declaration at Philadelphia way back in 1944 (“Poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere,”) helps to break the challenge of inclusive development down to its essence; and Gandhiji’s talisman of the ‘face of the poorest and the weakest man’ looms large…

This is a theme played repeatedly by Arun Maira, author of the book under review (currently Chairman of the Boston Consultancy Group in India, and President, Save the Children / Bal Raksha, Bharat).  Along with his earlier publications viz., The Accelerating Organization (1996: with Peter B. Scott-Morgan); Shaping the Future (2002); Remaking India (2005); Discordant Democrats (2007) this book underlines Maira’s philosophy of service to society as the forefront of his life-plan. Trading service under the Government of India for a career under the Tatas he claims that he didn’t join any of the other companies because “they didn’t really serve society.”

Robert Reich, former Labour Secretary in the US government, in his book Supercapitalism - The Battle for Democracy in an Age of Big Business (2008) had also dwelt on such a powerful theme: the conflict between the investor and the citizen. While the investor would demand the highest returns, the citizen looks on helplessly. The voter has gradually lost his say in the governance of the things that matter to him, particularly in areas like consumption patterns, and conservation of natural resources – large corporations decide on public policy and usurp the rights of citizen to decide what is best for the community. It is therefore not surprising that globalisation has its ‘discontents’. There is obviously not much to be contented with. Arun Maira’s theme and presentation thereof is more impassioned.

His urge for ‘service to society’ overflows in this the fifth of his books, where the purpose of business is shown to be not just business – the underlying purpose and the overwhelming objective of business has ultimately to be improvement in the quality of life. Thus, industry cannot put all its might into satisfying the needs of the distant, faceless customer while the immediate neighbourhood languishes with the loss of livelihood and health. Grant of jobs to the ‘project-affected’ is a short sighted solution. The owners may be satisfied but the thousands who used to survive on that land by daily-paid labour are ignored. Such problems, says Maira, need to be “stopped, not paid off”; the paying-off would be an attempt to cleaning up our conscience; stoppage would be a more responsible corporate behaviour. Again, this cannot be expressed by occasional donations to social causes, but by addressing the causes of the issues that come up for debate with reference to its functioning.

The book is basically a collection of twenty-five articles, fifteen of which have appeared in periodicals/dailies. There are four appendices: one reproduces the Millennium Development Goals that arose out the UN Millennium Summit of 2000, while the second reproduces the Principles of the UN Global Compact; the third, heart-warming in its feel of enlightened leadership, is the Prime Minister’s speech to the CII in May 2007; the last one reproduces a short correspondence between Mahatma Gandhi and a reader of Harijan – that does not add much to the main theme of the book, other than offering a glimpse of the sheer clarity of the Mahatma’s thinking.  The book raises a host of questions ending with the final essay entitled: Giving Another Way a Chance. We see Einstein’s famous quote: “we cannot solve the intractable problems we face with the same thinking that brought us into those problems.” The final note of caution is that the many complex problems facing the world will not be solved by prevalent approaches to management. There is a need for systemic approaches. There, however, lies the proverbial rub!

The loser in the process is society as seen in the loss of livelihood of thousands, the dislocation of thousands from their roots, the pollution of the village and all that it stands for. The poorest and the weakest man is lost in the folds of white papers…