Greed is Good: Conditions Apply

A few days back I made this comment:

While in Western society the gap between ‘wants’ and ‘haves’ is narrowed by consumerism (Increase supply / ‘haves’), Hinduism and its caste system has allowed for the gap to be filled by reducing expectations of the masses (Decrease demand / ‘wants’). It is for this reason that India, unlike America, does not have its stories of beggars turned moguls.

It seems that marketers are acutely aware of this and are targeting what Indians in a job-specific caste system have traditionally lacked: greed

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good.

Greed is right.

Greed works.

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.

And greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Thank you very much.

 Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)

For good or bad, India’s middle class filled the shopping centre engaging in the practice of consumerism promoted by this billboard.

Cyberabad

I’ve come to Hyderabad to learn more about microfinance, one of the best touted solutions to combat poverty. I could note from the airplane that this city lacks the shantytowns of Mumbai and the streets lack the beggars I met elsewhere in India. Hyderabad, like its cousin Bangalore, has been one of the winners in India’s IT & BPO boom, and the mansions on each street corner here at Cyberabad bear witness to this.

When in Hyderabad, do as the Hyderabadis do, so after dinner with a lovely stranger, I joined the city’s many yuppies and hit the nearest shopping centre (open late every night) for an unneeded dose of consumerism. I bought myself a new suit, which if I may say so myself looks rather spiffy on me.

The art of not giving

India has a tough lesson to teach about fate: It is often not up to us to change it.

India has numbed my repulsion of poverty (in much the way as my repulsion to illness, like the way I look away when a bloated African child appears on TV, remains unchanged). While my thesis on the art of not giving may sound anti-socialist, it is the belief that poverty is an economic reality to be solved with macro economic policy (e.g. government spending and taxation) and microeconomic incentives (e.g. micro finance) rather than the belief in a personal responsibility for another’s lot (e.g. charity) that will ultimately help the poor escape their fate.

India’s many beggars use many tactics to extract funds, and after giving money to more beggars than I can count, I am slowly learning the art of not giving, a task I am finding much harder than its contrary - guilt-driven giving coupled with beggar dodging. I have limiting my experiment to situations where the beggar seems unwilling to change their lot (i.e. does not engage in fraud or enterprise) and where but for guilt or pressure, I would have otherwise not have given money - such as a mother parading her retarded son or a deformed man threatening to touch me with his stump if I didn’t give him money.

It is the belief that one has no responsibility for another’s lot that enables one to get out of the entanglement of unnecessary guilt and attachment. Of course, if one is naturally disposed towards not giving, perhaps you should run the experiment in the reverse.

Here’s an example of not giving: The other day I had left my phone to recharge in the home of my innkeeper as the power was out in my room. Last night I received a note from my innkeeper’s son, a university educated young man, who has developed an unhealthy obsession with my phone, stating “Please Please Please, PLEASE FRIEND GIVE ME MOBILE. Ur’s favour will be on me always”. He has ambushed me in the morning and night to beg me for my phone and has offered to pay its market value (after borrowing Rp10,000 from a loan shark at 10% per month) or work for me for a period of time. I decided against it despite my intention to dispose of the phone, the fair value offered and the tremendous amount of guilt exerted (including an invitation to tea, birthday party and family house). The truth is that he had no need for a PDA – and should be prevented from entering a cycle of debt for a useless purpose.

So it seems, perhaps sometimes withholding is the better form of giving.

Who is rich?

Hinduism’s strong notion of a pre-determined karma and the caste-system that has evolved from that belief has lived beyond Ghandi’s (partial) opposition to it. The contrast between India’s progress and backwardness, rich and poor, new and old is further highlighted by the geographic entanglement of these dichotomies.

Hundreds of millions of Indians accept their lot in life as an unchangeable reality. On the one hand, this means they are unlikely to escape the socioeconomic fate to which they were born into, but on the other hand, they are able to live without having the responsibility to do so. The maxim “Who is rich? One who is content with their lot” would turn many of India’s poor to rich while at the same time converting most of Bombay’s yuppies into poor.

While in Western society the gap between ‘wants’ and ‘haves’ is narrowed by consumerism (Increase supply / ‘haves’), Hinduism and its caste system has allowed for the gap to be filled by reducing expectations of the masses (Decrease demand / ‘wants’). It is for this reason that India, unlike America, does not have its stories of beggars turned moguls.

India’s establishment is still made up for the most part of ‘forward class’ members (e.g. Brahmins, Anglo-Indians, Pharsis), and while macro-economic factors are pushing many Indians into the middle class, micro-economic factors are not. It is perhaps not that individual progress goes unrewarded in this country, but perhaps it is attempted all too little. It is not until individuals believe in their ability to change their fate, that their fate can be changed, and so the belief in a pre-determined karma serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy and as a major impediment to India’s socioeconomic development.

While I find the proposition of pre-determined fate somewhat unpalatable given my Judeo notion of justice and a western notion of individualism, I have accepted part of it. Each has their lot, their allocated burden in life, for which they alone bear responsibility for. And while not everyone gets handed out the best cards, everyone has the ability to play their hand well, even if it is a losing hand.

Shanti, Shanti

In Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, Buddha boasts of three survival skills: thinking, fasting and waiting. While I understood the value in the former two (conscious thought and minimal sustenance), I never quite grasped the latter skill until my trip to India.

I’ve spent much of my trip waiting: waiting for buses that run hours late; sitting in a local cab for over 3 hours in Mumbai’s horrid afternoon traffic; for reception on my phone, for the power to come back on, for my order to be served or my bill to arrive, for meetings that never seem to happen or at least never on time. India seems to do its best to defy time, hover above it, and frustrate those who are trapped in time.

I have found India finds her way to teach her lessons. I initially thought this was a personal one: a karmic revenge for all those times I’ve kept others waiting, but then I realized it had little to do with me. In fact, the only way to survive India without it being a frustrating experience involves the realization that we have little control on the environment but full control over our perception of it - Shanti, Shanti is the lesson of the day.