thenewconstructs’s blog

“My idea of Village Swaraj is that it is a complete republic, independent of its neighbors for its wants, and yet interdependent for many others in which dependence is a necessity”. - M K Gandhi.

It could be a movie, but it’s true. Born in Kuthambakkam in a well-to-do lower caste family, Rangasamy Elango describes himself as a rebellious youth who was committed helping his village escape the stranglehold of a caste-based society. Elango went on to graduate in chemical engineering and work in organizations like Madras Refineries and Oil India, but he was always drawn back to the village.

When the 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution revived Panchayati Raj – village government — Elango jumped into the fray. He campaigned for the post of Panchayat President at Kuthambakkam – a village of around 5,000 people less than 60km from Chennai.

Elango won the elections with a comfortable margin, thanks to overwhelming support from his own caste. But he wasted no time in winning over the higher castes. He gained credibility by cracking down on his own caste’s main source of livelihood, brewing illicit arrack (liquor). At the same time, he began searching for innovative ways to create new jobs, especially for the villages’ poor and landless.

He looked for problems that could be turned into opportunities. The village needed a new storm drain – estimated cost Rs. 420,000, following state tendering and contracting procedures.  Instead, Elango found inexpensive leftover materials from a local factory, employed his own villagers to provide the labor and completed the job for just Rs. 220,000. Instead of applauding him, the state’s bean-counting bureaucrats accused Elango of not following rules, and he was suspended from his position

Elango was despondent. His wife suggested he read Gandhi. Those pages of wisdom and generosity brought Elango renewed energy and focus. He recognized the integrity in following his Dharma, his duty. “I saw that the right thing to do was to carry on my work and face the challenges,” he says. Meanwhile, villagers and the local newspaper let it be known that they wanted more good government and fewer bureaucratic rules; they wanted Elango back.

The Chief Minister of the State heard and read about the case and, in classic Tamil movie style, called a Gram Sabha meeting; 2,000 villagers showed up to support Elango. He was soon re-instated.

Elango promptly proposed a bold social experiment – a housing colony for poor families from different castes. The Chief Minister was so excited by this program that he sanctioned Rs. 10 million for the construction of a colony of 100 houses in Kuthambakkam.

Elango used innovative building materials – mud bricks – that were low cost and eco-friendly. He also used local labor, providing employment to 200 families for a year. The villagers chipped in 10% of their wages for the cost. The experiment has been such a success – yes, the different castes are living happily side by side – that the colony has become a model for other districts in Tamil Nadu.

Elango has gone on to provide other alternative jobs to illicit brewing, including village self-help groups that are involved in contract manufacturing and food processing. He recently launched an e-learning center, and is intent on helping prepare the village’s unemployed teenage boys for the working world.

Perhaps best of all, Elango is borrowing a page from Gandhi by sharing his ideas and methods. He has set up a Panchayat Academy, and so far more than 100 villages have sent their Presidents for training. What can we contribute to the goals of enlightened village governance in terms of our time, energy and ideas?

Do come forward and share your own examples of such remarkable human beings – people who give us hope that we can create a much brighter future for all of us.

The New Constructs is an initiative to examine our beliefs and assumptions - about life and living - that we need to reinvent in order to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. It is an opportunity for each one of us to connect, collaborate and co-create the world that we will rebuild for posterity. Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

“3M earnings helped by swine flu mask sales”

“Bottled water global sales to cross $85 billion by 2011”

The entire family had been looking forward to the Disney World experience, and we were all excited on the plane trip from India to Florida. My daughter Samvitha, who was 8 at that time, was especially eager. But almost as soon as we landed, she took ill. This was a few years ago, at the height of the SARS epidemic, and my wife and I were very concerned.

Our daughter was bedridden our entire week in Orlando. She suffered no lasting problems – beyond the disappointment of not getting to meet Mickey and Goofy and go on the many rides – but I often think about her illness today when I exit a plane with breathing difficulties or read about the threat of the H1N1 swine flu epidemic.

From the beginning of time, we humans have taken clean air and water for granted. No more, especially in densely populated areas such as the cities in India where movie theatres, shopping malls and schools have been closed to stop the spread of the flu. Whether in the enclosed space of an airplane or in a crowded market, we are right to worry about air quality. And water quality, too: just look at the increase in demand for bottled water all over the world in recent years.

These concerns over air and water – the most basic necessities of life – are leading us to think in new ways about what is valuable in our lives. Adam Smith talked about the paradox of value, also called the diamond-water paradox. He made a distinction between “value in use” and “value in exchange.”  The things that have the highest value in everyday use, such as water, often have relatively little value in the commercial marketplace. Conversely, things that have the highest value in exchange - such as diamonds - have little practical value in terms of use.

Over the last two centuries, the Industrial Age, with its focus on scale and efficiency, has centralized agriculture and farming, bringing prices of food down quite significantly. But this is not without its costs. According to Bill McKibben in “Deep Economy,” concentrated agriculture makes us sick on a fairly regular basis.

Seventy-six million Americans fall ill annually from food-borne illnesses, 300,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die. For instance, the cheapest way to raise hogs is all in the same place; one worker can take care of tens of thousands of animals. But this concentrates their waste in one place. Instead of being useful fertilizer to spread on crop fields, that concentrated waste becomes a toxic threat – and increases the chances of swine flu.

While it is fortunate that countries like India do not have this level of concentrated farming, globalization makes up for it. We are affected by the H1N1 threat in the same way we have been affected by the sub-prime crisis and the financial meltdown.

It is time to step back and take stock. As we look at reinventing our fundamental constructs, our idea of economic value needs close inspection. Should we start valuing what’s really valuable to our lives on this planet rather than what just makes us feel good or look good?

Should our decisions on centralization and decentralization be driven by considerations of what drives true value, rather than just efficiency? How global is too global – what global governance mechanisms do we need when we deal with systemic and globally interrelated issues like pandemics, recession etc.? These are but a few questions that we will dialog on this site.

The New Constructs is an initiative to examine our beliefs and assumptions - about life and living - that we need to reinvent in order to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. It is an opportunity for each one of us to connect, collaborate and co-create the world that we will rebuild for posterity. Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

“Success is a journey, not a destination.” - Ben Sweetland, author.

As humans, we have a need to be successful in our own eyes and in the eyes of society. Our definition of success – or more accurately, society’s definition of success – is what drives our behavior. If we need to change the way people think and act in the Connected Age, we need to redefine success.

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, declared that if every individual operates out of his own self-interest, an ‘invisible hand’ will ensure the good of the society as a whole. This has been the fundamental premise of free markets and capitalism for over two centuries. The sheer simplicity of having one basic measure of success – money — has enticed mankind to focus on wealth creation and economic prosperity. Personal wealth, market capitalization and GDP have been the dominant measures of success driving individuals, corporations and governments.

On reflection, Adam Smith was only partially right. The persistent pursuit of self-interest has helped a billion people on this planet tremendously. However, it has also left a billion people in penury and the environment in distress. It has widened income disparities and left even the rich unfulfilled in many ways.

How many famous people are rich in money, but poor in terms of love, happiness and health? The disproportionate emphasis on material growth overshadows the basic human need for all-round development – physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. The focus on money makes people dull, unimaginative and boring.

We need to rethink financial wealth as the primary measure of success. How, then, do we measure success? In Emerson’s beautiful words “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived; this is to have succeeded“.

To me success is about living life fully – exploring, experiencing and enjoying the possibilities – including the challenges – that life throws at you. It is about life-long learning with the curiosity of a child. It is about loving and caring for as large an extended family as your heart can encompass. It is about connecting and collaborating with people across the globe, sometimes remotely, to make a valuable contribution by leveraging each others’ innate talents.

Corporations need to rethink, too.  Our current paradigm assumes that corporations exist primarily to enhance shareholder value. Indeed every board is exhorted to represent shareholders by maximizing their returns. Executives are granted stock options to make sure they share the goal. Without a larger purpose and/or adequate controls, small wonder that the business world has been dominated by unbridled corporate greed, blind pursuit of growth at great risk to the enterprise, and the ensuing financial meltdown leading to the overnight demise of bastions of the corporate world. Shareholders, employees and the entire economy has been left in shambles.

Perhaps it makes more sense to think of companies more like living organisms. In his book ‘The Living Company,’ Arie de Geus says: ”Like all organisms, the living company exists primarily for its own survival and improvement: to fulfill its potential and be as great as it can be”. De Geus and his team of corporate planners at Shell studied why the average Fortune 500 corporation survives for less than 50 years while some companies, like Nokia, have flourished over centuries.

In sharp contrast to a ‘soulless’ economic entity that exists for the sole purpose of enhancing shareholder value, the Shell researchers found that the ‘living’ company has a strong sense of identity and purpose and is able to learn, adapt and contribute in tune with changing times. Size and profitability were not major factors for the long-surviving companies. Neither was maximizing shareholder value.  

Companies, like people, need more than pure growth. They need well-rounded development. Corporations have the ability to survive, contribute and develop over hundreds of years given the right vision, leadership and direction. Like people, they need to have soul. They need to have character. And they need to have a conscience.

For companies to become immortal institutions, they need to have a clear purpose in terms of their relevance and contribution to the world at large. Gandhi said, “No deserving institution ever dies for lack of support”. The key, then, is for companies to become deserving in the context of the world.

At the level of nations, using GDP / GNP as a measure of success has probably distracted governments from their real purpose: to secure the rights and freedoms of individual citizens. Governments do not create wealth. People do. The role of government is to provide good education, health care, infrastructure, security, and law and order to all its citizens, thereby giving them a platform to flourish as individuals. Governments have to focus more on the bottom 20% of their citizenry, providing a leg up in terms of development and growth.

As Confucius said, “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of”. Global consensus and widespread adoption of an appropriate alternative to GDP along the lines of the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, Gross Happiness Index or the Genuine Progress Indicator would go a long way in reorienting governments to their core purpose.

Interestingly, President Sarkozy has endorsed the recommendations of a committee of economists he had set up on going beyond GDP to an Index of National Achievement that includes environment, equality and contentment measures.

In a country like India, many of the intended beneficiaries of government support programs never receive their due because of ‘leaks’ in the system. It was appalling that, recently, 5 families died of starvation in Bihar, simply because the dealer – claiming shortage of food grains – refused to supply them grains against their BPL ration cards. This is but one example of a system, rife with corruption, that uneducated and downtrodden villagers are unable to confront.

The business of government is complex. It will be worthwhile for the Government to focus on benefit delivery to the common man, eliminating all bottlenecks in the process, rather than opening up several fronts to ‘stimulate growth’. Development, rather than growth, should be the mission of governments.

Mankind has paid scant attention to the well-being of the planet. We have not come up with any measure of success to preserving the planet for future generations. We need to develop new measures of success to protect our children and their children, to make the world a safe and healthy place for them to live.

Perhaps we – as a world – need to think about living off our income rather that our wealth. We need to think about how to maintain bio-diversity, and ensure ecological balance and sustainability. We need empowered institutions at the helm of affairs of this world, institutions that are chartered to conceptualize and implement programs that will ensure the longevity of life on this planet.

The New Constructs is an initiative to examine our beliefs and assumptions - about life and living - that we need to reinvent in order to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. It is an opportunity for each one of us to connect, collaborate and co-create the world that we will rebuild for posterity.

Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Please share. Stay active, stay engaged.

“Wealth is the tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery”. - Frank Herbert

A friend, a successful entrepreneur and long-range thinker, laments that in recent years the best brains have been gravitating toward the financial sector. How, he and I were wondering the other day, had these bright minds become so obsessed with wealth creation?

Too many people now concentrate on investments – in real estate, equities and bonds and derivative assets – rather than earning a good living by delivering innovative products and services that improve quality of life in the world. The distinction, in our minds, is between generating income based on one’s own creativity and labor rather than creating wealth off other people’s labor and Dame Luck.

In the good old days, people earned a living doing something useful. They saved up some of their earnings to invest in productive assets – facilities and equipment – that would enhance their income. They would invest in real estate or financial assets, expecting to collect rent or interest. They would then use that supplemental income to secure their future. The value of these investments was in line with the returns.

Over time, real estate and financial assets took on a life of their own. Bright people started entering this arena, instead of becoming doctors or musicians or engineers or managers. They invented logic to convince themselves and others that these assets were worth more than what the yield would justify.

For instance, agricultural land in Kuthmangalam village (that I talked about last week) is Rs. 10 million per acre. The value of the crop produced would be about Rs. 60,000 per annum, leading to a rental value (after deducting input and labor costs) of just Rs. 10,000 per acre – a return of 0.1% p.a. The high prices are justified purely on future capital appreciation – a bubble. Stocks, similarly, are valued on capital appreciation rather than dividend yield. This spiral goes on until the bust.

Instead of deploying capital assets to generate income, in recent decades the focus has shifted to making money purely on speculation. If I make a killing on real estate or my friend’s driver makes a killing on stock options, these are pure windfalls – they cannot be construed as sustainable wealth creation.

We know a great algebra teacher who is into day trading; he is talking about quitting teaching to trade full-time. If he does, his students and his school and the community will suffer. When that happens on a larger scale, when the best brains in the world are diverted to unproductive but remunerative professions, the whole world suffers and we get a global financial meltdown.  

Britain’s top regulator, Adair Turner, regards a lot of what is done in Wall Street or the City as ‘socially useless.’ He suggests a turnover tax on all speculative activities – a move that, according to Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman, is gathering widespread support from many people outside the financial industry.

I see better sense prevailing in the New Age. Youngsters of today are wary of the stresses of unbridled speculation and waiting for blue birds or black swans to happen. Nor do they want to sell their souls to ensure success. They will gravitate towards more meaningful and productive activities in the real world.

Asset pricing and valuations will trend more toward intrinsic worth based on cash flows rather than self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecies. People will pursue overall well-being for themselves, their families and the society at large, rather than just personal wealth. Let us use this opportunity to dialog and debate how to make this shift happen – for ourselves and for the generations to come.

The New Constructs is our initiative to leverage Connected Intelligence in realizing the Connected Age. Use it as a platform to dialog and debate how to make this shift happen – for ourselves and for the generations to come. Please share. Stay active, stay engaged.

Join the discussion on Facebook

“Bt brinjal (eggplant) gets biotech regulator's approval', said the headline in an Indian newspaper.
 
The story went on to report that a key government committee has cleared the way for the first genetically modified food crop in the country. The company producing the genetically-modified eggplant seed says it has been tested for nine years and is fully compliant with guidelines and directives issued by government regulators. They claim that a million farmers will benefit because this strain of brinjal has been engineered to resist common pests that have hindered production in recent years.

Greenpeace India has questioned the bio-safety of this product and asked the government to hit pause and hold off on the commercial sale of this seed. Greenpeace commissioned a study by a prominent French scientist, who concluded that Bt Brinjal may present a serious risk to human and animal health.

Further, environmentalists like Vandana Shiva of the Navadanya movement have objected to genetically-engineered foods for fear of damage to surrounding land. The only other genetically-modified crop in India is a non-food, cotton, and it has increased costs to farmers. 

Shiva and other environmentalists also warn of the ingenuity of nature; pest mutations and strains can break through specific genetic modifications. In addition, moralists argue that seeds are nature's gift to mankind and should not be subject to profiteering by large corporations at the cost of individual consumers and farmers.

How do we, as lay people, react to this debate? I have watched e-mail exchanges on Yahoo groups and noted that while a few people raise concerns, for most of us science is like religion. We barely know enough to understand the positive and negative impact. Many of us view these developments as unstoppable. Helplessly, we are willing to live with the consequences.

To me, genetically modified foods are problematic for several reasons. First, the human body is incredibly complex.  I don't think science understands the way the body works in the same we understand, say, how an automobile works. As an example, on something as basic as our diet, there are varying opinions on the impact of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. We embrace diets that later turn out to be bad for us. Many people know more about what grade of gasoline to put in our cars than what food to put into our bodies.

Second, any impact of genetically modified food on the body could be long-term and difficult to identify. Only after decades of smoking have we realized the ill-effects of cigarettes. Even seemingly rigorous testing has not prevented the release of harmful drugs like Vioxx. In effect, the health of a billion Indians depends on a handful of scientists who are paid by the government to review mounds of data produced by many more scientists paid by drug and food companies.

Third, the best data links intensive, industrial farming using chemicals '" fertilizers and pesticides '" with soil erosion; the reduction in fertility rates; and barrenness of farmlands.

I recently met Nammalwar, an agricultural scientist who has dedicated his life to promoting ecological farming. He makes a compelling case for going back to nature's zero-waste design of growing crops, trees and animals in a farm '" and allowing the waste of one species to act as a food for the other. His own experiences have shown that ecological farming, at a fraction of the cost, produces much higher yields per hectare than intensive farming.

Human beings have a much shorter time on this planet than the flora and fauna. Until a few centuries back, we battled nature but did not have the weapons to do much damage. Unfortunately, the last two hundred years have led to environmental weapons of mass destruction.

We need a different approach to deciding on the fate of future generations '" an approach that is holistic, inclusive and sustainable. Can we really afford to leave it to the hands of a few scientists, economists and politicians? It's up to us. It's up to you. What do you think? Share your thoughts and get involved.

The New Constructs is an initiative to leverage Connected Intelligence in realizing the Connected Age. Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.