This is my addition to a brilliant post about social entrepreneurship in India on:
The part at the end about the Indian Government helping by not doing anything to stop - is actually very good news.
To expect governments to take care of each and every aspect of society is to put the powers of a God in the hands of fallible humans. We know how that venture has ended. The profit-centered capitalist system then went on to put those powers into private individuals' hands, and even that model seems to be collapsing.
The best bet, in my opinion, is to allow the people to help themselves.
I have observed that we have big heartless profiteering that harms the BOP - Bottom of the Pyramid, only in places where there is some or the other regulation, licenses, rebates, sops or other such artificial barriers or stimuluses. However noble the intentions may be, the top-down model seems to screw up something or the other everywhere.
Maybe not taking sides, maybe letting go and giving true freedom - Swarajya - is what we need to do.
I can see social entrepreneurship expanding into evermore sectors in the coming years. Hope I can be part of this wave as well.
Related stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6a9549ZeqQ - American constitutionalist Ron Paul explaining the easy pitfalls of pretending that government should be taking care of this and that part of day to day life, and clearly, factually, explaining why minimal government is the best bet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z9Pe2y0GBE - My speech titled "Let Go" (now I'm just bragging!)
http://aartishrivastava.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/social-entrepreneurship-in-india
The part at the end about the Indian Government helping by not doing anything to stop - is actually very good news.
To expect governments to take care of each and every aspect of society is to put the powers of a God in the hands of fallible humans. We know how that venture has ended. The profit-centered capitalist system then went on to put those powers into private individuals' hands, and even that model seems to be collapsing.
The best bet, in my opinion, is to allow the people to help themselves.
I have observed that we have big heartless profiteering that harms the BOP - Bottom of the Pyramid, only in places where there is some or the other regulation, licenses, rebates, sops or other such artificial barriers or stimuluses. However noble the intentions may be, the top-down model seems to screw up something or the other everywhere.
Maybe not taking sides, maybe letting go and giving true freedom - Swarajya - is what we need to do.
I can see social entrepreneurship expanding into evermore sectors in the coming years. Hope I can be part of this wave as well.
Related stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6a9549ZeqQ - American constitutionalist Ron Paul explaining the easy pitfalls of pretending that government should be taking care of this and that part of day to day life, and clearly, factually, explaining why minimal government is the best bet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z9Pe2y0GBE - My speech titled "Let Go" (now I'm just bragging!)
7 comments:
I got some great commments - and conversation - going regarding this blogpost in Facebook.
I'm copying them over here.
Prashant :
please don't get me wrong, but I don't get U. U talk of open market, gospels of market forces and socialism and regulation in the same breath. U agree upon reducing government to nothing more than a law enforcement agency and yet are aghast at Bilderbaug which have the same philosophy. U seem to agree with far right's agenda of government and have a place in heart for marxists. May I ask which side u r on mate?!! All said in good faith :)
yes, this paradox has perplexed many. I suggest you look up "the Starfish and the Spider" or "Wikinomics" for reference. By polarizing our viewpoints to communism and capitalism, we have been barking up the wrong tree ;)
The devil lies in th...e details. Take a closer look at actual projects and enterprises, and we find that wherever a centralized approach was followed, collapse ensued; whereas the more de-centralized a system is, the more stability emerges.
Soviet union failed - centralized. US bankers conglomerated under Fed Reserve into a few and then caused recession - centralized.
India witnessed a growth spurt from early 90s - because of decentralization.
IITs, IIMs flourished - autonomy in operations - decentralized.
Most other univ's in India have stagnated - centralized.
It's synonymous with Evolution Vs. Creationism - the former advocates a decentralized bottom-up development of life, and the latter insists that a central power is acting top-down. I think we all know the verdict on that debate. Even in astronomy, the earth-centric view had to finally give in to the reality that we're just on a rock orbiting this, which is orbiting that.. and so on.
Nikhil:
To put in simpler terms, I think it's time we stopped seeing things in purely Left or Right perspective, and look at Centralized Vs Decentralized - basically turn the whole thing by 90 degrees.
Prashant:
OK..so from city states to nation states..now back to city states a la Romans. But may I ask which part of this once beautiful institution didn't see human wretchedness? U see the way I look at it, the problem doesn't lie with institutions ...of present or yore for the institutions don't run themselves. They are run by us.
U were right when u said the devil lies in details, for that is exactly where the clerk is born and his truth will only be his perception, messing your fabric.
Inclination to share the pie was the motivation of great men for they correctly felt it will increase the efficiency. But human nature has always been to have all of the pie and steal the cake...but that is only my opinion.
Nope, that's not human nature... typical mistake many of us make.
It's behaviour that's shaped by circumstances, and it's entirely possible for everybody to consciously change the behavior for the better. We did it over 60 yrs ago in the Ind...ependence struggle, we did it 20 yrs ago in the "New Deal" in India; we did it again with the telecommunications revolution and we'll keep on changing our world for the better by choosing to behave better than we had before.
As for the negative side.. Check out this video on the Lucifer Effect, that gives many answers and shows the solution too: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html
Prashant:
Nice man... U have hope... I like people having hope. I lost mine when digging for trail of statutory dividend of 6% at US Fed...
Thanks! And I've copied this series of comments to the original blogpost, hope you don't mind.. I found it too constructive to miss..
Also, loved this song, sort of feel it ties in to this chain...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qd-fAnHjPg
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