Vaclav Smil. Chances are most of you are hearing this name for the first time. This should not take anything away from his reputation as a very good writer though. In fact, Bill Gates, the richest man in the world for many years now, seems to swear by Smil's books. Wired.com quotes Bill Gates as saying 'There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil'.
Well, given the rate at which he comes out with new books, Gates doesn't have to wait too long we reckon. This year alone, three of Smil's books have hit the stands. Ask him about his modus operandi and Smil retorts he has a habit of scanning all horizons. In other words, most people know everything about one thing while he tries to grasp the basic essence of everything.
Well, enough of the man. Let's try and listen to some of the advice he dished out in plenty in a recent interview. There was this one in particular that left a deep impression on us. And we believe it perfectly summed up the current political and economic environment in the country.
Smil is of the view that a country that stops manufacturing falls apart. Simply because manufacturing builds the lower middle class in a society. And if you give up manufacturing, there is huge income inequality to contend with which then gives rise to the total extinction of the lower middle class. And what remains is extreme polarisation.
Well, with the quality and the quantity of population that we have, India should already have been a manufacturing powerhouse. However, the reality is anything but this. So far, we have totally squandered away the population edge that we have. Things have come to such a pass that items like ganesh idols and rakhis can't be manufactured competitively despite the low value add involved and abundance of cheap labour. Thus, what has remained is the extreme capital intensive businesses at one end of the spectrum and a huge unorganised and a parallel economy on the other.
The policies that could lead to promotion and growth of labour intensive and lower-middle class creating ventures are totally absent. Not just that, whatever little is left of the organised economy is also being systematically taken away by high inflation and taxes. Is it any wonder that the economy that was growing at well over 8% till about a few years back is now literally huffing and puffing its way to the 5% mark. And if things are not sorted out soon enough, even this growth will be hard to come by.
Do you think the root cause of India's problems is because of the poor state of its manufacturing? Let me know your comments
Well, given the rate at which he comes out with new books, Gates doesn't have to wait too long we reckon. This year alone, three of Smil's books have hit the stands. Ask him about his modus operandi and Smil retorts he has a habit of scanning all horizons. In other words, most people know everything about one thing while he tries to grasp the basic essence of everything.
Well, enough of the man. Let's try and listen to some of the advice he dished out in plenty in a recent interview. There was this one in particular that left a deep impression on us. And we believe it perfectly summed up the current political and economic environment in the country.
Smil is of the view that a country that stops manufacturing falls apart. Simply because manufacturing builds the lower middle class in a society. And if you give up manufacturing, there is huge income inequality to contend with which then gives rise to the total extinction of the lower middle class. And what remains is extreme polarisation.
Well, with the quality and the quantity of population that we have, India should already have been a manufacturing powerhouse. However, the reality is anything but this. So far, we have totally squandered away the population edge that we have. Things have come to such a pass that items like ganesh idols and rakhis can't be manufactured competitively despite the low value add involved and abundance of cheap labour. Thus, what has remained is the extreme capital intensive businesses at one end of the spectrum and a huge unorganised and a parallel economy on the other.
The policies that could lead to promotion and growth of labour intensive and lower-middle class creating ventures are totally absent. Not just that, whatever little is left of the organised economy is also being systematically taken away by high inflation and taxes. Is it any wonder that the economy that was growing at well over 8% till about a few years back is now literally huffing and puffing its way to the 5% mark. And if things are not sorted out soon enough, even this growth will be hard to come by.
Do you think the root cause of India's problems is because of the poor state of its manufacturing? Let me know your comments
No comments:
Post a Comment