Communism and the Bird's Nest Generation

The following are the excerpts from an NY Times Column on 31st August 2008 by Thomas Friedman. Enjoy reading but more importantly think where the Indian political parties (all parties including the communist parties) stand with regard to dynamism and their willingness to adapt.

"The problem for the ruling Communist Party is this: China can’t have a greener society without empowering citizens to become watchdogs and allowing them to sue local businesses and governments that pollute, and it can’t have a more knowledge-intensive innovation society without a freer flow of information and experimentation, for this requires bottom up control measures while power in China is top down as of now.

What surprised me is how much the party is thinking about all this. I actually came here at the invitation of Wang Yang, the Communist Party secretary, i.e. the boss of Guangdong Province. He had read one of my books on globalization in Chinese.

Wang is also a member of the Politburo in Beijing and is considered one of the most innovative thinkers in China’s leadership today. He has been given room to experiment and has begun advocating something he calls “mind liberation” — primarily an effort to change the culture of his bureaucracy and open it up to new ways of thinking. Right now he is focused on trying to shift dirty, low-wage manufacturing out of Guangzhou to the countryside, where jobs are still scarce. And he is trying to attract clean industries and services to the city. His goal, he said, was a more “low-carbon economy.”

“Please put it in your column that Party Secretary Wang Yang welcomes [Western] clean energy technology companies to come to Guangdong Province and use it as a laboratory to develop their products,” he told me. “We will be most willing to participate in the innovation and provide the services they need.”

So my postcard from Guangzhou would read like this: “Dear Mom and Dad, this place is so much more interesting than it looks from abroad. I met wind and solar companies eager for Western investment and Chinese college students who were organizing a boycott of an Indonesian paper company for despoiling their forest. An ‘Institute of Civil Society’ has quietly opened at the local Sun Yat-sen University. The Communist Party is trying to break the old mold without breaking its hold. It’s quite a drama. Can’t wait to come back next summer and see how they’re doing ...”"

Mr. Karat, when will you guys learn?

"Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday said that the Left parties were facing three major challenges - the impact of globalisation and neo-liberal policies; increasing collaboration of the ruling classes with imperialism that poses threat to sovereignity and independent foreign policy; and communal designs that threaten the social fabric.", read the special correspondent report in The Hindu on 10th August.

How can people be so parochial in the 21st century? The communal part, he got right; but the remaining two challenges, I don't think so. You can't look at 21st century changes with a 19th century eye. That's what the left parties are doing. They fail to evolve their ideologies based on the time and place.

Globalisation and liberal policies are good from the economic point of view, come on, they were the two factors that led to the ascend of a dominant middle class in India. Yes, it is true that some, unable to make use of the advantage of the latest technologies enabling high level of international collaboration, have been left in the lurch. But for that it is not globalisation that one has to blame. It is the mindset of India's society. We revel in mediocrity and are averse to change. We prefer to be comfortable within the security of our own homes, or within that of a secured pay. Risk is as foreign to an average Indian as a Pope would be in Saudi Arabia.

Attack that mindset, imbibe in the people a dynamic nature, a competitive spirit and create an environment where the risk takers are not frowned upon. Come on, nature bred us with the concept of Survival of the Fittest. Every human born has the capacity to challenge all odds and come out victorious, or at least has the capacity to learn in the process. Why doubt that potential? Why create non-vibrant citizens who have a secured income rendering them with a lackadaisical spirit, with no desire to compete and challenge, with no desire to satiate their own free spirit? Yes, that was the pre-1990 India. Maybe that was because the priorities were different then, but now they certainly don't fit into the scheme of things.

I thought the left parties would have learnt that lesson after their computer debacle in West Bengal. They vociferously opposed computerization citing loss of jobs and even banned computerization in West Bengal. The consequences in Bengal and the advantages that computers have brought to us is for all to see. I guess, old habits die hard.

Now, we need to ask ourselves only one question to decide whether globalisation is good or bad. Should we develop fast, but ya, with a few missing the bandwagon initially; or slow and steady, helping everyone on and then finally when we reach the next step, to see that other countries have climbed a further ten? Globalisation is a fast way. Trust the initial tortoises to catch up. They will catch up, for no man can be kept down for long.

So in the long run development and respect from other nations can be created by globalisation. Being seen as more open, more receptive to change, more dynamic, all these which management principles characterise as essential traits for a good leader, will only propel India to become a leader.

Look at it from this angle and then how can greater international collaboration be an imperialistic conspiracy?

In an Ideology Crisis??

I recently called my brother an ignorant, impetuous, anti-American communist, when he vociferously opposed my MS ambitions abroad. Forget the first three, but what do I have against the communists? Actually, I have nothing against them. It is just that I believe having an ideology and then basing one’s decisions on that is no longer the best way to go about in this new world. (Please understand. Communist ideology is just one example of many ideologies floating in this world now. I have nothing against the communist ideology. I am only writing against the concept of ideology.)

An ideology is now an archaic concept in this world of globalisation 3.0. The world is now more dynamic. Thus one has to look at the problem at hand and then solve the issue based on the circumstance, more or so like 20-20 cricket, as opposed to test match cricket.

In a test match one has the freedom to plan for different scenarios and then execute them based on the predefined and orthodox method, but in 20-20, the situation will mostly demand improvisation, one has to be able to think on one’s feet, more or so like in the fast pace of today’s globalised world. Sorry, test cricket and T-20 was the only metaphor I could come up with for the old world and the new one.

An ideology creates a modus operandi for our thinking and working. But it is not applicable in a dynamic society today because once people start following an ideology their mindset develops an inertia resisting change. The ability to adapt is stifled. This does not augur well for the world.

Thus what society needs now is not an educational system, where ideologies are fed into the fresh brains, but one which inculcates an attitude to adapt to any scenario to promptly take advantage of the world that is highly non linear and dynamic.