Re: (off-topic): From Forbes 12th Oct.

[prabhu.guptara@ny.ubs.com]

========================================================
Administrative Note:
-------------------

Week's Agenda:
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 Regarding the Forbes article below:

     1.  If the US is so wonderful, why is the author living in Canada?

     2.  The US capitalist propoganda machines continue to propogandise
the
     world about how wonderful their system is.  It is wonderful, but
only
     for the rich.  70% of the US population has NO net wealth.  1% of
the
     population owns 40% of net wealth in the US.  Not very different
from
     the situation in India.

     Europe is far better as a model at which to aim, in which there is
a
     minimum provision for everyone (Europe is largely a middle-class
     society, with wealth relatively evenly distributed).  The result is
     hardly any crime, hardly any poverty, hardly any excessive richness
of
     the sort one finds in the US.

     However, the author's criticism of the lack of venture capital in
     Europe IS  valid, and is receiving attention here (though in the
usual
     slow and over-considered/perfectionist manner).

     His criticism that the old nobilities are still "in place" is also
     correct, with the fundamental caveat that they have been joined by
     many of the old peasant and working classes.  So that the gap
between
     the poorest and the richest is not so large, which makes it largely
     meaningless whether or not the old nobility still has money (they
     don't have as much as they used to, proportionally speaking; and
the
     rest have much, much more).

     3.  However, what makes the US wonderful is its openness to
     "outsiders".

     CONCLUSION: What we need in India is not a blind aping of the US
     model, but an attempt to build the best of our own traditions (yes,
we
     do have at least some things which are worth attempting to preserve
     and nurture), the best of the US as well as the best of Europe.

     I have gone on about this at such length, because I have not found
     many contributions from Europe to our discussions, and because the
     challenge for Europe in the late middle ages is much like the
     challenge we face in India (and totally unlike the challenges the
US
     has faced at any time).

     By the way, one needs to draw a distinction between the so-called
     "usury laws" which existed in the US, which were a distortion of
the
     principles of usury (much as the sort of Marxism which existed in
     Russia and still exists in places such as China, Korea, Cuba etc.)
is
     a distortion of Marxism.  For a discussion of this point, see the
     second last para in the outline of my lecture at the Royal Society
of
     the Arts Commerce & Manufactures in London (attached).

     Prabhu


     Professor Prabhu Guptara
     Director, Organisational and Executive Development
     Wolfsberg Executive Development Centre
     (a subsidiary of UBS AG)
     CH-8272 Ermatingen
     Switzerland
     Tel: + 41.71.663.5605
     Fax: +41.71.663.5590
     e-mail: prabhu.guptara@ubs.com



______________________________ Reply Separator
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Subject: (off-topic): From Forbes 12th Oct.
Author:  sabhlok (sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu) at nyuxuu
Date:    01.10.98 08:41


Suresh Rajagopalan has sent in this very relevant article written by
Prof.Reuven Brenner at McGill University's School of Management

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/1012/6208066a.htm

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