Short Summary: A book on thoughts about socializing capitalism.
Slightly Longer Review
This book is a collection of articles from various newspapers and magazines and a few fillers by Arun Maira.
Mr. Maira is a member of the planning commission, a vestige of the socialist phase of India, a legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru. In addition, as an employee of the Tata group and later as a director of Boston Consulting Group, he appears to be in a unique position to comment on the topic.
The book starts off quite slow and I started wondering if it would actually lead anywhere. But in the later part of the book, Mr. Maira gets his act together to some extent and we see some examples and potential solutions.
The book is broadly divided into four sections.
The first talks about Institutions and Trust. Here the author examines the changes taking place in today’s India. He talks about the three “winds” of change across the world and how they raise questions of fairness and sustainability.
The subsequent chapters talk about the “rules” of society and the rise of civil society. One theme that recurs through the book is about corporations being “trustees” of society’s wealth. This, I think, is particularly relevant in the light of movements like Occupy Wall Street. Rather than a problem-solution format, the book keeps asking questions through the first half and providing opinions of different people. It appears as if Mr. Maira is struggling with the task of unifying socialism and capitalism.
The second section talks about the “Business of Business”, where Mr. Maira examines the role of capitalism in improving society at large. Some of these chapters are case studies, which leave the reader to determine what the protagonist of the case should be doing. In the closing chapter he suggests organisations should be designed as and considered as living entities.
Section three is where you see Mr. Maira become a little more solution oriented. He talks about “Improving the World for Everyone”. He argues for a rethinking of economic policies with greater inclusion of stakeholders in the reform process. The thorny question of “affirmative action” is also raised.
“The purpose of ‘affirmative action’ is to acknowledge that (these) moats exist, and for those ahead to drop the draw-bridges across them from their side, so that those struggling behind can come across.”
He says that there needs to be a greater passion for our shared vision of India to have a greater power in the process of change.
What is more important, is to make this partnership work. Through the example of an UNICEF driven program executed by a partnership comprising of government, NGOs and a corporate – Unilever – he examines the problems faced by such collaborations.
Finally, in “Listening and Leading“, the author looks at the potential crisis of leadership the nation faces. He says,
“we now need leaders who will redesign institutions to improve their culture and capabilities”.
What India needs is not some template that can be fitted, but a new theory that can be applied to the unique problems that the nation faces.
Throughout the book, you can see that the author has a certain unease with the government and its functioning. As a member of the planning commission he is both, in a position to drive the change, and a spectator, whose hands are bound. As paradoxical as that might sound, it comes through the book where he leaves cases unsolved, quotes from other people, but hardly any examples from what he sees as a planning commission member. Of course, criticism of this ineffective government is muted at best.
I would have expected a hard-hitting book from a person of Mr. Maira’s stature. It leaves me disappointed.
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