The choice of where one would live, work and settle down is never a simple or an easy one. Many people spend their entire lives in their hometown, never having to make that choice. Many others have that decision forced upon them by economic or other compulsions.
Nevertheless, the factors that might typically affect such a choice can be explored in an objective manner. At least that is what we have attempted here!
Cooperation and competition both play a role in our collective life — sometimes more of this, sometimes more of that. However, a self-styled ‘capitalist’ sees red at the mere mention of cooperation, whereas a self-styled ‘communist’ argues for forcefully imposing cooperation on the whole society.
Suppose we put all such western ideologies to one side and ask: What does our lived, empirical reality say?
It comes as a slight surprise when we first learn that the word ‘technology’ has its root in the Greek word tekhne, which meant ‘art’; after all, today we understand art as being quite distinct from technology. The older Greek word harks back to the era when technology, in Greece and elsewhere, was much simpler; we may assume that practitioners of tekhne in Greece were viewed much as we view ‘artisans’ today.
It is no surprise, however, to learn that the word ‘engineering’ is rooted in the word ‘engine’; presumably, in the early days of engineering, ‘engines’ of one kind or another dominated the scene. But, to dig deeper, we enquire about the origin of the word ‘engine’. It turns out that ‘engine’ is indirectly rooted in the Latin word for ‘intellect’ or ‘inventiveness’. In fact the English word ‘ingenious’ is close in its form and meaning to the Latin near-equivalent ingenium.
IIT Bombay Mech Engg batch of 1968 may remember Jayram Daya as being a sensitive, good-natured classmate from Hostel 2, an artist, and a citizen of South Africa. Since those student days, Jayram has successfully established a business in South Africa, handed the business over to his two sons, and is now happily pursuing higher interests in the next stage of life. He is in Sanyaas Ashram, but also, in his own words: I’m an engineer, an entrepreneur, a storyteller, a poet, an author, a painter, a photographer, a blogger, a philosopher, and a visionary.
This is the life story, in its distilled essence, of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher – a highly talented, strong, outstanding individual; the first ever woman Prime Minister of Great Britain; and the longest serving Prime Minister of that country in the previous century.
In addition to narrating her life story, however, in this post we shall attempt something audacious. We shall compare the stages of her illustrious life with the four-state roadmap (see here). Why do we want do that? The answer is very simple: Because that comparison throws light on human life.
‘We should send arms and ammunition to Ukraine because that will create thousands of jobs in dozens of states.’ – So said some high US government officials very recently. A few minutes of calm reflection shows how pathetic that reasoning is, coming from high US government officials.
There will always be economic inequalities in any society. Why? Quite simply because there are incredibly huge differences among people’s outlook on life, the importance they attach to wealth, their ambitions, their good and bad habits, the social pressures they experience … and so on and on.
Dreaming of an ideal society in which there are no economic inequalities is therefore being naive, foolish – or both! The dream does not match reality.
So then what does a person do? Does one simply sit with folded hands and shed tears that the world is not constructed according to one’s ideals?
Popular myth is that Karl Marx, thinking deeply about life from within a library in London, came up with profound economic discoveries.
Dear Reader, does one discover deep truths of the real life from within the confines of a library? Today, would you trust a ‘profound thinker’ whose working day is spent surfing the web and theorising?
REALITY: One learns about real life and the economy by being out in the middle of economic action; by earning a living, talking with an open mind to workers, farmers, factory owners, shopkeepers – learning from them, understanding their lives, understanding what we all seek. The realities of economic life – extremely harsh though they may be – must be experienced before any workable solution is formulated and proffered to the world.
Consider the hypothetical case of an economy with annual GDP of 5 trillion US dollars, the broad economic dynamics of which are the subject matter of this exploration.
The hypothetical country whose economy we analyze here is named AB, because its internal economy is composed of two distinct components A and B. The total population of AB is 100 million, but only about 2% of it belongs to B; the rest of it belongs to A. For the ease of dealing with round numbers, we shall say that A and B have populations of 100 million and 2 million respectively.
Economists define ‘the wealth of a society’ as its total stock of useful assets – homes, cars, buildings, roads, factories, cattle, money, gold … et cetera. Let us call this definition D1.
A definition serves merely as a starting point for a logical exploration of related ideas. However – and necessarily – the direction which the exploration takes depends on the definition. In any discussion of ideas, a conscious effort is needed to understand how it is influenced by the definitions of its basic terms.
seeker-of-root-causes 