an eye-opener...

hi friends..just read a mail from my friend at iima in a news group..found it interesting and thought cud share with you guys too....

the debate on economics, culture, politics and society is always a very
heated one... and i intend to fuel it further because it is
necessary... as
always, i apologise for any of you taking offence to my statements...
but
before i proceed let me take the discussion from the point of view of
the
"other side"...

1. without ethics economic growth is manipulation and oppression...
agreed... but who defines "ethics"??? ethics are subjective and are a
set of rules which would not suit all people or cultures... on the other hand
moral values are universally accepted... please refer to the document in the
following link to make things clearer...
http://home.flash.net/~bob001/basics.htm
we are talking about moral values and not ethics here...

2.  in a truthful society, everyone accepts that only SOME people are
not practical enough to realise that economics drives the activities of the
masses, not ideals...

3. capitalism is NOT centralised economy, but socialism/communism is...
as a simple proof, just answer to yourself whether china or russia allow
democracy being communist countries... russia allowed democracy and the
communist economy collapsed... china can still run because there is
centralisation in communism...  capitalism is essentially decentralisation
and socialism is essentially centralisation... we are generally misguided by
the fact that large corporations mean centralisation... it means more
power away from government in case of capitalism... we need clarity of
concepts before we voice our opinions...

4. growth of economy should follow right means... i agree perfectly...
but capitalism with labour care and no labour unions or socialism with
labour exploitation avoidance unions??? i prefer the first...

5. industries should help humanity in the long run... perfectly
acceptable to me...

6. technology ALWAYS USES science never abuses it... the choice is of
man, not of technology... in fact, phones help me talk to my mother every
week...do we think of phones as bad because people have phone sex??? the fault
is of man, not the phone... the fault is of improper imbibing of culture
and not of something external called technology... who is responsible??? is
it  science because it allows misuse or the parents of my friends who could
not teach their children moral values??? it is always easy to abuse
external objects that cant speak for themselves rather than accepting our own
faults... i can go into psychology details to explain this, but i dont
think such an obvious thing needs such a comprehensive explanation...
coming to the bigger questions gopal you were trying to deal with...

a) IMF was formed along with World Bank at the Bretton woods conference
with a motive to make third world economies dependent on the developed
ones... it is modern imperialism... just like we had british colonialism for
resource capturing 50 years back... anyone who has studied modern economics and
history can easily confirm this... we dont need nobel laureates to tell  us
such obvious stuff... we probably need nobel laureates to say such things so
that the so called "ordinary insensible people" can be shown this as proof...

b) i am highly doubtful that labour intensive methods remove poverty...
please give me one example of a country which has successfully removed
poverty by labour intensive methods... all countries that dont have poverty
use capital intensive technology... they simply outsource work to save
costs... and by doing so they help so many unemployed people in India
to get good salary jobs... technology helps people to put more emphasis on
studies and do higher level work so that no human has to be a labourer...

c) pepsi and coke have never affected the sale of fruits... if they
have, please show me evidence... they have increased sales of fruit juices
helping fruit farmers to earn stably incomes... in fact, coke was developed as
a brain tonic... even if it is junk food, no morals stop me from having
it...
i have freedom of choice...
and one more thing... isnt eating vegatarian food also killing life???
why not just eat food which fall from trees... why grow crops just to kill
them??? is it simply because they cant speak we dont need to respect
their right to life??? we dont ask such questions because they make us
uncomfortable... please realise that lines here are hazy... we do
things which we feel are right for reasons we believe in... we cant force our
reasons and sense on others...

d) local solutions should be there for local problems... a point very
well taken...

here in my institute there are professors who talk with nobel laureates
in economics, just like professors in cmu... they can prove that
corruption has proved beneficial for the economy... we have people from IITs talking
about the futility of technology... there is more advancement in war torn
nations than peace loving ones... these are facts... see, we cant choose what
our future generations will do... we can only leave examples to learn from
by doing things which we think are correct... if they disagree, we are
already dead...