Atlas is Shrugging

In ancient Greek mythology, Atlas fought alongside the Titans against the
Gods. As punishment, he was made to carry the world on his back forever. In
todays world, Atlas would be the founding pioneers of companies, especially in
manufacturing and IT while the Gods would represent the various governments.
Unlike the Atlas of mythology, the Atlas of today is not about to agree to bear
the burden forever. Atlas is shrugging and it is creating a worldwide crisisa
look at the stock market indices worldwide would give you a clue. The irrational
ramblings and punishments meted out to the most productive sectors by
governments are causing a collapse.

India can never become a tech superpower if its elected representatives
punish productivity. The media is reporting and at times complaining about the
drop in the growth of the manufacturing sector and consequently the economic
growth is revised lower and lower each week. Markets are in a frenzy about
rising inflation and the global crisis in food and energy.

India is not alone but that is not something to feel happy about. Instead, we
need to examine where we are going wrong and take corrective measures to see
that we dont make the same mistakes others are making.

Poor Governance

This contributes a lot to the current situation and has not happened
overnight but has been beyond parties and politicians. So let us see where our
administrators go wrong

• They do not have long-term views and look at everything in the short
  termland and natural resources are finite and therefore implementation of
  indiscriminate urbanisation and assuming we can depend on other countries for
  food is silly. Politicians should just let the farmers do their jobs instead
  of converting or appropriation of agricultural lands, so they can execute real
  estate projects in the name of development.
• Lack vision by having a monopoly on the power sector and not allowing
  progress in the power sectors by allowing multiple domestic private players
  in. This would lead to competition and increased power generation and
  distribution that are more efficient and economical.
• Allow derivative trading as opposed to actual stock/share trading because
  it earns the government revenue. This is also a major cause of inflation that
  the government chooses to ignore as it affects the producers.
• However, why is this poor governance not reflected in the election results
  where we should be voting for people who have a clear vision and policy? The
  fundamental problem lies in the way Indian society perceive the business
  leaders. The techie completely loses focus here.

Punishing Productivity

While we do our coding, designing, product development, and manufacturing in
a scientific and logical way, we have allowed politicians to dictate how we can
run our businesses. A companys aim is profit and it has to compete with other
companies to deliver the best available product for the most competitive price
to achieve its aimprofit. However, politicians are telling us that we should
not do our best work and be paid for it but rather do free work, so that those
who are unproductive can enjoy the result of our hardwork. If you think this is
an exaggeration, consider the fate of the manufacturing sector in India. A
majority of the companies are told that they cannot use power on certain days of
the week to do manufacturing in Tamil Nadu. If they go ahead and do it, they are
fined a hefty sum of money for working even if it is an important project that
needs completion. This is specifically true in the manufacturing companies that
work in the power sector! Contrast this to massive free electricity usage by
politicians at functions and rallies or the free electricity scheme for
farmers (who dont really get it due to blackouts and poor maintenance of
distribution lines) in the state! In Kerala, the whole state has a blackout for
an hour each week. In short, the government is punishing productivity by denying
resources to producers while splurging it on themselves.

In a normal competitive economy, if you do better than all others, then you
are most likely to get a raise or a promotion. However, in the case of the
manufacturing sector in India, the rates for manufacturing have only gone down
over the past couple of years despite massive output! Why is this happening?
Well, to put it simplythe rate contracts laid down by the so called governments
Navaratnas like BHEL which holds a monopoly in the power sector has decided
that to increase its profits, it will pay less each consecutive year to
manufacturers of small and medium enterprises despite rising labor and
production costs. The problem for these companies is that they dont have any
other competitor to go to as government holds a monopoly in the power sector.
They can either shut down or work more for less! If that is not enough, to add
insult to injury, these companies are told they will be fined if they work on
certain days to complete their workload!

In other countries, governments demand that private companies pay higher
taxes to enable the government foot its war bill or its loss making public
sector ventures.

In countries like India, money is demanded from productive companies in the
form of corruption. If you thought the license raj has disappeared, look around
you and you will realise it has taken the form of organised corruption.

Remember Michael Cowpland who founded COREL that gave Microsoft stiff
competition with software like Corel Draw, Word Perfect, etc? He left it not
because he was afraid of competition from Microsoft but because the Board of
Corelthe company he built single-handed from nothing threw him out! Now
Microsoft has gone the same way too.

Bill Gates had many anti-trust cases filed against him just because he was
too successful! He has retired from Microsoft.

Ratan Tata has retired after making the Nano.

There are rumors that GE would be filing for bankruptcy.

Why is this happening? Because we techies have lost focus. We acted like
zombies or sleepwalked while all this was happening. In fact, some thought Gates
deserved to be punished as he was making too much profit. We forgot to be
logical.

• Without companies, there wont be jobs for us.
• Without our jobs, we cant work.
• Without work, we cant earn money.
• Without money, we will not be able to afford anything unless we choose to
  become beggars or politicians.

There is a further catchwithout companies we will have no products to buy.
Producers include farmers who are dumping produce instead of selling it to the
government as it fixes procurement rates. If the government doesnt throw open
the power sector, most in the manufacturing sector will be forced to close shop
which will lead to more frequent power cuts and possibly total blackouts. In the
61st anniversary of our independence, we would have time-travelled back to the
colonial era.

Of course, all of us can go and work for the government but with so much
demand for jobsthe government will most likely ask us to pay for getting a job
or better still auction it.

Conclusion

There is no such thing as collective good or collective thought as there is
no such thing as collective brain or collective stomach. Politicians know that
but we do notwe who are educated in science and our work involve rationality
and logic. Remember, the next time you hear a politician use these terms, they
are punishing productivity while profiting by corruption.

So is it any surprise Atlas is shrugging and the whole world is being
affected?