Business to the Buddha

Tag: heaven and hell

  • Inclusive growth, How?







    There is income inequality. Agree? If no check this – IMF Publication

    …increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down…

    If businesses want to earn good profits in long term; businesses need to improve purchasing power of poor. Why? When people will have enough money to buy products/services, then only profits will increase at a better rate. Isn’t it? The simple explanation to this is – once poorer population gets resources (buying power) market size for companies increase multiple times. The increase would not be for one company but for every company in the market. One example of that could be involvement in CSR activity wherein poor can get good basic facilities and opportunities to earn. Once the poor can earn, they can spend too! Of course a caution here is – CSR is not charity, it should not become charity where it may lose its meaning.

    If this logic is clear – shouldn’t business be investing in making people prosperous? Once we do this we would solve a big problem – poverty. Hopefully, we will be able to not only grow the businesses but also grow every strata of society. Isn’t it? This is interdependent co-arising.

    Let me share a store, a very old & cliche, but I think that can drive home the point.

    Heaven HellLong ago a person wanted to see how heaven and hell were. An angle obliged and granted the wish. Person was blindfold and was sent to hell first.

    When the blindfold was removed, person was standing at the entrance to a great dining hall, full of round tables piled high with delicious foods of all kinds.

    The person noticed that, people seated around those round tables but their bodies were thin, and faces gaunt and creased with frustration. Each person sitting on dinning table held a spoon though their arms had no elbows and the spoons were four feet long. These people could reach the food on those platters, but could not get the food back to their mouths.

    Next the person was sent to the heaven. In the heaven the entrance to the dining hall was big, it too had round tables with piles of lavish feast as hell had. Here too people did not have elbows in arms and they were holding long spoons about same length as the hell. The person noticed that the people in heaven were plump and happy, the dinning hall was full of joy and laughter. Situation in both – Heaven and Hell were similar, however there was difference in the milieu, the reason?

    The difference between heaven and hell was – the people in heaven were using those long spoons to feed others so effectively everyone was full, plump & happy.

    Source of the story is AnomalyBeta and LinkedIn

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    So, if we take the concept of interdependent co-arising as the core of growth, capitalism or communism or any economic structure we follow we will surely have inclusive growth. The catch here will be – value of money will decline, and exclusivity (as marketing or demand / supply concepts of economics) will play in different fashion. In whatever case at least the basic necessities hopefully be fulfilled.

    Other blogs on inequality – The Price of Inequality, Not so trickling down!, Economics concepts and equality and Has the time for this idea come? and Inclusive growth

  • Hotel California







    I heard this song recently, now writing about it! The most important line which attracted me to watch/read and listen to this song was –
    “…You can checkout any time you like,
    But you can never leave!” (perhaps only your body once you are dead)

    When I read the lyrics I noticed even further interesting parts –
    1. ‘…we are all just prisoners here, of our own device…’
    2. ‘…this could be heaven or this could be hell…’ (my earlier blog)
    3. …stab with steely knives but they cannot kill the beast… (felt like singer is trying to say – it is difficult to kill the beast within and with all the paraphernalia available the beast is becoming unmanageable e.g. prisoners of devices etc)

    Taking an example of Mobile phones, as devices and prisoners. Is not it true, if you think about 1995 (India) who felt that Mobile phones are very important. Now, mobiles are indispensable. I still strongly think that we can live without mobiles too, however how difficult it is to be without mobile?

    I also read that this song was a rage, I think that duration was a Hippy movement, and youngsters of that generation were more indulgent, rebellions and disillusioned by the reality of that time. I am trying to relate to the Hotel California, the prisoners, beast, heaven/hell and the checkout system… and the realities we are leaving in.
    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piW9MHpfCu4]