Che Guevara, Capitalism and the contemporary times

A close friend of mine recently returned from Cuba after completing his Medical studies. We sunk into conversation ranging from sugar to cigars, and soon the inevitable happened. As I am an ardent admirer of a legend named Che Guevara, and hold his spirit of rebellion as a mark of the power of the youth, we drifted over to discussing the country where Che was shot down allegedly by the CIA and Latin American government. My friend, it happens, is totally against the communism of any sort and detests Che in particular. So you can rest assured that in the country of argumentative Indians, sparks were bound to fly.
I came across an article in the Economist last year on the birth anniversary of Che, condemning the man as a rebel without a cause, a mercenary and an assassin. Yes, the man was a rebel, but we sometimes fail to recognize the real essence of his struggle.
As per me, Che was a rebel against the corrupt and opportunistic establishment, and not essentially the anti capitalistic communist. His armed rebellion against the government-industrial-militarily complex of Latin American countries is reminiscent of our own extremists of the freedom struggle like Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad.
It is not wrong to resist corrupt and self serving machinery which exploits the society and plunders the natural resources in the name of development and progress. This was the same view taken by the legendary Karl Marx in his magnum opus Das Kapital. I am not a socialist by any means, not counting my anguish over the detractor policies over the development by the CPI (M) and CPI here in India. But whenever we study History, according to Herodotus, we have to identify the correct ‘context’ first. The context in the case of Che and his times was the oppression of his Latin American brothers and sisters by the self serving capitalists. Capitalism, unrestrained and unfettered, can be the single largest danger to the mankind and we have the examples galore in form of the Sub Prime Crises and Housing Bubble in the US and Food price-inflation led by the cultivation of agriculture land by the capitalism driven Bio-ethanol advocates.
If Che though that an armed resistance against those corrupt bureaucrats and MNCs was the right way, then we cant blame him. And the demonizing image ascribed to him by the Media(most of times backed by USA) all over the world should be no news to us, who are all aware of the modern pseudo internationalism and love of democracy shown by USA in the garb of a self serving, jingoistic and colonial ambitions. It was the interests of the US that were being harmed by Che and his followers, who wanted a batter deal for his people. If that is a wrong thing to do, I don’t know what a right thing is?
Che epitomizes the spirit of youth to change something, well, anything. During his cross Latin American travels with his friend, as described in ‘the motorcycle diaries’, he came across a diverse sect of people suffering from the vagaries of mindless capitalism. Non inclusive growth anywhere is bound to cause unrest and strife in a society. Be it the French revolution or Nandigram.
As recently shown in the promos of a domestically made animation film, ‘Dashavatar’, on the 10 avatars of Vishnu in different ages to salvage Dharma and truth, the tag line goes as: Every age has a hero.
I think Che was the hero of his times. In the right ‘context’!

Personal finance and young India!

Recently finished reading “The complete Idiot’s guide to personal finance in your 20’s and 30’s”. I must say that though I had no intention of finishing that book, I could not help but read on and on this highly practical book by Sarah Fisher and Susan Shelly. Before recommending this book to my contemporary young Indians, who are working/will be soon working or in their professional/graduate courses, I will like to emphasize a few points below.
Though written against the American context in particular, its suggestions and guidelines can be applied in any country. Especially, the topics on Investing, Credit card abuse and buying ones house were so universally appealing that I though they were written with the present Indian economic and social context in mind. Though one can skip the IRA, 401K and other US specific topics, the book should be like a bible to many young persons striving to make a mark in the world by starting off their professional careers. Managing ones money is something that is not taught to us anywhere during our grown up years. And many a times, we end up being Paisa wise, Rupee foolish!
The essence of the book is that like other Complete Idiot’s series, it is not a self help book, but a pragmatic guide to making one aware. It focuses on the repeated dictum that financial freedom can be achieved through prudence and self discipline.
One particular learning that I want to mention here is regarding the highly spending young crowd, swiping their credit and debit cards mindlessly across the malls, departmental stores and supermarkets across the country. I could not help but relate the phenomena witnessed in the Generation X of the US to the Present day consumerism and extravagant profligacy in the young and working class Indians. (Includes me too!!).
It goes like this. Young people spend due to a couple of reasons. Some of them ranging from Boost in the self image one gets from buying a new pair of the Nikes and Blackberry’s. It can be the deep longing of satisfying ones desire to have more, in order to offset the deprivation one felt during the growing up years. (Something the lower middle and middle class young people will fully relate with). I must say, and always have said, that understanding one’s psychology will aid in the personal development. More on this later.
To sum up, in books own words, (my favourite lines), “There is no shortage of companies willing to take advantage of a person’s lack of financial knowledge. Bank Card Companies and retail stores make it very easy for the young and financially uneducated people to start raking up debt at a very early age. There is a glut of information on the persona finance, but it is deliberately made confusing with all the Jargon and terms.”
In case someone is unable to obtain this book, I have an eBook version with me too. Will be more than glad to help financially challenged youth (like me). Just mail me at er.raman@gmail.com

Pricing and psychology of consumption

Well, well, here speaks the MBA (an ever present vigilant and suspicious being, paranoid of the workings of the society) inside me and raring to raise his head now and then with a rambling and a unique point of view on almost any topic under the sun. Well, don’t blame me. We MBA’s suffer from this serious problem of discussing a plethora of topics and love arguments. Blame this on the argumentative Indian genes (or Amartya Sen for highlighting this primordial instinct of ours!) or the Harvard Business School’s invention of the case study method of imparting “Management education”.
See, there I go again…..
Neways, coming back to the point, I read this sometimes back in the Business Standard. It was about the study conducted by a western university on the psychology of consumption and its direct relation with the price. The subjects were given a similar sample of wine and told that some of the glasses had very expensive wine than other glasses. This control experiment resulted in the confirmation of the view that pricing affects our outlook towards a particular product. The subjects who drank the “expensive” wine were sure of the “superior” taste and finesse’ of that wine.
Come to think of Indian situation. As we have yet to mature in the hospitality and service industry at large, as compared to the standards set by the West, this experiment holds valid today more than ever. Whenever I have visited some of the more “up market” restaurants of Delhi and other cities, I have been appalled at the lack of customer orientation and product quality being served there. But the hordes of families visiting these restaurants only affirm the experiment results being mentioned above. Either it is the boosting in the self image one gets by spending more money, or the perception that better quality necessarily comes at a better price, or a combo of two. It is also confirmed by the second grade garments and shoes on display at many of the swanky malls of Delhi and NCR (of rest of India, I am yet to explore) carrying a hefty price tag on them. Take a closer look at these private labels by some of the most reputed names in the Indian retails scenario longing for your attention at the glass shelves, and we can surely perceive the difference in quality. But when bought, we tend to think it of as a better quality one! And not all of us consumers are so discerning ones; neither have much time on our hands to become an undercover economist every time we go to a retail/departmental store. So this keeps on repeating.
To conclude, it can be very safely said that consumption is driven not so much by the actual cost of a paid-for product as by its perceived cost. This perception is influenced greatly by the manner in which the product is priced.

FRIENDS

Getting bored at home and waiting for my joining at Henkel, Chennai, I have recently watched the whole 10 seasons of Friends all over. Fascinated and smitten by the series ‘that never ends’ as always, I was forced to Google and wiki about it and came across a plethora of information on Friends.
Most fascinating was the influence series had on the American society in terms of Fashion and lifestyle. With the ‘Rachel’ becoming the most popular hairstyle for the coming years, it spawned a change in the way Americans’ view over the living together and relationships. Joey’s line “How you Doin” became a catchphrase all across the world. People emulated the dressing styles of the 6 immortalized characters create by David Krane and Marta Kauffman. So many popular apparel styles were introduced by Friends that one can lose count of that.
The popularity of the series might be a little behind the other popular ones like M*A*S*H and Seinfield, but it was a major influencer on the lives of American in particular and world in general. Such is the power of Television over society is seen to be believed. Whenever I have watched an episode of Friends, the timelessness and freshness appealed to me uniquely. The café culture we are witnessing today in India came, like many good and bad things in the past 40 years, from USA. And the originator was Friends.