Posted by: ashu January 30, 2011
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Chanaa,
You are entitled to your opinion.
That's fine.
As for systems, my opinion is this: Good systems are NOT made or built overnight. It takes many, many years of back and forth of domestic and international trade, and the hard work of many, many people to set up and sustain good economic/business systems. What you and others take for granted in the US today was NOT built overnight there.
If you read the business history of the US, you will see that the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans (or the Cabots and the Lowells in Boston) -- all of them made piles of money in the late 18th, the 19th and the early 20th centuries in many ways that are simply NOT considered legal or ethical today in the US. [The city of Chicago, then and now, remains a hotbed of corruption, for instance, though its more infamous days are over, it seems.]
Similarly, in India today, it's much harder for Anil and Mukesh Ambani to make money the way their father made it in the 70s and the 80s -- that is, by basically buying off the government. Today's Indian business system, though far from perfect, is much more competitive and transparent, and as the recent Radia telecom case there has shown, it's harder to engage in long-term corruption to be a success in Delhi or Mumbai without the press finding out about it, and without the whole thing blowing up in one's face.
In this context, the system in Nepal should be seen as taking small, baby steps in the right direction. Yes, corruption exists here. Yes, not every success here is kosher. Yes, the system needs to be made strong in so many ways.
BUT in 2011, we should start taking pride in the fact that there now are a number of people in Nepal who seem to have succeeded very well DESPITE the system and NOT because of it. And they and we should be very proud of this fact. And there's no harm in celebrating this fact about fellow Nepalis' success.
As such, NOT every success in Nepal today needs to be a suspect, like it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago. This is my observation. [Min Bdr Gurung of Bhatbhateni, for instance, credits his success to 1990 ko democracy that eventually helped open up bank credit facilities to the then small-business owners like him. Else, there was no way a mere "cold storage" owner like him to dream big in the 1990s to start his own big store.]
And increasingly, I find that most successful people in Nepal do not want to limit themselves only to Nepal: they acquire the necessary know-how, skills and contacts to go regional and even global: some of them - Buddha Air, for instance -- are competing with airlines in India on certain routes; they are winning international contracts to build apartments in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They are setting up factories in India and Vietnam, they are inviting bideshi investment houses to set up offices in Nepal, and on and on. All these, though far from perfect, can only help us all to make our business system stronger. Baby steps, I say.
So, I do NOT share your reflexive pessimism. Though I am quite aware that businessmen here are NOT exactly saints, I still give most of them a lot of credit for hanging tough, making the best of a really bad situation, striving to create jobs, and, with success, looking for ways to expand their businesses outside of Nepal.
oohi
ashu
You are entitled to your opinion.
That's fine.
As for systems, my opinion is this: Good systems are NOT made or built overnight. It takes many, many years of back and forth of domestic and international trade, and the hard work of many, many people to set up and sustain good economic/business systems. What you and others take for granted in the US today was NOT built overnight there.
If you read the business history of the US, you will see that the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans (or the Cabots and the Lowells in Boston) -- all of them made piles of money in the late 18th, the 19th and the early 20th centuries in many ways that are simply NOT considered legal or ethical today in the US. [The city of Chicago, then and now, remains a hotbed of corruption, for instance, though its more infamous days are over, it seems.]
Similarly, in India today, it's much harder for Anil and Mukesh Ambani to make money the way their father made it in the 70s and the 80s -- that is, by basically buying off the government. Today's Indian business system, though far from perfect, is much more competitive and transparent, and as the recent Radia telecom case there has shown, it's harder to engage in long-term corruption to be a success in Delhi or Mumbai without the press finding out about it, and without the whole thing blowing up in one's face.
In this context, the system in Nepal should be seen as taking small, baby steps in the right direction. Yes, corruption exists here. Yes, not every success here is kosher. Yes, the system needs to be made strong in so many ways.
BUT in 2011, we should start taking pride in the fact that there now are a number of people in Nepal who seem to have succeeded very well DESPITE the system and NOT because of it. And they and we should be very proud of this fact. And there's no harm in celebrating this fact about fellow Nepalis' success.
As such, NOT every success in Nepal today needs to be a suspect, like it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago. This is my observation. [Min Bdr Gurung of Bhatbhateni, for instance, credits his success to 1990 ko democracy that eventually helped open up bank credit facilities to the then small-business owners like him. Else, there was no way a mere "cold storage" owner like him to dream big in the 1990s to start his own big store.]
And increasingly, I find that most successful people in Nepal do not want to limit themselves only to Nepal: they acquire the necessary know-how, skills and contacts to go regional and even global: some of them - Buddha Air, for instance -- are competing with airlines in India on certain routes; they are winning international contracts to build apartments in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They are setting up factories in India and Vietnam, they are inviting bideshi investment houses to set up offices in Nepal, and on and on. All these, though far from perfect, can only help us all to make our business system stronger. Baby steps, I say.
So, I do NOT share your reflexive pessimism. Though I am quite aware that businessmen here are NOT exactly saints, I still give most of them a lot of credit for hanging tough, making the best of a really bad situation, striving to create jobs, and, with success, looking for ways to expand their businesses outside of Nepal.
oohi
ashu