Bookshelf: The Kama Sutra of nonsense
(Review of The Kama Sutra of Business: management principles from Indian classics, by Nury Vittachi)
Date: 01-Apr-07 by Michael Backman, World Business' contributing editor (Asia)
The US is the richest, most powerful economy the world has ever seen: GDP per capita on a purchasing power parity basis is $41,800.
Compare this with chronically corrupt, underperforming India with a per capita income of just $3,800. Only now is India enjoying five
minutes of economic sunshine and then only in a few sectors. So from which economy would you seek business inspiration? Hong
Kong-based writer Nury Vittachi attempts to steer us to India in this book.
Business as a discipline has no great heroes from antiquity and no great epics. So that it might seem to have deep foundations like
other disciplines, old texts that have nothing to do with business are mined and twisted to fit contemporary issues. Vittachi is the latest
foot soldier in this questionable enterprise. So we find that "the world's first management guru was a sage who used his techniques to
build an empire bigger than Western Europe". And a 16th century prince, defeated in battle, who carries off the palace treasure takes
with him "what any modern executive would count as a decent-sized parachute". Vittachi carries on like this for more than 200 pages,
desperate to find some business wisdom where clearly there is none.
Early on he fashions himself as a 'tour guide' and laboriously recounts stories about warrior princes and deer in the forest from texts
such as Arthashastra, Bhagavad-Gita and the Kama Sutra. And when there are no texts, he refashions legends, embellishes them with
detail he can't possibly know and then uses that detail to deliver trite truisms dressed up as business wisdom.
"Plan for the future, but live for the day" and "Balance is everything" is the sort of thing to expect. Some of this is worse than vacuous;
it's plain wrong. "The only way to achieve a complex victory on multiple fronts is to focus purely on the present step at the present
time; for life is no more or less than a series of nows." So don't waste your time in planning.
Vittachi is a good writer in a technical sense - he uses clear prose and short sentences, allowing the reader to glide effortlessly. But
that's part of the problem: it means that the utter banality of his endeavours is laid out for all to see. And he is not just a tour guide.
"Today, we act as if human beings live on individual islands. But in the past, they knew the truth. Humans constantly interacted with
each other." Is he writing about business management or is he planning to start a cult? This thesis is undermined by his retelling of
tales of murder, war and family infighting. Two pages later and he's at it again. "Discipline is a bad word today," he asserts. Is it? Says
who?
Elsewhere he is dogmatic and presumptuous: "For 99% of commercial organisations, the road to riches is to build a slightly better
mousetrap," he writes, before advising us not to be fooled by marketing that tells us that a car is not a car but an invention. "This is
stylish advertising, but it's wrong," preaches Vittachi. "It is a car: a metallic box with a wheel at each corner." Barely can I recall having
read such drivel.
Later, he is concerned for the welfare of the young Siddhartha Gautama - the Buddha - because of his wealthy upbringing at Lumbini,
on the India-Nepal border, where you can see "glorious mountain tops that seem to hang in the sky". Other children who grew up with
privilege also suffered personal problems, he says. "Think of Roman Emperor Caligula or even the eccentric singer Michael Jackson,"
he offers, rather bizarrely.
The ancient Indian king Ashoka is labelled a "rock diarist" because he erected inscribed stone columns. Several chapters on and even
the concept of a diary is too hard for Vittachi's reader to grasp and so Ashoka's columns are now "a sort of stone blog". Ridiculous,
dogmatic observations such as this abound. In respect of one ancient text, Vittachi opines: "Perhaps human beings really are no
smarter today than they were four or five millennia ago." Two pages later, he comes up with: "We have more and more facts at our
fingertips. But we actually know less and less."
The book feels like one of those mindless conversations you have with a hapless Hare Krishna because you're bored and your bus is
late. Clearly, someone thought it would be interesting to see if ancient Indian texts could be contorted into something like Sun Tzu's Art
of War. We now know they can't. "This book has many lessons in it," concludes Vittachi. It doesn't.
The Kama Sutra of Business: management principles from Indian classics, by Nury Vittachi, John Wiley & Sons, £9.99, ISBN:
0-470-82223-6.
Showing posts with label Michael Backman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Backman. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Fuel is cheap in Asia, but society pays a very high price
Fuel is cheap in Asia, but society pays a very high price
by Michael Backman
The Age
July 2, 2008
ABDULLAH Badawi, Malaysia's Prime Minister, hasn't done much right of late. But one thing he got absolutely right was to raise the price of petrol by 40% at the start of June. I received many emails from Malaysian readers complaining about the decision and asking if I would write a column attacking it.
"Many Malaysians follow what you say," wrote one correspondent. Good. On this occasion, popular sentiment in Malaysia is dead wrong and the Malaysian Government is 100% correct. In fact the Government's decision is probably the single most important micro-economic reform undertaken in Malaysia for years.
The Malaysian Government's decision is especially courageous given that it did so badly in the March general elections in which the ruling party was left with fewer than half the seats in Parliament and the ruling coalition lost power in five of the 13 states. All the ruling party needs is for a handful of its coalition partners to join the opposition and it will fall from office.
Many decried the fact that the price increase was not phased in but was effective immediately. But again, the Government was 100% correct. Delaying unpopular reform simply gives pressure groups and political opportunists time to try to stop such decisions.
It is similar to the overnight 25% across-the-board tariff cut announced by then prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1973, which occurred with no consultation and without even a submission to cabinet, thus ensuring the decision was not diluted.
For all its pretensions that it is "uniquely Asia", Malaysia is beginning to look more like a piece of middle America. It is now home to sprawling suburbs populated by people who travel by car to and from air-conditioned shopping centres stocked with goods from China and the West. Traffic jams are legendary, air quality is falling and the people are growing fatter.
Cheap, subsidised petrol is a factor. Embryonic public transport doesn't help, but then it is little wonder that public transport is relatively poor. Malaysians don't want to pay for that either. Bus fares in Malaysia are incredibly cheap and each time there is an increase in fares, there is a public outcry.
Of course, one thing the Malaysian Government should now do with the billions it will save on a reduced subsidy is to improve public transport infrastructure.
Without the increase in the fuel price, the total cost of the Government's fuel subsidies this year would have been in excess of $US17 billion ($A17.8 billion). That's more than four times what the Government spends annually on education, health care and defence. This ridiculous state of affairs has meant that, essentially, Malaysian children have to be poorly educated so that their parents can drive around in big cars.
Opposition politician Anwar Ibrahim has led public protests against the fuel price rise and has even said that,
should he get into power, he would immediately lower prices. Yet again, Anwar has shown himself to be an
opportunist who will say anything to get into power. His opportunism is compounded by the fact that he is a former finance minister and should know better. (In any event, much of his time will now be spent on other matters, given that last weekend one of his aides complained to police that Anwar had sodomised him.)
Rising demand for oil in Asia is the main reason world oil prices have gone through the roof. And much of this
derives from the fact that, like the Malaysian Government, many Asian governments keep energy prices artificially low. Asian consumers and businesses have decided what sort of cars and plant and equipment to acquire based on these false prices.
In recent months, India has had to raise prices by about 10%, China by 16%, Indonesia by about 29% and Nepal by 25%. Even with these new prices, Malaysia's retail petrol price is still too cheap — for example, the new price of around US70¢ a litre compares with the new price of $US1.26 in Nepal (one of the world's poorest countries).
The Indonesian Government has also wrestled with energy pricing. Its draft budget for this year assumed an oil price of $US60 a barrel. That had to be adjusted to $US95 in March but, by then, the oil price was already higher than $US100. Sensibly, it raised the retail price of petrol and related fuels, otherwise the annual subsidy threatened to blow out by $US18 billion to $US26 billion this year.
In some instances, artificially low prices have starved oil companies of the cash necessary to invest in new oilfields and refining. Sinopec and PetroChina are among the world's top 50 companies by market capitalisation and yet, in the middle of the greatest oil price boom in history, both companies are experiencing massive losses from refining because the Government limits their ability to pass on rising costs.
Price controls also distort incentives. Malaysia and Indonesia have big reserves of natural gas. As many vehicles as possible in both these countries should be converted to LNG, but the incentive is much reduced when petrol prices are kept artificially low.
Smuggling is another problem. Both countries face big problems with subsidised petrol being illegally sent out of the country to be sold for profit elsewhere. Organised criminals, elements within the Indonesian navy, and perhaps even terrorist groups, have been prominent among the smugglers.
No one wants to pay higher prices for things, and of course higher prices hurt the most vulnerable in any economy.
But trying to hide an economy from rising prices is no solution. If there is one good outcome from the high oil price, it is that Asia's wasteful oil subsidies will be banished for good.
by Michael Backman
The Age
July 2, 2008
ABDULLAH Badawi, Malaysia's Prime Minister, hasn't done much right of late. But one thing he got absolutely right was to raise the price of petrol by 40% at the start of June. I received many emails from Malaysian readers complaining about the decision and asking if I would write a column attacking it.
"Many Malaysians follow what you say," wrote one correspondent. Good. On this occasion, popular sentiment in Malaysia is dead wrong and the Malaysian Government is 100% correct. In fact the Government's decision is probably the single most important micro-economic reform undertaken in Malaysia for years.
The Malaysian Government's decision is especially courageous given that it did so badly in the March general elections in which the ruling party was left with fewer than half the seats in Parliament and the ruling coalition lost power in five of the 13 states. All the ruling party needs is for a handful of its coalition partners to join the opposition and it will fall from office.
Many decried the fact that the price increase was not phased in but was effective immediately. But again, the Government was 100% correct. Delaying unpopular reform simply gives pressure groups and political opportunists time to try to stop such decisions.
It is similar to the overnight 25% across-the-board tariff cut announced by then prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1973, which occurred with no consultation and without even a submission to cabinet, thus ensuring the decision was not diluted.
For all its pretensions that it is "uniquely Asia", Malaysia is beginning to look more like a piece of middle America. It is now home to sprawling suburbs populated by people who travel by car to and from air-conditioned shopping centres stocked with goods from China and the West. Traffic jams are legendary, air quality is falling and the people are growing fatter.
Cheap, subsidised petrol is a factor. Embryonic public transport doesn't help, but then it is little wonder that public transport is relatively poor. Malaysians don't want to pay for that either. Bus fares in Malaysia are incredibly cheap and each time there is an increase in fares, there is a public outcry.
Of course, one thing the Malaysian Government should now do with the billions it will save on a reduced subsidy is to improve public transport infrastructure.
Without the increase in the fuel price, the total cost of the Government's fuel subsidies this year would have been in excess of $US17 billion ($A17.8 billion). That's more than four times what the Government spends annually on education, health care and defence. This ridiculous state of affairs has meant that, essentially, Malaysian children have to be poorly educated so that their parents can drive around in big cars.
Opposition politician Anwar Ibrahim has led public protests against the fuel price rise and has even said that,
should he get into power, he would immediately lower prices. Yet again, Anwar has shown himself to be an
opportunist who will say anything to get into power. His opportunism is compounded by the fact that he is a former finance minister and should know better. (In any event, much of his time will now be spent on other matters, given that last weekend one of his aides complained to police that Anwar had sodomised him.)
Rising demand for oil in Asia is the main reason world oil prices have gone through the roof. And much of this
derives from the fact that, like the Malaysian Government, many Asian governments keep energy prices artificially low. Asian consumers and businesses have decided what sort of cars and plant and equipment to acquire based on these false prices.
In recent months, India has had to raise prices by about 10%, China by 16%, Indonesia by about 29% and Nepal by 25%. Even with these new prices, Malaysia's retail petrol price is still too cheap — for example, the new price of around US70¢ a litre compares with the new price of $US1.26 in Nepal (one of the world's poorest countries).
The Indonesian Government has also wrestled with energy pricing. Its draft budget for this year assumed an oil price of $US60 a barrel. That had to be adjusted to $US95 in March but, by then, the oil price was already higher than $US100. Sensibly, it raised the retail price of petrol and related fuels, otherwise the annual subsidy threatened to blow out by $US18 billion to $US26 billion this year.
In some instances, artificially low prices have starved oil companies of the cash necessary to invest in new oilfields and refining. Sinopec and PetroChina are among the world's top 50 companies by market capitalisation and yet, in the middle of the greatest oil price boom in history, both companies are experiencing massive losses from refining because the Government limits their ability to pass on rising costs.
Price controls also distort incentives. Malaysia and Indonesia have big reserves of natural gas. As many vehicles as possible in both these countries should be converted to LNG, but the incentive is much reduced when petrol prices are kept artificially low.
Smuggling is another problem. Both countries face big problems with subsidised petrol being illegally sent out of the country to be sold for profit elsewhere. Organised criminals, elements within the Indonesian navy, and perhaps even terrorist groups, have been prominent among the smugglers.
No one wants to pay higher prices for things, and of course higher prices hurt the most vulnerable in any economy.
But trying to hide an economy from rising prices is no solution. If there is one good outcome from the high oil price, it is that Asia's wasteful oil subsidies will be banished for good.
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