A recent article in a weekly Indian-American newspaper argued that “entrepreneurship” is the solution to India’s poverty. In it, the President of the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur) organization, addressing a conference, was quoted as saying that the poor of India have property that needs to be “securitized,” thus freeing “billions of dollars” of wealth for poverty alleviation. His “discourse” continued, culminating in the nebulous and laughable point that entrepreneurship was the solution for India’s poor.

What “property” the poor of India own exactly, what it means to securitize property (and thus give up rights to ownership of whatever little they might own—in a poor country with no social safety net), and why pray-tell the solution for India happens to be that religion that TiE professes—entrepreneurship—was not discussed in any meaningful way. Nor was the exact means by which “billions of dollars” would radically alter the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The article did include, however, a nice photo of conference organizers in expensive suits and fancy dresses, undoubtedly ready to help the poor they profess to care so much about at a moment’s notice.

Sheesh. Gimme a break!
Fellow NRIs (especially those of us in technology), our rhetoric is tired and self-serving! We owe it to ourselves and the world around us to cease believing that bank balances are as good as brains and that aggrandizement is as good as analysis when it comes to solving the vexing problem of creating a world with less poverty and more equality. We need to introspect more. And we need to act more- in ways that contradict everything we are trained to believe.

And trading justice for money is not the ticket—unless, of course, the real goal is not the one that political correctness demands that we profess. This article is written with the hope that siliconindia readers do want to cut through the rhetoric and really seek to help deliver real solutions for poverty.

What really can and will help the poor of India is a regime of world trade that is equitable and a government that steadfastly refuses to play into the Washington Consensus. And NRIs can play a solid role in helping engender the change necessary, but we have to get out of our self-serving posture and truly seek to understand the larger economic contours that govern the fate of India’s—and the world’s—impoverished.

Unequal trade is the single biggest creator and sustainer of poverty in the world. Even U.S. imperialism is in the service of maintaining terms of trade that allows wealth to accrue to the already rich, as the expense of the poor.
Let me depart from the Indian experience to discuss a few examples of this from around the world.

Textiles
A recent Oxfam Briefing Paper, sums it up very well:
The textiles and clothing industry represents a vital source of income for developing countries. Although working conditions are often precarious, the industry provides tens of millions of jobs, particularly for women.

Sadly, under the rigged rules of international trade, North America and the European Union still protect their markets against developing-country exports, thereby reducing the industry’s contribution to poverty alleviation. A restrictive system of Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) import quotas, combined with high tariffs, has hurt economies in the developing world, costing them an estimated 27 million jobs and $40 billion each year in lost exports…(Read more at http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pdfs/bp60_textiles.pdf)

Cotton
Mali is a poor country in Northern Africa with a population of about 9 million, 3 million of whom depend on the cotton trade to live. This entire population is being squeezed to death by artificially low cotton prices in the world market—prices that are low as a direct result of $4 billion of subsidies the U.S. government gives U.S. cotton producers. The price of cotton is near an all-time low and the lives of millions of poor Africans hangs in the balance.

Real free trade would dictate that non-market intrusions like $4 billion of subsidies should be disallowed. But what the developed world refers to as “free trade” is really the farthest thing from fair trade that can be imagined.

(Read an excellent article from BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3027079.stm)

The connection to the Indian situation is clear. 70% of the Indian workforce derives it’s livelihood from agriculture. And agriculture is an area where the rich countries skew the playing field and play unfairly.

The poor masses of India once again showed their stuff by voting the fascist BJP out of power. Let’s hope that they continue to fight for their rights and demand of the new government that it really, truly works to create a social order in India that is just for all of the country’s citizens, not just for its fancy people and entrepreneurs. And that means decoupling our fate from the predictable outcomes that result from participating in a world model designed to enrich the already rich.

What well-meaning NRI entrepreneurs can do is to donate much of their considerable wealth to the cause of fair trade and to throw their lot in with those fighting for structural change.

That this process makes us question who we are and challenges every assumption we make is a good thing. After all, remember what Socrates said- “ an unexamined life is not worth living.”

Great websites to visit to learn more about the struggle for free trade include http://www.oxfam.org/eng/policy.htm, www.globalexchange.org, and www.tradewatch.org.