Salute to Middle Class Morality

“How do you make a line shorter without rubbing of a part of it?”

“Draw a bigger line next to it”

This is a riddle as well as it teaches you how to compete like a gentleman. It teaches you that you should try to win by doing better than your competition and not by belittling and demeaning your opponent by spreading canards or through unethical means.

However, when we see the way many of our senior political & business leaders and bureaucrats behave, one wonders whether these lessons on values that are often preached are nothing but a way to build the ranks of the ‘middleclass’, the ‘common man’ enmeshed in the “middle class morality” as Eliza Doolittle’s father observes in “My Fair Lady”. Quoting Paul Samuelson, out of context, “The less of them who become sophisticated, the better for us happy few” [1] so that there are splendid opportunities to skim ‘alpha’ not just from the capital market but in many more segments.

Once you are playing a game of high stakes, whether in politics or in finance, nothing else other than self aggrandisement at whatever cost seems to be the norm. Even governance (corporate or otherwise) is often about how ‘not to get caught’ or how to become ‘too big to fail’.

The fourth estate also joins the melee and surrenders valuable real estate in the news papers that could be well used for more useful purposes. In fact, they happily join those who are looking for ways & means to denigrate and suppress people or institutions who are trying to make a difference; sometimes by mis-representing facts or by publishing one-sided or biased reports. Some even let themselves to be used to fight private wars and push private agendas.

Shashi Tharoor makes an innocuous remark on ‘cattle class’ then we see a barrage of criticism and moral posturing much more than warranted. Sachin Tendulkar makes a statement that Mumbai belong to India and there is protest from some quarters. (There are many more examples, but I have limited to the less controversial) But then these have news value

The irresponsible coverage, of the 26/11 siege, by many channels demonstrates what is there for sale in the fight for better visibility. Some of the television coverage would have provided the terrorists better support than they could have managed with their friends and well wishers out in the front!

On the other hand, many utterly reprehensible behaviour even in the parliament hall and the shameless looting of public funds to the extent of thousands of crore get easily suppressed quite fast.

This is the reality that every thinking person has to confront. Being true to yourself like Roark or be willing to renounce your conviction for expediency like Wynand in Ayn Rand’s “Fountainhead”.

If we do not build a bureaucratic machinery and elect political leadership which largely serve the public, have a judiciary that protects those who try and a responsible press that provides dispassionate and honest reporting, there is no doubt where the majority is going to be.

1. Capital Ideas Evolving; Peter L Bernstein