Global Variables and Globalisation

Isn't globalisation in economics a bad design choice in the same way as global variables are in a computer program?

In computer programming, global variables are sometimes a convenient shortcut. However, they are discouraged for larger programs as anything happening to a global variable results in a large part of the program getting affected. In such cases, the cost of detecting the extent of impact and correcting them exceeds the benefits of global access to the variable. In design terminology, this condition signifies lack of modularity, and is plain BAD! On the other hand, in economics, we have many global variables. We have middle east for oil. Japan for motor spare parts. Asia for cheap intellectual labour and so on. If anything happens to any of them (as happened to Japan recently), the impact is immense and damages incalculable.

Going by the tradition of modularity as observed in engineering discipline, we would probably have done well to engineer our society in smaller modules, and limiting interaction between disparate modules to the bare minimum.

The principles of modularity has another important lesson. While we use encapsulations (i.e. hiding details within modules from other parts of the program) a lot in computer programming, the read-only access is a lot more liberal than read-write access. The socio-economic equivalent to this situation could be that we decide that there remains much less restriction in the flow of information than restrictions on flow of goods. Going by this principle, things like right to information, lokpal bills etc. would be encouraged. On the other hand, patents and copyrights, export and import would be discouraged.

Of course, this thought, though interesting for sure, has difficulties:

Legacy. The human civilisation is the oldest, biggest and most complex legacy system that we have to deal with. It's been under construction since much before concepts of good design were known even in the field of engineering. So, strictly speaking, we are maintaining it rather than designing. It's ridden with lack of modularity, redundancy, inefficiency and dead-code. Attempts to correct it have more often than not resulted in genocide and war. However, like it happens in software system, a lot more stuff gets added to the economy at an ever accelerating rate as time passes. Ideally, we should apply principles of good design in what we add. Quite ironically, it doesn't happens. Our economics is more and more globalised than before. It's funny that something similar happens in the software world. A software system is usually at its best when it begins its life. It's design superiority deteriorates progressively through its maintenance phase, eventually leading to its obsolescence.

The Human Element. The elements of the socio-economic system are -- ah! the ancient problem -- humans. They can't simply be asked to pretend not to know how to reach out and seek connections.

Definition of Modules. How do you define boundaries for socio-economic modules? Geographical proximity? What should be the ideal size? National populations? What's the measure of size? Population? Area? GDP?

Apart from these fundamental difficulties, the fact remains that running, maintaining or designing the socio-economy is an act more akin to industrial software engineering, where it turns out to be critical that we respond quickly to emergent situations and market pressures, than to cleanroom software design where we have the luxury and time to follow good principles. But we mustn't forget that while we design our socio-economy, there's no external customer, no competition, no time-to-market pressures. Yet, all the haste gets created within the system all the same!

What's the hurry? What's this speed achieving? And more than that, this speed is of what?Where do we want to get? Where are we really leading our society to?

These are more philosophical questions, though.

Ironies of Soft-Skill Training

The good thing about soft-skills is that they apply very well to all parts of life, not necessarily just professional. The bad thing is, they are easy to theorise about, but very hard to practice.

Last week, Thursday, I did a one day training in time management. I felt it was a great experience. Got all enthused to apply my learnings to every aspect of my life. Since, the weekend almost immediately followed, I spent it planning my leisure very well. Since, anyway there was little to do, planning worked very well. I got further encouraged. Sunday night, before going to bed, I had ready with me, a detailed plan for Monday. It ran into 2 pages of my notebook. Even activities taking just a few minutes had been planned. I slept well looking forward to a busy but neatly executed day at office. Got up in morning and did my exercises rather peacefully. After all the days was planned. The success lies in working smart, not in hurrying around.

When I reached office and opened my Outlook, there popped up a reminder saying 'Customer Orientation Training - 45 minutes overdue.' I was enrolled in this 2 day training! I looked at my 2 page plan. Hesitated a while wondering if I could back off from the training still. Realised, I couldn't. And ran to the training room in a tremendously frustrated state of mind. An example of how it's going to take a while before I really learn how to manage my time, if at all. For now, I surely learn a lesson that I must try to keep only one task list so that conflicts don't occur and even if they do, they are known.

The second instance of irony happened at the end of the Customer Orientation course. The trainer asks all trainees in the beginning what their personal expectation from the course are. At the end of it, he reviews this list to see if they have been fulfilled. My expectation was the following: to be able to handle situations where there is a gap between my understanding of value in a proposal with my customer.

Just as an explanation (which I shared with the class that day), it's often seen in our research projects that our customers come with the idea that the result of our research projects will prove directly financially beneficial to 'their' projects. Our perception often differs. We tend to think that we need to produce knowledge through the exercise which will be found beneficial to the organisation in a long-term sense. This difference in perception is natural. No one is wrong at his respective role. But this difference in perception has to be managed.

During the course of the training, the fact about my being a researcher and PhD bla bla was naturally revealed. In response to my expectation, my trainer said that it would be my responsibility to try showing the value of the proposal to my customer. It wouldn't be fair on my part to expect him to buy my idea of value from the project. I think my trainer was right on that. However, rather unexpectedly, he continued further saying something about how people from premier institutes tend to expect others to buy their ideas just because they are from premier institutes. He opined that being from premier institute doesn't help. One must perform to show his value.

While technically my trainer was again right, I found this remark very out of place. In fact, I felt embarrassed because it was directly in response to my query. It seemed to indicate that I had in some way given an impression that I was trying to throw my weight around because of my being from a premier institute. Though the whole training had been quite valuable, I came out of it with an uneasy heart. So much so, that I wrote a mail about my feelings to the trainer, explaining that I had never meant my ideas to be accepted easily simply due to my background. A very unpleasant exchange of mails followed which left me even more uneasy. I could see no hint of eagerness in him to understand what had bothered me. He took a very defensive stance. Something in complete contrast to what he had taught for 2 long days. Unfortunately, it's no assurance in soft-skills matters that your being a preacher gives you the ability to practice.