The asset and opportunity value of poverty

It sounds cruel to eulogize the value of poverty. Poverty, in a broad sense reflects
material shortage, falling short of needs / expectations, inability to meet stated / unstated
aspirations, on a variety of physical, social, emotional dimensions. Therefore, it might
appear that if poverty has a value, it should be developed / nurtured. This is precisely
done surreptitiously by businesses and politicians, but wouldn’t concur to have done so /
want to be seen as doing so, as it is considered to reflect a regressive personality.

It is also not appreciated in formal social circles, to hear that one would promote poverty
/ preserve status quo, engineer ways to keep the poor as they are with ingenuity, to
cosmetically top its manifested form. Though it is socially, emotionally and politically
unacceptable to look for value / benefit for oneself, from someone else‘s suffering or
handicap (poverty), it is an undisputed reality that businesses and political organizations
look for opportunity from wherever there is a latent demand (an opportunity to do so). I
say latent, as, for demand to materialize, there has to be adequate purchasing power. And
poverty reflects shortage of purchasing power.

Poverty surfaces with certain accompaniments, arrives as a bundled package. One cannot
unbundle the same and treat its components as individuals in isolation. The traits
accompanying poverty are higher negotiating power for the privileged with the victim of
poverty, the victim selling himself/herself much below their true value due to economic /
material compulsions in distress, poor knowledge / ability to see through designs that are
apparently altruistic (intrigue), the inferior feeling masking / overshadowing all other
competencies (timidity for expression, persuasion leading to acceptance) and lack of
tenacity to stay through (commitment to objective/need for achievement) adversities/
negative public opinion, inability to influence their own clan as influence depends on
perceived (high) status, extreme need for goods/services/emotional support from outside
(emotional morbidity) and the resulting loss of bargaining power. This package of factors
work to the advantage of the exploiter, due to muted analytical power and determination

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to succeed on the part of the victims. These contextual factors of the poor (victims of
poverty) are great boons to those who can see the opportunity.

Poverty is not an asset legitimately owned by anyone, but is a public good. The fight is
for control over this public good, leading to freedom to exploit the opportunity and ability
to derive value through manipulation. Businesses call this analytical processes (vicious
designs) for deriving value, as strategic planning for leveraging an opportunity. This
action is even couched as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to derive double
benefit through tangible profits from sales of goods and services at disproportionate
costs, the derived brand image of philanthropy and being able to exercise influence over
opinion leaders, to one’s advantage. Politicians call it upliftment, equitable distribution,
equal opportunity, propoor,….

Politicians and businesses do not work to eradiate poverty but to gain control over this
strategic asset (called poverty) and to enjoy exclusive right of exploitation over the
victims

Victims of poverty are often emotionally weak and lack ability to logically think, be
incisive in their approach and situation analysis, mobilise, organize, challenge, reason
out, reach out, break out from what they have been told (indoctrinated through persistent
campaigns) to believe, and due to certain material dependencies, lose ability to challenge
on a one to one basis. It always ends up as a superior vs subordinate relationship, between
the designers and their targets. The nature of this relationship where the victim is always
subdued, perpetuates poverty. How do we break out of this vicious cycle?

The victims of poverty have to first be lifted out of their emotional dependency, and
emotionally liberated. Liberation is not physical, but emotional. Emotional liberation
generates perceived need for material liberation. Emotional bondage is more dangerous if
it has sunk into one’s psyche, than if it is just visible. Emotional bondage driven by loss
of self esteem is the primary cause for giving opportunity for gain to the businesses and
politicians, and succumb to articulate designs.

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Why are we debating poverty, politics and business. It has become a hot topic of debate,
when we try to introspect the underlying reasons for the poor state of our society /
economy, the unprofessional practices still haunting our social / economic sphere, slow
pace of development of our country, the wide gap between the affordable and those who
are not, the huge gaps in the quality and state of our physical and social infrastructure, the
soft target character of our society at large, our status / image in the global context,. Does
it mean that poor quality and low levels of supply are results of poverty or help retain
affluence levels where they are, so that the (great) asset called poverty can be preserved
for deriving economic value from it by politicians and businesses?

We have a huge gap in our education system whether it is primary, secondary, or higher
education. The political parties that come to power have not taken credible steps to
radically recreate the aging, irrelevant and inappropriate systems through a paradigm
shift, that is the need of the day. Though this need is debated and the existence of these
issues are accepted in academic fora, when it comes to simple decisions to implement the
needed changes, our policy makers develop cold feet or allow their decisions to be guided
by closed door kitchen cabinet analysis of ‘is it in their (the political body’s) long term
private interest, to allow the poor systems to be developed to current world standards or is
it prudent to preserve them as they are, with cosmetic window dressing to create rent
seeking opportunities for themselves. They possibly see a business value deriving from
slow motion interventions, engineered to create business opportunities for themselves (at
the private individual / groups level and not at the collective national level) directly. To
generate mass support, politically appropriate noises are made, to nurse hopes among
those who are purported to benefit and thereby politically benefit in a transient sense.

The dividing line between politics and business is very thin. Politicians create
opportunities for businesses through their political acumen. Politicians create market
opportunities through their veiled policies and interventions, with unstated intentions
guiding the same. The policies are couched in mental images / statements of prosperity

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for the poor / disadvantaged / deprived section on various dimensions, be it economic /
opportunities through improved social and physical infrastructure.

Poverty of self esteem and the resulting lack of bargaining ability, inability to see through
designs due to poor exposure / education, social backwardness resulting in a sense of
inadequacy / incompetent/ inferiority and the resulting inability to challenge those
(strategic thinkers) who direct them on what to do, how and when aid them in the pursuit
of their unstated objectives

In business language, any strategic planning is preceded by what is called as SWOT. The
poor access to adequate and good educational opportunities to a segment of the target
population, for instance, is recognized as an ideal business opportunity to set up
educational institutions, not of high standard but of just adequate quality to derive
commercial value from it. Such instances can be seen in several other areas of society’s
needs such as health care (setting up facilities just adequate to meet incremental
aspirations, but definitely not best in class standards), transport (manufacture crude
automobiles that will work in the most inhospitable roads that will generate business for
auto service centres, resulting in higher consumption of spare parts, service income as
well as income from sale of adulterated fuel to feed the highly fuel inefficient transport
system).

Why is it that we have this syndrome in this country, where we don’t look at business
opportunities and political advantages positively, where we can also make a positive
difference to, how we as a society live and prosper. I am differentiating the positive
approach to identifying opportunities and the negative approach. The positive approach
will look at an opportunity dispassionately by providing goods and services, meeting the
best in class and enhancing aspiration levels of the target populations to want to possess /
experience the best goods / services. The negative approach will be to manipulate access
to open information, feeding orchestrated messages thereby restricting / containing those
voicing discontent. The negative approach designs barriers to access information, open
expression of discontent, collaborating among the discontented, create artificial barriers

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to competition / entry, …. to preserve the captive opportunity that has been identified and
exploited.

In a closed economy, such opportunities could be easily identified and exploited as the
system itself did not legitimately promote competition, and the society lived in its own
state of ignorance and the euphoria generated. In a liberalized economy (post 1991, in
India), still there are several pockets where free market environment does not exist. This
is because the business enterprises are interested in quick value derived from their
investments, operating in low risk, high value market environment and sell services that
are an easy copy cat of what is practiced in economies elsewhere. This helps them to
extend the life cycle of their product / service that would have exhausted its productive
life in another country of origin. This is just skimming the fertile market with an outdated
or outlived product that has no economic life in its own origin.