In ancient Greek mythology, Atlas fought alongside the Titans against the Gods. As punishment, he was made to carry the world on his back forever. In todays world, Atlas would be the founding pioneers of companies, especially in manufacturing and IT while the Gods would represent the various governments. Unlike the Atlas of mythology, the Atlas of today is not about to agree to bear the burden forever. Atlas is shrugging and it is creating a worldwide crisisa look at the stock market indices worldwide would give you a clue. The irrational ramblings and punishments meted out to the most productive sectors by governments are causing a collapse.

India can never become a tech superpower if its elected representatives punish productivity. The media is reporting and at times complaining about the drop in the growth of the manufacturing sector and consequently the economic growth is revised lower and lower each week. Markets are in a frenzy about rising inflation and the global crisis in food and energy.

India is not alone but that is not something to feel happy about. Instead, we need to examine where we are going wrong and take corrective measures to see that we dont make the same mistakes others are making.

Poor Governance
This contributes a lot to the current situation and has not happened overnight but has been beyond parties and politicians. So let us see where our administrators go wrong

• They do not have long-term views and look at everything in the short termland and natural resources are finite and therefore implementation of indiscriminate urbanisation and assuming we can depend on other countries for food is silly. Politicians should just let the farmers do their jobs instead of converting or appropriation of agricultural lands, so they can execute real estate projects in the name of development.
• Lack vision by having a monopoly on the power sector and not allowing progress in the power sectors by allowing multiple domestic private players in. This would lead to competition and increased power generation and distribution that are more efficient and economical.
• Allow derivative trading as opposed to actual stock/share trading because it earns the government revenue. This is also a major cause of inflation that the government chooses to ignore as it affects the producers.
• However, why is this poor governance not reflected in the election results where we should be voting for people who have a clear vision and policy? The fundamental problem lies in the way Indian society perceive the business leaders. The techie completely loses focus here.

Punishing Productivity
While we do our coding, designing, product development, and manufacturing in a scientific and logical way, we have allowed politicians to dictate how we can run our businesses. A companys aim is profit and it has to compete with other companies to deliver the best available product for the most competitive price to achieve its aimprofit. However, politicians are telling us that we should not do our best work and be paid for it but rather do free work, so that those who are unproductive can enjoy the result of our hardwork. If you think this is an exaggeration, consider the fate of the manufacturing sector in India. A majority of the companies are told that they cannot use power on certain days of the week to do manufacturing in Tamil Nadu. If they go ahead and do it, they are fined a hefty sum of money for working even if it is an important project that needs completion. This is specifically true in the manufacturing companies that work in the power sector! Contrast this to massive free electricity usage by politicians at functions and rallies or the free electricity scheme for farmers (who dont really get it due to blackouts and poor maintenance of distribution lines) in the state! In Kerala, the whole state has a blackout for an hour each week. In short, the government is punishing productivity by denying resources to producers while splurging it on themselves.

In a normal competitive economy, if you do better than all others, then you are most likely to get a raise or a promotion. However, in the case of the manufacturing sector in India, the rates for manufacturing have only gone down over the past couple of years despite massive output! Why is this happening? Well, to put it simplythe rate contracts laid down by the so called governments Navaratnas like BHEL which holds a monopoly in the power sector has decided that to increase its profits, it will pay less each consecutive year to manufacturers of small and medium enterprises despite rising labor and production costs. The problem for these companies is that they dont have any other competitor to go to as government holds a monopoly in the power sector. They can either shut down or work more for less! If that is not enough, to add insult to injury, these companies are told they will be fined if they work on certain days to complete their workload!

In other countries, governments demand that private companies pay higher taxes to enable the government foot its war bill or its loss making public sector ventures.

In countries like India, money is demanded from productive companies in the form of corruption. If you thought the license raj has disappeared, look around you and you will realise it has taken the form of organised corruption.

Remember Michael Cowpland who founded COREL that gave Microsoft stiff competition with software like Corel Draw, Word Perfect, etc? He left it not because he was afraid of competition from Microsoft but because the Board of Corelthe company he built single-handed from nothing threw him out! Now Microsoft has gone the same way too.

Bill Gates had many anti-trust cases filed against him just because he was too successful! He has retired from Microsoft.

Ratan Tata has retired after making the Nano.

There are rumors that GE would be filing for bankruptcy.

Why is this happening? Because we techies have lost focus. We acted like zombies or sleepwalked while all this was happening. In fact, some thought Gates deserved to be punished as he was making too much profit. We forgot to be logical.

• Without companies, there wont be jobs for us.
• Without our jobs, we cant work.
• Without work, we cant earn money.
• Without money, we will not be able to afford anything unless we choose to become beggars or politicians.

There is a further catchwithout companies we will have no products to buy. Producers include farmers who are dumping produce instead of selling it to the government as it fixes procurement rates. If the government doesnt throw open the power sector, most in the manufacturing sector will be forced to close shop which will lead to more frequent power cuts and possibly total blackouts. In the 61st anniversary of our independence, we would have time-travelled back to the colonial era.

Of course, all of us can go and work for the government but with so much demand for jobsthe government will most likely ask us to pay for getting a job or better still auction it.

Conclusion
There is no such thing as collective good or collective thought as there is no such thing as collective brain or collective stomach. Politicians know that but we do notwe who are educated in science and our work involve rationality and logic. Remember, the next time you hear a politician use these terms, they are punishing productivity while profiting by corruption.

So is it any surprise Atlas is shrugging and the whole world is being affected?

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