Bodhi Tree, a rock group composed of XLRI alumni, often performed the iconic “GMD”. That song, with its untranslatable and obscene refrain, is the anthem of Indian B-Schoolers. It references the woes of an MBA with a low GPA, who ends up selling soap in rural markets.
The higher echelons in the better B-Schools are now considering such drudgery. The glamorous pastures of finance have turned into quicksand. Job descriptions like “i-banker” tend to have “former” attached to them.
Apart from being willing to sell soap and shampoo, many B-schoolers are also taking a crack at the UPSC. If large chunks of the Class of 2009 become cops, administrators and revenue service officers, the HR quotient of government will rise. This would be an apparent silver lining to the recession.
However, Transparency International has issued a warning about the likely increase in global corruption. If sovereign capital is boss, government largesse becomes attractive. With everybody jostling for space at official feeding-troughs, bribery is one service industry likely to generate high growth.
This combination of increasing IQ and increasing incentive for corruption may on balance be a good thing. India already has a kleptocracy but it’s an underperforming one. Kleptocracy is not a bar to growth given examples like Italy in the 1950s, or Indonesia, Korea, Japan and China through several decades. A brighter Indian kleptocracy could do far more to foster growth.
There are a few other upsides. The crisis may lead to a reduction in global warming. Or at the least, offer better sensitivity analyses of this controversial subject. How much is atmospheric pollution and CO2 production reduced if industrial activity is reduced? What happens to the ozone layer? The econometric and physical models that have attempted to answer these questions can be wheeled out of ivory towers and measured against reality.
The last time there was a Great Depression, it sparked off an explosion in a then-new media. Radio in general, and soap operas in particular, took off. People sitting around at home found this the cheapest form of entertainment.
This time around, it may be Web 2.0 with its opportunities for naughty-and-nice networking. Forget Facebook. Sites like Illicitencounters.com have exploded on the virtual landscape. Illicit Encounters promises “absolute confidence” in matching people seeking discreet, adulterous relationships. The membership is white-collar yuppie and growing very fast.
This site is UK-specific but I know under-employed head-hunters and PE players in Bangalore who have been examining the model(s) very closely, supposedly for strictly commercial reasons. The adultery market has obvious synergies for bread-and-butter online head-hunters. All they need to do is add a couple of extra fields in their standard registration forms.
Adultery never goes out of style and it has massive positive externalities with key employment-generation sectors like travel, hospitality and pharmaceuticals. It should be relatively easy for “adultery-matchmakers” to put together revenue-sharing deals.
Of course, the adulterers will end up confronting the moral police and the ranks of the moral police are also likely to swell. A major crisis always opens the closet for religious and other brands of lunatics.
In developed nations, there are already many loonies standing on street corners with “The end of the world is nigh” signs. In India, the moral police are far more interested in assaulting unaccompanied women than in apocalyptic speculation. But they would definitely be aroused by the thought of adulterers getting some.
The interplay between these disparate forces will create much grist for the mills of social science. The recession will end one way or another. But the Brave New World of 2020 will be very different from the one envisaged in 2007.
