[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...
[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...
[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...
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Pradeep Banerjee,<br />
Independent Consultant,<br />
Bangalore<br />
State And Market Conundrum In <strong>The</strong> Indian<br />
Context – A Need For Debates<br />
"Freedom is hammered out on<br />
the anvil of discussion, dissent<br />
and debate."<br />
-Hubert H. Humphrey<br />
A<br />
concern about the economy is<br />
one that has many a participant.<br />
<strong>The</strong> concern is expressed<br />
in the many debates that refer<br />
to this concern and it does so in a myriad<br />
of ways. It ranges from the animated<br />
to the scholarly, from the simple to the<br />
complex, and from the informed to the<br />
expected. <strong>The</strong>se discussions, then, have<br />
moved out of the confines of the political<br />
class and the academicians. It has<br />
moved in to include members of the<br />
larger civil society. In a manner of<br />
speaking, the debates have become a<br />
part of the discourse of the many participants.<br />
A favoured point in discussions<br />
and debates about the economy is<br />
that about the market. <strong>The</strong>se debates<br />
and discussions are more about the manner<br />
that markets envelope the society,<br />
and also about the manner in which<br />
markets relate to the individual. In some<br />
ways markets have come to be associated<br />
with helping men in their ‘desire of bettering<br />
(their) condition’. 1 That is a probable<br />
reason based on which markets<br />
have almost assumed a proxy for the<br />
economy. Markets, then, are structures<br />
that hold the interest of many. <strong>The</strong> grip<br />
on the interest accrues from a recognition<br />
that markets and human societies<br />
have moved in tandem over long periods<br />
of time now. It is the ubiquitous presence<br />
of the market that makes it an immediate<br />
point of reference. Markets<br />
existed before economists adopted analytical<br />
tools to work on this ubiquitous<br />
item of every day occurrence. Markets<br />
have been analyzed to understand their<br />
dynamics. Markets have been identified<br />
at a spatial level that on immediate reckoning<br />
looms large as structural constructs.<br />
So there are global markets<br />
where the sheer <strong>size</strong> is at once baffling.<br />
And then there are country level markets<br />
that operate using methods and<br />
processes to draw lines of conventions<br />
and lines of practice to retain an identity<br />
that is independent of the global<br />
mind sweep. <strong>The</strong> hierarchy of markets<br />
includes local markets and these local<br />
markets themselves may be larger than<br />
24 THE <strong>IIPM</strong> THINK TANK