[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...

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