Re: What is your question?

Description: How do we blend altruism and efficiency?

Transcript:

I think one of the remarkable things which, you know, which just happened in the 20th century is really the growth of the NGOs or the civil society. And you see that particularly in . . . in democratic countries. Like in India there are three million non-governmental organizations, many of them mom and pop. We have 45,000, I’m told, in Russia itself. So while they __________ throw our Carnegie and Ford Foundation and so on, you know the big guys, which doesn’t bother me very much, their own indigenous people are very important like they are in our own country. To me good governance is really essential for prosperity, for a sense of belonging to the community and so on. You can belong to . . . to a community which is led by a corrupt government for example and so on. So I think for all of that, it is very important that we have this civil society. Because it is really . . . Even if the government (01:12:23) wants to do good things, it has no way of knowing what the problems at the ground level are. And the NGOs . . . a civil society provides you with the eyes and ears of good governance. You may have, you know . . . You can’t pull your . . . You have to pay a tax. But if you don’t know that evolution is occurring, you know . . . your law is sitting on the books in New Delhi where the . . . you know, the capital of the country. And it’s happening somewhere in, you know, 50 miles from Bangalore. How are we going to find it out unless there is a little NGO or, you know, a democratic system where this is allowed to function ___________ and so on. So I think the civil society is so important. And we often make this point in relation to . . . on the right wing . . . on the, you know, right would say don’t . . . Leave things to the private sector because they are close to the ground, and they have a profit motive. So they will . . . They really should be left to do things . . . Bureaucrats don’t ever have that. So I’m making a similar point on the side of the left as it were, which is to say they have the altruistic motive to do good, which is to correspond to the profit motive and the right wing argument for . . . for not intervening. And they have the political . . . to work with local knowledge. So I . . . I think the most important thing for us is to encourage the civil society, and to support it everywhere. But this doesn’t mean that we must have Oxfam and . . . I mean these are gigantic businesses today. You know it’s worth billions of dollars being spent. I mean Oxfam is half the size of the World Bank, believe it or not. And it’s just . . . They get into everything. They should just stick to famines and, you know, flood relief and so on. But they’re fantastic. But this is the trouble. I would say I’m against big size, let me put it this way. Both in NGOs and, you know, people getting too big and leading to monopolistic practices and so on. And I think, you know, strengthening media, democracies, and so on – that’s the only way to get good governance. And I think this is where we ought to encourage . . . increase activity by our system. And preferably through NGOs themselves and through . . . Because if governments get involved, immediately it creates problems.

Recorded On: 8/14/07