The Hindu Business Line : <I>Being competitive yet human? </I>

The report that many stockbrokers in Mumbai were truly broke — and some broken-hearted, last week showed the real inhuman face of capitalism. Doctors reported increase in patients seeking counselling for depression. Some patients had lost crores of rupees. Some observers might exclaim that these people were greedy and were like habitual smokers who refused to heed the health warning on the cigarette pack thinking "it won't happen to me". Yet their emotional investment was not any less than the financial one. What does one learn from this, because the stock market is not alone in this scenario of shattered personal life and health?

Focus on stress

There has, of course, been a considerable increase in attention to stress, and the related ills of the mind and body just in the recent decade and issues of executive health are widely discussed. Remedies suggested include in-house therapy and counselling. This will increasingly apply wherever there have been great uncertainties in corporate life — and that means nearly every sector of the economy except perhaps the government job.

The pressures on the country to compete globally have natural repercussions on the industry, on the single business unit, and eventually the people most responsible for its results. The prospect of losing one's job, or fat bonuses and non-cash perquisites, is unnerving to most. The chances of its occurring are highest among the well-paid executive class and in the more visible companies. The larger and more successful the company the greater the chances of its changing direction, form or strategy; they are at the forefront of the churn in the economy, with mergers, take-overs, divestments and shedding of many tasks to outsourcing agencies.

Moulding the young

Thus, jobs are restructured, people asked to move at short notice and take up different responsibilities even where the company is successful. Within the companies too, the atmosphere has become much more competitive. The prevailing wisdom is that all this aggressive risk-taking and rivalry are for the good of the economic growth. Young parents choose a particular college for the son or daughter because it would toughen them up against competition. If they trust people and are gentle, they are at risk of being thought of as too soft and unlikely to win. This is a familiar refrain among parents and school teachers. Taking a dog-eat-dog marketplace as given, they decide to shape the habits and behaviour of the young, in the impressionable teens, towards survival of the fittest. And this means a general attitude of aggressive self-centredness and a coolness to anything that does not warrant competing.

The growing debate

Here is the paradox. How do we match this up against a growing debate in all sections of society about the mindless pursuit of ranks in examinations and an increasing awareness that the stigma attached to `failure' in any sense leads to tragedy? Can we continue to pile up the pressure on the psyche relentlessly from the age of 12 and put such a high premium on success as defined by some other agency (and not one's own concept of what is a good life) and at the end of it all not expect extreme reactions that prove tragic if not fatal? This is a human cost of development that is not unique to any one sector of society. It affects us all in some measure. Do we just shrug our collective shoulders and carry on?

S. Ramachander