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"You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices." This is the most ethnocentric thing I've read in quite

"You'll definitely have a positive effect on people by teaching them about western business practices." This is the most ethnocentric thing I've read in quite a long time. Much of the world would be better off, in my opinion, having never learned first hand about western business practices. Western business practices have caused a vast amount of destruction in the developing world.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
Treating low skill commodity workers as human beings on the same social level as yourself is such a destructive western practice. So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Or there is that destructive western practice of managing by output - the boss is working until 8pm but you can go home as soon as you hit your quota. Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern manner) for the problems of the third world is silly. All they've done is caused you to learn a little bit about other countries and made you feel guilty that things are a lot worse elsewhere. China would be poor even if your iPhone was proudly made in CA by illegal immigrants (yay for Nationalist Apparel), it would just be easier for you to ignore.
- gnerd 13y ago
  China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. They will be completely covered with healthcare in the next 10 years. They are the largest holders of gold on earth, hold the largest amount of debt from the US. They are developing, but as a nation, they are not poor. > Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern manner) for the problems of the third world is silly. It is perhaps a bit silly. I mean, there are actual examples of mining rights being held from colonial times, Dutch East India company, Haiti being forced to pay for slaves freedom from rebellion for 140 years etc. and some of those do still have influences, but I don't think they are the primary ones. I don't, however, think all of these values are always exclusively western though. Japan has worker rights, as far as I can tell from a cursory glance on Wikipedia. Assuming India wants, or needs foreign influence, Japan is just as good a place to get it.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Westernized might have been the wrong word. Perhaps modern would be better. And yes, both India and the us can (and have) adopt some Japanese business practices as well. And we certainly can learn from India - that's a blog post idea. A bit more emo hipster than what I usually post, but maybe I'll do it anyway.
    - judk 13y ago
      I hope you learned your lesson about using words to make your point. Next time, try to express yourself in pure telepathy, avoid giving people an opportunity to flame your diction and dismiss your ideas.
  - 1stop 13y ago
    Are you seriously using the most westernised Asian country as an example of non western business practices?
    - jstevens85 13y ago
      Your point still stands, but Singapore is far more western than Japan.
    - gnerd 13y ago
      I was just picking a country that seemed to me to be as good a country as any, with their own methods of law, their own values etc. who has remained productive as a nation. I think I may be learning I might not have the same definition of "western" as some people. I had always imagined Western as referring to Western Europe and the US but now I think there is a colloquial phrasing that uses western as a synonym for modern. If that is the case I think this next century is about to get really confusing...
      - 1stop 13y ago
        Western as in "white people showed up and ran everything". (like singapore, or Hong Kong) Japan before WWII but after the West showed up, based it's whole economy and work system on Germany, after WWII it was essentially run by the US. They are completely "Western" (as in white people) when it comes to their way of business and economy.
- pekru 13y ago
  > Treating low skill commodity workers as human beings on the same social level as yourself is such a destructive western practice. So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Or there is that destructive western practice of managing by output - the boss is working until 8pm but you can go home as soon as you hit your quota. I really don't know what to say. If it is your assumption that every firm/organization in India follows nepotism and doesn't value true merit, it would be simply a wrong assumption, IMHO. Aren't we all aware as to how Wall Street or any big business in the West hires? cough "Business Networking" cough I guess a good read in this regard would be 'Liar's Poker' or 'The Big Short' by Michael Lewis. [1] There have been corporations(might not be in the truest sense, but a collective of skilled workers with a common directive nonetheless) in India which have achieved amazing feats in the past. One could even say that few of the harmful practices of the West (reckless crony-capitalism for one, or the practice of prioritizing the aim of maximizing shareholders' investment over general public/social responsibility) was an unknown thing but now, it is gaining good traction in India unfortunately. One might find it surprising that India didn't face a subprime/financial crisis when US was neck deep in it. 'Managing by output' isn't really a copyright of the West. In fact, the concept of measuring butt-in-seat time or shifts was totally alien till folks from the West brought it here. (And later pushed further by Adam Smith's Labour theory) Prior to that, it was pure ownership of a task and responsibility. Kautilya's Arthashastra specifically deals with labour theory and even flexi-time to an extent, by taking into account productivity and quality of throughput and not just rote effort/time spent. [1] The skilled artisans/craftsmen never worked by the clock, and thus were able to achieve great things. For them, it was all art. There wasn't even a clear line between art and sciences, but everything was art, including science/maths/engineering. Off note, I wonder if the mother of that kid that died in Bhopal on that fateful night might have wondered, how the world would have been now if the white man hadn't embarked on the noble enterprise of burdening himself to civilize the non-white people. Also, am quite sure that the affluent and middle class folks in the West are terribly happy treating low skill commodity workers (who might be immigrants) as human beings on the same social level as themselves. I really would want to write a long post. Will certainly do so once time permits. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short [2] http://userwww.sfsu.edu/mbar/ECON605/Arthashastra.pdf http://userwww.sfsu.edu/mbar/ECON605/Arthashastra.pdf
- pekru 13y ago
  > So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Oh, such wonderful news. So height is not a requirement for positions of power now! Someone should change the wiki page. And well, it might just be sheer coincidence that many big names in India have women CXOs. The western style management has ensured that women in the west are very well empowered to reach positions of power without any gender bias troubling them.
mattlutze 13y ago
This is not blindly ethnocentric, it's the OP's thesis based on a feminist critique of the existing business culture in an area OP built a business. His/Her observations were that, for his/her employees, western business culture was potentially an improvement over existing conditions. OP in particular observes on experiencing lingering caste pressures and strongly misogynistic trends in the expectation of business environments. You're suggesting this is preferable to employee equality and industriousness?
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >western business culture was potentially an improvement over existing conditions // Western business culture is primarily "profit is the end that justifies the means" - exploit any person, resource or environment to their|it's detriment as longer as you make more profit for the owners/shareholders. Many times I've seen on HN "the purpose of a business is to make profit; stat". Equality, helping those in poverty, cultural benefit, elimination of crime - none of these are Western business ideals; they're cultural constraints placed on businesses that they do their best to avoid losing profit to. Now not all businesses are so immoral - but I'd say immorality is indicative of "Western business practices"; they only appear better because of cultural constraint, when those businesses get to exploit people and environments that aren't being monitored and aren't subject to legal protection that's when the abuses of the business ethic rear their head.
  - pekru 13y ago
    Am very sure the above comment would get downvoted. Well, the West is always right, cause they have got the money!
  - smsm42 13y ago
    >>> Western business culture is primarily "profit is the end that justifies the means" This is certainly not true as otherwise there weren't as many charitable funds sponsored by businesses and as many publicly useful things done by those. >>> exploit any person, resource or environment to their|it's detriment That is not true either, moreover - this is not true even if we accept your previous premise. There's nothing in making profit that mandates that it would be to the detriment of any person, resource or environment. Moreover, not ruining the resource supporting your business is certainly more conductive to the profit than ruining it, since it allows to extract profits for the longer period of time, so even from pure profit-driven approach you are wrong. >>> Equality, helping those in poverty, cultural benefit, elimination of crime - none of these are Western business ideals; they're cultural constraints placed on businesses Equality taken as equality of citizens before the law is certainly good for business, since inequality usually means inability to conduct certain profitable deals. E.g. when there were place "for white people only" in US, it meant profitable business involving non-white persons could not be conducted there. Crime is obviously bad for almost every business (maybe excluding security guard and alarm systems business). >>> Now not all businesses are so immoral - but I'd say immorality is indicative of "Western business practices" Since western business practices is nothing more but Western people conducting a set of voluntary transactions, you've just called the whole set of Western people inherently immoral. Not only this smacks of racism, it is certainly not matching the observable truth of Western people having a lot of morals guiding them. >>> when those businesses get to exploit people and environments that aren't being monitored and aren't subject to legal protection that's when the abuses of the business ethic rear their head. Oh, I see what you mean. Western people are immoral in general, but there is a tiny sliver of them - those that enact and enforce the "legal protection" - i.e. the government - that are the moral backbone of the Western society. As soon as the person joins the government, they become moral, and able to enact the protections derived from their freshly gained morality, and as soon as they leave the governmental aegis, they revert to their natural immoral state and only the "legal protections" keep them from running rampant exploiting people around them.
logfromblammo 13y ago
In my anecdotal experience, western business practices have also caused a vast amount of destruction in the west. Western government practices haven't been all that constructive, either. About the only ideas I think the west should be exporting to the developing world are a general intolerance for corruption and graft, and its engineering standards for multi-story human-occupied buildings.

yummyfajitas 13y ago

Treating low skill commodity workers as human beings on the same social level as yourself is such a destructive western practice. So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Or there is that destructive western practice of managing by output - the boss is working until 8pm but you can go home as soon as you hit your quota. Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern manner) for the problems of the third world is silly. All they've done is caused you to learn a little bit about other countries and made you feel guilty that things are a lot worse elsewhere. China would be poor even if your iPhone was proudly made in CA by illegal immigrants (yay for Nationalist Apparel), it would just be easier for you to ignore.

gnerd 13y ago
China is the second largest single country economy on earth and growing. They will be completely covered with healthcare in the next 10 years. They are the largest holders of gold on earth, hold the largest amount of debt from the US. They are developing, but as a nation, they are not poor. > Blaming westernized companies (by which I mean both western companies and local companies like Reliance/Infosys that try to run things in the modern manner) for the problems of the third world is silly. It is perhaps a bit silly. I mean, there are actual examples of mining rights being held from colonial times, Dutch East India company, Haiti being forced to pay for slaves freedom from rebellion for 140 years etc. and some of those do still have influences, but I don't think they are the primary ones. I don't, however, think all of these values are always exclusively western though. Japan has worker rights, as far as I can tell from a cursory glance on Wikipedia. Assuming India wants, or needs foreign influence, Japan is just as good a place to get it.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Westernized might have been the wrong word. Perhaps modern would be better. And yes, both India and the us can (and have) adopt some Japanese business practices as well. And we certainly can learn from India - that's a blog post idea. A bit more emo hipster than what I usually post, but maybe I'll do it anyway.
  - judk 13y ago
    I hope you learned your lesson about using words to make your point. Next time, try to express yourself in pure telepathy, avoid giving people an opportunity to flame your diction and dismiss your ideas.
- 1stop 13y ago
  Are you seriously using the most westernised Asian country as an example of non western business practices?
  - jstevens85 13y ago
    Your point still stands, but Singapore is far more western than Japan.
  - gnerd 13y ago
    I was just picking a country that seemed to me to be as good a country as any, with their own methods of law, their own values etc. who has remained productive as a nation. I think I may be learning I might not have the same definition of "western" as some people. I had always imagined Western as referring to Western Europe and the US but now I think there is a colloquial phrasing that uses western as a synonym for modern. If that is the case I think this next century is about to get really confusing...
    - 1stop 13y ago
      Western as in "white people showed up and ran everything". (like singapore, or Hong Kong) Japan before WWII but after the West showed up, based it's whole economy and work system on Germany, after WWII it was essentially run by the US. They are completely "Western" (as in white people) when it comes to their way of business and economy.
pekru 13y ago
> Treating low skill commodity workers as human beings on the same social level as yourself is such a destructive western practice. So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Or there is that destructive western practice of managing by output - the boss is working until 8pm but you can go home as soon as you hit your quota. I really don't know what to say. If it is your assumption that every firm/organization in India follows nepotism and doesn't value true merit, it would be simply a wrong assumption, IMHO. Aren't we all aware as to how Wall Street or any big business in the West hires? cough "Business Networking" cough I guess a good read in this regard would be 'Liar's Poker' or 'The Big Short' by Michael Lewis. [1] There have been corporations(might not be in the truest sense, but a collective of skilled workers with a common directive nonetheless) in India which have achieved amazing feats in the past. One could even say that few of the harmful practices of the West (reckless crony-capitalism for one, or the practice of prioritizing the aim of maximizing shareholders' investment over general public/social responsibility) was an unknown thing but now, it is gaining good traction in India unfortunately. One might find it surprising that India didn't face a subprime/financial crisis when US was neck deep in it. 'Managing by output' isn't really a copyright of the West. In fact, the concept of measuring butt-in-seat time or shifts was totally alien till folks from the West brought it here. (And later pushed further by Adam Smith's Labour theory) Prior to that, it was pure ownership of a task and responsibility. Kautilya's Arthashastra specifically deals with labour theory and even flexi-time to an extent, by taking into account productivity and quality of throughput and not just rote effort/time spent. [1] The skilled artisans/craftsmen never worked by the clock, and thus were able to achieve great things. For them, it was all art. There wasn't even a clear line between art and sciences, but everything was art, including science/maths/engineering. Off note, I wonder if the mother of that kid that died in Bhopal on that fateful night might have wondered, how the world would have been now if the white man hadn't embarked on the noble enterprise of burdening himself to civilize the non-white people. Also, am quite sure that the affluent and middle class folks in the West are terribly happy treating low skill commodity workers (who might be immigrants) as human beings on the same social level as themselves. I really would want to write a long post. Will certainly do so once time permits. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short [2] http://userwww.sfsu.edu/mbar/ECON605/Arthashastra.pdf http://userwww.sfsu.edu/mbar/ECON605/Arthashastra.pdf
pekru 13y ago
> So is hiring a stranger with a great github rather than your brother in law, hiring a woman if she is the most qualified, etc. Oh, such wonderful news. So height is not a requirement for positions of power now! Someone should change the wiki page. And well, it might just be sheer coincidence that many big names in India have women CXOs. The western style management has ensured that women in the west are very well empowered to reach positions of power without any gender bias troubling them.

mattlutze 13y ago

This is not blindly ethnocentric, it's the OP's thesis based on a feminist critique of the existing business culture in an area OP built a business. His/Her observations were that, for his/her employees, western business culture was potentially an improvement over existing conditions. OP in particular observes on experiencing lingering caste pressures and strongly misogynistic trends in the expectation of business environments. You're suggesting this is preferable to employee equality and industriousness?

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>western business culture was potentially an improvement over existing conditions // Western business culture is primarily "profit is the end that justifies the means" - exploit any person, resource or environment to their|it's detriment as longer as you make more profit for the owners/shareholders. Many times I've seen on HN "the purpose of a business is to make profit; stat". Equality, helping those in poverty, cultural benefit, elimination of crime - none of these are Western business ideals; they're cultural constraints placed on businesses that they do their best to avoid losing profit to. Now not all businesses are so immoral - but I'd say immorality is indicative of "Western business practices"; they only appear better because of cultural constraint, when those businesses get to exploit people and environments that aren't being monitored and aren't subject to legal protection that's when the abuses of the business ethic rear their head.
- pekru 13y ago
  Am very sure the above comment would get downvoted. Well, the West is always right, cause they have got the money!
- smsm42 13y ago
  >>> Western business culture is primarily "profit is the end that justifies the means" This is certainly not true as otherwise there weren't as many charitable funds sponsored by businesses and as many publicly useful things done by those. >>> exploit any person, resource or environment to their|it's detriment That is not true either, moreover - this is not true even if we accept your previous premise. There's nothing in making profit that mandates that it would be to the detriment of any person, resource or environment. Moreover, not ruining the resource supporting your business is certainly more conductive to the profit than ruining it, since it allows to extract profits for the longer period of time, so even from pure profit-driven approach you are wrong. >>> Equality, helping those in poverty, cultural benefit, elimination of crime - none of these are Western business ideals; they're cultural constraints placed on businesses Equality taken as equality of citizens before the law is certainly good for business, since inequality usually means inability to conduct certain profitable deals. E.g. when there were place "for white people only" in US, it meant profitable business involving non-white persons could not be conducted there. Crime is obviously bad for almost every business (maybe excluding security guard and alarm systems business). >>> Now not all businesses are so immoral - but I'd say immorality is indicative of "Western business practices" Since western business practices is nothing more but Western people conducting a set of voluntary transactions, you've just called the whole set of Western people inherently immoral. Not only this smacks of racism, it is certainly not matching the observable truth of Western people having a lot of morals guiding them. >>> when those businesses get to exploit people and environments that aren't being monitored and aren't subject to legal protection that's when the abuses of the business ethic rear their head. Oh, I see what you mean. Western people are immoral in general, but there is a tiny sliver of them - those that enact and enforce the "legal protection" - i.e. the government - that are the moral backbone of the Western society. As soon as the person joins the government, they become moral, and able to enact the protections derived from their freshly gained morality, and as soon as they leave the governmental aegis, they revert to their natural immoral state and only the "legal protections" keep them from running rampant exploiting people around them.

logfromblammo 13y ago

In my anecdotal experience, western business practices have also caused a vast amount of destruction in the west. Western government practices haven't been all that constructive, either. About the only ideas I think the west should be exporting to the developing world are a general intolerance for corruption and graft, and its engineering standards for multi-story human-occupied buildings.