Crowd Pullers: Look at the front page advertisements in the leading newspapers, magazines and journals, offering travel from anywhere to anywhere for a rupee or a dollar. Naturally, there is a mad rush, almost akin to stampede. Look at the full page advertisements of leading stores announcing sales at throwaway prices and immediately, there is a beeline to those stores. Some stores offer selected goods at nominal prices to a specified number of customers on first come first serve basis, as the gates open in the morning, whereas, there are a number of establishments which declare one day in a week or one day in a month or some specific days or dates as clearance days or days for special bonus deals. Then there are large number of marketing networks and conglomerates, who offer almost anything and everything that a common man needs, at terms, conditions and prices, which have the potential to suck in almost all mortals. Most of these operators are well-meaning people. Their intrinsic desire is to serve the people. They look to the dreams of the people and try to exploit their basic instincts and aspirations and in the process, they provide a boost to their business.
Dreams of a common man: Dreams of a common man are always very modest and begin with two meals a day. As soon as he finds his feet, he has the time and resources to think about education, healthcare and other essentials and gradually going a few steps up the ladder. Going is always tough, but gritty people keep going and in course of time, they find themselves on track for the realization of their dreams. The world is full of all types of rags to riches stories, where in spite of all the hardships and sufferings, the undying spirit of man ultimately triumphed. Mahatma Gandhi strode on the social, economic and political scene of India, when there was wide spread unemployment and underemployment and the development and growth of infra-structure and industrial growth in the country was almost stagnant. When Mahatma Gandhi introduced the spinning wheel ( charkha ), the common man could see some light at the end of the tunnel. Hundreds of thousands of people got involved in spinning and tens of thousands of people found engagement through weaving. Coarse cloth was an item of mass consumption and therefore, there was unlimited scope for the production of Khadi. The spinning wheel is just a symbol. It opened up opportunities for doing something useful and productive for all those people, who had almost nothing to see. Amul, the symbol of white revolution is another living example, which has transformed the lives of three million milk producers in the remotest corners of Gujrat, through a network of co-operatives, supplemented by a well oiled marketing network. Incidentally, Khadi as also Amul had their beginnings from scratch, but with a little imagination, push and organization, they have been able to make a difference in the lives of millions of people.
Barter: Barter has pre-historic roots. Every human being has some natural or acquired skills. Need inspires him to work on his talents and available resources to produce something useful for the satisfaction of his basic needs. He feels happy and satisfied, if he is able to meet some of his needs from goods and services produced by him and if there happens to be a surplus, he barters the surplus goods and services for getting some other things that he needs. Barter was the kingpin of the village economies of the good old days. A village had farmers who had land and were involved in the production of sufficient food for the community. There were weavers, who were involved in spinning and weaving and produced sufficient cloth for meeting the basic needs of the village. There was a shoemaker, who produced shoes of all types, shapes and sizes. And then there were a host of other persons, involved in the production and marketing of essential goods and services for the fulfillment of the common needs of the community. The significant feature of the system was that everybody, who was physically fit and had some skills, had an opportunity to work and to keep himself fully engaged in the production of something useful for the community, with the help of common tools and local materials and resources available to him.
Barter is a need-based concept and has much wider implications. In the modern economy, where money is the primary medium of exchange, all trading between different countries is governed by the availability of foreign exchange and balance of payments between trading partners. There are many occasions, where the countries take recourse to bi-lateral barter agreements for the satisfaction of some of the basic needs of their people.
Outsourcing: Outsourcing is a recent phenomenum on the economic scene. All countries of Asia and Pacific rim are favourite haunts of developed countries for outsourcing. Initially, outsourcing was for low-end jobs. But, with the availability of work and spread of prosperity, the undeveloped countries have gradually turned into developing countries and in some cases they have started rubbing shoulders with developed countries. China is a typical example. The economic miracle of China commenced in seventies during the last century with the infusion of American capital and know how. Gradually, USA has shed most of its low-end manufacturing jobs and China has filled the vacuum by flooding all American stores by Chinese goods. Today, China has taken the role of manufacturing centre of the world. Similarly, the development of information technology sector ( IT Sector) in India had its beginnings with outsourcing of some of the odd jobs from USA to India. During all these years IT Sector has developed phenomenally in India and almost all types of industrial, financial, health and other establishments of America lean heavily on the availability of IT services from India for their day to day functioning. That has thrown up India as the service centre of the world.
IBM was a giant, when Microsoft was born. Some low-end jobs were outsourced by IBM to Microsoft at that time. To-day Microsoft turns the wheels of most of the computers round the world. All manufacturing industries maintain long lists of vendors. They take the help of vendors for the supply of different types of components, assemblies and attachments for economical and efficient functioning of their products. Exporters of vegetables and fruits take large farms on lease and then outsource the production of fruits and vegetables. This helps them in getting the production in accordance with the desired specifications to suit the demands and tastes of their customers.
Conclusion: The world is full of diversities. No two creations of nature are the same. There are developed countries and undeveloped countries. There are people who have unlimited wealth and resources and there are people, who find it difficult to scramble even the bare necessities of life. There are people, who are sought after and are overworked and there are people, who have almost no opportunities for work. Everybody is familiar with these diversities and billions of dollars are spent every year by individuals, philantrophic bodies and national and international organizations for bridging the gap and for ameliorating the lots of millions of less fortunate people scattered all over the globe. All types of ingeneous methods have been tried from time to time. Reservations, affirmative action, doles and more doles. It is hardly understood that every individual is a creation of nature. Every human being has dreams and has latent talents and energy for the realization of those dreams. For centuries, the world has not been able to unfold their productive potential. Under the barter system, there was substantial utilization of local talent, materials and resources and everybody was happy and satisfied in the village in spite of all the diversities. Similarly, out-sourcing has opened up massive opportunities of work in far flung areas and has triggered the process of transformation in the lives of millions of people in Asia and Pacific rim. People find it hard to realize, that, most of the problems of the world find their roots in poverty, mal-nutrition, unemployment and underemployment and lack opportunities for work for large masses of people, all over the globe. With all the knowhow, management skills and untapped local resources that are available to us to-day, this untapped human resource has the potential to get involved in useful productive activities and to turn the tables.