For some time now I am thinking of starting a campaign to 'motivate people to work for a national economic cause'. Most people & corporate give back to the society by donating money towards food and shelter for the needful, kids’ education, and calamities relief fund, etc. Some even go to the level of volunteering for certain social welfare activities pledging their time. All those activities are good and people should be encouraged to do it, but, is that enough?
We educate a poor kid, but up to what level? Most students seem to stop their education in the midway. Similarly, we contribute for feeding the needful kids and the elderly, but what happens when those kids grow up? Many end up jobless, somehow making up their life. In a way, we are feeding the kids to see them as hungry adults. So it looks as though the job is only half done.
Simply put, we are just concentrating on temporary fixes not permanent solutions. Most of us would agree on the fact that the permanent solution for most of the problems of masses is - economic growth -. Economic growth leads the masses towards better and easy living, gives them food and shelter, gives them better health care, and gives them a better retirement life. So, at an individual level can we do something towards the economic growth of the nation, which would eventually solve the problems of the nation and promote much more growth? I think YES.
Though we measure economic growth in terms of overall GDP, it’s the GDP per person that really matters when we talk about growth and prosperity. Following is one of the equations that deal with Real GDP per person.
Real GDP per person = Average labor productivity x Share of population employed.
Self explanatory equation, isn’t it? Productivity here is not intensity; rather it is the efficiency, more optimal usage of the resources including the human capital.
By tuning the average labor productivity or the number of people employed, we can tune up the GDP per person, and that tune up is capable of feeding itself by a multiplication factor > 1. When many people start earning more, savings and consumption in the economy increases, leading to more employment opportunities. That’s why Government undertakes massive fiscal spending every year trying to generate employment; some money is spent on vocational trainings also increasing the labor productivity as well as employability.
Recently some corporate and NGOs have also started investing in programs targeting the GDP per capita as part of their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programs or even as a part of their core business strategy. Money is being spent on activities like organizing vocational trainings, microfinance, setting up IT infrastructure in the rural areas, etc. Two best known projects from Indian corporate are the HUL’s project ‘Shakti’ (
http://www.hllshakti.com/) and ITC’s ‘e-Choupal’ (
http://www.echoupal.com/). Both of these programs are done as a part of the core business strategy of the respective companies.
Why can’t we as individuals also contribute to the prosperity of the nation by working on improving the GDP per capita? Think of a situation where every single capable individual is contributing towards this goal by spending few hours of his free time with little or no contribution of money towards this goal. Won’t it be a self triggered massive movement towards a permanent economic change, pushing the nation towards prosperity?
People could ask, what is there in it for me? Why would I do it if I am not interested in giving back to the society or community service as people call it? Well, working towards prosperity is not only about giving back to the society, but also about filling your pocket too in the long run. Ref figure 1.
Figure 1
Savings, tax payment and consumption are some of the factors related to household that contribute to economic growth. If new people get added to the workforce or if the existing workforce earns more because of the increase in productivity, the capital accumulation per person will increase, and capital accumulation is the key towards growth in a developing country. More capital accumulation means more chances for a booming economy and a booming economy means more income to the households and you know the story. That is why you should contribute towards increasing the GDP per capita.
How individuals can contribute towards increasing the productivity of the existing workforce or increasing the employability of people?
Well, there are many ways we could do it. I shall just put forward a few Ideas which I had thought of and leave it for people to share their thoughts and ideas for personal contribution towards GDP per capita increase.
"If you are a professional, find people in colleges studying the same specialization as your profession, but lack the guidance or the exposure and guide them to be competitive in their field. Normally people in tier 2 colleges would fall in this category. If they are trained to be competitive, chances of them getting employment after studies are more."
- At a very minimal level you could guide one student. Here also, in addition to the long run personal benefit, you could be benefited by the improvement in your technological and people know how during the process of this mentoring.
- You could use the students to prototype your ideas without any investment on the wages. It will be mutually beneficial exercise.
"If you think a road side business could be tuned up to be more profitable by doing certain things in a different way, go and voluntarily talk to that business owner about your view point and work with him in implementing the required change (if he also feels that your point makes sense)."
"You may have some small business idea in mind, but you may not be able to do it yourself for some reason. Find somebody you know (may be from your village) and give him the idea + the seed investment to setup the business. If you can’t donate the seed investment by yourself, talk to the like minded and arrange for the fund."
- For example, I always think about a hotel serving nutritious food for working bachelors, a food with more vegetables, fruits, etc. rather being the taste maker mix; I don’t want to implement this idea myself for various reasons. But, anybody could set this up as a clean and cheap road side establishment and earn quite well. The idea just goes untried without making any good if it is not being passed on to somebody who can do this and benefit from this.
"If you can’t contribute time, but can spare a few bucks per month, talk to the entrepreneur near by (may be a mechanic shop owner) and ask him to take somebody you refer (may be from your village or town) as an apprentice. You can pay the money needed for the livelihood of the apprentice. Once the apprentice person gets good in the work, he can go back home and start his own venture. His small venture could be funded by you or your friends group."These are a few ideas I had thought about. I am sure lot of people will have different ideas that could help others to increase their income. I want to create a platform where people can share such ideas, join hands with the like minded and help others earn more.
To summarize, this manifesto aims to explain people about the positive long term change they can make by helping their fellow citizens to become employable or to earn m. Lot of people have a vague idea of things like this in their mind and what is needed is a trigger to push them into action, either by themselves or by collaborating with others who think in the same lines. This article is targeted to act as a trigger and not as a completion solution. It is up to the people to discuss the various possibilities and take it forward in what ever way they want.
Having said that this article is only a trigger, I am planning to set up a separate discussion board, blog and a mailing list to enable people to collaborate and work on this front.
So friends, please share your thoughts on this. I like to take inputs, fine tune this write up and name this campaign before I setup an independent mailing list and blog for the campaign.
I request you to spread this idea to your network as well.
P.S: Just send an email to
rajesh.kathirvelu@gmail.com to be a part of the mailing list or the online group that is going to be setup soon.
I also like thank my friends Giri, Deepak, Ramasamy and
Umang for me helping me out in getting this article published.
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