Mar
4
America used to be the prime destination of the best and brightest immigrants from whole round the world, but with its stride to adopt for socialism in form of protectionism, and announcements to cull tax reliefs to the companies employing foreigners working on H1B visa and other issues, now America is loosing its shine.[1]
What the dangerous threatening groups like KKK could not do in years, is being done by US government and its protectionist policies within months. Such is the nature of poison of socialism and US is hell bent to take its gulp now.
US enjoyed the luxury of being the strongest magnet for the immigrants for long time, and those immigrants actually made USA the world’s most innovative and technically sound nation, now the lustrous history is about to be faded. India and even so-called communist China are gradually picking up race for being the strong magnet to catch the best minds ready to innovate and deliver ways, techniques and procedures to produce wealth. Immigrants actually can be the major engine of productions, knowledge, technology, economical success and pride and none other than Americans no this reality.
Yet for their newly acquired colors of socialism in form of protectionism, they are at the brisk of loosing that extra edge.
Around 1 lakh Indians are about to return to India in the next 3 to 5 years span, and according to a new American study, this is going to harm US as deeper as the current economic crisis is harming.[2]
We used to discuss about the harms of brain drain which the native countries of the immigrants suffers, and now the same immigrants when will return to their native countries with much acquired skills, knowledge, technological know-how, new innovative ideas and practices which they learned and skilled well in US, the native countries whole round the world will gain their services and hence the consequential wealth production gains. Obviously, it would be a loss from all sides for the USA.
On the other hand, other nations like India can gain from the opportunity.
Immigrants used to love US because of the environment of individual freedom and support for talent irrespective of the caste, economic class, colour, and religion or creed bias. Yet, when now US government is hell bent to provide reservation and special treatment for the US citizens and workers, things are going to change.[3]
The immigrants are returning to India because of better environment India has provided since 1991 with its spree for liberalization.
As the private sector in India now is the main source of wealth production, and it is not as murky and intervened by Indian government as it was before 1991 periods, the highly skilled professionals feel they can get their rewards for their talent and hard work in Indian private sector.
Yet, all this can go in vain too. India is not so free of socialist plots and illusions even now.
The same Indian government, which is strongly opposing US socialist moves in form of protectionism, giving reason for globalization and free market principles, is very much used to the ways of reservations, price control, labour control and even salary control.[3]
Even now, Indians believe the myths of population explosion and consider that with such huge population, distribution and redistribution of wealth is necessary otherwise, many will suffer poverty. Even now, Indian politicians and majority electorate still believe that reservations, quotas, economic stimulus and direct money vouchers for poor can really help in eradicating poverty. People in India still believe that by enforcing compulsory and free education for all, they will solve the problem of poverty of masses. Even now, the Indian electorate believes that by dividing people on name of caste, creed, religion, and sex and hence making profitable vote banks to win majority votes, politicians actually help Indian public.[4]
With such political environment, what will happen if tomorrow Indian government enforces reservations in private sector?
India is already suffering with high unemployment rates, and with the economic downturn, the number of jobs is vanishing day by day. With this new crop of talent coming back to India, the competition will obviously increase and the private sector will gain more opportunity to garner the best amongst the better.
Will it strangle Indian and make them further poor? 
No, actually, competition and freedom never make anybody poor; government policies, interventions, quotas and reservation do spread poverty though.
With better professionals and innovative minds, the investors will gain more opportunities and ways to produce more, more production will provide more and varied jobs, self-employment and earning opportunities. The more the private sector will remain free from governmental interventionism, the more it will produce wealth and reduce poverty. India is already a bug hub for R&D services, with the strength of these returning immigrants; India will gain in many other sectors too.
To utilize this opportunity, Indian government need to keep off from trying to intervene in private sector and let it thrive on its own.
Now when we have an opportunity to let all live free and earn their life with their respective talents, we can create a work ethic based on freedom, peace and equality.
Yet the problem is, with the politics of vote bank,[5] can we let the private sector free to explore chose, liberate and procreate the talent in India or just like USA, Indian government will also start intervening in private sector on the name of protecting the vote banks? Indian government is already preparing to provide economic stimulus for the immigrants returning to India after loosing their jobs, now if government tried to intervene in private sector and production house, obviously instead of helping India to be the next strongest magnet for innovative brains and the topmost wealth production house, this returning crowd of talent will end as a burden on India and nothing else.
We should realize that the problem of poverty cannot be solved by reservations or bailouts or economic helps, poverty can be solved out only by means of productions, wealth creation and job creation, as government cannot create productive jobs, only private sector, investors, and the common individual citizens like you me and us can, the more government allow us to be free, the more able we find ourselves to create jobs for others. We should understand this fact too, that by providing reservation or special packages for some sects to gain vote banks, politicians actually hurt the thread of creating jobs and producing wealth and that causes further poverty, discontent and depletion and the consequences of such scenario often turn out to be dark.
Let us hope we Indian will learn from our mistakes soon and will not allow politicians to divide us on the name of caste gender and religion and let us thrive in our live based on our own hard work talent to make our own destiny earned by our own self.
Let us hope we will gain from this reverse brain drain by promoting liberalization and individual freedom rather than making it a further burden on our socialistic frame.
- The threat of Protectionism, Reason for Liberty [↩]
- USA will suffer the cost of loosing the best talent, Times of India [↩]
- Obama the new Robin Hood, gargid [↩] [↩]
- Population, Poverty and Production, Reason for Liberty [↩]
- Story of socialism, welfare and brain drain, Reason for Liberty [↩]
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Vikram Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 9:14 amI think you are underestimating the culture of innovation in America. This has been a pretty bad decade for these guys, but they have still managed to deliver Wikipedia, Youtube and Orkut (also Facebook), think of how different the internet would be without these contributions. Contrary to what one might perceive, innovation is not strictly restricted to science and technology, but is also present in business, marketing and even regulation (google Alfred Kahn). I think a lot of people mistakenly attribute innovation in America to only free-trade, but in reality it is ingrained in the culture here, due to the fundamental freedom of thought this society offers. So a few thousand Indians and Chinese less, is not going to make much of a difference.
Vikram Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 9:23 amOkay, Orkut was developed by a Turkish software engineer while working for a company founded by two Europeans, but Myspace and Facebook were founded by Americans. And in any case, America will continue to attract a lot of the very brightest, simply because of the high quality of institutions present here.
renegade_division Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 10:46 amAnd why does the society offer fundamental freedom of thought? Is the freedom of thought sufficiently required condition for the amount of success American entrepreneurs show?
Please tell me what do you think about the society in European nations. France has a pretty “fundamental freedom of thought”, last I checked they didn’t produce anything significant remotely on the scale of America does.
I highly disagree. Americans are not genetically superior to other nations. Nor there is something in the water of America which automatically makes you the smartest. It is the smartest and the brightest people of ALL over the world who come to America and work there. The smartest of the smart Pakistan, French, Bangladeshi, Japanese, Russian or Somalian guy will come and live in America, and that’s what makes America what it is. If these people stop coming here, I am not saying America will crash down to the level of Afghanistan, but it will become no different then one of the n rich different countries out there. It would be no different than say UK, Australia, Sweden, Norway. But it would definitely not be America.
You are not getting the point, the reason why overall Americans are so good in terms of innovation is because they have this system of liberty and individual freedom(which they are losing one by one) which did not take place because of any religion(there are numerous countries with the same major religion as in America), nor of a cultural history(there is no culture in America like people in India brag about), nor it has to do with any race for that matter.
Canada has same geographical location, same religion, same culture, same age, similar history but Canada is not America and nowhere near it. Why? Because Canada does not have the same founding principles America enjoyed.
Orkut and Google could not have been founded in Europe or Turkey. Facebook could not have been founded in Israel(Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish). Similarly the American innovations could not have been possible without the talent America attracts from all over the world.
These institutions you are talking about they are there all over the world, but even studying in Oxford does not match studying in Harvard for most of the people because latter means being in America.
Abhishek Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 2:54 pmThe situation whether good or bad for India and America is totally a debatable one….like the author mentioned, it will lead to the rise of competition in India; a place where competition has already become part of the countries culture. But even with the recession going on, people still stand in lines outside the passport office, waiting to get a ticket out of India just because everyone feels Obama will get America out of recession. If like the author predicts, the American markets fall, half the worlds economy will come crashing. So, it is a dangerous circle, and will remain one for a long time to come. As for talent, well it is true that America comprises of talent from all around the world. They are so hungry for intellectuality to get their work done that they have adopted outsourcing. So, it may not be a complete reverse brain drain….but rather a proportionate one with equal number of people coming and going to America keeping in mind the fact that vacancies might increase there.
Gaurav Says:
March 6th, 2009 at 4:53 pmTalking with people, i really feel that many of us are still living psychologically in pre-independance era of zamindari, where only those person had wealth who supported britishers,and went away with produces of poor indian farmers,this had created a feeling of hatred among people for everything related to thw word ‘rich’,it has continued till now,most of the people fear from rich,they think of businessman as a corrupt,immoral,money-making being,the indians are still not accepting the fact that this modern india has generated wealth through visions,hardwork,competetion,efficient and better solutions than rest.They deserve every bit of this money,and till the commons of this nation won’t understand this fact,politicians and government will keep on exploiting them showing the fear of unknown,money,capitalism
shumit Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 3:41 pmSome good points made here by the author and those commenting.
Regarding Europe:
Actually, I think that France has a very socialist government and mindset, which is prevalent in many areas including private sector, health care, agriculture and trade. They do have a very ‘fundamental’ system of believing in ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ but the reality of this (in my experience of living in southern France) seems to be that a lot of it is a surface sheen of openness. They claim to be open and free, but the government and unions control many things, in a way that protects the worker, but effectively binds private industry into an impossible situation. Even high-street sales are state-regulated as to when they occur and sometimes what can be on sale.
It’s actually incredibly inefficient, so freedom of thought alone, does not automatically give rise to achievement and innovation though I’d say it is a necessary component.
I understand that Germany (the other Euro power house) has also quite a socialist way of working but nowhere near to the extent of France. Germany has it’s own internal divides of north-south and also east-west (from the cold war era of East and West Germany). So, again, all that democracy doesn’t immediately produce innovation and excellence, but it does form a good foundation for it.
I agree that the reason the US has been so successful is that it has provided the opportunity for anybody with an idea to have a chance to obtain funding in one form or another. Hence so many startups and businesses have flocked there. A lot of these ideas are outsiders / non-Americans who have found that the US has allowed them to come and work there, when they might not have had the same opportunities in their home countries.
The high quality institutions in the US are high quality because they have been allowed by the govt. to hire clever and industrious foreign people and used them to develop their capital and technology under their own banner. Hence they became high quality leaders. A company is only as good as it’s employees and working culture, otherwise it’s just another big brand name which is destined to become hollow and fail.
shumit Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 3:54 pmRegarding India’s new-found situation:
I think that all the influx of ‘foreign-trained’ and hopefully competant, skilled, workers should be a good thing overall for India, as it will improve the quality of the workforce available.
This is good for businesses struggling in the economic turndown as they can be sure of a good base for recruitment (and knowing these clever people will have to put up with whatever wage is offered because they know there are not many jobs available).
However, isn’t this going to hurt the existing Indian employment pool, which I’m sure does include a lot of clever, hard-working people who deserve and want to work and earn their keep. However they will find that their skills are not in as high demand as the ‘foreign-trained’ person which is again something that is down to the employer to be clever enough to decide who is really the better employee.
I know that the author’s view is typically ‘survival of the fittest employee’ as far as only those capable of doing the best job deserve employment, but I insist on a more holistic view where anybody willing and able to work hard should be given a fair chance to compete for the job.
I am certain that in India, there still exists a ‘foreign first’ mentality where those coming back with ‘foreign-trained’ skills will be automatically regarded as better and superior to the ‘home grown’ labour in India. How do you know that employers will give a fair chance to those that lived in India, even if they are the better employee? I think this is an inherent flaw in Indian psychology and I’m not convinced this has been corrected yet.
Also, what will happen to these returning intelligentia when they have grown used to the ‘free thinking, free opportunity’ nature of the US etc and return to India and it’s highly socialist system? They’re going to get smacked in the face with the corruption in the system where nothing gets done without a bribe and achievement alone is no guarantee of success. The author has herself commented about this aspect of Indian working ethics.
So, is there not a danger that the reverse-brain-drain is going to cause a lot of problems for the home-grown workers, and increase discontent and unhappiness for both the returning workers and those that are trying to earn their keep at home?
What’s the proposal to deal with that? Is it fair to just assume that more appropriate jobs will be created to deal with all these people, or is it just going to cause a boom in unemployment, suicides and people on benefits?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 4:37 pmObviously, and that is why I mentioned that India need to change. India should realize why actually there was brain drain and why now there is reverse brain drain, if they realize and mend their ways, they can raise their standards, otherwise it will be a doom.
I tried to answer it in the next article http://www.reasonforliberty.com/reason/china-india-and-call-for-free-market.html
Unpretentious Diva Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 4:44 pmYour insistence is illogical tyrannical and unjust.
Every man has right to act and earn, there can be no obligation on anybody to provide work for everyone. A human has right to innovate to seek logical ways to earn honest living, he has right of self-employment. He has no right to demand employment forcibly on basis of reservations. He can get it by only means of mutually beneficial bargain.
I never say “survival of fittest” I say an employer has freedom to decide who he will employ, and his decision will be dependent on his personal thinking of making most of profits. For an employer, foreign return or not returned does not matter, what matters is the efficiency of the person he employs to deliver result and profits. He cannot be biased on race/caste/ethnicity etc, and if he acts biased, he will loose his profits and hence will be punished naturally.
Further more, in a free market, free of government intervention, unemployment is impossible until the person chooses to be unemployed voluntarily.
As for example, a Harvard MBA post graduate, may not like to work as a barber on a galli ki nukkad.
So instead of working as a barber he may choose to commit suicide, but its his personal decision.
A man should have freedom to end his life.
But the reality is, he had opportunity to work as a barber or he could have open up a beetles shop or he might have tried to work as a sweeper.
or so many jobs one can lend to others.
In free market unemployment is only in case of voluntary choice or self-employment case.
nutshi Says:
March 10th, 2009 at 9:06 pm“People in India still believe that by enforcing compulsory and free education for all, they will solve the problem of poverty of masses.”
The Author seems to be very distant from the realities of india — The truth is yes the poor — in large numbers are dying because of accumulation of wealth in concentrated points! and its a fact the education is the single most effective way to solve the problem of backwardness, poverty , mal practices , discrimination in the Indian society which is so blatantly present and is accepted right now!!!
Reverse brain drain like anything else — will have tis won merits and demerits — adn in some sense i am happy that its happening…. may eb in my hart i beleive that the mertis will outweigh the demerits.. But thinkign that India dows not need any kind of socialism now and it has grown out of it — Is a very limited — near sighted vision. So called “reservations” — which are getting so much focus these days do not stem from socialism in India but rise from political greed ……. the problem needs to be clearly identified and Socialism shoudl not be blamed for the faults of poer/vote greedy politicians! Author is pretty baised in his/her approach here abotu the issue
renegade_division Says:
March 11th, 2009 at 12:26 amNutshi said:
Everytime someone makes a point which seems to be out of mainstream thinking, and that someone is in out of touch with realities of India. Seriously do you think we live in The Gold palaces right outside of Mumbai with our servants wearing gold shoes, and we just happen to make a blog to stroke our Egos??
Howsoever hard you may find it, we also are a product of the same system. We are also from middle class families, and contrary to the perception we are not elites who hate all the poor people.
Now once you stop labeling us as “heartless wealthy elites”, only then you will be able to see and understand our point. Our point is simple, you can take Rs 50 Crore in loans to teach your kid everything he needs to become a NASA Astronaut, but is it sensible considering that a NASA astronaut only makes Rs 1 lakh per month??
Its just an elaboration of the same concept, instead of explaining it with spending money to make people educated servicemen, I am explaining it with NASA astronauts. We can spent Billions of dollars in India to teach everyone to become the astronaut for the Chandrayan Mission because you want everybody to have a level playing field to become the next astronaut, but then by spending that much money you run out of all the money to spend on the actual Moon mission.
This is exactly the dilemma of Indian society. We wanna give equal opportunity to everyone in getting a good job, but then the cost we pay to give equal opportunity to everyone, we kill a lot of those good jobs.
Tomorrow our government can generate enough revenue by increasing taxes and borrow money against our future generations to turn every Engineering college into IIT, because trust me the difference between IITs and non-IITs is the funding given to them(we give more funding to IITs and have the best kids go there), but then by turning every engineering college into IIT we will be killing all the IT sector, all the Industrial sector all the Civil sector.
So my question is, is it worth paying the price to give everyone equal opportunities?
To make the playing field level, we have decimated(reduce to 1/10th) the Prize money. And then we wonder why are 10,000 talented sprint racer don’t have anything to eat, and make a bigger case to make playing field even more level.
You think education will solve all our problems, well this fetish with education is the root CAUSE of creating more than half of those problem(not the education itself, but the cost you pay for that education).
So just think about it, we take pride in producing the viewpoint which you will never get in mainstream.