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p>I’m a big fan of Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution and this summary of one of his talks reminded me of a story from early in my career….. Although (or perhaps because?) I’m more libertarian than anything else, I’m also quite a bit of a culturalist and civil societarian. The distinction being that I think in many cases, informal culture (no matter how impossible it is to precisely define) has a far greater bearing on “social progress” than formal economics or policy. So, Cowen’s Libertarian Heresies don’t rattle me too much 
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The example Cowen cites in his talk is the relationship between wealth and corruption in Russia –
He then moved into territory that is politically dangerous, but needs to be addressed: one of the things that helps promote both liberty and prosperity throughout the Anglosphere is citizens’ widespread ability to be loyal to a set of abstract concepts. Russia, he pointed out, is failing as a free society not because it is poor – Putin’s shrewed management of high commodity prices has put paid to much Russian poverty – but because Russians tend to privilege their friends and contacts above all else, leading to epic levels of corruption. Corruption, of course, is a signal rule of law failure.
He then asked, somewhat rhetorically, if liberty was confined (and defined) by culture: ‘We should not presume that our values are as universal as we often think they are’. What happens, he asked (also rhetorically), if – in order to enjoy the benefits of liberty and prosperity – societies have to undergo a major cultural transformation, including the loss of many appealing values? Cowen focussed on Russian loyalty and friendship, but there are potentially many others. Think, for example, of the extended family so privileged throughout the Islamic world, or the communitarian values common in many indigenous societies.
Of course, a particular country is where extended familial-warmth is lauded & a place that mutineers know quite a bit about is …. India.
Put succinctly, Cowen is reciting the argument that empirically, many cultures emphasize loyalty to the extended family (or, for that matter, tribe or religious group) to the detriment of loyalty to the nation and EveryMan. Without the latter, impartial rule of law becomes difficult and corruption soars. (and yes, there’s a nasty feedback cycle in here as well — poor, lawless countries often mean that family is the only group you can trust)
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p>But, it’s admittedly tough to rigorously study “familial loyalty
” because, like culture, it’s tough to quantify & is strongly non-linear — e.g. clearly some loyalty is good (social conservatives often assert there isn’t enough in the inner city, for ex.). So, the point where there’s “too much” is almost certainly a question of degrees and tipping points. Some folks have studied the strong correlation between corruption and an extreme form of extended family ties which happens to be overt & quantifiable – consanguinity . Others are trying to bring more quantification to the broader question of development.
One anecdote I witnessed ~10 yrs ago was pretty illustrative of Cowen’s main point. The anonymized-DBD in the paraphrased dialog below went to college / grad school in the US prior to working with me in the mid-90s. An auntie-ji, whose family had helped finance his education back in the day, was visiting from India & the conversation involved her son, Sumit. My DBD friend described Sumit – someone he’d practically grown up with – as a “fun guy to drink with, especially back when we were 14, but ridiculously incompetent.”
Visiting Auntie From India – “Your mother told us about your recent manager promotion at [Fortune 500 Company]; we are so proud of you!”
DBD – “Thank you Auntie”
Visiting Auntie – “you should try to get a [Fortune 500 Company] job for my son Sumit”
DBD – (trying not to laugh out loud at the prospect of that loser working in the next cube) – “well, you should tell him to type up his resume and I’ll submit it”
Auntie – “but you are a manager, you should be able to get him a job, no?”
DBD – “well, an internally referred resume will generally get a bit more consideration”
Auntie – “no beta, you’re like his older brother, you should *get* him a job”
DBD – “Auntie, it doesn’t work like that, he’ll have to interview”
Auntie – “hmph”
That final “hmph” is perhaps one of my all-time favorite examples of how a non-word, coming from an auntie’s mouth/nasal cavity can mean an entire paragraph in English. In this case, it’s a spectrum of emotions ranging from “we’ve lost you to an uncaring America” to “if your grandfather were dead, he’d be rolling in his grave.”
Still, the exchange hints at Auntie’s mental model for wealth (it’s a basket that’s primarily allocated via connections rather than something her son should independently make) and familial obligation (tit-for-tat –> if you’ve got a position of power, use it to help the family who helped you; our DBD is an extended-family “asset” in a rather direct way). None of this is to say that wealth and connections don’t help a lot in American culture as well, it’s more a question of degree.
The interchange is also a perfect microcosm of cultural evolution before our eyes. The DBD probably recognizes where the Auntie is coming from (especially when she hmph’s). But, he still ultimately decides that the rules in his role as a software manager are separate and distinct from the rules in his role as a family member. While this exchange happened here in the US, you’re seeing more and more of the DBD’s behavior in the Desh as well as folks give EveryMan and FamilyMember more similar consideration. And the professionalism required to render unto the corp what is the corp’s & render unto Auntie what is Auntie’s is a critical attitudinal change helping make India a more productive, transparent society.
Yet, as Cowen points out, all such changes bring loss as well because they are rarely pareto optimal. Auntie and Sumit in particular are worse off in a world where economic and extended-family obligations are so strictly separated and may be a tad less likely to help fund the next cousin’s education. The family loss is direct and immediate while the Toquevillian, society-writ-large benefits are indirect and longer term. AND, there are certainly “appealing values” we all will lose – that deliciously warm sense of welcome when we stumble, unannounced, into our 3rd uncle’s house in the desh despite a 10 year hiatus is far less likely to happen when our DBD grows up.
India is saturated in this. From the very top, where a political party’s entire existence is based around ensuring that a single family rules India for eternity, to Bollywood, in which if you are the son or daughter of a famous actor you will get all the opportunities you care for in the movies. And that is just the ‘top’ of Indian society.
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Th thing that comes to my mind in the American context is legacy admissions
But there is one more with greater desi relevance and i.e. taking care of old-age/retired parents who were born and raised in India. They probably expect and/or desire to be taken care of in their son’s or daughter’s home, but American culltural scenario would mostly imply living alone independently or in old age/nursing homes.
hm. a few points
1) obviously there are problems of lock-in here. you rely on your family because civil society is weak, and civil society is weak because you rely on your family. to some extent i think you need exogenous shocks to break this system. e.g., some have argued that the catholic church’s campaign against consanguinity and adoption (which in the pre-modern world often meant the adoption of relatives when your own children have died, i.e., rich uncle adopts his nephew such as caesar adopted his great-nephew octavian) did this in medieval europe. the church’s motivation wasn’t to buttress civil society, it was to counter the influence of wealthy clans who attempted to preserve family wealth by marriages with cousins or adoption of relatives when direct offspring weren’t available (a major issue in a society with high mortality rates). since a lot of inheritances defaulted to, or went to, the church, there was an obvious material rationale (for the record, cousin marriage showed up almost immediately among elites with the protestant reformation).
2) i think shifts in family size & geography change this. the “circle of cousins” which are so common among south asians and many other groups have less power when there are simply fewer siblings and they are dispersed across a large nation. the united states has traditionally had a fair amount of geographic mobility and the dispersion of lineages means they can’t coordinate so as to leverage their familial affinity to familialism. i think it is illustrative that states like louisiana, notable for lack of geographic mobility (i.e., children live in the same town as their parents and don’t move away) are also among the most corrupt.
Really interesting topic, but we’re still pretty much in the “Dark Ages” in terms of really understanding what the best equilibrium is (or, even more likely, what the best equilibria are!). Some pretty interesting (but still very preliminary) work is being done, though. It’s not really pointing in one direction, though–Hong Kong and Italy, for example, are very wealthy even though their business structures tend to be much more family-oriented (and, smaller) than the US or UK. (Sure, Hong Kong is just a city-state, but it’s likely (if not inevitable) that their model would pervade the Cantonese-speaking region of China, were it not for Communist rule).
one thing for brown americans; many of us grew up without extended family in this country. we also didn’t have the connections that many of our white friends did, which if not nepotistic reflected the accumulated familial capital in this country. we are where we are because of our competence and education, we wouldn’t be where we are if connections were what counted because so few of us have deep familial roots in this country. those of us whose families showed in the 1965-1980 period were also very isolated. so when i go to bangladesh and see the familialism at work it’s not really something i abhor, it’s just absolutey alien to my experience in a deep fundamental way. i haven’t really gotten any breaks aside from what my parents or i have been able to extract out of the system.
from the summary you posted:
I respect Cowen. But I can’t see how you can define welfare in the capability sense (as Sen) does and still be libertarian. Given the current condition of most of the world (where, for instance, nepotism tends to neutralize equal opportunity ), I don’t see how assuring capabilities and positive liberties are a realistic idea without government intervention or policies like progressive taxation. I wish the summary addressed the tension b/w libertarians and liberals who like the capability approach. The post does hint that Cowen wants better regulation (better might mean more, better definitely means better enforced) which is again atypical for a libertarian who want a very stripped down set of regulations that preserves the set of only the most basic rights.
Countering nepotism might entail preventing individuals from disposing property and contracts the way they like and bolstering strong labor regulations — also libertarian peeves.
A more conceptual flaw — given Cowen’s overall faith in markets/libertarian bent is a lack of justification of maximizing capabilities (at least in the summary no justification is mentioned).Why should we maximize capabilities? Why should we not just make sure markets run better? For instance, a business-owner will reduce nepotistic hiring policies if they are reducing profits. After all, if the market produces the ‘best’ results (ie assures pareto optimality), won’t all people do better (as measured by the gain in the set of capabilities) if we just prevented market failures? People will stop doing things that hurt their bottom lines. In that case, Cowen should say nothing about capabilities and focus on ensuring well-functioning markets.
Liberal proponents of the free market have a better answer here. They can agree that markets probably produce pareto optimality/efficiency. But pareto optimality is distributionally neutral which is a problem. For instance, a society could be pareto optimal, if one person owned everything in the world and everybody else owned nothing. And if we think some kinds of markets end up producing the harmful equilibria (monopolies for instance), then we might redistribute or we might allow legislative safeguards that are broadly acceptable. So markets are usually okay, but if we think that their allocative results are very bad for society, then we might intervene, presumably to promote welfare.
Wow, that’s a very nice point, Razib! Simple yet elegant.
rob, taiwan follows a similar model to taiwan i think. in contrast, japan has larger corporations. i think there are some concerns about the lack of scalability of family-based businesses. see what happened to wang labs: Dr. Wang’s insistence that his son, Fred Wang, succeed him contributed to the company’s failure. Fred Wang was a business school graduate, “but by almost any definition,” wrote Charles C. Kenney, “unsuited for the job in which his father had placed him.” His assignment, first as head of research and development, then as president of the company, led to jealousy and to resignations by key R&D and business personnel.
also, re: italy, the economic dynamism is the less familalist part of the country.
Not sure if this scenario can be stretched too much into the future. This is because increasingly, education in India is going down the American route of funding through loans including those for coming to US/Europe/Australia.
7 · rob said
Rob, make sure you emphasize that at your Gatsby-esque parties, with a flamboyant shake of the cigar. “I’m here because I worked hard and smart — not because my ancestors were on the Mayflower.” Faux working class is all the rage these days I hear 🙂
Razib, Sure, I’m not saying Hong Kong or Italy are without flaws (far from it!), but there are problems with the other structures as well (see, e.g., GM or Japanese banks). My point is, at the end of the day, HK, Italy US, and Japan are all rich on a global scale, so it’s not obvious that the driver of wealth-production is (smaller) family-run business v. huge (no-nepotism) corporation. I’m not a zealot of either type, btw.
one thing hong kong has is a non-corrupt public sector. i think let the chips fall where they may re: private sector; but the corruption of “government jobs” is a going to weigh down many third world nations.
11 · rob said
That is a great point — neither model seems to be the prescription for economic growth. Especially now that there are other ways to access capital for entrepreneurs (other than the poor), instead of just inheriting it or asking your family to lend it to you or using joint property as collateral given to local moneylenders.
btw, the thing most weird about me re: my bangladeshi relatives is the difference between non-related friends and related friends. since i don’t have close relatives in this country the dichotomy isn’t really one i can grokk, but i think it definitely has a corrosive affect on the emergence of civil society. like this will change with smaller families so that you have fewer and fewer cousins to pick from.
Port, of course! I always manage to work in some small yet insidious condescension to the DAR crowd!
This leads to the reasoning that “nepotism” can thrive more where the labor or work required for a particular business or economic activity doesn’t require immense amount of excellence/skill/expertise. For such activities your own family members can be hired for the low-level work since it wouldn’t mean any great loss or lowered profits since any average person can do it. Thats why economic activities like bureacracy, agriculture, grocery stores, restaurants etc. are a breeding ground for nepotism. And once you rise up the chain like here in America nepotism can’t survive so much in the fabric. So once can argue higher level economic activity coupled with profit model can reduce nepotism.
7 · rob said
Depends on what you mean by familial roots. Your statement implies that familial roots mean some kind of extended family network to rely upon. I am not sure whether Americans (non-desis) rely on any such beyond maybe their immediate nuclear family network and same is even for the desis. In the sense desis are not on any pedestal compared to the non-desi Americans.
Well an interesting modern, progressive spin to familial loyalty could be for the local lending institutions to take care of the financing the American education but make the DBD pay for GRE/GMAT/TOEFL fees, application fees ( running into hundreds of dollars per univ ) and all the expensive side-charges for the visa fees of the American embassy.
I am not sure whether Americans (non-desis) rely on any such beyond maybe their immediate nuclear family network and same is even for the desis. In the sense desis are not on any pedestal compared to the non-desi Americans.
i think controlling for class this is wrong. e.g., my friend who was the 5th generation to go to swarthmore, or people i know who inherited their upper east side apt. from their parents, wouldn’t have with brown americans because we’re the products of post-1965 immigration. there are a subset of “old money” americans, for lack of a better word, who have a leg up via connnections through family and friends (country club set, etc.). if they don’t step up and leverage their advantages they’ll lose their privileges, but they have an inside track on success because they know about that internship through a contact, or their grandparent owned a house on balboa island which appreciated so much that now their descendents have a nice trust fund because of the property value difference, or they went to the right prep schools and played lacrosse so that the question isn’t whether they’ll get a job at a brokerage house after graduate, but which brokerage house.
most white amerians rely on public schools, stellar academics and pure hard work to get claw their way up into the upper middle class. just as brown americans do. but, what i’m saying is that america does have an unofficial gentry who maintain their power and privilege by loading the die in favor of their own kith and kin when possible. the nepotistic dynamic is far more diluted than what you see in italy or india, but it does exist. as someone associated or involved in tech/scientific sectors it hasn’t really been an issue; but i have friends in public relations and other “people person” professions who talk about the fact that connections can really help in “getting your foot in the door” in these areas.
Dude you’re forgetting one thing…the aunty apparently did finance (in part) the DBD’s education…so he does have some obligation to her. So actually, the DBD is not living up to his end of the bargain…and if he felt so strongly about it he shouldn’t have accepted her financial help back in the day.
Sorry I guess you did address that.
Well, but those are the ways of raising capital for most of HK or Italy–US and Japan are different, in terms of having much more capital-raising by going to the capital markets and asking them to buy shares (or bonds). It would seem difficult to argue that that isn’t a nice option to have (and I would tend to think that it is in fact good have that option), but of course (1) it isn’t entirely unavailable in HK or Italy and, more importantly, (2) its presence or (relative) absence doesn’t seem to be the main determinant of social wealth v. social squalor.
Actually the geek lady whom I met at the bar on Friday night loaned me one of Tyler Cowen’s book from her shelf – Discover Your Inner Economist
… and he probably did not bat an eyelid when his white boss’ friend’s son with the mediocre GPA and no experience got the internship that virtually guaranteed a job upon graduation. (and he probably did not feel there was any problem with new hires performed the summer internship screenings of applicants from their old college,when many of the applicants were their friends)
In software, especially, it takes a particular amount of self interested delusion to think that contacts do not play a part. — For instance most F500 companies have a rule that all consultants have to be hired through a preferred vendor who takes a substantial cut. The vendors usually add little value. So how did they get to be a preferred vendor in the first place? Mainly Contacts.
At least in India, a student with a high GPA from a decent engg. college is certain to get an interview or access to a placement exam. Here I have seen plenty of good students (with good social skills), who can’t get interviews while less qualified people waltz in.
The implication that contacts matter less in the US than in India is laughable.
The reason Desis here do not help out family is not because of some noble civic culture in US — Its just that DBD’s are basically too involved in trying to fit in/ trying to get ahead/ and / or in brown nosing to bother helping out distant family.
i’ve noticed that if we control for class, desi parents are much more financially supportive of their kids than say WASP parents. our familial roots may not be deep, but they seem remarkably strong. truly middle class desi parents often go for broke sending their kids to elite private colleges that didn’t all used to offer the complete aid packages that many do now. I hear about older siblings pitching in a good portion of their salary to help with financing the education of the younger. desi family friend circles also tend to act as a surrogate family, with constituents often borrowing money from each other in tight situations. just the fact that most of our parents belong to a community of some sort is in great contrast to the social isolation of most middle class WASP families i observed growing up. in such social isolation, there is little opportunity for invidious comparison. the nepotism and clan patronage of our parents homeland are likely among qualities that have made desis a high social capital group in the US.
Dizzy at 24:
Yup. Tech can be bad. Chinese only hire chinese. Other places only contract for H1Bs from the desh. It is hard to break in even if you try your best to look the part–poor english and tech skills.
Also seen a lot of nepotism just about everywhere–from universities to Fortune 100. Ever wonder how professors’ kids always get into top schools even though more often than not they have neither the ability nor the inclination for research and higher learning.
Re 1:
Isn’t that more of a reflection of how certain political parties succeed in South Asia (similar strategies are utilized by BNP and AL in Bangladesh and PPP in Pakistan), of the notion that a vast chunk of voters will vote for a party based on who its figurehead is rather than say, its success or failure in implementing particular policies in the past? If so, then from a party member’s perspective, keeping that “single family” “ruling” is a strategic decision that ensures that he/she enjoys the benefits of nepotism.
Re 5:
I presume Razib emphasized brown Americans in this comment because familialism is rather prevalent among at least a subset of British desis, the Bangladeshi Sylheti community. While I don’t have the references handy, familialism seems to have functioned there primarily as a means for immigration, and seems not to have translated very effectively into either economic success or social mobility.
While not discounting brown competence and education in the US, I think it’s important to keep in mind that for many of us this very same competence and education allowed us entry into elite academic institutions. And for many of us, the connections forged in these institutions (or even the reputation of said institutions) worked subsequently to our advantage. So while we might have depended primarily on our competence and education for our success, I think it’s important to note that connections (albeit not familial connections) also had a role to play.
I am also curious about the familial backgrounds of DBDs (and also of the parents of 2nd generation ABDs) who gained entry into elite academic institutions in the US. Now, I can only speak from my personal experience (which makes this rather an atrocious sample), but almost all the DBDs that I met in such institutions came from privileged (at least upper middle-class) backgrounds in South Asia. And given the role of familial connections back in desh in maintaining such a background, this could suggest that, at least in some cases, said familial connections might also have had an indirect role to play in our success.
:-! i hope the premise of this article was not as negative as is being alluded here. i thought the language was more circumspect. relationships are at the heart of all commerce. mock aunty for her emotional stringpulling, not for the time honored tradition.
chile – forget all you’ve been taught since grade 2 in all formal education. heart and emotion trump logic any day.
You know, if your distant cousin (who’s mom paid for part of your education) is a buffoon, then fine, don’t take him…but all things being equal, you should definitely pick him over someone else with similar abilities. And by extension, if he’s good, then take him over someone else who’s equally good.
This thorough article in the WSJ features an academically bright Asian male student who doesn’t make it to the top colleges of his choice (he is contrasted with several of his peers). The implication there is that legacy admits, wealthy donors, or beneficiaries of affirmative action may have a huge leg up in the admissions process. I feel much better after reading this 🙂
Most places that offered me and my brother (as well as other academically qualified DBD acquaintances) admissions with generous scholarships happened to be liberal arts schools that several posters here choose to mock (thank heavens for their guilty consciences!). A young Dartmouth alum, the son of a newspaper magnate, interviewed me in Delhi — my one college interview. Sitting in his gleaming granite and marble penthouse suite office dotted with African sculptures, he reviewed my application and resume, and smiled broadly. He told me was “very impressed” with my record, but I probably would never make into Dartmouth because of the enormous amount of need-based financial aid I would need (At the time I applied, only HYP offered need-blind admission to international students; this guy promised me he would talk to the admissions committee about my particular case, I doubt he did).
I don’t claim that international students are somehow entitled to the generosity of American colleges, but the limited places there are for kids with foreign citizenships are disproportionately allotted to the Doon-Mayo set. This disappointed me at first, but ultimately I did not suffer any lack of opportunities or major handicaps in the professional market. I see why colleges abroad want the children of desi industrialists, actors, and politicians. Such kids probably have much more interesting life experiences than me and better contacts abroad — things that would enrich the university experience and career opportunities for admitted American candidates. But as Shaad points out, I was able to even think of applying to schools here because I lived an upper-middle class life in India. Paradoxically, no scholarships would have come my way if I were born an impoverished Indian. That fact is reason enough for me not be a libertarian. No modern system assures a reasonable approximation of due process — even in cases where it is absolutely crucial. A well-designed system of affirmative action (sadly the Indian system of reservation does not even come close) or a stellar system of universal primary and secondary education (again not one of the achievements of the Republic of India) are probably necessary to ensure fairness in educational and employment opportunities.
Doesn’t family-ism provide a network to immigrant success amongst desis in working class contexts? Same with Chinese and other communities who come to a country without contacts or privelige. I know that using family trust and advice and material support can help in the initial generation clawing their way up when opportunities for advancement are otherwise closed and small business entrepeneurialism is the first step on the ladder to secure their future and their children’s future. In a mercantile immigrant context, family and community co-operation becomes the driver for success, which at other times and in other contexts, can be seen as an impulse to nepotism.
Amitabh Dude you’re forgetting one thing…the aunty apparently did finance (in part) the DBD’s education…so he does have some obligation to her. So actually, the DBD is not living up to his end of the bargain…and if he felt so strongly about it he shouldn’t have accepted her financial help back in the day.
This is why India is such a corrupt, and subsequently such a failed and backward society.
30 · Amitabh said
why, “should”, amitabh? wouldn’t a coin toss be a fair thing to do here? after all, your cousin is your cousin only because of an accident of birth. in fact, some people might say that you should consider an individual’s need here. who needs the job more — your cousin or the other individual? maybe the other person is a single parent. or your cousin might really the need the job because he has a huge loan to pay off. some people might ask you to consider about who had face worse background conditions — your cousin or the other candidate? in real life, of course, employers rarely have access to this data (and they shouldn’t either), but i’m curious about your use of the word ‘should’ here. personally, i hope i would do a coin toss in this situation, if i did not have any idea about the candidates’ personal circumstances.
Spousal relocation programs in U.S./Canadian universities are an example of nepotism.
To the extent that sometimes you see strategically planned husband-and-wife research/teaching teams functioning (perhaps even well, from the point of view of labour organization, time management and productivity). The troubling aspect is that invariably one is not as exceptional as the other, but their work is so intertwined that they usually get credited fully and equally at every milestone. In other words, there is some sort of CV/resume inflation that goes on that will be difficult to reproduce by two unrelated members of a research team where it will be important to maintain professional propriety and boundaries.
I know of teams where offsprings are invited to work together with researcher-parents under the umbrella of interdisciplinary/inter-university collaborations. On the one hand, it all seems so efficiently productive, yet if you are the outsider-onlooker it can appear quite unfair. Even alienating–if the department happens to be very small and the people involved all happen to be big fish in small ponds.
Valmiki
I call BS on this.
There are a ton of things he could do while being ethical. — Follow up with the HR again and again to ensure that they gave the resume a fair shot; getting his cousin in touch with other colleagues who could advise / guide / mentor him to ensure he gets the right skills, seeing if there are other opportunities. Be on the constant lookout if there is something that matches his skills.
Just sending the resume to HR, is an abdication of responsibility. The following quote kinda indicates that the DBD is probably a scumbag
Unless he certainly knows that Sumit is still incompetent (and given that irresponsible teens usually grow up), he is not giving his cousin a fair shake. Basic indian Crab mentallity at work.
Simple — the person is a known quantity, offers some trust ability, and offers less risk to the business. The chain of trust is one of the most valuable commodities in business and is the bedrock of any financial system, even western ones.
31 · portmanteau said
interesting article, port. as a sidebar, the endowments of harvard and yale have grown so large that the legacy privilege really makes no financial sense anymore. donations constitute a tiny % of their growth these days. i wonder who is going to have the balls to drop legacy first.
in fact, virtually all endowments where invested, up until the late ’70’s, in govt and corporate bonds. i believe it was warren buffet who first convinced a university (i forget which) to allocate mostly in stocks. with most endowments getting at least s&P 500 returns, and many with hedge fund/VC type returns, i predict legacy is soon to disappear, with the possible exception of super-legacies (parents who donate to the tune of 10’s of millions). someones got to pull the trigger though. nothing like a little capitalism to level the playing field.
in fact, harvard doen’t even need to charge tuition. the returns alone more than cover their overhead.
36 · DizzyDesi said
But quality assurance in supply chains is not really a matter of trust. Products have to confirm to certain specs for other manufacturers or consumers to be trustworthy. Second, suppliers have to manufacture within price constraints to be competitive trading partners. Trust plays a role, but I suspect it is more important in the initial stages of the trading relationship. After that, performance is probably more important.
You are right that trust is a huge factor in labor relations (but it may inflate estimates of productivity). I acknowledge that. Nevertheless, Amitabh’s ‘should’ claim undermines due process — yes, you might trust your cousin more, and that might be a reason to hire her. But the procedure cannot be called ‘fair’ anymore. The tie-breaker has to be something that both candidates have an opportunity at netting the job. If you trust your cousin more, then you (as an employee within a larger firm) should recuse yourself from the hiring process. Which I am sure most sensible people in a large firm will do. No one wants to risk allegations of favoritism and jeopardize their own career. Small business is an another matter. Often people will reserve management positions for family just so the family share in ownership is not diluted or they want to keep wealth concentrated among family members.
I think an employer is open to charges of discrimination if she takes the ‘trust’ thing too far. “My clients and I trust white people more.” Does that mean I am allowed to always hire white over other races? If I use this as a criteria to tie-break between two equally qualifying candidates, I am discriminating, pure and simple. Statistically, you could hire according to whatever quirks you liked a few times, but if the workforce ends up looking too skewed then you will/should not be allowed to get away with it.
The Old Boys network, British era civil service, and US higher ed institutions — all probably lost a huge amount of talent and goodwill by invoking the trust clause. Restricting talent in business is a bad strategy in the long-run.
PS: dizzydesi, I enjoyed your comment #24.
Port, I guess I was just expressing my own personal take…I would always favor a cousin or other relative over someone else ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL. And this is even though I have been fortunate enough so far to never require any financial help from anyone other than my parents. It’s just the responsibility I feel that family members owe one another, by virtue of being related. Any other hypothetical concerns (accident of birth, ethical aspects, etc) don’t really carry much weight with me in this regard. I guess I’ve internalised this very typically desi cultural trait.
in fact, harvard doen’t even need to charge tuition. the returns alone more than cover their overhead.
Yeah, but why sacrifice the endowment just to have free education? They might not remain #1 in endowment for very long with your “strategy”! Get your head screwed on straight!! 😉
i actually wouldn’t – for fear of appearing to be supporting nepotism. if all things are equal, it’s not obvious to me that MY relation to somebody necessarily benefits the company by hiring this relative, and it could also have several negative effects if he/she is hired. also, it seems that being related IS an accident of birth, a factor which you said has no weight for you. and beyond the hypothetical – let’s face it, you are rarely ever going to find a situation involving a relative where all things are, in fact, equal – almost always, there will be some factor that is valued in the hiring process that would make one candidate more qualified than the other, in which case family ties should really have no place.
speaking from my own experience (at an accounting firm) – contacts seems to only get you so far. as far as i know, nobody got their job in my group based on contacts, although i have noted, e.g. that their choice of on-campus hiring is clearly related to the alma maters that are most represented in our group (though, they do happen to be the top 10 or so schools that have the specific academic program suited to our work). at best, contacts get your resume into the system, but as far as getting the job, it’s a pretty democratic process that involves the input of several different colleagues. that’s why i find the aunty’s reaction so perplexing – in many offices – as opposed to family relations – the rules are not breakable. it’s not a matter of whether he is willing to get the aunty’s son a job – it seems more an issue of whether he CAN get him the job. and depending on the nature of the job, the environment of the office, and the hiring process etc this might not be a possibility, which is exactly why his offer of taking a look at the resume might reflect the limited influence he may have in actually getting the son hired. it’s a very different environment from that in india, esp. in the smaller family-run situations, so i can see how aunty would have been ticked off, but really, she should know that the rules of the game in a similar setting in india might be drastically different.
vinod – i would be interested to know if you have any aftermath on this story – either as to whether/how the son got the job, or if the aunty’s attitude towards your colleague changed as a result of this interaction.
brown’s endowment decreased drastically after they did away with their core curriculum – the older (and maybe younger) alums were just not willing to donate.
39 · Amitabh said
Right — I think that is natural, and wouldn’t seem unethical to many people (see the reactions on this forum). I am only saying that the compromised fairness aspect troubles me. I’m certainly not condemning you for an action which many think is morally permissible (some are worried to look like nepotists and so won’t do it out of fear). But, at the same time, I don’t think this is a ‘hypothetical’ issue — there is a big consequence for the equally qualified but unrelated candidate. I do think that dizzydesi suggests a good approach here:
Such unabashed nepotism is widespread in New Orleans, with City Hall a living legacy. Getting a family member/friend a job once you’re in is expected here. In the end, it happens everywhere; the real subtlety lies in whether the practicioners consider such behavior right or wrong to begin with.
41 · ak said
i would also not favor any of my family members. of course, i will express my support overtly, it is just that i will covertly make sure they don’t have the opportunity to be successful.. maybe an internship for my sixth grade cousin or something, once in a while, to show what i can do, but nothing more.
i do like being the talk of the family circuit, and the person the extended family drools over.. no way am i going to risk that!
39 · Amitabh said
Nepotists like you will always come up with excuses to justify their corruption. Besides the problem with hiring inferior candidates there is the even greater problem of firing them when your emotional attachment to them is so strong. India is severely handicapped by people like you. No wonder it ranks near the bottom on the corruption indices. There would be no need for affirmative action if not for this prevalent long term prejudice in hiring.
46 · Valmiki said
i more or less agree with Valmiki’s sentiments, and i’m not just saying that so he’ll spare me during the inevitable shooting spree, but it should be noted that india ranks # 72 out of 175 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index and has been rising consistently every since her capitalist revolution has been slowly displacing the pathetic, despotic, callous, nepotistic, pathologically deluded, brahman socialists comrade valmiki and i so despise.
Where in the world did this come from. the Swatantra Party, (the largest opposition party in the 60s) was led by a Brahmin and was for free enterprise PV Narasimha Rao who started the capitalist trend in government policy was a brahmin as was Vajpayee who ensured that it was sustained. The socialist parties of today Samajwadi Party, BSP are decidedly non – brahmin.
(I am not claimimg that the brahmin community is the cause of capitalism in india. I am just pointing out that to link brahmins to Nehruvian socialism makes no sense — Brahmin politicians were on both sides of the capitalist / socialist divide)
If the assertion that brahmans were the cause of corruption and nepotism was true the indian civil service/IAS of the 40s 50s and 60s would be more corrupt than the IAS of today. And the ICS/ IAS would have followed its own adgenda instead of the political parties’ which governed and the social character of the IAS would have remained unchanged even today.
It is easy to agree with Amitabh’s assertion:
.The only problem is that, as ak pointed out all things are never equal in reality.
True. that would be the ethical thing to do
The biggest of all the left parties, CPI-M is led/dominated by Brahmins.
The business class in India have typically been even more tightly knit through extended familial connections and I see this as a strong point among the Gujarathi motel owners who have translated this strength into their dominance in the motel sector in the US. Given the weakness of familial connections engendered by American living among desis, I wonder how the second generation of the Gujarathi motel owners are holding up. I am betting that the first generation Gujarathi motel owners have been more successful in imbuing their American born kids with a sense of community feeling among their extended families and clans, unlike the kids of the professional class whose upbringing has made them trumpet that they hardly knew any other desis growing up, let alone extended family.