The Sunday Times FT - Why are business worthies silent on Apollo and India?

The silence of local business worthies over the Indian diplomatic intervention in the Apollo takeover bid is once more a reminder of the quality and the character of Sri Lankan leaders.

By all accounts, India has successfully bullied our government into filthying a vital economic principle.

As a principle relating to the transparency of investment policy, pricing and trading, it is so vital to the wellbeing of a capitalistic economy that one is tempted to say that there is probably no other economic principle that a businessman could revere more. Yet there has been only silence from the worthies – from trade and industry associations to the most respected and not-so-respected businesses.

Perhaps some were silenced by the fact that Harry Jayewardene stands to gain from a just resolution of the issue.

But his gain is a trifling detail to what our economy could systemically suffer following the filthying of transparency.

Many are indeed inclined to fret about the rise of cool, clever operators like Harry Jayewardene. However, such a concern is a misplaced priority at best. For men who are highly skilled in the art of manipulation and intimidation do come to enjoy an imediate advantage when politically corrupt countries privatise entrenched monopolies – just think of the Russian “oligarchs”.

But the logic of political circumstances mitigates any injustice relating to the rise of such men.

In fact, from the perspective of liberating the economy from the Treasury and its political overlords, any unjust advantage some achieve in the course of privatisation pales into insignificance.

There is, however, something that we do need to fret about. It is the monopolistic hold which both the privatised enterprises and other businesses continue to have in the market. The presence of monopolies and monopolistic practices is an evil that speaks either to the filthying of fair trading rules, or to the institutional and regulatory preference for large corporations, or both – which, while stifling innovation and entrepreneurship, allows mediocrity in products and services to reign supreme. Yet it is one thing to fret about the persistence of monopolistic practices; but another thing to fret about Harry Jayewardene, out of either envy or righteous indignation, and be prevented from speaking out on a vital matter.

Similarly, when the matter of silence is raised in relation to the most respected of our business leaders, it might point to a sense of shame felt by them, which prevents them from speaking out.

For, there have been many reports of respected business leaders trifling with, if not filthying, the stock market and the Securities Exchange Commission. In fact, it has now become difficult, at least for a casual observer, to shake off the suspicion that the market is shot through and through with insider trading, intimidation and incestuous organisational relationships.

However, on a deeper level, the silence might be taken as a symbol of the mainstream business ethos.

In the interest of both quick returns and the prevailing investment (and lending) practices, our business leaders have developed an ethos that renders them eminently sensible and deeply suspicious about theories, principles, ideas and ideals as well as the spirited use of such abstractions as the measure of progress.

The deep distrust of abstractions would suggest that a sensible business leader resolved to mind his own business is unlikely to be troubled by the filthying of economic principles.

If there is an occasion in which a sensible person might actually speak out, it would be when the perils confronting quick returns are empirically obvious to him – hence the current plain-spoken insistence of respected businesses that terrorism must be gratified with negotiations.

What is more, there is no business leader, worth his salt, who does not want to extend his sphere of activity to India. Hence, it is only sensible for our business leaders to show a measure of allegiance to India, since it is the Indian, and not the Sri Lankan, economy that holds the key to their future profits, ambitions and even grandiose dreams.

However, notwithstanding the incredible pull that India exerts upon the hearts of business leaders, the most sensible among them would think it foolish to criticise India largely because commonsense tells them that, although India is the dominant regional power, it is marked by an extremely touchy feeling of individuality.

More importantly, no sensible man would venture to offer criticism where he cannot hope to make a difference – or without a realistic chance of a pay-off.

But life does not oblige us to be so sensible that we adapt ourselves to our environment tamely like either a pig or a fool who lacks the power to discriminate between better and worse. The excise of the discriminating power is the modification and direction of desire, with a view to the ordering of life into an artistic achievement, which gives man the feeling of both human dignity and human greatness – the conviction that “life is essentially intelligence shaping natural materials”.

Business characteristically accuses the political establishment of ignorance, timidity, pettiness, short-termism, misplaced priorities, disloyalty and lack of principles – in a word of seeking success rather than consummate achievements. Yet how different is business from politics?