Our lives are full of blemishes and contradictions. They galore in every action of ours, yet we have developed a fine art of suffusing them with explanations that support them. One such area is the corporate world. In our personal lives and those of the nation’s we live in, we all support democracy and believe it is rightful. Democracy is the right vested in people to choose elected leaders and representatives. Aimed at providing equal opportunity to all citizens so as to ensure that no single ideology nor any one human being can influence the course of life of a nation or people based on his whims and will. It will not be a sacrilege to state that one of the hallmarks of civilization is the proper enunciation of democracy. It is aimed at curtailing demagogues. To ensure accountability, responsibility shifts on a periodic basis between capable citizens. Nations globally champion democracy and swear by it, stating that too much power for too long in a hand of one woman or man can cause ruin, rain havoc and lead to hero worship. Power breeds such ills whose effects remain in perpetuity and creates a halo around the hero whose worship is mandated by the state.  Even Gautam Buddha upon attaining salvation was fearful of its halo around him, he wanted nirvana to be a bliss that would be attained by many, else he feared a few liberated souls would be corrupted by its predominance amongst them. Hence renunciation was devised as a principle to uphold values and not many statesmen or corporate chieftains have had the courage to pursue this path. Attain nirvana and renouncing it, for in this lies the glory and greatness of humanity. Remember the legendary roman general Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus! He practiced what Gautam Buddha preached. More importantly he also did not accumulate wealth!

Each CEO considers himself to be too critical to practice renunciation, rather they want their legacy to be there until long. The lure of power that comes with the chair is too strong to let go. If we believe in the constitution of our nations which is aimed at restricting power in the hands of a few or one, so also should the constitution of companies limit the term of the CEO. If one compares the corporate world to the working of a country, the employees are the bureaucrats, and the shareholders are the plebian who vote. Similar to how elections are held every five or six years, so also the term of the CEO should be restricted to three years, with a maximum of two terms. Our corporate world should mirror the democracy we so cherish in our countries affairs. A vibrant opposition is required in a democracy to check corruption and limit the influence of one man. So also in the corporate world there is a need for an in-house opposition. This can be achieved by voting of employees who would vote to place an appropriate set of leaders at the helm. These in turn can be voted by shareholders or the board to occupy the post of CEO and other senior positions. These positions would be taken up by new members in every term so as to bring in opportunity for all. Similar to how bureaucrats run nations with any political party at the helm, so also do employees run corporates. The current outlandish thought we have is that replacing CEOs at short intervals thwarts continuity of progress and line of thought. I find this in continuation of the human penchant for longevity and after life, we just cannot accept death without immortality. Rather death is what gives life to the universe and brings in new ideas and continuity of innovation. If life would be immortal, nature, humanity and life around us would have never evolved to what it is today! So, it is time to let go the chains of thought that slave us in to bondage.  If not for the benign aura of death human existence would be meaningless!

Replaced CEOs can be offered other positions in the company. It is most unfortunate that our society considers it to be demeaning that once a CEO, the incumbent cannot occupy a position lower than the CEO in the same corporate! Such archaic thoughts have to be let go off in a world which faces herculean changes on account of technological advancements. We have started accepting CEOs and leaders of nations at young ages, so too we should start accepting a change in the chair periodically so as to bring in opportunity to all. All around us from fortune 500 to small, medium or large corporates, none practice democracy. Each company is the fiefdom of the incumbent CEO who like the maharaja doesn’t want to step down! Many have succumbed to the narcissus syndrome, becoming a nemesis in their own rights.

The way most of our modern corporates work, is on a dictatorial diktat, where the CEO becomes irreplaceable as if without his presence the company’s fortunes would slide. This is most wrong to assume and is the effect of a capitalist mindset which places incredulous importance in one man or woman. Our remuneration is directed to please one man or a set of workers keeping the rest at low wages. Studies have been conducted to ascertain the variance in income levels between top management and middle/low level employees. The disparity is unfair. The gargantuan pay scale variance is reflective of our penchant to practice corruption in a legal and sanctified manner.

Talent should be adequately compensated and corporates should practice differential compensation to retain and attract talent, but surely not at the expense of creating tribes of yonder rich. Corporates have to be run on welfare capitalism and not crony capitalism that accrues wealth for a few. We need urgent steps to rein in disparity in wealth distribution, else we will create a world of unequal’s, a world where the gap between opportunity or the lack of it will be governed by the wealth possessed by the family one is born in.

In the not so distant past, communism rose to challenge the evils of the bourgeois. It failed as it bred corruption in the hands of a few power brokers who became despots and dictators, accumulating wealth for themselves by robbing the proletariat of the nation’s riches. It is no surprise that many communist lovers came from well to do families where they had hardly experienced starvation or poverty. Communism rose and fell very swiftly but artificial intelligence will not fall so swiftly, it is evolving and will become the biggest threat to challenge human domination of this planet.

If we do not work towards a more equitable world we will lose out to machines and their evolution will bring in unimaginable changes in our lives! It will be difficult to imagine them becoming corrupt, but they would surely look down upon our limited analytical abilities and start considering us as inferior beings. If one were to stretch one’s imagination we too could have been some manner of artificial intelligence who after eons of evolution have come to occupy this pace today! Just that the evolution of machine intelligence that we are creating will move with such rapid ferociousness that will leave us far behind in the race!

The sustained practice of democracy in our corporate world, regular renunciation by CEOs and a much more palatable and refined progressive income sharing will lay foundations of a more humane corporate world with opportunities for all. It will promote the rule of civility in public office, maintain checks over unfettered power and create a better world for all inhabitants.

Mufaddal Khumri

October 27, 2017