An epoch is in the making as we move ahead with technological advancement and are faced with the choice of plenty to deal with. At the same time we have to face the increasing instance of monopolies that could rule our lives. We are consciously losing our right to choose and support small businesses. We are dictated by global entities who outprice, marginalize and muzzle smaller players in the name of economies of scale and bizarre management jingoism in the name of liberal business ethos.

An instance in the making are the technology and e commerce giants who have spread their tentacles in our lives with such devastation that we are losing our ability to imagine, enquire and question. E commerce giants have grown with unhindered pace muzzling out small retailers and dictating terms to manufacturers. Online commerce has taken away the human touch in shopping, the family outing, the neighborhood grocer, the limited availability of goods, the pleasure of living with less. Computer operating systems, applications, data storage are dominated by domineering large entities. Uninhibited use of data has imprisoned us and our actions. The strangle hold of the powerful corporates is bedazzling.

Social media influences us such that we are slowly fading in recognizing ourselves. We are fed feeds and opinions that has robbed us of our imagination. Our very character and individuality is being obliterated. Search engines dominate our ability to comb for information and reading is synchronized to reflect dominant opinions. Information is available so easily that reading elaborate books and referring to bibliography is outdated, rationality replaced by herd mentality and imagination has been countered by dictatorial homogeneity of inquest. We read but do not question. We have slowly forgotten the art of imagination. Fine arts are being replaced by pure technical knowhow. The very essence of poetry, literature, sculpturing, music and painting is being replaced by a mechanical urge to follow technological advancements. A kind of social inquisition has been unleashed on the human mind! Free thinking and free acting humans will soon become an endangered species. Allow not our minds and imagination to be colonized and molested.

At the beginning of the twentieth century most nations were colonized by the European powers. Slowly they became independent and today we have more than 200 nations. New nation states are emerging. The days of large nation states are becoming more and more unviable as small nations and city states are emerging and able to much better chisel their destinies. Similarly, we need many small corporates, none to be marginalized or taken over by the technology or corporate giants. Colonization of sovereign states has been replaced by an equally alarming colonization of commerce and economy by corporate titans. This has to stop as we should breed more avenues of equal opportunities. Small is beautiful. Inhabiting a world full of small and medium businesses is more enriching and breeds variety and diversity. Regulators and governments globally have to step in and promote the concept of small being rational and viable. Big is arduous, takes away mobility and leads to creation of behemoths. Remember, the age of the dinosaurs, they became extinct as they couldn’t harness mother nature, nor could they adapt themselves to an external celestial collision. Let us not create dinosaurs amongst our businesses, economies and commerce. Let the sparrow breed and thrive, the chirpy nature of a small world is much more beautiful, all-encompassing and more compassionate. Most importantly we as individuals have to support and promote small businesses through our buying habits so that we create a thriving ecosystem that would allow them to prosper.

The greatest gift nature bestowed us was diversity, the range of flora, fauna, animal life, resources, food, cultures, natural resources, traditions etc. However, we humans have since long tried to muzzle out other lives, we have plundered resources, pillaged without mercy and taken away the heterogeneity from the soul of nature.

Today we are aping it in business, by allowing the rise and domination of behemoths. Just the way we have realized that bigger the financial institution, the greater is the risk of systemic failure, so also any corporate, if it outgrows beyond a certain level becomes so dominating that it controls every element of human lives. The monopolistic restrictive trade regulatory authority was formed to check the unhindered growth of businesses. It is time to enforce it globally and restrict the unhindered ambitions of big corporates. Uninhibited power leads to corruption of a different level, it leads to encircling us in an unending game of slavery, as we are forced to live and die on terms dictated by others.

It also creates mammoth wealth and resources in few hands, on account of scrip valuations that far outstrip the company’s net worth and assets. The stock markets create billion-dollar companies, now edging to trillion-dollar corporates and billionaires slowly dreaming of becoming trillionaires. And then we have many of them becoming overnight philanthropist and the doctrine of charity becomes their slogan. An image makeover makes them benign, compassionate and caring.

It is astonishing and amusing that people are linking charity to good character. Charity is a blemish on humanity. it is a result of a disastrous system that has created an uneven society of unequal’s. A society where the distribution of wealth and opportunity has been centered in the hands of a few. Today’s promoters and management rob employees of their rightful paycheck and hoard wealth for themselves, supported by a system that makes a few ostentatious and the vast majority underpaid. The immensely rich obtain immense pleasure in returning back to society a portion of their wealth. I call it the evil and besmirched pleasure of the opulent to show off their generosity.

Charity cannot and will never build society and nations. And no self-respecting man or woman should live off it. Civilization is to set man free from man, but charity draws you in the clutches of perpetual misery. ‘ If any civilization had to survive then society has to reject the morality of altruism. Charitable acts are of social notoriety cloaked in the garb of a well-orchestrated motive. They aim to create an image of sobriety for the rich in society backed by deeds of kindness to gain public sympathy. Instead, let us question the very obvious! Why not an opportunity to live with dignity instead of charity! Why do we not question the system that makes people so rich, the grant of stocks in unabated proportion to a few and the meagre grant to many. Society has to rein in unabated hoarding of wealth.

Questioning the obvious is not to stop or molest technological progress, but rather create a munificent atmosphere for human progress and survival of our race.

Mufaddal Idris Khumri, April 2018