Capitalistic World System of Immanuel Wallenstein

Immanuel Wallenstein talks about a world system which is dominated by the core group of countries which are democratic and capitalistic, followed by semi-periphery which contains authoritarian regimes like those of LATAM or North Korea and finally you have the Global South where you may have non-democratic and less stable countries. As per his theory this system is important for Capitalism to thrive i.e. a world system which is unequal in terms of governance, wages, social structure. The peripheral countries are needed to provide raw material, labor which can then be exploited by the Core group which can covert this into means of productions which drives Capitalism.

So, we have countries like Bangladesh which being a peripheral country helps the apparel industry of the US by providing low-cost services due to low wage. India also does export with US on the same yardstick, the IT industry labor-cost arbitrage being the prime example. 

With the new tariff wars the system is bound to shake as the drivers of Capitalism itself are going to impacted due to this disruption. There might be cases here and there, or offshoring options to countries which are more amiable to US terms of negotiations. India doesn't exactly appear in the peripheral belt because of its much mature economy social systems and democracy but still its far away from Core of Capitalistic belt of North America and the West Europe. Still if provides enough impetus in terms of its low-cost exports in tangibles as well as intangibles which US should very well soon realize. 

Practical Vedanta

Came up with an analogy by the Great Swami Vivekananda in one his many amazing lessons on practical Vedanta. This was the simple story of the Lion left with a floc of sheep's which had forgotten how to roar. And one fine day when it has encounter with a passing & observant Lion which takes the Sheep-Lion to the pond and shows its reflection and helps the Sheep-Lion conjure up its Roar. The analogy here was we all in our daily lives and work are living in a hypnotized world. When we are tuck in a job or mundane routines, we take it for granted, enclosed in the shell and get lost in the mundaneness and eventually get frustrated with our lives. Our situation is not different from the Sheep-Lion. Vedanta when applied here, beseeches us to get out of our comfort look outside and realize our true potential. That necessarily doesn't mean to quit jobs and assume a rebel attitude. It tells us to be optimistic and keep taking the small steps which often tend to postpone due to pre-occupation without worries. Worries and these baby steps can go together till them the time we realize that the steps we take our slowly shedding our worries and making us lighter. If you are frustrated with jobs start learning. If you think you won't be able to do construction of your new house because of job and studies, then very well take the step. If you feel you will have tough time taking care of your growing family with all these things happening, just surrender yourself to act of responsibility. Things will take care by itself. 

Startup Notes 1 - Relationships

In a startup you are continuously innovating renovating trying to find your niche. One of the ideas here is to find a niche, exploit and grow so that you become big or you become good enough at the least to have a profitable exit. In technology lot of such companies end up in the loop of expectation only. They may get hold of one or two accounts and feel they have the technology or IP deployed which might attract potential buyers. But such actions need to happen fast. Else being tied to a client who themselves don't have a clear tech roadmap may itself lead the company to fall back in the curve. And then it's back to again those tiring iterative experiments to bring in Gen AI, Agentic AI and toil to attach latest buzzword to the tech.

Potential buyers are off course looking at multiple factors or to rephrase there are more than one variable which might attract a potential buyer. e.g. A buyer may be more interested to buy the relationship more than IP to gain entry with client, the startup is associated with. In this the relationship has to be really compelling, right from Top leadership to the people on ground, which can also assure future cash flows purely based on relationship and not get stick on one victory (Amdocs acquiring smaller companies due to T-Mobile relationship_. Also, there might be an investor of a competitor who might take note and try for Aqisitions to create a combined entity (Actix/Amdocs).

Companies where leadership gets embedded in technology or IP creation is bound to lose on this front