Article - 59 Week 17 The Madness Of The Crowd And We, The Rational Individuals:

Article - 59  Week 17 

The Madness Of The Crowd And We, The Rational Individuals:

Group judgements are akin to mob judgements. I have yet to come across an individual who is as unwise and as irrational as a Group of people. However, when a crowd of rational and highly intelligent people gather, their individual brilliances transmute into manifest foolishness. Their brilliances just disappear and turn into diabolic imbecility instead of adding up to sparkling brilliance. That is the reason why our democratic administration is so utterly chaotic and wasteful. Democracy per se is the best tool to select individuals to govern us. But using democracy as a process to administer is ineffective. 

Let's analyse our shipping industry. As individuals in the industry, we can see the gaping holes and understand the ways of plugging them. But collectively - a Shipping Minister and a Shipping Secretary, consulting a whole body of individuals and institutions inside and outside the industry - go misty eyed to the gaping holes. Ship owning industry, bunkering industry, spares & stores industry are daunted by myriad taxes vis-a-vis shipping friendly nations like the Panama or Singapore. Ship manning in Indian waters is marred by ancient labour laws and myopic unions. Indigenous liner shipping is subjected to crippling service tax and income taxes while foreign based companies with DIT can walk away from these oppressive tax monsters and their hungry keepers. Coastal shipping is marred by exorbitant economic rent collections from terminals and ports and the group of interest groups holding them up. Shipbuilding is suffocated with Unions, labour laws, and indirect taxes while China and Korea continue to subsidise, and the list goes endless. In simple words, we a nation of more than billions, have lost focus on reality - so far as shipping industry goes. At an individual level, we may all concur on these glaring shortcomings and at a collective level, where we elect a body of government to set things right, we go awfully confused. A sort of mad digging at Sethusamudram or Vallarpadams are the tips of such monumental foolishness. That's a painful price we pay for our much prided individual power to elect a collaborative governance.

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Brgds

Capt Rath