Over the last few days a terrible scam has come to light in Chennai. During a public hearing about 2 weeks ago on housing and land rights for the tsunami affected communities, a person suddenly got up and mentioned how deep they were in poverty and how the women in the community were being forced to sell their kidneys. It subsequently came to light in the press that upto 100 women have resorted to selling their kidneys for an average of Rs.40,000 . with poverty and the fact that there were 12kms from the seashore and thus could hardly continue their traditional fishing....
While there are many groups of people in distress - what has driven these people to sell their kidneys? Why are all the 'donors' women? What are the rights of donors after they have donated their kidneys?
These are some of the questions that strike you as the shock and numbness of the initial phase recede....
How does one respond.... i am tired of reacting....
3 comments:
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times
Bertolt Brecht
A very good study on "responding v/s reacting" is what PETA does (in the US especially, am unfamiliar with how they operate in India)
Btw, I don't necessarily support or agree with PETA's viewpoints. From purely a marketer's standpoint, they implement one of the most thought out strategies for response on "issues of compassion"
Their strategy stated simply is "Make doing the 'right' more profitable than not doing the 'right' thing"
This strategy will usually boil down to one of 2 approaches - make the "right" thing faster/cheaper/better than the "wrong" thing; Or, increase the cost of doing the "wrong" thing. Usually it is much more feasible to do the latter.
Example:
McDonald: It saves costs to have growth hormones and meat fed to cows. Cramped spaces save costs.
PETA round 1: Try to convince McD that cows deserve a better life.
The above is a "reaction". The only economic equilibrium here is for PETA to be frustrated, McD to ignore them.
PETA round 2: Ah, the economic incentive structure needs to be changed. I need to make it so it is more expensive to feed growth hormone to cows than not to. How? Note that 50% of US sales of meat are based on meat as an abstract food product divorced from an animal. So PETA starts handing out "McD toys" to little kids outside McDs which involves imagery of how cows are torchered. Bingo! You've changed the incentive structure. McD gets their suppliers off growth hormones within a quarter.
Moral: Find the guys responsible here and change their incentive structure. Don't try to change their thought process or "invoke compassion"
-Kumar
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