To ponder - S.Gurumurthy on Rediff

Will the current global recession make people look at globalisation from a different perspective?

Capitalism will undergo a lot of changes because today's capitalism is not what Adam Smith conceived or Karl Marx opposed. Today, capitalists are not the people who handle capital; it's the professionals. It's somebody else's money that the professionals are handling. So, it is not capitalist's capitalism; it's professionals' capitalism.

Now, a further change that has taken place is, it is not actual money, but virtual money that is being used. Imaginary money has been created by brain power and that is put to use as real power. That is the crisis today.

This kind of capitalism will be gone and the original capitalism where 'I look after my wealth' will come back again. That is good for the world. This other man's money I handle which has promoted the expenditure-driven market mechanism is a product of neo-capitalism.

Banking secrecy was considered one of the virtues of capitalism. Now, they call it an evil! This is the U-turn in one year!

In one of your earlier interviews, you told rediff.com that globalisation was not sustainable.

Who is talking about globalisation today? Today, it's just not environmentally, ecologically and culturally sustainable. I have always maintained that it was not economically sustainable, because it is contrary to the very meaning and definition of economics which is associated with frugality.

It is an executive class economics different from the economy class which brings out the difference between economics and excessiveness.

Moreover, globalisation disregards the existence of countries; they talk about a global society, global rule, global citizens, global villages, etc. It was an absolutely idealistic idiosyncrasy. That is gone.

Who is talking about the WTO? I told you long ago that the WTO will not last. If you create an artificial structure, it will not stand. People in different parts of the world have their own models of living; you cannot homogenise them, make them wear the same dress, eat the same food, or see the same cinema or have the same goals. This is what West-centric globalisation attempted, and got the first taste of it in the last four, five years.

Will people start thinking in terms of swadeshi?

People will be more conscious of their surroundings, their people, their family and their society first, and not the distant world.