FIFA 2022 Final and Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam

Abstract: This post on FIFA 2022 World Cup Final between Argentina and France (or, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, respectively) is a continuation of my curiosity on  Pānini’s conflict resolution rule, Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam, beyond Sanskrit grammar, contextualized through the adage, "Let the best one win." We now look forward to Hockey World Cup 2023, and welcome 2023, the International Year of Millets. 

“Let the best one win,” is a powerful adage, a wishful one, as it may not always turn out to be true. However, this adage seems to have been echoed by many football lovers after the final match between Argentina and France in the FIFA World Cup 2022 suggesting that in their view the best team did indeed win.

In this post, in sync with the adage, I will touch upon the ups and downs of that match through the lay reading of Pānini’s celebrated conflict resolution rule “In conflict the stronger (or, better) one prevails,” Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam. This draws from a recent post of mine wherein I had indicated that the lay reading renders the rule for wider application beyond Sanskrit grammar. I had also  indicated there how the lay reading of the rule resonates with Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman, John Rawls’ veil in an original position, and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator. In the spirit of that wider application, we now get back to that final match.  

Supporters of Argentina and France would have wanted their teams to win. The fan following of Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé would have wanted their idols to be in the winning side. There, however, was an undercurrent of support for Messi, as this would perhaps be his last World Cup and that his caliber as a player has been borne out by the fact that till that final match, he had been in the winning squad of all major football tournaments. In the last four years, Mbappé has also created a fan following of his own since his performance in the 2018 edition of the World Cup that France won, and he has been going from strength-to-strength thereafter.

When the 2022 FIFA final match between Argentina and France began many, so-called neutral supporters (perhaps talismanic, in a veil, and impartial spectators), wanted Argentina to win so that Messi can be part of the winning squad and will have in his repertoire the one Cup that is missing, and they also wanted Mbappé to score at least a goal. It was very much possible that Argentina would have won without Mbappé or his team scoring a goal, or for Argentina to have lost. Given the two competing wishes, it is only after the match that one could know which of these got fulfilled and who of the two teams was better and whether the better team won.

As the match progressed, Argentina and Messi were doing well. They were 2-0 up with Messi having scored one and assisted the other. But, Mbappé had not scored. He fulfills  the neutral supporters wish and around the 80^th minute scores a goal. Hold on, within another minute or so, he goes beyond that and scores another goal. With Mbappé’s two back-to-back goals, France was level with Argentina and by the end of regular time the score line read 2-2.

Now, with the match going into extra time, the neutral supporters wanted Messi to show his magic and were all delighted when he does that by scoring another goal with Argentina now leading again at 3-2. With this, our neutral supporters were somewhere feeling a little let down for Mbappé but this does not last long as he scores again, a hat-trick in a Wrold Cup final, and France levels the score again with Argentina at 3-3 at the end of extra time. With no clear winners, the match goes to penalty kicks.

Mbappé and Messi score their respective penalty goals. France misses out the second and third one with a good save by Damián Martínez the Argentine goalkeeper, but scores their fourth, while Argentina players, after Messi, score their subsequent three and go on to win the World Cup 2022 with the penalty kicks score reading 4-2.

Some non-connoisseur's of the game would suggest what was this ado all about, they could have started with the penalty kicks and decided the match. No, that cannot be. The beauty of the game lies in the the laws of the game along with the ups and downs and the upheavals therein. If there is no decision after the regular time of 90 minutes then the match goes to extra time, and if there is still no decision after the extra time of 30 minutes then the match goes to penalty kicks.

The application of the laws of the game for determining the outcome of a match follows  a sequence, which, in a convoluted sense, seems to support Vipratisidhe Param Kāryam. No decision at the end of a stage of the match (that is, end of regular or extra time) indicates that at the end of that stage the two teams continue to be of equal strength (vipratisidhe) and this requires that the progress of the match to the next or subsequent stage (param) be brought into action or invoked (kāryam). Further, as the match progresses to kicks from the penalty mark the penalty kicks can go on ad infinitum till a decision on the winner is reached.  

To get back to our adage, the best team won, Argentina won the Cup in the penalty shoot out. But, our neutral supporters got more, Messi gets the golden ball as the best player of the championship including his goals and assists (see all goals by Argentina in the World Cup), Mbappé gets the golden boot as the maximum goal scorer in the tournament, and Martínez gets the golden glove as the best goalkeeper of the competition.

There was no decision to be made by our neutral supporters, but in their personal emotional space they felt vindicated and it is this that supports our lay reading of Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam beyond Sanskrit grammar. The feeling by our neutral supporters also seems to resonate Gandhi’s talisman, Rawls’ veil in an original position and Smith’s impartial spectator. What more would they want. The laws of the game to decide a winner in a World Cup final match also seems to, in a convoluted sense, fall in line with Pānini’s conflict resolution rule. It has been a win-win for all. 

Now, we look forward to the Hockey World Cup 2023 that is to take place in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela of Odisha, India in January 2023. Wishing you well-being and happiness for 2023, the International Year of Millets.

[I reiterate of having no knowledge of Sanskrit, as indicated in my pervious post. This is just a continuation of my curiosity of Pānini’s conflict resolution rule, in my lay understanding, beyond Sanskrit grammar. My apologies to Sanskrit grammarians and football aficionados.]

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Rishi on Pānini’s Vipratisedhe Param Kāryam and Beyond

Rishi on Pānini’s Vipratisedhe Param Kāryam and Beyond 

Srijit Mishra

28 December 2022

Abstract

The post provides a generic interpretation and a lay reading of Rishi Rajpopat’s interpretation of Pānini’s metarule vipratisedhe param kāryam for conflict resolution. This opens up possibilities for the application of this metarule beyond Sanskrit grammar. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman in his social philosophy, John Rawls’ veil in the original position as an aid in his political philosophy, and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator in his moral philosophy.

Keywords:   Adam Smith, Aṣṭādhyāyī, John Rawls, Kāryam, Mahatma Gandhi, moral philosophy, Pānini, param, political philosophy,  Sanskrit, social philosophy,  vipratisedhe.

 

The Context 

Rishi Rajpopat’s doctoral thesis In Pāṇini We Trust: Discovering the Algorithm for Rule Conflict Resolution in the Aṣṭādhyāyī  addresses an important problem for conflict resolution. Pānini’s celebrated Aṣṭādhyāyī on Sanskrit grammar has only one metarule for that, 1.4.2, vipratisedhe param kāryam, “if there are two conflicting rules, the subsequent one prevails.” 

Conventional Interpretation

Conventionally, grammarians had suggested different approaches to conflict resolution. First, the stronger rule prevails. 

• Nitya (obligatory) is stronger than its counterpart anitya (not obligatory). An example of the latter is when the sense in a compound word can be equally expressed by the constituent parts). 

• Antaraṅga (internally conditioned), as the rule has the cause of its application embedded in another rule, the bahiraṅga (externally conditioned), making the application of the former a prerequisite for the latter and in that sense the former is the stronger one.

• Apavāda (exception) is a special rule that sets aside utsarga (the general rule) and thereby makes exception rules stronger. 

Second, if rules are of equal strength, the subsequent one in Pānini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī will prevail. However, all these also led to a host of additional metarules for umpteen exceptions. 

Rishi’s Contribution

Rishi Rajpopat’s contribution is in three parts. First, it classifies whether the conflict (that is, application of two rules) is for the same operand or for different operands. 

Second, in the case of a single operand, it develops a method to identify the specific rules. This would further aid in the application of the exception rules, as being specific gives greater clarity. 

And, third, in the case of two different operands, it provides a novel interpretation wherein param in the metarule means the rule that should apply to the subsequent one or the next one from the two operands (say, the rule that is applicable to the latter of the two independent words that aid the formation of a new compound word). Here, I use the subsequent one and not the one that will come to the right-hand side, as indicated by Rishi Rajpopat, because the subsequent one is generic and should hold for people who learn Sanskrit in a script where the writing is not from left to right (while recognizing the limits of the usage because of the script) or even for those who learn (or, have learnt)  Sanskrit largely through an oral tradition.  Independent of this generic usage, this novel interpretation has solved a long-standing puzzle and opens up the logical structure of Sanskrit grammar for wider application.  

A Lay Reading

A lay reading of the metarule could imply that “if there are two conflicting rules, the stronger one prevails.” This presumes that param (or, parama) means the stronger one or the better one or the best. Such a reading is different from the perspective provided by the Sanskrit grammarians and leaves room for interpretation on what one means by ‘the stronger one’. This reading would be counterproductive as it does away with the clarity involved in interpreting param as the subsequent one or the next one (either in the sequence of rules in the conventional interpretation or in the sequence of operands in the novel interpretation). Nevertheless, we go ahead with this usage as, in our view, it subsumes different aspects of the conventional interpretation as also Rishi Rajpopat’s contribution and also opens up the metarule to a wider application.

In the conventional interpretation, by default, the stronger rules such as nitya, antaraṅga, and apavāda prevail over their corresponding weaker rules anitya, bahiraṅga, and utsarga, respectively. Only when the two rules in conflict are of equal strength then the one that comes later in the Aṣṭādhyāyī is considered to prevail. This interpretation draws from an implicit understanding that in the Aṣṭādhyāyī the sequencing of the rules is from the simpler to the complex ones. And, thereby, making the rules that come later in the sequence in the Aṣṭādhyāyī the stronger ones, albeit the exceptions.      

Rishi Rajpopat’s contribution suggests two things. One is the identification and application of specific rules as exceptions in case of the conflict in a single operand. And, the other is the one that applies to the subsequent operand in case of conflict between two operands. Thus, in case of conflict in a single operand the exception rule prevails and is the stronger one while in case of conflict between two operands the one that applies to the subsequent operand prevails and is the stronger one. 

   

Beyond grammar: Gandhi, Rawls and Smith

The lay reading is subjective to what one considers as param or, more specifically in our lay reading to what one considers to be stronger or better.  However, this lay reading opens up the application of the metarule beyond grammar, including for decision-making in other situations of conflict.

For instance, Mahatma Gandhi’s invoking of the talisman, John Rawls’ recourse to be under a veil in an original position, or Adam Smith’s reliance on the impartial spectator are the basis to guide decision-making to resolve some conflict. Gandhi’s is a powerful social philosophy for the individual to rely on thyself to resolve a conflict in one’s own mind when in doubt, Rawls’ is a transcendental political philosophy that requires a democratic ethos with identities under wrap to move forward in a reasonably plural world, and Smith’s is a moral philosophy where an individual falls back on thy conscience by being in the shoes of an impartial spectator.

Getting back to Pānini’s metarule on conflict resolution, one sees that the param kāryam (that is, the stronger one or better one prevails) in Gandhi’s talisman is a reliance on  thyself (one’s own conscience), in Rawls’ veil in an original position is the focus on the democratic ethos with individual identities being under wrap (the free and equal citizens deciding for themselves while being blind to their own identities or self-interest), and in Smith’s impartiality is in identifying thy conscience by putting on the hat of independent and disinterested persons (being open to other perspectives to help visualize propriety in the larger social space).

Conclusion

A novel interpretation of  Pānini’s metarule vipratisedhe param kāryamIn by Rishi Rajpopat  has opened it up for wider application. It is in this spirit that we have suggested a generic interpretation followed by a lay reading of the metarule, “if there are two conflicting rules, the stronger one prevails.” This lay reading is not for usage in Sanskrit grammar. Nevertheless, this lay reading, in our opinion, subsumes the conventional and new contributions on the interpretation of the metarule. It also opens up the lay reading to applications beyond Sanskrit grammar. For instance, in understanding some specific rules that aid decision-making to deal with conflict resolution by thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman in his social philosophy for an individual in doubt, John Rawls’ veil in an original position with a set of other fundamental ideas leading to his principles of justice as a political philosophy, and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator that aids his moral philosophy.

Acknowledgements

At the outset, I must state that I have no knowledge of Sanskrit, less so of its grammar. My limited understanding is in having heard some recitation and their interpretation as a proximate illiterate.  This note is out of my curiosity, as I was intrigued by the recent discovery that has aided a long-standing puzzle in Sanskrit grammar. I am thankful to PK Viswanathan and through him Br Achutamrita Chaitanya for helping me in my understanding of the word param (परम्), and how it is different from parama (परम), and the metarule.

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Rawlsian Veil, Smithian Impartiality and Indian Elections of 2014

I have decided to come out of my blog hibernation with the  General Election 2014 in India having traversed two-thirds of its path. Six phases of elections are over and another three phases are left and the results would be known to us in another 20 days time by 16 May 2014. 

The immediate reason for my writing is my being at the International Conference on Global Justice and the Global South where I presented a paper on "A Possible Defence of Rawls" where one of the points was to show that Rawls' original position under a veil of ignorance would give the same outcome as that of the Smithian impartial spectator that Amartya Sen invokes. To explain this, I used an old example that I have been discussing in a related context.

There are three candidates contesting to represent the citizens of a democratic polity. The citizens have to elect one person to represent them. Whom should each citizen elect. The details of the three candidates is as follows.

• X has moved up the political ladder, is with experience and seems to have the support base among some important sections.
• Y belongs to a family that has sacrificed for the upkeep of democratic values and institutions in the country and has been groomed to be a leader.
• Z works for the people sincerely and makes genuine efforts to be inclusive and can be identified with an ordinary citizen.

Both the thought experiments take out the personal slant or vested interest associated with it and the conclusion with both the thought experiments will be the same. The three candidates in the above example have an uncanny resemblance to some candidates in the ongoing elections.

X may be identified with the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its alliances. Y seems to resemble a prominent leader from a prominent family of the Indian National Congress (INC). Z could be identified with the leader from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who was the Chief Minister of Delhi for 49 days. These resemblances, if any, are coincidental as I have been discussing this example in my classes and lectures for at least the last five years and much before AAP was formed or BJP declared its Prime Ministerial candidate. It is true that dynastic politics had already taken roots in India by then, but then, it is not limited to the INC alone.

While discussing with people over the years there are many who have tried to go under a veil or be impartial and they invariably come out with arguments in support of Z. But, now, it is election time and with the blitzkrieg marketing paraphernalia that some parties have at their disposal it is difficult for people to be under a veil or be impartial. It is this that may not augur well for a democracy.

Why should coming out of a veil be a problem in a democracy where citizens ought to vote for themselves. True, citizens should come out of their veil when it comes to information - their decision ought to be an informed choice and being under a veil of ignorance does not prevent that. The veil of ignorance is about caste, class, religion and other such identities that could be detrimental for a democratic polity.

I must say that I have had long discussions on the current elections with many and while most of them think that I am a member of a particular party, I must make it clear that I am not. It is, however, quite possible that my thoughts, arrived at independently under a Rawlsian veil or Smithian impartiality or Gandhiji's Talisman, would be closer to one particular party over the others.

In search of a paradigm

Debates and discussions in the academic, media and public policy circles with regard to socio-economic issues have a tendency to identify positions as either Right or Left. The questioning mind thinks whether Right is right and  Left is to be left or is it the other way round where Right is to be left and Left is right. One talks of the virtues of the market a la Adam Smith and the other the virtues of a classless society a la Karl Marx.

Daniel Mackie, Thinkers, Adam Smith and Karl Marx

Among lay persons the discussions at times can point to the right-hand use among people being the norm whereas the left-hand use being an aberration by the supporters of Right, which is countered by stating that left-hand users are smarter and intelligent by the supporters of Left. There are others who want to broker peace and point out that there are advantages in both the hands while conceding that there can be situations where we are more attuned to the right and some others where we are more attuned to the left. But then a middle position leaves an unanswered question with regard to the appropriate paradigm. Are we both Right and Left? Or, are we neither Right nor Left? These questions put us in a catch-22 situation.

Getting back, the virtues of the market as also that of classless society have their own merit. The market gives the freedom to individuals to exchange their goods and services and because of the existence of large number of buyers and sellers none of them can determine the prices and it is this that can do away with any vested interest. A classless society does away with any kind of hierarchy and with it any power relationships that can lead to vested interest are also done away with. Both these are ideal situations that do away with some form of vested interest.

The doing away of vested interests is also articulated through the impartial spectator in Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments and the need is conveyed by the corruption of our moral sentiments, which is occasioned by the disposition to admire the rich and the great, and to despise or neglect persons of poor and mean condition. The role of the impartial spectator is taken forward in recent times by Amartya Sen in The Idea of Justice.

Another idea of doing away with vested interest is John Rawls' 'original position'. Here the individuals enter into an agreement by remaining under a veil of ignorance where they do not know their identities, as articulated in A Theory of Justice.

A very powerful call to our moral power is invoked when Mahatma Gandhi gave us a talisman. This talisman suggests that whenever in doubt an individual should recall the face of the most vulnerable person and contemplate whether the action to be taken will be of any help to that person and provide them with swaraj and it is this that will lead to one's doubt as also one's self melting away.  There will be no vested interest.

Steve Jobs in his commencement address (also see video below) to students at Stanford University refers to three stories from his life. The third one states that since he was 17 years old he has been starting his day every day by contemplating that it could be his last and it is this invoking of death that does away with all redundant things - external expectations, pride, fear, embarrassment or failure; only truly important things remain.  This reminds us about John Donne's Death be not proud, but more importantly it is also a very powerful moral power that does away with vested interest. 

Speaking about the contemporary political scenario in India one cannot but agree about the public perception of honesty and integrity by its Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. At least with regard to financial propriety at a personal level and without going into ideological differences and some other acts of omission and commission, one can also name half-a-dozen  Chief Ministers from different states cutting across political parties such as Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, Manik Sarkar of Tripura, Narendra Modi of Gujarat, Naveen Patnaik of Odisha, Nitish Kumar of Bihar and Prithviraj Chavan of Maharashtra among others who are also known to satisfy the acid test of public probity in some sense. This is a good thing and a necessary condition to root out vested interests leading to corruption, but it is neither a sufficient condition nor the only test required for good governance.

For instance, being personally honest does not mean that we can assume that everyone around us is also honest. The assumption of trust is a positive thing, but this cannot be the basis of a statecraft to allow markets to rule the roost. Similarly, espousing a classless society through different process does not necessarily mean the absence of hierarchies and vested interests, as the recent experiences in the umpteen years of Left rule in West Bengal or the fall of the erstwhile Soviet Union suggest.

Markets or a classless setup are means to do away with some forms of vested interest so that people live in a fair society.  Thus, as a deeper reading of Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Rawls would show, it is people with plural concerns who should be at the centre of focus - the ends. As Amartya Sen would say, it is the enhancing of capabilities of people so that they can be and do what they have reason to value is what matters. These have been articulated in numerous ways in the Human Development Reports of the last two decades.

So, to sum up, the question of either Right or Left, or, neither Right nor Left are not the appropriate ones. One can use, markets as also classless set-up or any other means or none of them to help people depending on the context. One should take advantage of these as also other means and tools when required, but should also be on the guard for adverse implication that can come out of the usage of these. But, most importantly one should never loose sight of the people-centric approach, our end. It is this that takes us in our search for a paradigm to one called 'human development'.

An interesting note, tangentially related is Karl Marx and Adam Smith Drop In On Occupy Wall Street. This link and the link to some of the photographs have been put up on 25 April 2012.

Two days in Boston and back to Mumbai

As indicated in my previous blog we rolled into Boston, a historical city from the American was of Independence, but also from the academic perspective. I did share with my co-participants on the famous Cambridge capital controversy with people from both the Cambridge's taking part in 1960s and early 1970s. The prominent among them being Joan Robinson and Piero Sraffa from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom and Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, United States. The former pointed out some important problems in the aggregation of capital, reswitching and on the foundations of neoclassical economics. The latter did concede to some of these but despite that the teaching of economics worldwide (including at University of Cambridge also) got dominated by the neoclassical thinking and students in many schools at the United States not being aware of this problem. A good retrospective of this debate is Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies.

Another development at Harvard is the seminal book by John Rawls, A Theory of Justice in 1971 (though I refer to the more recent Justice as Fairness: A Restatement of 2000 in my classes and in discussions) that had a serious assault on the utilitarian basis of neoclassical economics because of his articulation of reasonable pluralism - different things are intrinsically relevant on their own merit and not because of their relevance to utility.  Rawls also brought on other aspects such as 'original position' which means  that (free and equal) people who take decisions are under a veil so that they do not know who they are and this will help keep away vested interest.  With this and other fundamental ideal he goes on to put forth two principles of justice: First that there has to be equal liberties for all. Second, some inequalities are inevitable and they are of two types. The first inequality is that the most deserving persons should be appointed to positions of power so that societies concerns are carried forward in the best possible way and the second inequality is that while taking decisions the most vulnerable persons or subgroups interest should be maximized. The latter inequality is not a trade-off with better of individuals but rather preempts trade-offs where the interest of better-off is maximized by disregarding the interests of the worse-off.

Getting back to the trip. Our earlier schedule (the one that  I received by email before leaving India) for 20 May 2011 was an evaluation day. But, there was no such official evaluation and it was a free day. We decided to go on a tour of Boston. Just outside Marriott Cambridge, where we were staying, towards the Kendal Station side is also the bus stop for local tours.  At first the person wanted to sell us a ticket for 42 dollars. When we were a little hesitant then he said that he can reduce it to 39 dollars meant for students or give us ticket for another provided that is for 30 dollars - the difference being that the frequency of the latter bus is 20 minutes whereas that of the former is 10 minutes. Again, the latter ticket could also be used for two consecutive days and if we want a ticket for a single day then it would be 24 dollars. We decided for the single day and when we boarded the first bus we were told that we can use this ticket for the  next day also  because some logistics meant that there will be no services for this tour after 2.30 pm on our first day. Of course we did not need it on the second day.

Our first stop was Boston commons (a place traditionally used by farmers to graze their cattle) and one where there are people dressed in 18th century attire and explaining to people about the freedom trail.  It was nice to see the history being told and retold to groups of attentive children.

The second stop was harbor from where we took a boat ride and  were told about Boston's historic significance in maritime trade and some industry that developed but they no longer exist . We got off on  the other side of the harbor at Charles Town where there is a US Naval Meuseum and took the bus ride to Trinity church  near Copley square surrounded by the Westin Hotel, the Public Library and the the Old South church. There was a farmers market in the square and from a baker came to know that they also barter with fellow sellers. This is done at the end of the day when there is a mutual interest and at times they may also sell in exchange for coupons. A coupon is a guarantee given by the farmers market association in exchange for produce sold to those customers who paid by credit card at a central point. In the market one also met a Maple syrup seller from Vermont.

Back in the hotel had a long discussion with Sarthak. He is currently  at Wharton School,  University of Pennsylvania and had planned a visit to Boston to match mine. Both of us talked about  his thesis  and other work that we are doing and walked down to MIT and Harvard and took picture with John Harvard and then took a train back to Kendall and had a nice dinner at The Legal Seafood and discussed about size-class productivity in Indian agriculture late into the night.

On 21 May 2010 my flight was scheduled at 10.15 in the night, but checked out from the hotel at 12 noon. Our luggage was stored and we were given access to the business center but as one of the co-participants,  had a flight in the afternoon and as it is the same waiting in the lobby or at the airport, I  left early.  This  has added to the jet lag and though I am tired I am not able to sleep, and hence, this post. There is lot of work pending but that needs some rest before I start.

The whole experience has been wonderful. Nevertheless, the first feeling when back in  amchi Mumbai is sare jahan se acha hindustan hamara.

Utility: Use and Abuse

Philosophical roots of utility or utilitarianism dates to Jeremy Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1781 and John Stewart Mill's Utilitarianism, 1863. This reigned supreme, and in a sense still does, but for John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, 1971.

Lest I deviate further, my current concerns are more as a student, rather my sticky wicket as a teacher, of Economics, as I fail to understand utility.

While in school, when my teacher explained the diminishing marginal utility it looked fine. More and more of the same item (say, mangoes) will give me less and less utility. It looked fine and still does if your thoughts don't go astray. One can eat one mango every day then it would increase utility for having more and more of the same. It does not hold for money or maybe even for items like diamond.

My major concern today is that I woke up in my dream trying to understand utility. A middle-aged young person, could be me, left from home for work after having a lavish breakfast without mangoes, but at the work place saw mangoes that were smelling nice and immediately took and ate one, a sense of desire-fulfillment, it increased utility.

At work, the person had to sell fruits, including mangoes, and besides getting a fixed wage the person also had a share in the amount of fruit sold. To maximize income, the person tried to sell more fruits by convincing the buyers about the merits of the fruit. For mangoes, the king of fruits, the person tried telling about its taste and value, knowing fully well, and having tasted it a while ago, that unseasonal mangoes during monsoon are not that tasty. Nevertheless the person continued with the story as it was convincing for many buyers and this would increase money income, and hence, utility.

At the end of the day, before closing shop, the person came across some poor children begging for food and to whom, out of concern and also to atone for the lies told during the day, the person gave some mangoes. It gave mental satisfaction on helping the needy, and hence, increased utility.

Utility got enhanced through desire-fulfillment, increasing money income and mental satisfaction. Do all these increase utility. Yes, of course, but in different ways. Are they one and the same? Can we reduce them to a single measure? No, definitely not. Again, this takes me to my school maths teacher who drove into our heads that mangoes and marbles cannot be added together. It will be disutility (if one can use the term) to the concept of utility.

Economics needs a scientific revolution: a comment

The essay Economics needs a scientific revolution by Jean-Philippe Bouchaud has been published in 30 October 2008 issue of Nature 455, 1181, is stimulating and an interesting read. It points out the inability of mainstream economics or financial engineering to either predict or avert a crisis.

This outcome is a result of the huge divide between normative (theory) and positive (empirical) economics. In the process, as Bouchaud indicates, assumption have taken the form of axioms: rational economic agents maximize profits, each agent's pursuit of profit is also best for society and markets are efficient that through prices reflect all known information. At best, these results are about some ideal situations, which do not exist in real life. Striving for a particular ideal situation is one thing, but considering that the features of this ideal system are a part of the real life situation is another. It takes us to a belief system.

Adhering to a belief system can make updating of knowledge difficult. For instance, Tycho Brahe, who despite being credited for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations, could not entirely got out of the Geocentric model that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. It was his assistant, Johannes Kepler, who used the observations and came out with his three laws of planetary motion that conclusively showed that the Copernican system, Sun is at the centre, is correct.

There are no two opinions that a scientific inquiry requires a questioning mind. If required, questioning the very premises by cross checking with empirical observations. The reign of empiricism is in a Bayesian world. A minimum requirement for this is that your prior cannot be certain - you cannot begin with a belief system. The reason is that if your prior is either zero or unity, then whatever be your observation, your posterior will be equal to your prior (see my working paper Understanding Fundamentalist Belief Through Bayesian Updating. All empirical observations become irrelevant.

True, the models used by contemporary mainstream economics fail to explain how small perturbations can have 'wild' impacts. It is not true that fringe attempts by econo-physicists (including Bouchaud himself) and behavioural economists are not being taken seriously. Paul Ormerod's Butterfly Economics that followed the East Asian Crisis is a best seller (aside - most Economists may not know of this). Daniel Kanheman, a behavioural economist, received the Nobel in 2002. There have been some hiccups, but then many prominent economists have done work on asymmetric information, uncertainty and missing market that cannot be brushed aside.

Having largely agreed with Bouchaud, I point out some differences. First, inability to predict and avert a crisis cannot be a basis to gauge a discipline's success or failure. Just as the space shuttle Columbia's disaster on 1 February 2003 cannot be construed to be a measure of judging Aeronautics and Space research, the current financial crisis cannot be a measure of judging Economics. Crisis or disaster by nature is rare and not predictable. Like the violation of some safety regulations in the Columbia disaster the current global financial crisis, to put it simply, is an outcome of greed by some players who manipulated the markets for their advantages. Modelling apart, an economic system should have effective regulation to safeguard us against possible disasters.

Second, understanding the market with more appropriate tools and techniques of modelling is necessary, but it is more important to acknowledge that market is a tool, albeit, an important one. It is a means, but not an end in itself. This is the approach of the larger human development paradigm, which is people-centric.

Third, which in a way is related to the previous point, is that the dominance of utilitarianism, and hence, of markets in economics, was first successfully challenged by a prominent moral philosopher of the 20th century, John Rawls. He argued against the monoconcentration of utilitarianism and its associated formulaic reductionism in favour of plural concerns. On his concerns of justice his focus was on the least advantaged while assigning priorities to equal liberties and equal opportunities (that is, against arbitrary privileges). This is made possible by invoking the original position, that is, by putting decision makers under a veil of ignorance - they do not know which group they belong to. This in essence does away with vested interests. Thus, the silent scientific revolution, which goes beyond Economics, is already under way.