I have been on a bit of a binge writing out 4x 700-800 word articles in the last 12 hours or so, just to share how sad / angry / agitated it makes me when we make decisions about "public goods" from a purely economic lens.

While it may seem like I live in and need to be saved from a leftist utopia (I probably do!), I am here to write my final piece for the day (one hopes) and make a humble case that thinking beyond pure economics alone is not a tool of the left alone; in fact at its best, it has been deployed by the creme de la creme of capitalists-- they just benefit from us not reflecting on it or God forbid, replicating it.

Think about it!

  • Could there have been an economic case for GDS? I mean sure, there is a business case-- but could it have been any stronger than the business case for decentralisation?
  • Same goes for Aadhar in India. Surely they could not have projected that they will reap the benefits within 5-10 years of implementing Aadhar!
  • Even the Fintech sandbox in the UK to some extent. I mean sure yes, there was a clear business case; but not stronger than one for a Health sandbox. So why didn't healthtech sandbox and investments accelerate the way Fintech did even post-COVID?

So, how did these things come to be? If you've not already come across this, you should read the GDS story, especially the letter Martha Lane Fox wrote to the then Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude. It called for "revolution, not evolution".

While we may not have public documentation of this, it isn't hard to imagine that that is probably how Aadhar and the Fintech sandbox came to be as well: for Aadhar, we even know someone like Martha Lane Fox who championed it and led the way: Infosys and India's very own Nandan Nilekeni!

Of course, not everyone has the credibility, track record, and authority of a Martha Lane Fox or Nandan Nilekeni or Greta Thunberg for that matter. However, when the timing is right (in other words, when there's just about enough crisis and chaos as was the case with the Financial Crisis in '08, the Climate Crisis these last few/many years,...), one would hope that someone of their ranks rises to the occasion and convenes the sector to act more responsibly.

Arguably, that has started to happen with Climate as well as AI. However, perhaps surprisingly, it still hasn't happened to the scale it should with Health or even Justice. Could it be that influential voices often come from a certain amount of privilege and so health and justice issues do not affect them as dearly as finance and digital transformation? Could it be that there's not money to make in those industries?

I am not here to propose an answer or even a hypothesis. I am truly seeking perspectives and seeking to understand: what would it take for a real-life Jackson Avery or Meredith Grey to gain as much momentum and public support as their televised characters have? I mean we already have them in people like Dame Sarah Gilbert and Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy; where is the funding and public sector backing to protect them and propel their work as the idols and transformational innovations they're!

By reserving the rights to act without an economic evidence base for innovators and idols with a certain economic track record, we're depriving ourselves of transformative innovations in domains that hurt us the most; because make no mistake, no transformative innovation ever came out of a cost-benefit analysis-- if it is truly transformative, there shouldn't be enough historical evidence for us to project the costs and benefits accurately.

Of course, I am still not denying the need for cost-benefit analyses (I still need to make a living lol); there's still a time and place for continuous learning, improvement, and innovation. However, some times, what we need is a revolution, not just an evolution. <THE END>