Aug 21 2024 to Aug 21 2024 6:30 p.m.
EVENT HAS ENDED
7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071
What went wrong with capitalism? Ruchir Sharma’s account is not like any you will have heard before. He says progressives are right, in part, when they mock modern capitalism as “socialism for the rich.” For a century, governments have expanded in just about every measurable dimension, from spending to regulation and the scale of financial rescues when the economy wobbles. The result is expensive state guarantees for everyone—bailouts for the rich, entitlements for the middle class, welfare for the poor. Taking you back to the 19th century, Sharma shows how completely the reflexes of government have changed: from hands-off to hands-on, from doing too little to help anyone in hard times to today trying to prevent anyone from suffering any economic pain, ever. Trading sins of omission and indifference for excesses of spending and meddling, governments from the United States to Europe and Japan have pumped so much money into their economies that financial markets can no longer invest all that capital efficiently. Inadvertently, they have fueled the rise of monopolies, “zombie” firms, and billionaires. They have made capitalism less fair and inefficient, slowing economic growth and fueling popular anger. The first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis of the problem. Capitalism has been badly distorted by constant government intervention and the relentless spread of a bailout culture. Building an even bigger state will only double down on what ruined capitalism in the first place.
The author, Ruchir Sharma, will converse with the Chairman and Co-founder, of Infosys and Founding Chairman of UIDAI (Aadhaar), Nandan Nilekani. A Q&A session with the audience will follow.
Speakers
Ruchir Sharma Author
Ruchir Sharma is Chairman of Rockefeller International and Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Breakout Capital, an investment firm focused on emerging markets. He moved to Rockefeller in 2022 after a 25-year career at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where he was Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist. Sharma has been a writer for longer than he has been an investor. At age 17 he started writing for India’s largest economic daily, The Economic Times. His commentary has since appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Bloomberg and The Guardian, among others. He was a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times from 2016 to 2021 and is currently a contributing editor and columnist at the Financial Times. Sharma is the author of five books: What Went Wrong with Capitalism was published by Simon & Schuster in 2024; The 10 Rules of Successful Nations, was published by Norton in 2020 as an updated adaptation of The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World, which was released in 2016 and became a New York Times best seller. In 2012, his first book, Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles, debuted as the number one bestseller in India, and earned Sharma the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award for 2012. Breakout Nations also made the Wall Street Journal hardcover business bestseller list, and was chosen by Foreign Policy as one of its “21 Books to Read in 2012”.
Nandan Nilekani Chairman and Co-founder, Infosys and Founding Chairman UIDAI (Aadhaar)
Nandan Nilekani is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited. He was the Founding Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in the rank of Cabinet Minister from 2009- 2014. Nandan has co-founded and is the Chairman of EkStep Foundation, a not-for-profit effort to create a learner-centric, technology-based platform to improve basic literacy and numeracy for millions of children. In Jan 2023, he was appointed as the co-chair of the “G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development”. Born in Bengaluru, Nilekani received his Bachelor’s degree from IIT, Bombay. Fortune Magazine conferred him with “Asia’s Businessman of the year 2003”. In 2005 he received the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter prize for innovative services in economy, economic sciences and politics. In 2006, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. He was also named Businessman of the year by Forbes Asia. In 2014, He won The Economist Social & Economic Innovation Award for his leadership of India’s Unique Identification initiative (Aadhaar). In 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from E & Y. He has been inducted as International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019. Business Standard Annual awards 2022 conferred, “The Life Time Achievement Award”. Nandan Nilekani is the author of Imagining India, co-authored his second book with Viral Shah, Rebooting India: Realizing a Billion Aspirations and co-authored his third book with Tanuj Bhojwani, The Art of Bitfulness: Keeping Calm in the Digital World, released in Jan 2022.