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- 12 canons of "Indian-ness."
- "low trustworthiness."
- Privately, Indians are reasonably smart - in fact, we are as smart as anybody else - but publicly we are dumb.
- The prisoner's dilemma
- Our situation is such that we believe that if we do not cooperate, we benefit more. We put ourselves in the other person's situation: We ask, if he does not cooperate, why should I? If he cooperates, it may still be in my interest not to cooperate, because I benefit by not cooperating.
- The prisoner's dilemma also explains why Indian companies often fail in joint ventures. We tend to be over-argumentative and often look out for our own narrow advantage rather than trying to make the venture succeed.
- If I have to see two moves ahead, I may do just fine, but if I have to see 10 moves ahead, I may not. Public interest is like seeing 10 moves ahead, while seeking out private advantage is like seeing two moves ahead.
- "tit-for-tat" strategy.
- Essentially, I keep cooperating in every interaction until you defect. In the following interaction, I too defect, remembering our last interaction. Now it is up to you to decide whether to cooperate or not. If you cooperate, I go back to cooperating as well.
- "massive retaliator,"
- The tit-for-tat strategy does not have a long memory. It is forgiving. It is a good strategy in the sense that it is never the first one to defect, but at the same time it retaliates against defectors.
- I show in the book that the tit-for-tat strategy never wins against any one individual.
- and so I call this the "gentleman's strategy."
- random-defect strategy
- the example of the TVS Group
- When the war ended, however, the traders who had profiteered from the shortage went out of business one after another; today no one remembers those companies. But the TVS Group survived, and it continues to be recognized as a valuable company.
- better corporate governance,
- self-regulation is molded by regulation
- As I said above, we are like lightning chess players and a little too quick to see where our immediate self-interest lies. When we think we can get away with something and the probability of getting caught is low, we tend to do whatever we want to do.
- I realized that the Gita has a lot of things which help resolve the prisoner's dilemma readily. For example, if you do your dharma [duty] towards humanity, the level of cooperation could be much higher.
- As India's economy improves and education spreads, I hope defection will be replaced by cooperation.
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