On Market Places and Market Spaces

By Yavnika Khanna

Yavnika Khanna takes the readers to two places which typify the contrasts and diversity of a metropolis like New Delhi, the political, cultural and commercial heartbeat of India.  These places and descriptors will assist you to understand the complex beauty of markets and the distortions that mar the essence of market based systems.

9 a.m., and the sails of the town are still down. It probably had a late night as it is. Mangy puppies wrestle on empty roads. Only a few vendors are constructing their makeshift stalls with cardboard shoe boxes and wooden planks. At 10 am their wares are out-cheap but shiny shoes, glossy ties, random CDs, old books and print cartridges.  The true meaning of the word ‘miscellaneous’ unfurls before me.  At 11 am, Nehru Place is abuzz with all kinds of folks: the office workers, the peons wearing khaki uniforms, the business man sporting gold chains and black sunglasses. Most come to trade or purchase or search for the latest pirated software, assembled hardware, assorted peripherals and ‘pre-loved’ gadgets.  You can see how much goes on in these cramped offices in graying apartment like-buildings.

At lunch you will be amazed at how fully-packed the roadsides eateries are. One will witness noxious crowds relishing food available for a few rupees. The rest of the afternoon continues at a racy pace, not slowing down unlike other parts of the Capital. 5 p.m. onwards, the nearby cinema halls, Satyam and Paras entertain those who want to sit back and relax with cheese –sprayed pop-corn. Some seek a silent recluse at the Baha’I temple, an impressive structure shaped like a lotus.  With the spanking new Metro station in place, the crowd tumbles out of trains all through, till the last train at 11 PM. I used to work in Nehru place several years ago. I recall a severe limitation of lunching options. I notice that now the area has swanky new food courts with Italian and Lebanese eating joints.

Nehru Place has always beleaguered me. From the outside it seems to me a dense underbelly of commerce and a Mecca for piracy. On closer examination, it seems to be a commercial hub, like a whole nation in itself: a diverse and bubbling nation quite like India, where the well- heeled trudge along the same brick-laid plaza as street urchins, with the same frantic pace.  Where the archaic co-exists with the modern. You can almost smell competition in the air. Be it the Sony Vaio owner, iPhone enthusiast, the investment banker, the smalltime entrepreneur, the UK Immigrant Visa aspirant or the street vendor: the belly of Nehru Place ensconces everybody’s dreams…and daily bread.

These days, I enjoy early morning strolls at Connaught Place (C.P), built during the colonial rule. If ever Delhi had a downtown like other urban centers, this would be it. It is the modern power center of India: with close proximity to The Parliament, Rashatrapati Bhawan, India Gate (a tribute to the martyrs), the by lanes of Janpath and close enough to 7, Race Course Road (the Prime minister’s residence). With an impressive pin code of 110001, C.P boasts of the newest developments in Delhi. The mornings at CP are eventful enough for some deep musings. You will see newbie lovers occupying stray benches. You will see sweepers sweep the streets carelessly. You will see homeless drug addicts strewn on the streets: just heaps of bodies destroyed by habit. You will see bands of beggars finding their spot for the day’s beggary. You will see merchants opening the shutters of shops, which were earlier stalls and were legalized as part of the “Commonwealth Games beautification drive”. Do not miss the new cafes that have popped up, much to the delight of lawyers, bankers and media persons who work round the clock in the vicinity.

Through my lens, I see markets as a microcosm of human and social behavior. What we see, are just the market places and market players. They may be in brick and mortar or virtual spaces. What are intangibles working insidious are the market forces. Adam Smith calls these forces the “invisible hand”. I am often amused by people who opine that markets are evil. It seems they do not fully understand what the market is. What constitutes the market and what does economics do for us and to us?

We are the market. We need, buy, sell, consume, bargain, discard, create, earn, save, search reuse & loan. Economics is all about interactions between people and value. Yes, often economists confuse us with jargon, but at the center of it you will find the concepts of value creation and destruction. When people or entrepreneurs create value for consumers and grab a profit, they are rightfully indulging in value creation. When governments squander our tax money on ineffective public good schemes, they are destroying value.  Each day we reap the benefit of markets or get punished by value destroyers. We experience the repercussions of individual choices and collective decisions.

Market assumes that individuals are voluntarily capable of creating and destroying appropriate value. However, in reality, we see value creation constrained by vested interests of authorities, lawlessness and undefined, arbitrary rules of the game.  Competition expands the scope of innovation or enhancements in value. Often, value creators do not recognize it and resort to cartelization or unionization, which in net effect negates innovation. When government or authorities regulate (e.g. impose tax or a fee, demand a bribe or guard access) to intervene they destroy value created by the players of the market.  The result is market inefficiencies and distortions.

So, next time you decide to need, buy, sell, consume, bargain, discard, create, earn, save, search reuse or loan, think about how you are the market than just discarding it as a notion where merely the mafia, scams and nexus abound. Think about who adds value and who extracts it from the system. Think not only of market places but market spaces.

Yavnika Khanna is currently the Regional Leader for Students for Liberty in Asia. She has been the founder member and elected National Coordinator of Liberal Youth Forum- India (lyfindia.org). She has served delegate at various prestigious global platforms including International Students Committee, World Business Dialogue and South American Business Forum. She has been a presenter at many global forums, including at the Asia Liberty and Economic Forum in Jakarta. She is a graduate of the International Leadership Academy, Germany. Besides a bachelor’s degree in Business Studies from Delhi University she is an M.B.A from KJ Somaiya Institute of Management and Research. She holds more than 5 years of professional experience with various international consultancies. She is currently employed as a project manager at Capgemini Consulting.