At 19:25 30/06/98 +0001, you wrote: >Did anyone else read this paper? It was a very interesting exercize on >the difficulty of moving up the value chain. Shouldn't we take up this >issue? > -- >Michael Perelman __________ So Anthony, are you saying that capital still has a home? Cheers, ajit sinha --------------------------------------------------- Sorry for this belated message. A 19 month old keeps me rather busy in a very relaxed environment in Bangalore! If you mean capital (singular) then it has many homes. Contrary to popular perceptions, Indian capital is not that weak (here I use capital as a social relation with its attendant foundational strength). The Indian software industry is doing extremely well (50% growth per annum for the last 5 years or so) and is expected to continue for at least the next five to ten years. However, since accumulation is significantly dependent on the means of production, Indian accumulation is constrained by limited "know-how" and "know-why". This of course a result of the classic demand constraint (narrow markets). Paradoxically, the technical knowledge for the software industry (even the high end work) is not lacking in India. What is weak are financial clout (deep pockets), marketing strategy (limited exposure), and project management (pure organizational competence). The irony is that success of the industry is not leading to the deepening of the sector (very low R&D) because the domestic sector is weak and the export market strong. The lucrative foreign sector for the moment is ruling out alternatives to export markets. This does not mean that the Indian s/w sector is not moving up the value chain. They are but only in a limited way. They will move up as more designing gets under way and once the doemstic sector gets going, which it must as industrial and financial capital becomes more mature. There is then an emergence of competing capital (to the hegemonic ones). Cheers, Anthony
