Nilu's smartest move

was to get Avataram to write for his new blog. Why do I say this? Read on.

This piece gets rave reviews here and here. Now blogger no. 1 unabashedly loves everything that Mint publishes but I was a little surprised to see Aadisht recommending the "Bangalore is Coasian" line. I read the piece, and wasn't interested at all. I tried to figure out why - one obvious reason is that one could replace Bangalore by Gurgaon in the article and it would still remain the same in its substantive claim. Or one could replace Bangalore by Nagpur and have no answers to why Nagpur doesn't fit the claims. The article reduced Bangalore to a syntactic tool, devoid of any semantic significance. It doesn't answer the fundamental "Why Bangalore?".

But I was still searching for THE reason I disliked the piece. Avataram provides the answer, in a short piece that explains the title of my post. Of course, this is it. ALL cities are Coasian, dammit all forms of organization are Coasian. In the memorable words of Prof. Datta, even marriage is an institution that minimizes transaction costs. Thus, an argument along the lines of 'outsourcing is Coasian, Bangalore is all about outsourcing and hence Bangalore is Coasian" is so superficial that it does not even begin to scrape any surface whatsoever.

Avataram also has this sagely advice from Wittgenstein's Tractacus to offer - one which I'll try to follow more often - “Wovon man nicht sprechen Kann daruber muss mann schweigen” - “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent”.

I'm convinced. Recursive Hypocrisy is so much better off with Avataram. Nilu has indeed made the smartest move he would ever make.