The World’s Poor, the Good Life, and the Market

Socrates was not exactly referring to refrigerators and microwave ovens when he talked about the good life. But he would have approved of the great inventions that our civilization has produced, especially in science and technology. Human beings now have great tools with which to conquer the harsh forces of nature. Human living has been made a lot easier. And once the basic functions of human living are attended to, the life of the mind can then be nourished.

But this blog is not about political philosophy. It’s about economics.
When a poor farmer living in a remote village in India was interviewed by a market researcher about what new products he wanted to buy in the next six months, he said, “I want to buy a refrigerator, and my wife wants a microwave oven.” Imagine the implications!

In this article, “Marketers’ Next Frontier: Rural India,” market researchers have discovered a new frontier for the market. As they combed through the countryside to study “the consumption habits and aspirations of villagers,” their findings, collected over the past three years, “promise a new frontier that could transform the way domestic and foreign businesses look at the Indian market and could offer them hundreds of millions of potential consumers.”

If two-thirds of the world’s population are below poverty line, that’s 2/3 of the world’s untapped market. Talks about recession and overproduction of goods these days seem out of place in the context of these infinite possibilities. We just need good ideas, good rules informed by the rule of law, and honest enforcers of those rules to make this world a better place for everyone.