On Technology, Capitalism And Dissent

As a reader and writer of books, I was naturally interested in the ToI editorial today on the new phenomenon in book publishing: e-books. Technology seems to have created a book-reader billed as “the I-Pod of books.” I welcome the development. I only hope that the e-book provides a good reading experience. If so, I can only predict that books will get cheaper, and more books will be read. Win-win.

In particular, the greatest benefit will be to the traveler. When I travel, my bags are inevitably heavier because of the many books I always carry. Recently, I took my German brother-in-law, Jurgen, who was visiting from Stuttgart, on a tour of the bookshops in New Delhi’s Khan Market. He had a problem buying all the books he liked because his bags were already full of the books he had carried along to read on the trip. With e-books, the entire picture will change.

The ToI edit predicts the end of paper-and-ink books in a decade. That might be a bit hasty. How exactly the “gales of creative destruction” will hit the publishing industry cannot be accurately predicted. All that can be said is that the ultimate decisions rest on the consumers, those who buy books. As long as there exist consumers for paper-and-ink books, these will continue to be sold. I do believe such consumers will always remain. I myself much prefer paper-and-ink to reading pdf books on the computer. And books grace my shelves in a manner that e-books can never do.

Yet, an I-Pod for books sounds great.

Three cheers for technology.

And four cheers for Capitalism, without which technology cannot serve the consumers; that is, cannot earn profits for the inventors, entrepreneurs and promoters. When we cheer for technology, we must always simultaneously cheer for Capitalism.

Not much else to write about today. We all await the results of the elections, due on Saturday the 16th. The world’s biggest democratic exercise will be over. But let us never forget the heroic dissenters – like the medical doctor Binyak Sen who is languishing in jail. Salil Tripathi’s column on the plight of Sen is timely, and well worth a read.