A young man cheated on one of the assignments. His professor referred the case to the relevant committee for investigation and adjudication. At that time, I was the manager. The young man’s mother called me and asked to see me, even though I explained that the case was before the relevant committee and that I could not intervene in the process. She came with one of her brothers and began to tell them that she had lost her husband and her father’s youth. I offered my condolences, but also pointed out that this doesn’t really explain why this young man had an affair, since her husband died many years ago.
She wasn’t thrilled with my reaction. Then she said: “It was just cheating. What’s the big deal? It happens all the time in Pakistan. Don’t you live in Pakistan?”
When this rant didn’t help, she went on to say that one of her brothers is a senior civil servant and the other a senior military officer, and what the consequences would be if she insisted on pursuing the matter further. I said I must be aware of what will happen. At that point I had to ask her to leave the office.
When I told others about this incident, the typical response was, “This is Pakistan.” What did you expect? where do you live? ‘
How does demanding quality work become a citizenship issue?
I live in Pakistan and have spent most of my life here. Pakistan is also home to more than 240 million people, and they come in all shapes and sizes. No matter how normalized or institutionalized cheating becomes, why should we accept it as normal? And that some people, and it’s not just some people, but many people? I’m sure, but if we don’t accept cheating as normal, why does it leave a question mark on their citizenship and ability to live, survive, and thrive in this society? It seems to me that such discussions are a haven for those who do not have arguments.
Recently I was reminded of this idea from a completely different realm. We are currently undergoing some renovation work at our house. The masons and others involved in the renovation work say they will arrive at 8am, but they don’t show up until 11am. If so, even though they don’t have a daily wage contract, they work at a snail’s pace, are very cavalier about cleanliness, have to constantly be reminded of things, and (literally) have to be constantly supervised to work. and tries to make money in any way possible in its procurement and/or use. It’s as if nothing they say can be trusted. When we talked to their boss about it, after the first interaction, his answer was: “This is Pakistan. It doesn’t happen like this here. Where do you think you live? Did you really live in Pakistan?”
Why is not showing up to work on time a personality trait? How is demanding quality work a citizenship issue?
The fundamental problem seems to be different. What can you do if the tailor doesn’t deliver your clothes on time? Breach of verbal promises or contracts, and in Pakistan often even written contracts, can result in penalties for the party who breaches the contract. parties are unlikely to take the contract seriously if it is not affected by this. That would be convenient for them.
What can you do if the mason is late? You can yell at him, and if he’s smart, he can say “sorry” but continue doing what’s convenient for him. Sho. You can fire the mason and change the tailor, but the cost in terms of finding a replacement and building new relationships can be significant. If a mason or tailor has enough customers and knows that it will cost a lot of money to find a replacement, then the mason or tailor has some leeway. Even if you keep shouting, he keeps hearing and not hearing, and the work continues the same way.
This is an interesting and important imperfection in the market. If actions have consequences—for example, if there is a central information portal that rates all masons and tailors, and low ratings affect the jobs a mason or tailor gets—his or her would care.
Imagine the devastating impact of reputational damage. If the delivery of clothing to her one customer is delayed by her one day, it means a complete loss of reputation and all future tailoring work. Do you think that under these circumstances the tailor cannot deliver on time unless there are extremely compelling circumstances that are permitted in most contracts? Of course, this is an extreme scenario to make the point. However, providers will consider the extent of the reputational damage caused by breach of contract.
Of course, legal remedies may exist for such violations, but the law is an unwieldy, time-consuming, and expensive means of addressing the problem. Unless the matter is serious and involves significant monetary or other losses, it seems impractical and overreach to invoke the law in such matters. It must involve potential business loss due to reputational impact. This doesn’t make the system work well in all cases, but it does make things better, in the same way that ratings for things like Airbnb and Uber work. There’s room for unresolved issues, but it’s better than having no reputational impact from bad deliveries.
This will cure this righteous attitude of asking about someone’s citizenship and implying that the other person is unfit to live, live and thrive in Pakistan by saying this is how things are done in Pakistan. .
The author is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Alternative Development Economics and an associate professor of economics at Rams University.
Published at Dawn on April 26, 2024
