QuoteProject
One problem with globalisation is that bad ideas seem to travel faster than good ones; first there was smearing tomato ketchup on everything; then drinking sugar-soaked cocktails ('Cosmo'-politanism) instead of our traditional whisky soda, and now this idea that we should abandon the poor to their fate in order to protect their dignity.
Abhijit Banerjee
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Globalisation can spread harmful ideas more rapidly than beneficial ones.

Abhijit Banerjee critiques globalisation by highlighting how negative concepts can quickly gain popularity, overshadowing positive traditions. He points out that this trend has led to a misguided notion that abandoning the poor is somehow a way to protect their dignity, illustrating the dangers of adopting flawed ideas without critical scrutiny.

Themes

GlobalisationIdeasCultureTraditionPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the impacts of globalisation, one might reference this quote to discuss the spread of negative cultural trends.

More from Abhijit Banerjee

We need to learn to work with political systems that are not perfect instead of taking the view: let's first fix the politics, then we'll fix the rest.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
Here is an entirely banal idea that I think has the potential to change the world: Take evidence seriously. Taking evidence seriously does not mean privileging numbers over all other forms of knowledge - theories, narratives, images. Nor does it mean the kind of radical skepticism that questions everything to the point where no action is possible.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
In the development business doing something for both women and the environment is the equivalent of holding a royal flush in poker.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
Will we make all poverty history? No. But can we solve some of these extreme and egregious forms of poverty? I think yes, and we should.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
The Korean government is the first to declare that if you replace people with machines you have to pay a tax. It's a tax on robots. They make private companies internalise the social cost of unemployment. Social benefit is not the same as private benefit. We have to realise this.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead
Most farmers know that their children's future will probably not be in agriculture, but they have a hard time imagining a different life.
Abhijit BanerjeeRead

Similar quotes

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
Thomas JeffersonRead
It is the business of future to be dangerous.... The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
Man is supposed to be the maker of his destiny. It is only partly true. He can make his destiny, only in so far as he is allowed by the Great Power.
Mahatma GandhiRead
The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters.
Oswald ChambersRead
How little we have, I thought, between us and the waiting cold, the mystery, death--a strip of beach, a hill, a few walls of wood or stone, a little fire--and tomorrow's sun, rising and warming us, tomorrow's hope of peace and better weather . . . What if tomorrow vanished in the storm? What if time stood still? And yesterday--if once we lost our way, blundered in the storm--would we find yesterday again ahead of us, where we had thought tomorrow's sun would rise?
Robert NathanRead
There is magic in my universe, but it's pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.
George R. R. MartinRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.