Click for source (I'm too lazy to put up my own, but this is pretty much what I see every day)
If you’ve spent quality time in a developing country, you know how ubiquitous the middle man is. Want to get something done without doing it yourself? Get a servant, he’ll be your middle man. He’ll go to the market for you, wash your clothes, call your rickshaw in the morning.
He’ll also be totally dependent on you, and so will his family.
There’s always someone here in India just waiting to be your middle man. I’m here studying public health and HIV issues in the country, through an organization called CFHI, and even then, there are a few middle men who are happy to throw their hats in the ring, do a little work, and make a cut of the money we paid for the program. Often, what looks at first to be hospitality and kindness (sure, we’ll arrange this for you…) may actually be someone trying to insert himself as your middle man. Like the tour guides at Indian monuments who promise to tell you all about the historical site you’re visiting (and take your picture with their Polaroid cameras for a nominal charge), the plots that middle men hatch are usually harmless to you and me. In fact, middle men are dependent on the lumbering economy of developing countries; if it wasn’t so poor, they’d be out of jobs (read on).
One of the things that concerns me about all of this is that with the presence of middle men, money is often going into the Wrong Hands. It’s harmless when an entirely unofficial, self-proclaimed tour guide charges you 50 rupees to tell you all about the Taj Mahal. He'll use that money to feed his wife and kids, and probably to buy some paan, tobacco or alcohol. But there are many cases where middle men are not simply people trying to make a living, but rather middle class or upper middle class trying to get something for nothing. They have more resources and can thus get away with more. It's most despicable in a country with so much need, but I suppose that way of looking at things is illogical. We are, after all, talking about the human being (a creature best suited to looking only after himself).
There’s the shady business that marks up prices or sells counterfeit goods (No really, it’s authentic Adidas, ma’am. Two year warranty.). Meanwhile, people running an honest business are not financially rewarded for their efforts, despite how valuable his or her good work is for the country’s economy as a whole. India is chock full of merchants—so many on every corner, selling the same thing (or close to it) as the guy next to him. No one is regulating these people. They’re free agents, ready to play the middle man to some unsuspecting customer (especially foreigners, national or international). Customers rely on these middle men for their goods…in India, there are very few supermarkets where you can get centralized pricing and dependable, brand-name goods. You still get your milk in a plastic bag from the merchant on the street. You still pick up mangoes from a bullock cart on the way home from work. You still drink lime juice from the man with the rusty machine by the subway. Unless, of course, you are upper middle class and know better.
So what’s the solution? Bring in the supermarkets with their fixed prices? That is indeed what’s happening; there are more food markets now, selling goods for lower prices (and all under one AC roof). Is this a good thing? Well, considering fixed prices (as opposed to bargaining over a pound of apples) and convenience, yes, it’s a good thing. But in light of the vast middle man market in India, many, many livelihoods are lost when a big corporation rolls out a new supermarket. All of a sudden, thousands of street merchants in one city alone see drastic reductions in their business. Now, the middle class housewife (yes, India has a tiny but growing middle class) can get her water, tea, juices, produce, ice cream and other sundries at a branded supermarket. And she will. Of course, she pays a price—the meats are no longer antibiotic-free, and the produce is no longer organic. Family farmers suffer too, because street merchants are no longer selling as much, so they’re not buying goods from the rural farmer. The whole mechanism is undercut, and more money goes into the wrong hands. The irony is that all this is happening in the name of development.
The real solution, I think, is to massively upgrade people’s skill sets. This is happening, but it needs to trickle down in a big way. Some people are able to afford the IT re-training sessions and English lessons that are advertised all over Delhi these days. So many are not. The rickshaw pullers, street vendors, servants…maybe it’s too late for them, maybe they don’t want to re-train, but certainly, their children should have a decent shot at it.
The government needs to realign its priorities. They aren’t pro-poor, from what I’ve gathered. Of course, in a country with a billion people…we all know that excuse. But there comes a time when you stop excusing and start doing. India is in dire need of creative solutions. They need a watershed system here, but it’s no use talking about an underground system of pipes like we have in the U.S. They need innovative thinkers. Even if an underground scheme is the only solution, how do we execute it? Certainly not in a planned way, before cities are sprung…urban squalor is everywhere. They need to educate their people, and provide health care for them. They need to invest in their poorest. I wrote this on my global health blog. Now I’m seeing it with my own eyes, and I’m saying, the government must educate its children who are eating, playing, showering, and defecating, living their lives out on the streets. Maybe then, what it means to be a middle man for the staggering poor in this country will improve.
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