The old guard is an institutional problem in societies that have an information access & disparity issue. Think of it like the 1% but with their own Govt, military,civil services & political access along with preferential treatment & patronage to always be able to jump the queue

We have a serious old guard issue. Where patronage and circle jerking are competitive sports. People dont talk about it so long as they benefit from it. We some how misconstrued respect with ones title and linked it tot heir station in society vs their contribution to society.

We confused wealth with status vs ones ability to pay taxes to build a national narrative where people lead by example. We hero worshipped those who got breadcrumbs from the colonial times and became local feudal or worse, at the continued cost of our middle class today.

The British Raj was a polarizing force whose beneficiaries and affectees' are well within sight today. I remember reading how the boys giving rides on mules to the British. “Two anna, two anna, two anna per ride.” The British Sahibs and their wives rewarded the mule men

not only with two annas, a goodly sum in those days, but also with vast tracts of land, making them the future landed gentry of Twoannas or Tiwanas! The Saxenas and Asthanas of today’s India were once similarly “Six anna and Eight anna” beneficiaries of the Raj.

True or not, theres typically no smoke without Fire. I mean no disrespect to any one but sharing what Ive read. It fits into the narrative of status vs ability and inheritance of good fortune vs building ones fortune in a competitive market space.

So to get an advantage you most likely need to be ahead as a starting position. Meaning that there are little to no 0-100 success stories or role models, I can point to locally to my children as titans of industry and trade or folks who grew out of hyper competition to excel

Most if not were all privileged, their competitive advantage was either a last name, access to politics, military or religion and they over indexed on having access to or participating with the ruling elite to change the balance of power on the resources of the country

This sounds crazy. But its true, in my mind I went through a list of these name brand families/saiths/owner operators/family offices/titans of so called industry, there really is not much good to say about them. Besides what they have in common, tax evasion using favors for land

allotment, buying or getting concessions on tariffs, putting up massive industries but never setting up services for the people than run them, making land slide profits from taking their tax free wealth & driving property prices in Pakistan to the most expensive in the world

having access to government tenders and contracts, having the same access to winning and building infrastructure projects in collusion with elected officials, in running cement factories and selling a few trucks a day tax-free on cash to the open market. In building car companies

With international collaboration and suffocating the market and killing domestic innovation by force feeding us Japanese brands at prices approved by their friends in the competition commissions and beyond by maintaining an over 30 year oligopoly.

This is what the old guard is doing to us: Controlling our Food Security, look around you, from sugar to milk to fertilizers we have cartel like situations. The entire breadbasket of this country and its input vectors are in the hands of 10/20 groups give or take.

with wealth came the desire to legitimize operations and the so called institutional industrial groups ventured into Banking. The public is so stupid no less, we give the banks our deposits and the banks turn around in yet an other oligopolistic situation where instead of lending

to entrepreneurs and smes, Bank 1, lends to Family 2 of privilege and Bank 2 returns the favor and lends to Family 1 of privilege, where by avoiding related party transaction but fueling THEIR growth with OPM(other peoples money) At the top they collaborate in their own interest

This is neither unique nor a PK specific problem, but in our case this has eaten at the fabric of society. It has killed competition, it has made market entry near impossible in to the industrial space. An entrepreneur from Jhang can basically not get a loan to put up a factory

So for all the foundations and awards and announcements of promoting CSR, eduction and standing with Pakistan and announcing billion rupee initiatives in times of Corona, the reality is, that they are actually responsible for the class divide and the cancer that is corruption

Corruption doesn't happen on its own.When folks of such privilege & access always have to win its the rest of us that always loose. Why, because they always have a guy who will ensure for the right price across every sector that they win or they have access to prefect information

They have mastered the 8th wonder of the world, compound interest. They know from the patwaris where and when land will be taken over by the govt to say build a national motor way, they get in before the public ever knows and buy the land in advance. They Buy Low Sell High

Capital builds capital, they take land that is otherwise worthless and put it to use instantly by selling back to the govt and cashing out, destroying local villages and others who should have been the beneficiary but they had market intel that the rural folks didnt

+ they took their gains and put in their friends bank or overseas and let the money grow with compound interest. This is one of many examples and why the old guard is the plague in most developing countries because it continues to spread and multiply

Whilst we must celebrate true success from every decade gone by, we have to engage and educate our masses to tell the difference between real success and engineered success. We must break the fold of the lingering Mafia of Saiths, self appointed vanguards of industry and trade

the know it all’s.We must start by making sure in our own individual capacity we help guide the rising talent of the industry so that we level set the field. The most likely way the new generation gets access to the old boys club is by creating value multiples in the tech space

where they can achieve scale they cant in other domains. Slowly the second generation of the industrial old guard are investing in the startups, the startups need to be careful not to go down the death spiral the post partition business went through,

Where the anna boy types got in and became partners with merchants & traders, took over their destiny by loading them up with credit they couldn't pay back. Thus taking over their businesses. Startups beware. @rebootdude @jehan_ara @raza_matin @Ash_Kalim @ZMoosaPK @TalhaIzhar