Consumer Voice August 2006

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Dr.Roopa Vajpeyi
Hony.Editor

Editorial

I learnt a new word 'antipreneur'. 'Entrepreneur',
according to the Random House Webster's Unabridged
Dictionary, means: 'A person who organises or manages
any enterprise, especially a business', whereas
'antipreneur' means 'A person with a passion for truecost
social justice'.

In other words, a person who believes in an enterprise that does things
differently: promotes ethics over profit, values over image (and /or brand),
and idealism over hype. Antipreneurship is a kind of (local) grassroots
capitalism that deals in products people actually need and believe in. This
work can be, and is usually, quite successfully handled through
sustainable, accountable companies, using local resources, both natural
and human. It could be "capitalism's next evolutionary phase, where small,
local enterprise will drive out the big and the global." This vision of
entrepreneur-ship does not include patents and copyrights.

Are we to conclude from this that the era of a Gandhian model for
enterprise is already here, and that 'think global-act local' is now no more
a mere slogan? The Indian ethos has always encouraged a close and
intense engagement with the local environment. Gandhi said that India
lives in its villages and the development of its village economy holds the
key to meaningful prosperity for all its people.

VOICE is planning a convention for rural consumers in a village called
'Pureshuklan' about 100 kilometers from Lucknow. This village will play
host to an international community of thinkers, leaders and activists who
are individually and collectively committed to actualising the Millennium
Development Goals. These goals seek a paradigm shift away from the
developed to the developing, from urban to rural, and from rich to poor.
We hope that the world community of knowledgeable people recognises
its responsibility towards the "children of a lesser God" and rallies around
to commit its resources to an equal, fair and just world order.

In the VOICE conclave, we seek to bring all realities of consumerism and
its stakeholders face to face. We expect clear goals for consumer activism
of the future to emerge from the churning of ideas within this first-of-itskind
interface of consumers and all those people who are thinking, writing
and talking about consumer issues. It is but natural that all this should take
place in a remote Indian village where the international community of
consumer activists will get a first-hand experience of what it has been
saying is the future of the consumer movement, namely the rural poor and
their concerns.

We invite all our members to join VOICE at the event. Find the details
regarding how, when, and what at www.consumer-voice.org and then
let's change the way we behave as antipreneurs. Whether we produce,
sell, or consume.

Dr.Roopa Vajpeyi
Hony.Editor