In plain words
If we keep taking in what comes from outside, we too have to step down into the competition called imitation. There should be no imitation in us. There should be no competition at all. Through this competition our business runs at a loss.
I am telling the MBA students that some new things are now taking shape. Within a week all business in China has changed. The government has issued orders that whatever company makes a loss, all those companies must be closed at once. What are they doing in Yugoslavia now? That too came only a week ago. If these companies were in loss, if the workers did not work, these owners handed those companies over to the workers and said, 'You yourselves develop this; you pay off the loan I have at the bank.' Then the workers are working with great interest. If there is a manager over them, these workers do not work properly. If you hand this work over to the workers themselves, they develop it with care, so that ample profit may come. But in our Bhārata things go against both of these. When it is shut because losses are coming, it must not be shut; even with losses you must keep it running; even if it is shut, these people's wages must be paid. Where is this man to bring the wages from and pay them? Again he has to take a loan from the bank, but they do not give loans. How strangely … these things stand. In such a situation what can the managers do, poor men? In what way can they direct it with directions? So all this business turns into a muddle. The whole world is filled with this trade. So only when this business is made balanced and orderly, and shaped so that it is fair to all, will the whole world be in lasting well-being. So there is much to be learnt in this business.
What you must truly recognise here is Cāṇakya's Arthaśāstra. You must recognise the Dharmaśāstra of Manu and Agastya too. I asked many children who Cāṇakya was. They said that was his name. But Cāṇakya is not his name. Since he was born in the village called Cāṇakya, they gave him the name of that village. This very man had another name, Kauṭilya. Kauṭilya means one with a skilful intellect; so they called him Kauṭilya. His gotra was the Kauṇḍinna gotra, so they named him after the gotra. The name given to him was Viṣṇugupta. Today we have forgotten the principle of this Viṣṇugupta, and people keep turning his Arthaśāstra into an anartha-śāstra. This Arthaśāstra, concerning the influence of the conditions of that time: the Arthaśāstra of that day was good. But there is a great difference between today and that day. In it there are two kinds of Arthaśāstra. One is a temporary Arthaśāstra. The other is a lasting Arthaśāstra. All this lasting Arthaśāstra springs from the heart and from the mind itself.