.jpeg)
KATHMANDU: WeRead, a new publishing branch of Kathalaya, has launched two books — ‘Set Yourself Bigger Goals’ and ‘In Defense of Capitalism’, the latter translated into Nepali — by German author Rainer Zitelmann.
Ichchha Khatiwada, senior coordinator at Students for Liberty, a nonprofit organisation that aims to educate, develop, and empower the next generation of leaders of liberty, hosted the book launch event on Tuesday. Khatiwada welcomed guests including the German author Zitelman who is also a historian, sociologist, management consultant and real estate expert.
Other guests included Arpita Nepal, co-founder and advisor of Research and Development at Samriddhi Foundation and Anish Jha, member of the parliament from Rastriya Swatantra Party.
The German author shared that his book ‘In Defense of Capitalism’ has elaborated the disagreements on the view that capitalism leads to hunger and poverty, rich people become richer and the poor become poorer. The book further elaborates on the environmental destruction and climate change wars. “I come from Germany which was divided into two parts. East Germany had a socialist economic system while the West had a capitalist. Despite having the same culture and history, if we compare the carbon emissions then there was three times higher in East Germany than West Germany. If someone believes we have to abolish capitalism to solve the climate change problem, then I think there is a big no,” he argued.
Zitelmann put forward historical evidence and facts to justify that it is not capitalism that has failed, but the anti-capitalist experiments done for a century.
Addressing the programme, Samriddhi Foundation Co-founder Nepal shared, “What I found extremely fascinating about the book is that it is not an ideology. It presents complex economic concepts in a simplistic view with lots of examples. The title can be sometimes misleading as some people might perceive it as an ideological book but in fact, it is a very practical book. The examples presented in the book fit in the context of Nepal as well.”
MP Jha opined, “Whenever innovation stops in an enterprise, the whole enterprise dies. Therefore, constant innovation is necessary in any organisation. Likewise, if questions and revolution stop, society will lose its identity.” He asserted that until and unless the private sector rises, the government sector will not be sustainable as more dependency lies in the development sector. Therefore, private sector has to be prosperous.”
Jha emphasized the importance of restructuring an individual’s perspective according to restructured politics.
The event concluded with a book sign ceremony where the authors signed the translated books.
Reporting by Ashika Pokharel
