WESTERN CULTURAL INFLUENCES by Peter F. Drucker

“So far, you at [Procter & Gamble] have done well by taking pretty much for granted that the market will pretty much follow the American market. The only thing is that there are very, basically very minor variations. And so when I last was in India, it’s quite some time but not that long, I was surprised to what extent the—how the American or Western country lifestyle has come to dominate even remote villages.

Sure, there’s a huge bulk of very poor, of the untouchables and I think that people who have no running water, and if they are allowed to use the brook to wash their laundry they must do it downstream from the higher caste people, they are not going to be Tide customers in large numbers, but the moment you go into that half of India that is now urbanized—in most of the villages—okay, these people can’t afford a car, but they can afford a motorbike and certainly a bicycle and they all have television.”