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Dynastic politics and Brand identity

Mark Antony, in Shakespeare's Julius Ceaser, while delivering his famous burial speech says,
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,
This time, as every other time, there are several electoral candidates who come from a family of successful politicians.

While dynastic politics is talked about in negative light more often then otherwise, there is an interesting article in today's Economic Times Magazine on Dynasty Politics. Today being a Sunday morning, I will give in to my laziness and let you dig up the article online.

When the children of doctors, lawyers and accountants go on to become doctors, lawyers and accountants, absolutely nothing negative is said about it. But this is not the case when the children of politicians go on to become politicians.

This was the argument provided by Mani Shankar Aiyar as well, when he was asked a question on dynastic politics in India, a couple of years ago when he spoke at IIM Calcutta. This seemed a valid argument to me at the time and continues to do so today.

Borrowing from the ET article, if we were to invest in a start-up, we would likely choose one that already has a positive brand identity (be it through famous founders, investors, etc) as opposed to one that has to build it from scratch. We perhaps end up doing the same on election day.

The children of successful politicians already bring with them a positive brand identity as opposed to unknown new-comers.

The key is positive brand identity. This brings me back to the initial quote from Julius Caeser. It is much harder to leave behind a positive image than it is to leave behind a negative one.

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