Freedom, for India’s future
Published by sauvik January 8th, 2006 in Economics, Governance, IndiaCristopher Lingle has a nice article at TechCentralStation on India, which begins by saying how rich we and our rulers were when the great European explorations began; how even little Indian princes were rich. It discusses why we are poor today, and what be done for the future of today’s youth.
Rather interestingly, Lingle makes one huge leap from India being rich during the time of the explorations to India being poor post-independence and it gets even better when he cites only the positive contributions the Brits made here, while ignoring their contribution to our mess.
And then there are classics like this one:
If left free from the extensive interferences of various levels of government, the energy and creativity of the Indian people would soon allow them to be among the richest on earth.
And as expected, he does not tell you how that end can be met.
What most people seem to not understand is that bad governance is not the same as all governance is bad.
I disagree with ‘Codey’. All governance is not necessarily bad. That is a reflexive, un thought out, libertarian response.
I had my own issues with the article. It fails to note that the masses of India had always been oppressed by some immigrant conqueror or another-this oppression goes back 2000 years. And even today the middle-class barely cares about the underclass, that provides them cheap household help.
It seems everyone values their position in the social heirarchy too much, to uplift class directly below them. Add to that problems of the racial diversity of India, which feeds the apathy.
We have essentially gone from being oppressed by the British to being oppressed by “our own.” And this will continue, goverment regulation or not.
If you are really interested in seeing ordinary Indians succeed: teach them entrepreneurship, loan them capital, and help them identify oppurtunities. Simply removing goverment regulation would just increase upper-class enterprise and further widen the gulf between the rich and the poor.
I am obviously pissed about this, because no one talks about this aspect of reform. India has never been an egalitarian country - unlike the US - not since 300 BC. More needs to be done than merely removing government regulation.
Yeah
That’s a lot of nonsense. You don’t need to teach them, loan them or help them identify anything. You just need to allow them do whatever it is that you want to teach them, loan them or help them identify. It is here that state is throttling private enterprise.
I don’t think Lingle is arguing against governance. He is arguing against the hijacking of the Indian state by interest groups, who in the name of socialism, end up serving their own interests.
The underclass of our society, left alone, wouldn’t get very far - at least not in the initial stages of the “free-market”. They don’t have any capital to start even the basic trade-transport business. They’ll just end up being cheap labor to the upper-middle class entrepreneurs.
You’re basically saying the same thing - except you’re saying, leave the poor alone and they shall find their way. Bullshit. We need a Banking policy to ensure the poor has easy access to loans. Laissez-faire would be criminal here.
And, yeah, my comment was to Codey not Lingle.
Yeah,
Where did I say I was against governance? And I am sorry, but I am not a libertarian. I was just pointing out that the two concepts are often mixed up with each other knowingly/unknowingly.
Otherwise, I pretty much agree with what you have to say, beats me where you got the idea that I was arguing otherwise.