April 30, 2008 ☼ economics ☼ Economy ☼ fiscal policy ☼ governance ☼ India ☼ inflation ☼ liberalisation ☼ Manmohan Singh ☼ monopoly ☼ politics ☼ Public Policy ☼ UPA
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Dr Manmohan Singh the prime minister has routinely relied on platitudes (instead of on incentives) to motivate the UPA government’s policies. But he is getting even the platitudes wrong. In a country where the average annual per capita income hovers around an unacceptably low US$1000, he wants people to earn less. Why? Because, according to him, earning less, and expecting to earn less, is a national duty.
By equating a degree of self-sacrifice with national duty, the PM has tried to make a moral argument. He has said that this is what corporates and highly paid executives owed in the endeavour to contain prices and keep the overall growth momentum on track. While this has a populist touch and will appeal to an opinion that is ready to view corporates as “fat cats”, private employment is increasingly the preferred option for most educated persons.
Sectors characterised by “significant market power” in the hands of a few producers have a societal obligation to assist the government in moderating inflationary expectations, the PM rounded off. [TOI]He has gotten it exactly wrong. The national duty of every citizen is to make as much money as legally possible. Anyone who suggests otherwise cannot have the best interests of the Indian people at heart. Oh, he’s only referring to the top executives, you say? Well, first, depressing wages at the top will cascade down and result in lower earnings for everyone in the pyramid (just as increasing wages at the top will increase wages for everyone). And as a matter of principle, just how does making the rich earn less help the nation? In fact, it does just the opposite. It would have been one thing for Dr Singh to call upon the rich to deepen the culture of philanthropy. But to equate “self-sacrifice” with “national duty” is dangerous nonsense.
Dr Singh shamelessly masks his government’s failure to ensure free, competitive markets—and prevent the build up of significant market power—by claiming that monopolists have societal obligations. That’s dangerous nonsense too. The solution to the build-up of market power is further liberalisation and effective regulatory oversight. Dr Singh’s admission that there are sectors where companies have significant market power calls for moving forward with the economic reform process. Just what happened to the privatisation (okay, disinvestment) agenda?
We have said this before, and we say again: Dr Manmohan Singh has done immense harm to India’s future. The evil that he has done will live long after him. The good was interr’d with P V Narasimha Rao’s bones. Corporate India would do well to ignore the shameless moral poseur. Yes, it’s late in the day for this government. But Dr Singh should go. [See previous calls.]
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