From fork-admin@xent.com Tue Aug 20 20:47:05 2002
Return-Path: <fork-admin@xent.com>
Delivered-To: yyyy@localhost.netnoteinc.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by phobos.labs.netnoteinc.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E011743C32
for <jm@localhost>; Tue, 20 Aug 2002 15:47:04 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from phobos [127.0.0.1]
by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0)
for jm@localhost (single-drop); Tue, 20 Aug 2002 20:47:04 +0100 (IST)
Received: from xent.com ([64.161.22.236]) by dogma.slashnull.org
(8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g7KJjOZ21822 for <jm@jmason.org>;
Tue, 20 Aug 2002 20:45:25 +0100
Received: from lair.xent.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by xent.com (Postfix)
with ESMTP id 637952940A5; Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:43:08 -0700 (PDT)
Delivered-To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org
Received: from web14007.mail.yahoo.com (web14007.mail.yahoo.com
[216.136.175.123]) by xent.com (Postfix) with SMTP id AC168294099 for
<fork@xent.com>; Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:42:19 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <20020820194356.27509.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com>
Received: from [208.142.210.201] by web14007.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP;
Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:43:56 PDT
From: sateesh narahari <sati_home@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: The Curse of India's Socialism
To: fork@spamassassin.taint.org
In-Reply-To: <p05111a3db98832ce18cd@[66.149.49.6]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Sender: fork-admin@xent.com
Errors-To: fork-admin@xent.com
X-Beenthere: fork@spamassassin.taint.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11
Precedence: bulk
List-Help: <mailto:fork-request@xent.com?subject=help>
List-Post: <mailto:fork@spamassassin.taint.org>
List-Subscribe: <http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork>, <mailto:fork-request@xent.com?subject=subscribe>
List-Id: Friends of Rohit Khare <fork.xent.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork>,
<mailto:fork-request@xent.com?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://xent.com/pipermail/fork/>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:43:56 -0700 (PDT)
All good arguments, except till you realize that
majority of indians were poor even before
independence.
Sateesh
--- "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> wrote:
>
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB1029790639190441115,00.html
>
>
> The Wall Street Journal
>
> August 20, 2002
> COMMENTARY
>
> The Curse of India's Socialism
>
> By CHRISTOPHER LINGLE
>
> In a classic case of deflecting blame for their own
> shortcomings,
> politicians in India have identified the size of the
> population as the
> country's biggest problem. This position was stated
> in a unanimous
> parliamentary resolution passed on the 50th
> anniversary of independence.
> Half a decade later, it is a belief that still
> resonates with many. Yet it
> is hard to imagine a more cynical view. If left free
> from the extensive
> interference of various levels of government, the
> energy and creativity of
> the Indian people could soon allow them to be among
> the richest on earth.
>
> Indians are not poor because there are too many of
> them; they are poor
> because there are too many regulations and too much
> government intervention
> -- even today, a decade after reforms were begun.
> India's greatest problems
> arise from a political culture guided by socialist
> instincts on the one
> hand and an imbedded legal obligation on the other
> hand.
>
> While India's political culture reflects the beliefs
> of its founding
> fathers, there is the additional matter of the
> modified preamble to its
> constitution that specifies: "India is a sovereign,
> secular, socialist
> republic." It was Indira Gandhi who had the words
> "socialist" and "secular"
> added in the late 1970s. At the same time, she also
> amended the relevant
> section in the Representation of Peoples Act to
> require that all recognized
> and registered parties swear by this preamble. Since
> all parties must stand
> for socialism, no party espouses classical
> liberalism (yet there are
> numerous communist parties).
>
> While one can appreciate the difficulty of
> abandoning ideas with such
> honored lineage, the fact that socialism has been
> widely discredited and
> abandoned in most places should prompt Indians to
> reconsider this
> commitment. Despite evidence of its failure as an
> economic system, many of
> the socialists who carry on do so by trying to
> proclaim that their dogma
> reinforces certain civic virtues. A presumed merit
> of socialism is that it
> aims to nurture a greater sense of collective
> identity by suppressing the
> narrow self-interest of individuals. However, this
> aspect of socialism lies
> at the heart of its failure both as a political tool
> as well as the basis
> for economic policy.
>
> Let's start with the economic failures of socialism.
> Most of the grand
> experiments have been ignominiously abandoned or
> recast in tortured terms
> such as the "Third Way" that defer to the importance
> of markets and
> individual incentives. Unfortunately, it took a
> great deal of human
> suffering before socialists abandoned their goal of
> trying to create an
> economic system on the basis of collective goals.
>
> Socialist ideologues are impervious to evidence that
> their system inspires
> even more human misery in the civic realm. This is
> because socialism
> provides the political mechanism for and legitimacy
> by which people
> identify as members of groups. While it may suit the
> socialist agenda to
> create them-and-us scenarios relating to workers and
> capitalists or
> peasants and urban dwellers, this logic is readily
> converted to other types
> of divisions.
>
> In the case of India, competition for power has
> increasingly become
> identified with religiosity or ethnicity, as is
> evident by the rise of the
> Bharatiya Janata Party, supported by radical
> Hindutva supporters. As
> elsewhere, political parties based on religion are
> by their very nature
> exclusionary. These narrow concepts of identity work
> against nation
> building since such a politics forces arrangements
> that cannot accommodate
> notions of universal values.
>
> Socialism also sets the stage for populist promises
> of taking from one
> group to support another. This variety of political
> posturing by the
> Congress Party was used to build a coalition of
> disaffected minorities. In
> turn, the BJP built its power base on a promise to
> restore power to Hindus.
> And so it is that India's heritage of socialist
> ideology provided the
> beginnings of a political culture that evolved into
> sectarian populism that
> has wrought cycles of communal violence. Populism
> with its solicitations of
> political patronage, whether based upon nationalism
> or some other ploy, is
> also open to the sort of rampant corruption so
> evident in India.
>
> At issue in India is nothing less than the role of
> the state. Should it be
> used as a mechanism to protect the freedom and
> rights of individuals? Or
> should the state be a vehicle for groups to gain
> power? It should be clear
> the latter approach would lead to the destruction of
> India's democracy
> while the former will allow it to survive.
>
> It is undeniable that India's public policy guided
> by socialism has
> promoted divisions that contributed to social
> instability and economic
> destruction. This dangerous game has only served the
> narrow interests of
> those who seek to capture or preserve power. That
> India is a "socialist"
> state, specified in a preamble to the constitution,
> makes this binding
> commitment evident in the nature of interventionist
> policies that have
> wrought slower economic growth causing great harm to
> the poor and unskilled
> who have lost access to economic opportunities.
> Socialism also introduced
> forces that are destroying India's hard-earned
> democracy. A paradigm shift
> in the nature of Indian politics is needed so the
> state ceases serving as a
> mechanism for groups to gain power and instead
> becomes an instrument to
> secure rights and freedoms for individuals.
>
> Mr. Lingle is professor of economics at Universidad
> Francisco Marroquin in
> Guatemala, and global strategist for
> eConoLytics.com.
>
>
>
> --
> -----------------
> R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation
> <http://www.ibuc.com/>
> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
> "... however it may deserve respect for its
> usefulness and antiquity,
> [predicting the end of the world] has not been found
> agreeable to
> experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of
> the Roman Empire'
> http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
http://www.hotjobs.com
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork