Development - Without The State

I was cheered up this morning by a letter from the Liberal Youth Forum telling me of their campus outreach programme. I advised them to give some of my writings to the targeted youth to take home and slowly imbibe.

Yes, we have our work cut out for us. There must emerge a strong secular free market party as an alternative to the socialist Congress. The Congress is targeting the youth with Rahul Gandhi. We must target the youth with sound theories.

Our essential point is this: It is indeed a grievous error to expect “development” from the efforts of The State.

On the contrary, if “development” is taken to mean a standard of living comparable to the developed parts of the world, the only way to raise the living standards of the entire citizenry is through free markets.

Capitalism. Not Socialism.

Note that today we have a strong and stable Congress government. So what? We have had strong and stable Congress governments right through our history as an independent nation. We have had “employment programmes” like the Jawaharlal Nehru Rozgaar Yojana since the days of the 5th Five Year Plan. And the term “infrastructural bottlenecks” was very much in vogue when I studied economics in Delhi university in the mid-70s, while Indira Gandhi lorded over the Empire.

Nothing much happened in India then with employment programmes, 5-year plans, and strong Congress governments. There was no Market. There was only our The State. It was Hell.

Whatever good is happening in India today is because of markets and entrepreneurs.

“Development,” therefore, must never be made a State Subject. It lies in the domain of free enterprise.

The rural poor must move “from subsistence to exchange,” as the late Peter, Lord Bauer elegantly put it, as the title of his last book.

Note that “subsistence” is never a concern in the market economy. We never worry about food running out. We might worry over the beer running out. This is the power of exchange.

Note that the people of the developed West were in a pretty bad condition in the 1700s. It is Capitalism – not State power – that raised the living standards of all. Indeed, their governments may well become their downfall.

We have five years to build support. Let us proceed in full earnest, confident that we have Truth, Morality, Justice and Liberty on our side.