1NDIA , One Nation, One Billion People, One Dream, One Voice
The OneIndia (by Reliance and now BSNL, MTNL ... and ... Airtel) campaign is another step towards equalizing (or rationalizing) the mobile tariff schemes. Another step in the direction of universalizing telecom availability! Are these simply marketing promotions or indicators towards the new ways of economic thinking that are entering our policy making corridors?
By the early 1900s, the theory of free markets had firmly established itself. The rise of the United States, as a formidable economic power, ahead of Great Britain was a proof to its success. However, towards the end of the economic crisis, in the early 1920s when industrialization was in full swing in Europe and in its infancy in countries like India, communism also rose with its own philosophy of state controlled ‘factors of production’. Meanwhile the economic crisis of 1929 loomed large over the capitalist world; as a result even capitalist governments started controlling means and ways of production and consumption.
Most policies that we see even today inherit the post-1929 genes. The State became the major source of economic power to make and break industries, economic classes and companies. The effect was highly pronounced in Communist and semi-communist countries, (Ex. Russia and India respectively) – setting up of PSUs, Administered Price Mechanism and Minimum Support Price lead to the state controlling both the supply and demand directly. In capitalist countries the effect was more subtle – in industries like Aerospace where the government was the major consumer, it controlled the economy by regulating its buying power. In other sectors the state used policy initiatives and control over credit and lending to influence industry.
It was in these days the concepts of social justice through the use of taxation came in more forcefully than ever. The world would no more be ‘free’ in the real sense of the word! Governments started centralizing and controlling everything from roads to banks to income levels to even commodity prices. This was a stark contrast to the ways of life in the agricultural age where everything would be governed by the market forces and people participated in local development rather than waiting to have it pushed from the Centre.
Somewhere along the way, we had forgotten the ‘real’ free market principles ........
One India
The OneIndia (by Reliance and now BSNL, MTNL ... and ... Airtel) campaign is another step towards equalizing (or rationalizing) the mobile tariff schemes. Another step in the direction of universalizing telecom availability! Are these simply marketing promotions or indicators towards the new ways of economic thinking that are entering our policy making corridors?
By the early 1900s, the theory of free markets had firmly established itself. The rise of the United States, as a formidable economic power, ahead of Great Britain was a proof to its success. However, towards the end of the economic crisis, in the early 1920s when industrialization was in full swing in Europe and in its infancy in countries like India, communism also rose with its own philosophy of state controlled ‘factors of production’. Meanwhile the economic crisis of 1929 loomed large over the capitalist world; as a result even capitalist governments started controlling means and ways of production and consumption.
Most policies that we see even today inherit the post-1929 genes. The State became the major source of economic power to make and break industries, economic classes and companies. The effect was highly pronounced in Communist and semi-communist countries, (Ex. Russia and India respectively) – setting up of PSUs, Administered Price Mechanism and Minimum Support Price lead to the state controlling both the supply and demand directly. In capitalist countries the effect was more subtle – in industries like Aerospace where the government was the major consumer, it controlled the economy by regulating its buying power. In other sectors the state used policy initiatives and control over credit and lending to influence industry.
It was in these days the concepts of social justice through the use of taxation came in more forcefully than ever. The world would no more be ‘free’ in the real sense of the word! Governments started centralizing and controlling everything from roads to banks to income levels to even commodity prices. This was a stark contrast to the ways of life in the agricultural age where everything would be governed by the market forces and people participated in local development rather than waiting to have it pushed from the Centre.
Somewhere along the way, we had forgotten the ‘real’ free market principles ........
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