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Re: WTO and Socialism
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Administrative Note:
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Week's Agenda: Political & administrative reforms
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My dear friend Arvind seems to have gone a little over-
board in this "analysis" which seems to be private
correspondence.
LET ME TELL YOU ONLY THIS that the policies
which you seek to decry TODAY were the exact
policies FOLLOWED by US & Germany 150 years
AGO who advanced protectionist arguement to safeguard
their respective industries against the then far advanced
British industries.
Till 1945s, US was a relatively poor country. People used
cheap linoleum flooring in houses (they have to use to
protect themselves from cold). See the GDP graph in
Prof.Samuelson's Economics book and you will find
that the Second World War, in which US was supplying
all sorts of equipment to the warring nations, gave a
tremendous boost to their economy. And once, you are
made, then you are Made. It is like securing a huge order
or contract in which a trader makes a big big profit and is
then in a position to undertake modernisation, expansion
and fresh research.
Economic gains are made by innovation and invention not
by paper-shuffling. But once you make money, you can afford
to shuffle papers.
The arguement about Gold is not about what is of value - it is
about breaking a sovereign understanding.
Under gold-standard, the value of a nation's currency has some
reference-point : in floating rate exchange it becomes gambler's
chips.
Re. WTO : I think you will agree that the real aim of this to open
the world markets and as can be concluded from what has been
clarified above is that weak economies can not afford to open
their markets but should behave like US & Germany of 150 years
ago.
Suspicion of West : We are not suspicious. Just read history. The
only thing the Spanish did in when they found gold and silver in
American continent is to cart them back to their homeland by
ship-loads. What Warren Hastings did in India was to snatch
gold necklaces from the NECKS of Begum of Avadh.
I have personally heard from the mouth of a Belgian (to day a
upper middle class citizen) that in 1940s, there used to be ONE
loaf of bread as Christmas dinner for their whole familyand that
this guy with his brother used to looking for an opportunity to
steal a chicken from someone's coop to put it on the table !
Gold and silver represent money and nothing can be accomplished
without money. You have to pay for raw materials.You have to pay
labourers. You have to pay the army - Napoleon said," An army
walks on its stomach."
Talking in general terms and without going into the theory of money,
What can you do without money ? To think food and water is enough
is to ignore the possibility that tomorrow guns may be required
to fight off the enemies and arms and ammunition is not for sale in
exchange for rice and lentils.
I have said again and again and again that ISMs do not concern
me. What we want is Freedom from Hunger, Freedom from
Oppression, Freedom from being dictated to, as has happened
for the last thousand years in India. For this to come true, you
have
to be AWARE of the Tricks of the Game. The game is a Con Game
but to apprehend the card-sharp, you have to be Powerful otherwise
his backers and bouncers will beat the daylight out of you
economically
and physically (think of Iraq). The Game is about Money - it always
has been.
So make money first and become Prosperous. To do this adopt the
policies that made yesterday's poor nations rich . They restricted
trade, they protected their industries, they favoured their
own-type.
By removing all restrictions and liberalising the economy
prematurely,
to the organized onslaught of the organized West, you are exposing
your economy to risks.
It is true that we languish behind. But what we have achieved in 50
years is REMARKABLE. We have made this progress inspite of our
population having trebled from 350 million to nearly a billion
today.
That is we have nearly 700 million more mouths to feed, a propor-
tionate number of children to educate, a proportionate number of old
people to take care of, housing, clothing and all increases in more
or less same proportion. We have made this progress in the teeth
of competition by industrial giants of the like of Japan and Korea
and
Germany and Britain. When Britain, US & Germany were building
their economies, they had no competition. At the time of achieving
freedom in 1947, we had very little infrastructure, very few
institutions
of advanced learning, very little research facilities. To day we are
almost at the forefront in most fields including missile
techonology.
When you put this along side the progress achieved by the Western
countries it is no mean achievement. The British industrial
revolution
is about 350 years old. US is about 150 years old (no precise idea !
sorry). We are just 50 years old, so I think we have done quite
well.
Our investment in education has been tremendous ! Look at our people
becoming pillars of British National Health Service, a significant
part
of the IT industry. Today, Indians are in the forefront in almost
all branches
of learning. No my friend, I can not agree with you that socialism
or
whatever ism we have followed has not served us well.
Yes, we could have achieved more but the failure has been due to
two reasons : adoption of a certain policy that while building up
our
industry, did not produce immediate gains - to say that every policy
decison MUST succeed is a little bit too much especially as we were
starting from scratch - and the moral-tone of our people. The
greatest
impediment to our progress has been the failure in IMPLEMENTATION.
Our policies may not have been perfect but the major cause of
failure
has been in the field of Implementation and NOT THIS OR THAT
POLITICAL SYSTEM.
I rest my case.
Thanks for having the patience to go thru' this long tract.
Vinay.
Tel : (662) 266 86 51.
O'seas : (662) 266 86 52.
Fax : (662) 266 86 51.
GPO Box 2478, Bangkok 10500.
-----Original Message-----
From: Arvind Kumar <arvind.kumar@rocketmail.com>
To: debate@indiapolicy.org <debate@indiapolicy.org>
Date: 06 November, 1998 1:57 AM
Subject: WTO and Socialism
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