Re: WTO and socialism

["Vinay Chandekar" <vinay@asiaaccess.net.th>]

Dear Arvind,

This topic started off by your statement that India had not made
progress. This is not a matter of debate but of Statistics. Just compare
the respective figures for 1947 and present day for production of Steel,
Sulphuric acid, Textiles, No. of Universities & other learning
institutions, no. of students undergoing education at various levels,
medical facilities etc and then relate it to the population then and
now, and you will see what progress has been made.

In this connection, you should read the posting of Mr. Ram Narayanan
about a month and half back. (Contact him to forward the same to you or
may be this will be available in the archives of debates.)

It is useless to link progress to any one political system - political
systems are composed of men who run them : if the warehouse keeper is a
thief, don't blame the producer if the good stored do not reach the
populace but are "stolen" by "connected" parties.

The business climate today is quite open - you can open any business you
want. The reason why investment has not flooded India in the way it has
into SE Asian countries is because India, very rightly, does not allow
unfettered profit repatriation facilities, as well as putting curbs on
hire and fire policies.

You can draw your own conclusions from the financial crisis in SE Asia
which has come about solely because of the free flow of capital in and
out of these countries. Even World Bank, IMF and anybody who matters is
coming to this point of view.

You should concentrate on finding the loopholes thru' which the fruits
of Indian efforts are leaking out and stop them.

I think our undestanding of gold standard and floating rate of exchange
is diametrically opposite. Gold confers a certain value on the currency
of a country - floating rate of exchange depends on Speculators.

By your statement that Elephants should behave like elehants, you seem
to mean that India has become a Superpoer econo-mically. Well, I would
very much like that to come about but as thesituation now stands we are
far from that goal. Our Industries, especially the smaller ones, are not
in a position to compete with Western institutions. Even a food producer
such as Sarah Lee is too organized for the Idli-wada South Indian Snack
sellers. So what do you want ? Do you want all indigenous sellers of
these cheap snacks to disappear throwing thousands of low-level
wage-earners on the street so that you can justify your intellectual
prejudices of free market.

This years Noble Prize for Economics has gone to a THINKER who says
unfettered markets are NOT good.

We have a long way to go before we can compete with the West on equal
terms. For this reason we have to go slow on liberalization and other
market-opening measures. We need labour intensive industries not the
capital intensive ones, at least a way has to be found how to employ
this huge manpower - so they can subsist with dignity.

That in my Op is the way forward.


Vinay.



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