Thursday, March 15, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Take To Keynesianism,Gandhism &Sarkozism For Economic Nirvan
TAKE TO KEYNESIANISM, GANDHISM & SARKOZYISM FOR ECONOMIC NIRVAN
-- an Indian citizen’s view point
The current economic recession which started in Dec’2007, triggered by the collapse of the US housing market and the ensuing global credit crisis, is the biggest and deepest meltdown since the great depression of the 1930s
.
With two successive catastrophes in the course of merely the last 80 years, serious questions have been raised about Capitalism itself .The enormous amount of $8.9 trillion provided to bail out banks and corporations is cause for great concern. The IMF estimates that this amount is less than one third of their requirement for quick recovery and further forecasts that the western world GDP which has never shrunk since the 1930s great depression will shrink to 1.3% in 2009 and then possibly inch up to 1.9% in 2010.Growth of less than 2% indicates global depression.
The Free Market Capitalism is in dock. The US unemployment rate has shot up to 17.5%.The Dollar is getting devalued. Capitalism has grown out of Adam Smith’s premise that economic agents make rational choices prompted by self-interest and that Free Market is an automatic mechanism to move output and employment by assuming a general tendency of the economy towards an equilibrium of demand and supply but his advice about the need of financial regulations by governments to protect the citizens from what he called the “prodigals and projectors” who took excessive risks in their pursuit of profit, was probably lost sight of by the frenzied market operators. Its merits, however, as a creator of wealth was easily established by the magical recovery of the ruined economy of Europe after world war II, by the greatest stimulus package of its time amounting to
$ 12.4 billions, roughly $ 111 billions in terms of today’s dollars, provided by the US Marshall Plan.
In contrast, the post world war II Command economy and Central planning imposed by the Communist party resulted in the complete breakdown of the Soviet Russian economy by the end of 1980 despite Grabochev’s experiments with Prestorika and Glassnot. Ultimately, attempts were made by 1989 to transform the Communist economy into Market economy in eastern and central Europe and also in Soviet Russia in 1992 after its virtual breakup into a group of independent Republics on its eastern side. This shows beyond doubt that a purely centrally planned communist command economy is a nonviable concept.The Chineese Deng-era embrace of the market economy is likewise a proof of the superiority of the market economy.
However, the capitalist system’s runaway nature has never been a secret. In today’s globalised world its recurring quirks don’t stay localized as in earlier closed national economies. The answer, however, has less to do with “market” than with “human nature” which lures market operators to greed, fear, over speculation and irrational exuberance in wasteful investment and expenditure. We have to save Capitalism from casino capitalists.
Fiscal stimuli may well mop up the present mess but it can’t prevent another future meltdown.
It goes without saying that Capitalism does suffer from inherent instability as evidenced by successive gluts and booms. It is also accused of dehumanizing and degrading the working class by mechanizing to the extent of robotizing production and thus causing large scale unemployment. Further it helps concentration of wealth in the upper bracket. In US, for example, the lowest 20% of all households receive only 8.6% of the total national income and the topmost 20% appropriate 49% to themselves .Global poverty on the whole is on the rise. Some 150 million more people slipped into poverty worldwide during 2007 and already a further 50 million this year, adding to the 1.4 billion estimated in 2005 to be living below the international poverty line of $ 1.25 a day. The unbridled fillip to consumerism, an evil in itself, which is essential to prop up the capitalistic structure, has put the middle class as well in an economic cul-de-sac leaving them high and dry in the labyrinth of their highly materialized and automated lives.
The most decisive blow to capitalism is not by ideology but by ecology. The almost magical wealth creation property of Capitalism so far unwittingly ascribed to its reliance on market forces is actually to a very large extent the result of the suicidal adoption of the cancerous high carbon economy .Climate change, untold damage to environment caused by industrial toxic emissions, CO2 concentration in the air having already exceeded 385 ppm, perilously close to the life threatening 400-450 ppm level and the utter disregard for the near exhaustion of the finite resources of our planet, are its greatest failings.
During the last two decades we were hotly debating about the pace and scale of market reforms. This squabbling is passé now. The old style “ free market” recognized
only one bottom line—money profit. Today economists insist upon a triple
bottom line—money profit along with generation of social and environmental good.
John Maynard Keynes in his “General theory of employment, interest and money”
(1935-36) rejected the capitalistic theory that supply creates its own demand and that as such” a general glut is impossible” and believed that it was not so during economic downturns leading to high unemployment and loss of potential output. His theory maintains that deliberate government action can foster full employment by directly influencing the demand for goods and services by altering tax policies and public expenditure.
Keynes advocated a middle way between laissez-faire Capitalism and Socialism and his theory served with success as the economic model after the world war II Great Depression(1945-47).Franklin Roosevelt was influenced by his ideas and Keynesianism in part was gradually adopted in all socialist democracies in Europe and in USA after world war II. Out of the total 189 countries of the world a mere 13 of them were found to have an average annual GDP growth rate of 7% or a little above steadily for 25 years by the “Growth commission Report” led by Nobel Laureate Michel Spence. However, even though they are known as market driven economies, they owe their stable success primarily due to their committed, credible and capable governments which practically conforming to Keynesianism play a vital facilitating role when the markets by themselves fail to overcome crises during a downturn and essential investments go lacking.
Happily, the current recession has caused a resurgence of Keynesian economics and is supported by US President Obama and UK PM Gordon Brown and other global leaders.
Economics apparently is a social science, not an exact science. Different regions of world require varying configurations of economic paradigms compatible with their population, stage of overall development and last but not the least their culture. One magical “ Open Sesame” will not open all doors. It is therefore that a perturbed and distressed world today is in the lookout for more alternatives.
Mahatma Gandhi was no economic theorist but his socio-economic ideas are claiming worldwide interest and attention. Greatly influenced by the American writer Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi believed in an unbreakable interrelationship between politics, economics and ethics. Devoted as he was to the struggle for political freedom he was equally, if not more, concerned about human dignity, truth, nonviolence and eradication of poverty. The subhuman level of existence in terms of food, health ,employment, education and minimum basic rights of the teeming 75% 0f India’s population in its vilages (now over a billion) explains his austere life, his half-naked attire and his life- long daily routine at his spinning wheel and promotion of hand-spun and hand-woven cloth, popularly known as“Khadi”,as a symbol of economic emancipation of the poor. It was for the same reason that he stood for labour intensive technology and was in principle against mass scale industrialization which led to unemployment and exploitation.
Gandhism has affinity to socialism but does not reject private capitalism if it is amenable to its notion of “ Trusteeship”. In essence Gandhi gave supreme consideration to man rather than to money and advocated that means of economic development must be non-violent, ethical and should be limited to reasonable human needs without increasing consumer appetite which he likened to “animal appetite without end.”
Max Weber (1864-1920),the noted German sociologist, in his renowned book “The Protestant ethics and the spirit of Capitalism” also stressed on morality and honesty in market operations. Benjamin Franklin (1706-90),one of US’s founding fathers, was echoed by the Gandhian thinking that the pursuit of wealth stripped of its social and ethical meaning was to be abhorred. According to him the life of the capitalist entrepreneur should be distinguished by “a certain ascetic tendency” which almost paraphrases the “trusteeship ” concept of Gandhi.
The three gigantic problems, the recurring failure of free market economic system, rising poverty and climate change are such that we can not escape one without addressing the others. The cog in the intricately intermeshed wheels of our material life is without doubt the future metamorphosed market we jointly decide upon, since in the present globalised world divergent and conflicting policies will not give the desired success.Out of the six million world population,only one billion i.e.20% blongs to Europe and North America which are affluent and fully developed. The balance five billions i.e.80% inhabit the impoverished and grossly underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, all except a few, colonized and exploited by the former. While the present problems are of the highest magnitude for the former regions , they will have a much more devastating effect on the latter, steeped as they are in the mire of poverty, hunger, unemployment and absolute lack of even elementry needs of life. Obviously, the much needed change will have to take into account the deep chasm between them and allow necessary changes here and there while at the same time keep the basic architecture as analogous as possible. Even at 20% ovrall unemployment a total of around a billion people remain unemployed in this region even in normal times despite the “ Right To Employment” being a universal fundamental constitutional right. Keynes and Gandhi do hold some promise on this front as against an absolute no no by the existing market driven economies..
This brings us to the last but not the least and probably the noblest and the most plausible alternative proposed by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. His path-breaking and bold declaration quoted below is an eye-opener:
“For years people said that finance was a formidable creator of wealth, only to discover one day that it accumulated so many risks that the world almost plunged into a chaos .The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.”
Speaking on the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Sarkozy further explained that “France will adapt its statistical tool box as recommended by two Nobel economists commissioned by his government to analyse new ways of measuring social progress.” His innovative and humanitarian idea to include’ happiness and well being’ in his country’s measurements of economic progress is in essence akin to the thinking of Max Weber, Benjamin Franklin and Gandhi. Beckoning other countries to join, he said “A great revolution is waiting for us.” It would certainly be a revolution in the way economic growth is tracked and a miracle if the major countries agree to adopt, even in part, this enlightened and almost spiritual yardstick.
To put it in a nutshell the indispensable world wide web of markets, in socialist/capitalist democracies, can certainly achieve an Economic Nirvan if it takes to the ideas of Keynes, Gandhi and Sarkozy in different configurations as compatible to each country’s stage of development and to the degree to which its basic human needs remain unfulfilled in terms of health, education and employment or in Sarkozy’s one single word. the degree to which the “Happiness” of its citizens remains unfulfilled
Atul Kumar Jain,New Area,Dalmianagar,(India) 12/5/2011
.
-- an Indian citizen’s view point
The current economic recession which started in Dec’2007, triggered by the collapse of the US housing market and the ensuing global credit crisis, is the biggest and deepest meltdown since the great depression of the 1930s
.
With two successive catastrophes in the course of merely the last 80 years, serious questions have been raised about Capitalism itself .The enormous amount of $8.9 trillion provided to bail out banks and corporations is cause for great concern. The IMF estimates that this amount is less than one third of their requirement for quick recovery and further forecasts that the western world GDP which has never shrunk since the 1930s great depression will shrink to 1.3% in 2009 and then possibly inch up to 1.9% in 2010.Growth of less than 2% indicates global depression.
The Free Market Capitalism is in dock. The US unemployment rate has shot up to 17.5%.The Dollar is getting devalued. Capitalism has grown out of Adam Smith’s premise that economic agents make rational choices prompted by self-interest and that Free Market is an automatic mechanism to move output and employment by assuming a general tendency of the economy towards an equilibrium of demand and supply but his advice about the need of financial regulations by governments to protect the citizens from what he called the “prodigals and projectors” who took excessive risks in their pursuit of profit, was probably lost sight of by the frenzied market operators. Its merits, however, as a creator of wealth was easily established by the magical recovery of the ruined economy of Europe after world war II, by the greatest stimulus package of its time amounting to
$ 12.4 billions, roughly $ 111 billions in terms of today’s dollars, provided by the US Marshall Plan.
In contrast, the post world war II Command economy and Central planning imposed by the Communist party resulted in the complete breakdown of the Soviet Russian economy by the end of 1980 despite Grabochev’s experiments with Prestorika and Glassnot. Ultimately, attempts were made by 1989 to transform the Communist economy into Market economy in eastern and central Europe and also in Soviet Russia in 1992 after its virtual breakup into a group of independent Republics on its eastern side. This shows beyond doubt that a purely centrally planned communist command economy is a nonviable concept.The Chineese Deng-era embrace of the market economy is likewise a proof of the superiority of the market economy.
However, the capitalist system’s runaway nature has never been a secret. In today’s globalised world its recurring quirks don’t stay localized as in earlier closed national economies. The answer, however, has less to do with “market” than with “human nature” which lures market operators to greed, fear, over speculation and irrational exuberance in wasteful investment and expenditure. We have to save Capitalism from casino capitalists.
Fiscal stimuli may well mop up the present mess but it can’t prevent another future meltdown.
It goes without saying that Capitalism does suffer from inherent instability as evidenced by successive gluts and booms. It is also accused of dehumanizing and degrading the working class by mechanizing to the extent of robotizing production and thus causing large scale unemployment. Further it helps concentration of wealth in the upper bracket. In US, for example, the lowest 20% of all households receive only 8.6% of the total national income and the topmost 20% appropriate 49% to themselves .Global poverty on the whole is on the rise. Some 150 million more people slipped into poverty worldwide during 2007 and already a further 50 million this year, adding to the 1.4 billion estimated in 2005 to be living below the international poverty line of $ 1.25 a day. The unbridled fillip to consumerism, an evil in itself, which is essential to prop up the capitalistic structure, has put the middle class as well in an economic cul-de-sac leaving them high and dry in the labyrinth of their highly materialized and automated lives.
The most decisive blow to capitalism is not by ideology but by ecology. The almost magical wealth creation property of Capitalism so far unwittingly ascribed to its reliance on market forces is actually to a very large extent the result of the suicidal adoption of the cancerous high carbon economy .Climate change, untold damage to environment caused by industrial toxic emissions, CO2 concentration in the air having already exceeded 385 ppm, perilously close to the life threatening 400-450 ppm level and the utter disregard for the near exhaustion of the finite resources of our planet, are its greatest failings.
During the last two decades we were hotly debating about the pace and scale of market reforms. This squabbling is passé now. The old style “ free market” recognized
only one bottom line—money profit. Today economists insist upon a triple
bottom line—money profit along with generation of social and environmental good.
John Maynard Keynes in his “General theory of employment, interest and money”
(1935-36) rejected the capitalistic theory that supply creates its own demand and that as such” a general glut is impossible” and believed that it was not so during economic downturns leading to high unemployment and loss of potential output. His theory maintains that deliberate government action can foster full employment by directly influencing the demand for goods and services by altering tax policies and public expenditure.
Keynes advocated a middle way between laissez-faire Capitalism and Socialism and his theory served with success as the economic model after the world war II Great Depression(1945-47).Franklin Roosevelt was influenced by his ideas and Keynesianism in part was gradually adopted in all socialist democracies in Europe and in USA after world war II. Out of the total 189 countries of the world a mere 13 of them were found to have an average annual GDP growth rate of 7% or a little above steadily for 25 years by the “Growth commission Report” led by Nobel Laureate Michel Spence. However, even though they are known as market driven economies, they owe their stable success primarily due to their committed, credible and capable governments which practically conforming to Keynesianism play a vital facilitating role when the markets by themselves fail to overcome crises during a downturn and essential investments go lacking.
Happily, the current recession has caused a resurgence of Keynesian economics and is supported by US President Obama and UK PM Gordon Brown and other global leaders.
Economics apparently is a social science, not an exact science. Different regions of world require varying configurations of economic paradigms compatible with their population, stage of overall development and last but not the least their culture. One magical “ Open Sesame” will not open all doors. It is therefore that a perturbed and distressed world today is in the lookout for more alternatives.
Mahatma Gandhi was no economic theorist but his socio-economic ideas are claiming worldwide interest and attention. Greatly influenced by the American writer Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi believed in an unbreakable interrelationship between politics, economics and ethics. Devoted as he was to the struggle for political freedom he was equally, if not more, concerned about human dignity, truth, nonviolence and eradication of poverty. The subhuman level of existence in terms of food, health ,employment, education and minimum basic rights of the teeming 75% 0f India’s population in its vilages (now over a billion) explains his austere life, his half-naked attire and his life- long daily routine at his spinning wheel and promotion of hand-spun and hand-woven cloth, popularly known as“Khadi”,as a symbol of economic emancipation of the poor. It was for the same reason that he stood for labour intensive technology and was in principle against mass scale industrialization which led to unemployment and exploitation.
Gandhism has affinity to socialism but does not reject private capitalism if it is amenable to its notion of “ Trusteeship”. In essence Gandhi gave supreme consideration to man rather than to money and advocated that means of economic development must be non-violent, ethical and should be limited to reasonable human needs without increasing consumer appetite which he likened to “animal appetite without end.”
Max Weber (1864-1920),the noted German sociologist, in his renowned book “The Protestant ethics and the spirit of Capitalism” also stressed on morality and honesty in market operations. Benjamin Franklin (1706-90),one of US’s founding fathers, was echoed by the Gandhian thinking that the pursuit of wealth stripped of its social and ethical meaning was to be abhorred. According to him the life of the capitalist entrepreneur should be distinguished by “a certain ascetic tendency” which almost paraphrases the “trusteeship ” concept of Gandhi.
The three gigantic problems, the recurring failure of free market economic system, rising poverty and climate change are such that we can not escape one without addressing the others. The cog in the intricately intermeshed wheels of our material life is without doubt the future metamorphosed market we jointly decide upon, since in the present globalised world divergent and conflicting policies will not give the desired success.Out of the six million world population,only one billion i.e.20% blongs to Europe and North America which are affluent and fully developed. The balance five billions i.e.80% inhabit the impoverished and grossly underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, all except a few, colonized and exploited by the former. While the present problems are of the highest magnitude for the former regions , they will have a much more devastating effect on the latter, steeped as they are in the mire of poverty, hunger, unemployment and absolute lack of even elementry needs of life. Obviously, the much needed change will have to take into account the deep chasm between them and allow necessary changes here and there while at the same time keep the basic architecture as analogous as possible. Even at 20% ovrall unemployment a total of around a billion people remain unemployed in this region even in normal times despite the “ Right To Employment” being a universal fundamental constitutional right. Keynes and Gandhi do hold some promise on this front as against an absolute no no by the existing market driven economies..
This brings us to the last but not the least and probably the noblest and the most plausible alternative proposed by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy. His path-breaking and bold declaration quoted below is an eye-opener:
“For years people said that finance was a formidable creator of wealth, only to discover one day that it accumulated so many risks that the world almost plunged into a chaos .The crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so.”
Speaking on the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Sarkozy further explained that “France will adapt its statistical tool box as recommended by two Nobel economists commissioned by his government to analyse new ways of measuring social progress.” His innovative and humanitarian idea to include’ happiness and well being’ in his country’s measurements of economic progress is in essence akin to the thinking of Max Weber, Benjamin Franklin and Gandhi. Beckoning other countries to join, he said “A great revolution is waiting for us.” It would certainly be a revolution in the way economic growth is tracked and a miracle if the major countries agree to adopt, even in part, this enlightened and almost spiritual yardstick.
To put it in a nutshell the indispensable world wide web of markets, in socialist/capitalist democracies, can certainly achieve an Economic Nirvan if it takes to the ideas of Keynes, Gandhi and Sarkozy in different configurations as compatible to each country’s stage of development and to the degree to which its basic human needs remain unfulfilled in terms of health, education and employment or in Sarkozy’s one single word. the degree to which the “Happiness” of its citizens remains unfulfilled
Atul Kumar Jain,New Area,Dalmianagar,(India) 12/5/2011
.
Full Employment Through Charkha
Full Employment Through Charkha
This innovative economic program besides developing and brightening rural India also gurantees full employment to every unemployed man or woman in the country.
The total number of districts in India is about 640,each having a District Panchayat, under which there are on an average 10 Block Panchayats,each again having on an average 40 Village Panchayats,totaling 2,56,000 Village Panchayats in all, as conceived by our late Prime Minister,Sri Rajeev Gandhi.
The idea is to establish in each village Panchayat SSI units with latest models of multi-spindle spinning wheels, pit loom, dyeing units, standby diesel generating sets,godowns for raw materials and finished goods, besides facilities for other village tiny and small industries,bee-keeping,dairy etc to provide multiple employment choices to every unemployed man and woman resident there.
No constitutional or legislative processes would be involved in its implementation. It is only a strategy to be approved and adopted by the government and can be activated with immediate effect since all peripheral institutions and related departments like KVIC and Khadi Gramodyogs and State/District/Block/Village level Panchayat raj set-ups already exist, probably waiting for this core project to emerge guaranteeing full employment to our country men.
No finances would be required for setting up this vast, widely dispersed and highly labour intensive national net work of village panchayat based Khadi manufacturing units, which henceforth I would love to call National Textile Industry (N T I)…..courtesy Gandhism.
No fear at all regarding full economic viability of the N T I…. (National Textile Industry)…….courtesy Keynesism.
Our new measure of economic progress would be… Human happiness and wellbeing…. Courtesy Sarkosyism 10%.
Problems regarding financing and economic viability mentioned above have easy solutions as explained below:
a) Each village Panchayat mfg unit can easily avail Term Loan, Working capital loan and Cash Credit facilities from scheduled Banks duly guaranteed by the government as per normal banking practices.
b) As for assured economic viability we have to rely on the universally accepted Keynesian doctrine” General theory of employment, interest and money” which says that “…. deliberate government action can foster full employment by directly influencing demand for goods and services by altering tax policies and public expenditure…”
Without doubt N T I would be capable of producing only major %age of rough and medium quality and minor %age of fine quality textile. So what? The State would intervene, alter Excise duty, Sales tax, subsidise, ban production of similar range by large units and issue orders for compulsory use of N T I products in form of curtains, bed covers uniforms of peons and constables, by all government offices and departments, PSUs, Rlys and Defense as far as practicable. These special measures would offer no problems at all for the government in view of the sanctity of the purpose behind them.
Of-course, the nation will have to be mentally conditioned to accept instead of the current single bottom line of money in the national balance sheet, a triple bottom line i.e. 1.Money profit. 2. Social happiness and wellbeing. 3.Environmental good which may result in a little lower GDP growth eschewing the international mad rush for ill-gotten higher growth rates based on the detestable Carbon economy and the critical depletion of natural resources, as so emphatically stressed by President Sarkosy of France, one of the five Super powers in the world. Our own late J R D Tata expressed a similar view as follows after receiving our nation’s highest honor ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1992:“I do not want India to be an economic super power. I want India to be a happy country”.
Smt Sonia Gandhi’s unique MNAREGA with an annual budgetary provision of Rs 40,400 crores is in full operation and provides one person of each rural family 100 days of employment in a year at Rs 100/-per day. This is certainly a big relief to the vast number of our unemployed countrymen but it still falls short of the ultimate target of full employment. It is hoped that the Congress party and the government would approve this project, which does not need any budgetary provision, and implement it so that in due course it may replace MANAREGA and save the enormous present annual outlay on it,
This new strategic program is based on the ideal curve in the graph of the two major variables, sustainable economic prosperity and human happiness and once the government implements it, the ethereal music of millions of spinning wheels and the accompanying billions of beats of the shuttles of matching number of weaving looms would reverberate through the 2,56,000 N T I units—“modern temples” in the historic words of our beloved late Prime Minister Pt.Nehru—across our land, providing every single citizen, man or woman, with work and his daily bread.
Atul Kumar Jain,
The 29th Nov 2011 New Area,
Dalmianagar-821305
(Dist.Rohtas,Bihar)
This innovative economic program besides developing and brightening rural India also gurantees full employment to every unemployed man or woman in the country.
The total number of districts in India is about 640,each having a District Panchayat, under which there are on an average 10 Block Panchayats,each again having on an average 40 Village Panchayats,totaling 2,56,000 Village Panchayats in all, as conceived by our late Prime Minister,Sri Rajeev Gandhi.
The idea is to establish in each village Panchayat SSI units with latest models of multi-spindle spinning wheels, pit loom, dyeing units, standby diesel generating sets,godowns for raw materials and finished goods, besides facilities for other village tiny and small industries,bee-keeping,dairy etc to provide multiple employment choices to every unemployed man and woman resident there.
No constitutional or legislative processes would be involved in its implementation. It is only a strategy to be approved and adopted by the government and can be activated with immediate effect since all peripheral institutions and related departments like KVIC and Khadi Gramodyogs and State/District/Block/Village level Panchayat raj set-ups already exist, probably waiting for this core project to emerge guaranteeing full employment to our country men.
No finances would be required for setting up this vast, widely dispersed and highly labour intensive national net work of village panchayat based Khadi manufacturing units, which henceforth I would love to call National Textile Industry (N T I)…..courtesy Gandhism.
No fear at all regarding full economic viability of the N T I…. (National Textile Industry)…….courtesy Keynesism.
Our new measure of economic progress would be… Human happiness and wellbeing…. Courtesy Sarkosyism 10%.
Problems regarding financing and economic viability mentioned above have easy solutions as explained below:
a) Each village Panchayat mfg unit can easily avail Term Loan, Working capital loan and Cash Credit facilities from scheduled Banks duly guaranteed by the government as per normal banking practices.
b) As for assured economic viability we have to rely on the universally accepted Keynesian doctrine” General theory of employment, interest and money” which says that “…. deliberate government action can foster full employment by directly influencing demand for goods and services by altering tax policies and public expenditure…”
Without doubt N T I would be capable of producing only major %age of rough and medium quality and minor %age of fine quality textile. So what? The State would intervene, alter Excise duty, Sales tax, subsidise, ban production of similar range by large units and issue orders for compulsory use of N T I products in form of curtains, bed covers uniforms of peons and constables, by all government offices and departments, PSUs, Rlys and Defense as far as practicable. These special measures would offer no problems at all for the government in view of the sanctity of the purpose behind them.
Of-course, the nation will have to be mentally conditioned to accept instead of the current single bottom line of money in the national balance sheet, a triple bottom line i.e. 1.Money profit. 2. Social happiness and wellbeing. 3.Environmental good which may result in a little lower GDP growth eschewing the international mad rush for ill-gotten higher growth rates based on the detestable Carbon economy and the critical depletion of natural resources, as so emphatically stressed by President Sarkosy of France, one of the five Super powers in the world. Our own late J R D Tata expressed a similar view as follows after receiving our nation’s highest honor ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1992:“I do not want India to be an economic super power. I want India to be a happy country”.
Smt Sonia Gandhi’s unique MNAREGA with an annual budgetary provision of Rs 40,400 crores is in full operation and provides one person of each rural family 100 days of employment in a year at Rs 100/-per day. This is certainly a big relief to the vast number of our unemployed countrymen but it still falls short of the ultimate target of full employment. It is hoped that the Congress party and the government would approve this project, which does not need any budgetary provision, and implement it so that in due course it may replace MANAREGA and save the enormous present annual outlay on it,
This new strategic program is based on the ideal curve in the graph of the two major variables, sustainable economic prosperity and human happiness and once the government implements it, the ethereal music of millions of spinning wheels and the accompanying billions of beats of the shuttles of matching number of weaving looms would reverberate through the 2,56,000 N T I units—“modern temples” in the historic words of our beloved late Prime Minister Pt.Nehru—across our land, providing every single citizen, man or woman, with work and his daily bread.
Atul Kumar Jain,
The 29th Nov 2011 New Area,
Dalmianagar-821305
(Dist.Rohtas,Bihar)
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