Sunday, August 17, 2008
The idea of changing the hearts and minds of an entire nation in a peaceful manner presents itself to be a daunting task, especially when that nation is India. India is not only the world most second populous country in world; it has a long tradition of anti-capitalism. However, many Indians nowadays are pro-capitalists, especially the vast young population that represents the majority of the country. Oddly enough it is the old-fashioned minority that makes the decisions for the entire country, so there is little wonder why the Indian government has a history of being considered as one of the most crippling and inefficient bureaucracies in the world. Rather than overthrowing the government and creating a bloody revolution, why not create a peaceful compromise that will be easiest to implement yet will not sacrifice any of the ideals of freedom. The idea is to create a microcosm of India under a form of government that least regulates the economy as a means to persuade India as a whole to liberate its own economy.
An SEZ (or Special Economic Zone) is a policy already implemented in today's India but can further manipulated to achieve better economic effectiveness. One of the controversies facing SEZs however is that it is the policy of the government to coercively "acquire" the land from the people who rightfully own it, and then dish it out to the businesses that can "make better use of it." It is very ironic to most that the means by which capitalism is being promoted is through means of government coercion.
A proper resolution to this problem is to simply just declare a large acreage of land in which a few people live as a free market land. This means that there is no public property, no public roads, no public schools, no public hospitals, no governmental bureaucracy, and political neutrality. The only form of government would be a court system that protects the rights of its individual citizens at a local level, and a highly localized police force.
What will then take place is a sudden rise in the market value of the land, and the farmers will decide whether to sell the land and live a wealthy life. Businesses would then start to form, thus creating jobs and attracting people. Trade will occur and a demand for foreign trade will create shipping ports and airports. Private entities will then create the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the demand, and that land will be an economic force and model to be reckoned with. The same is true for health, education, and practically anything conceivable to the human mind; where there is a demand, there will be a supply. Not only that, but there will be market competition to further improve the quality of it's products at a lower price. Schools will compete for the quality of teaching it's student, Hospitals will compete for quality of health care for it's patients. Pretty soon what used to be a plot of land that was inhabited by a few hundred people, will be the prime location of choice for millions of Indians. It will be as the US is to the world; India's land of opportunity. Nobel Peace Prize winner, and famed economist Milton Freidman said that a good way to gauge public opinion is to "look at how people 'vote' with there feet." In the case of China, people fled to places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan where there is a relatively less government intervention in the affairs of private individuals. The Indian Diaspora alone suggests the economy isn’t free enough to reverse the “brain drain.”
The goal of a free society is not economic development; it is to let it's people be free from a tyrannical and imperious government. A free India is much better off than a developed India by cumbersome governmental means. Economic development and diversity is, none-the-less, a result of freedom. No developed nation to this day has ever achieved its means of development without any form capitalism. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already poked some very large holes in the suffocating blanket of the Indian bureaucracy. If we keep going down his path of economic liberation, we will see an India very similar to our little SEZ. This SEZ will be a shining example of the Prime Minister's vision of "inclusive growth," and the rest of India will follow if it likes what it sees. If this small request of little piece of land to be a free society is granted, it will give new meaning to the word "boom."
