A few days back I was watching the Intelligence squared debate on BBC, the motion was on Angela Mercel destroying Europe. The motion lost but the debate continues. Call it by any name - Economic profligacy vs Discipline or Communism vs Capitalism the debate has raged for around a century and even today equal distribution of national produce still remains a distant dream. (The rest of Marxist Ideology the class struggleand dictatorship of the proletariat were means to achieve equal distribution.) Sir Bertrand Russell pointed out two major flaws in Marxist Ideology (Ref: Power by Sir Bertrand Russell, if I remember correctly). He said-1.The Govt agencies engaged in controlling production and distribution of a nations produce will require vast resources to run their activities and will have to draw money from the general population and in return will have to hand over a part of their profits to the investors, so the concept of economic divide and class struggle does not apply,and 2. The people who man these Govt. agencies will inevitably turn autocratic due to the absolute power they enjoy and will not be tolerated by the population at large beyond a limit. Both predictions turned true. Most Govt corporations nowadays issue shares (except for some security linked organizations ) and it is generally believed that the job of the Govt is to enact laws not run corporations. Also after the USSR episode most Russians opined the communist Tsars were as bad as the Tsars of Imperial Russia. There is also another aspect to this debate. In any society some people will be successful and others will not (due to lack of oppertunity, or training or inclination to the occupation they persue). We also generally accept that providing livelihood to a person by training him to earn an independent living is cheaper in the long run than providing his needs for life.In a communist system where the state owns and distributes the National produce those who contribute to the economy in a major way are deprived of the fruits of their labour because it is redistributed amongst those who have not been that successful in contributing. In this system the contributors loose their impetus to work and those who are unable to contribute continue to live on doles because of their inability to contribute. This leads to a gradual shrinkage of the economy once the exuberance of nation building is over. Such a spectre was seen in USSR which broke down due to economic rather than political reasons. China is making a timely shift in attitude much to the benefit of its economy and that of the World at large.Greece is facing a similar situation and is expected to take measures to rectify. Add to this the inefficiencies of a corrupt centralised and it is not difficult to see why the motion on Angela Mercel failed.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 15:19:31 +0000
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