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| ▲ | sirtaj an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The privatisation of Delhi power distribution was initiated by a Congress state government in 2000. | | |
| ▲ | Gangway0829 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I am aware. The initial privatization push was initiated by Congress in 1991! My lament is that privatization has remained anemic, even under the so-called right wing BJP. But you should also acknowledge that national electrical reform was done by BJP. The real problem for Indian politics was the re-entry of the Gandhi nepo-baby dynasty. We would be a lot better off if they hadn't gotten their claws back into the INC. | | |
| ▲ | sirtaj an hour ago | parent [-] | | It's not surprising. For one, stated vs actual goals always differ and someone needs pockets to reach into. For the other, plenty of countries that listened to orgs like the World Bank saying "privatise everything immediately and reap the benefits!" just ended up handing the assets to cronies. Examples like Russia are of course well-known, but it's obviously happening under BJP in India as well. | | |
| ▲ | Gangway0829 42 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It's once again lamentable, but somewhat predictable that even on a post about how privatization fixed, in five years, a problem that persisted for 50, you insist on spreading boogeyman tales about privatization. The Indian government is what American libertarians are afraid of, and in their defense, they should be afraid. | | |
| ▲ | sirtaj 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Boogeyman? Is the outcome of the World Bank's insistence on "structural adjustments" somehow in debate now? I was in Delhi when this started and they began laying out the tamper-proof cable back in the early 2000s. At that time, railway food had been privatised, perhaps you recall. It wasn't better. The problem was not the privatisation or lack thereof, it was the complete lack of accountability. | | |
| ▲ | Gangway0829 21 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I'm not referring to the World Bank, but rather the idea that BJP's privatization push is somehow benefiting cronies. This is a widely reported accusation by the INC, but like most of their accusations, it seems to be a matter of slinging mud at the wall and seeing what sticks. Part of accountability is the possibility for failure and the associated consequences. PSUs have no fear of failure, since they're fundamentally parasitic, living as they are on the tax receipts of the beleaguered middle class. Private industry either increases efficiency to the point of profit, or goes under, simple as. Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the results! Of course, if there is complete government capture by industry, then there is no more risk of failure, and you have privatized PSUs. But let's say this, from 1947-1991, India traded the British for the IAS. Hardly much of an improvement. The only way to reduce their power is to transfer it to the private sector, outside of areas where the utility of the activity is all externality (e.g. defense, scientific research). We have to move in this direction or risk returning to the License Raj era. Perhaps this will create more problems, but at least our children won't curse us for leaving them with our parents' problems. | | |
| ▲ | sirtaj 9 minutes ago | parent [-] | | We're going to go back to the original point you made that you don't understand why privatisation is going so slowly. And I will reiterate that there are good and bad reasons. The bad reasons are visible, like Adani winning every coal tender in every BJP state, or the contractors (privatised) who make shit roads so they can then get paid to repair them. The good reasons are the ones I stated and you've touched on - you don't just give away the family jewels, you make sure that the recipient is strongly incentivised to do a better job. Just "oh they need to make money so it will be better" is too nebulous to mean anything. What is the incentive for a railway caterer to do a better job if he won't get pulled up for substandard food? Saw the same thing playing out in public transport in a few different countries, incidentally. London railways are a particularly hilarious example of what happens when you privatise without proper accountability. |
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| ▲ | mc32 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | True it should never have gotten so bad, but when there is no incentive to invest, this is the result you can expect. This happened in Venezuela and South Africa too - though SA also suffers from massive corruption (officials pocketing moneys and diverting from investment in infra). | |
| ▲ | SanjayMehta an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The BJP is marginally less socialist than the Congress. On the positive side, they are definitely less corrupt than the Congress. | |
| ▲ | leosanchez an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > India has been crippled by decades of socialist government overreach. It baffles me that country still has strong anti-capitalist views. I guess lack of education does that to people. Also, BJP is slightly right of Congress (post 1991) when it comes to economics. | | |
| ▲ | Gangway0829 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Being to the right of the current INC is not an achievement. The only people not in that position are Maoists. Anyway, I think it's reasonable to be suspicious of the wealthy and powerful. For instance, I personally quite dislike our new AI ruling class. But unfortunately, in India there was an attitude since independence that it is impossible to generate wealth in a legitimate manner. Which is going way too far! And has predictably bad outcomes for the country. | |
| ▲ | bell-cot an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > It baffles me that... While the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company was, as a broad generality, not nearly so vile as (say) the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colonization_of_the_Am..., it certainly didn't leave many Indians with a favorable impression of European-style capitalism. | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar an hour ago | parent [-] | | Definitely not nearly as vile. It certainly wasn't perfect, particularly things like the awful penal colonies, but jump-starting a giant civilisation, say, 1000+ years into the future is not straightforward either. India is experiencing a rise in nationalism, but would do well to imagine the counterfactual of what India would be like had Europe never visited. | | |
| ▲ | triceratops 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > jump-starting a giant civilisation, say, 1000+ years into the future is not straightforward either The various East India companies went to India (and the other east Indies) because those places had things rich Europeans desired - spices yes, but also high-end, high-quality textiles and handcrafted items. They were the height of civilization and had high economic productivity. > would do well to imagine the counterfactual of what India would be like had Europe never visited It would probably not be one country. Best case scenario: like a South Asian EU. Why do you think they wouldn't have copied European industrialization and developed themselves? Japan did it. | |
| ▲ | ivell 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > jump-starting a giant civilisation, say, 1000+ years into the future is not straightforward either. Not sure what you are suggesting here. | | |
| ▲ | Gangway0829 13 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It's pretty clear lol. OP definitely thinks we were living in mud huts before the British gifted us railroads. |
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| ▲ | collabs an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > It baffles me that country still has strong anti-capitalist views. I wouldn't call the "license raj" of India as anti-capitalist.
India arguably has the strongest of institutions of all the countries in South Asia.
However, even its institutions and regulations are pathetically weak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster You probably also saw a previous post right here on this orange website
when someone tried to repatriate their business money outside of India.
It was painful just to read that they had to get approvals
from iirc sixteen different government agencies
to get their own money that they brought in from outside of India back.
Not profits, not proceeds, a fraction of what they put in. Neither of these two cases is due to "anti-capitalist" views of India.
If you look at what was India before Moghul rule and British rule,
you could argue India has never been socialist before. I think workers everywhere should have "strong anti-capitalist views",
because unrestrained capitalism is just anarchy. | | |
| ▲ | Gangway0829 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I think that's a bad read of Indian institutions. They are incredibly powerful - in fact, they are far too powerful. That's the problem. The license raj is the epitome of authoritarian, centralized political and economic power. I suppose it was justified on socialist grounds, but it would be fair to say that saying so doesn't make it so! Before 91, nothing, and I mean nothing, could happen without government say-so. The problem with Indian institutions is that they are far too powerful, centralized and bureaucratic. Just read the article - the problem was created by a lazy, corrupt, powerful and centralized bureaucratic system. The solution was to dismantle it and decentralize power. | | |
| ▲ | collabs 37 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I apologize I am not very good at expressing myself.
Could India be better?
Of course!
Anyone can be better than what they are.
Like a fish that lives in water doesn't ever think about water,
an Indian living in India does not think about the absurdity
of how powerful a District Collector / District Magistrate (DM) / Deputy Commissioner (DC) is in contemporary India. > I think that's a bad read of Indian institutions. They are incredibly powerful - in fact, they are far too powerful. That's the problem. The license raj is the epitome of authoritarian, centralized political and economic power. I suppose it was justified on socialist grounds, but it would be fair to say that saying so doesn't make it so! Before 91, nothing, and I mean nothing, could happen without government say-so.
> The problem with Indian institutions is that they are far too powerful, centralized and bureaucratic. Just read the article - the problem was created by a lazy, corrupt, powerful and centralized bureaucratic system. The solution was to dismantle it and decentralize power. What you are saying is absolutely true.
the bureaucracy in India is absolutely lazy, corrupt, powerful, and centralized.
It is also arguably one of the biggest reasons why India has never had a (successful) military coup.
You could even argue the inefficiency and the sluggishness of the bureaucracy is a feature and not a defect. | | |
| ▲ | Gangway0829 17 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I think this is a self-deprecating canard that's oft-repeated, but I think fails the credibility test and encourages a kind of fatalistic resigned attitude among Indians. Are we to take from this that efficient bureaucracies lead inevitably to coups? Is the pathetic state of most African countries a result of their stellar bureaucracies? |
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