Pro-Poor vs Anti-Poverty

Every government in our country aims to be pro-poor. I do not understand this. Why should any government be pro-anybody. Are we all not equals in law? Then why are the law-makers pro-poor? Poverty is the default state of any society. Wealth has to be created. People, by default, are poor. They need to make money (wealth) and accumulate wealth. In any sane society, accumulating or creating means (i.e wealth) to procure goods for survival is a man's fundamental duty. By tagging itself to the poor, government is siding a losing cause., and much worse, it is aiming the wrong cause.

When do we say India does not have any poor? In 1980s, people who did not own a radio were considered poor. In 2000s, people who did not own a black-and-white television were considered poor. Now, most of these people own color tv's. If we take 1950 standards, India would be almost rid of its poor instantly. But unfortunately, government does not consider so. This is like a race where the finish line moves faster than the runners. Who can win such a race? What is the objective of such an effort? Does the government have an agenda, like we will help poor till 90% of people earn more than 3000/- pm or that we will help poor till 2050 etc or a list of 20 million or so people and their details, whom it'll help till they grow over poverty? When do we end this charity?

A typical example of this is the CPI/CPM (Left)'s stand on small traders. Before the retail business was opened to corporates, Left had criticized small traders for having huge margins and eating into the Producer's (farmers) pie. Now with Reliance, Bharti, Heritage etc., venturing into Retail space, the culprits have become the victims. Now Left is sympathysing with the petty traders, saying that corporates are eating to the trader's pie.

This agenda of supporting anyone who is poor, without an iota of thought on the rationale behind it or the objectivity to define who is right and whose right is it, is the cause of our mis-fortune. Poverty can end, if we define it, measure it and take steps for its eradication. Atleast we could hope to reduce the high prevelance of poverty. But, Poor will always exist. There will always be poor people and rich people, because not everybody is equal in ability, timing or luck.

Group Appeasement vs Individual

Around two years ago, in some small village in Northern India, a 6 year old child, named Prince, fell into an open empty borewell. As the borewell wasn't very deep, he survived the fall with minor injuries, but safe at the bottom. This event would have gone unnoticed and uncared for had it not been for a news-starved and a low-on-trp television channel. The rescue effort to get the kid out of the borewell was aired live on the channel for the whole day.

As the day progressed, and the rescue was getting delayed due to various reasons, the live-program on television got more and more viewership and in a matter of hours became a national sensation. This might have been left out as a small abberation or an example of the effect of mass communications in public life and closed the chapter. But that is not to be so. Seeing such popularity for the show, a few politicians showed up at the scene of rescue, and bashed up the poor police for their lack of sensitivity to the issue and delaying the rescue. The icing of the cake came when a local MLA declared that the kid would get Rs.1 lakh in compensation and free education till school.

This is exactly the misfortune of our governmental policies. An MLA gives Rs.1 lakh (that is not his) to a kid for falling into a borewell. For what is government compensating the kid? What if other kids take the example and start jumping into borewells. Do we compensate every one of them? Who's money was the MLA donating anyway? Do we suppose that an MLA can exhibit his sensitivity to such issues at the expense of tax-payers. This is not very different from the Kings we had a few centuries ago, where if the King was pleased he could graciously give any amount to anybody. The only difference here is a politician would give any amount to anybody,
as long as feels that the public is pleased with it, or he should manipulate the public to get pleased at his donations. That is the rule of the game, and a very dangerous one at that. A lot of government policies are just that. They are aimed at pleasing the public at large.

Milton Fredman, the nobel prize winning economist, once said, Our policies should be measured not by intentions but by the results they achieve.

Money, Government and Tax

First, let me begin with a few definitions.

Money - is the value somebody is willing to pay for a product/service.

This means, if you create a product, you create money. If you enhance a product, you enhance the value and hence create money. If you work for a company, you enhance its capability to produce, hence you create money. The amount of money is not a fixed value within a country (or world, city, family). It increases if you produce and falls if you dont.

Government - is a system formed my people to make and enforce laws that ensure our social interactions remain peaceful and just.

Tax - is money collected by Government from its citizens for its expense.

The following definitions are intentionally very simplistic to allow for later interpretations.