Not to pick a fight with The New York Times, which is no doubt staffed with journalists and editors a magnitude of order more intelligent than I, but how does the following make it through the editing process?
China, that other Asian economic powerhouse, sharply reduced child malnutrition, and now just 7 percent of its children under 5 are underweight, a critical gauge of malnutrition. In India, by contrast, despite robust growth and good government intentions, the comparable number is 42.5 percent.
You mean to say that in spite of the Indian government’s good intentions, child malnutrition still exists?
Predictably, the article goes on to implicate a lack of government oomph as a primary cause of child malnutrition. Left unsaid are the myriad ways the Indian state thwarts wealth creation and entrepreneurship by those on the bottom of the economic ladder. Chronic malnutrition is a function of poverty, and poverty is the absence of wealth.
As is largely the case when it comes to India affairs, our friends at the Centre for Civil Society in New Delhi say it best:
On the one hand the government pours money into…subsidy schemes for the urban poor, and on the other hand, it prevents people from earning an honest living. The money for such schemes ironically comes also from the poor since indirect taxes contribute more to the exchequer than the direct taxes. Instead of taking money from a section of the poor in the name of helping the other section of the poor for their employment and welfare, the government should first let the poor earn their living themselves.
Economic freedom is more valuable for those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Nobody appreciates free enterprise and the absence of government regulations and controls more than the poor unlicensed hawker. The rich can always find a way around government controls, the poor have no way out.
And for what’s its worth, I heartily recommend Edward Luce’s magnificent In Spite of the Gods for plenty of evidence that good intentions are not to be found in most of the Indian government’s bureaucracy.
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