Instead of having SEZs and myriad other exemptions, we need to start thinking seriously about having lower and flatter individual and corporate taxes to boost economic growth as well as tax revenues.
The removal of loopholes is very important. If you are in an industry that is not very good at bribing politicians – then your [...]
Now if you must spoil your mood with facts, here is my earlier post about school choice.
Enough
The BJP and the RSS should show themselves to be genuinely nationalist and inclusive entities, and strongly condemn the Bajrang Dal on this.
The Bajrang Dal, even if it does speak for some kind of “silent majority”, certainly does not speak for me. Enough Semitization of my Hinduism.
Update: Following the Nanavati report, Modi has a chance [...]
The answer, first of all, is no. Liberal nationalism would be against a massive, inefficient welfare state that tries to equalize outcomes but would be in favor of a smart welfare state that tries to equalize opportunity.
Why does the question get asked? Because liberal nationalism means that citizens’ property and liberty must be defended. So [...]
Landmines rarely come bigger than political philosophy, but what the heck.
On this board (and indeed beyond) there seem to be two perspectives about what we have called liberal nationalism – and the relevant parties should correct me if I oversimplify. Nitin’s view is that liberal nationalism should be silent about yet not devoid of “morality” [...]
Saubhik Chakrabati at IE tells us how:
India’s efforts to attract private investment in power have been sabotaged by the bankruptcy of power buyers — state electricity boards (SEBs), which purchase power and transmit and distribute it or transmit it to private distributors. If you want to commit a large amount of money in a power [...]
When Stephen Colbert starts to mock the free markets, you know its bad. After all, good comedy – even from the left – is seldom without a point. The meme of “private profits and socialized losses” is indeed not a completely inaccurate one to describe the current financial crisis in America.
Paulson, the treasury secretary, now seems to be willing to spend [...]
Welfare states everywhere tend to be arbitrary and sub-optimal, but India’s incipient one raises that bar for sure. If we are to save ourselves from a major political deadlock over reforming these programs later on – we need to stop paying attention to the Jean Drezes and the Amartya Sens now.
For example, the whole premise [...]
Hey did you ever hear this one growing up?
Chunnu, Munnu thhey do bhai,
Rasgule pe hui ladai.
Chunnu bola mai khaunga,
Munnu bola mai khaunga.
Halla sun kar Mummy aayi,
Dono ko ek chapat lagaayi.
Khabhi na ladna,
Kabhi na jaghadna,
Aapas me tum milke rahena.
(Rough Translation: Chunnu and Munnu, two brothers, both want to eat the Rasgulla. Their mom scolds them for [...]
Notice I did not ask “Republicans or Democrats”, I asked “republicans or democrats”. This post is about political philosophy and its applications to India, not about the American political parties (though they do seem to be named correctly, at least on economic issues)
Now the Indian Constitution says that we are amongst other things a “democratic [...]
In my previous post on this topic, I had tried to explain that we should separate the debate on the aim of a policy, and the mechanism of that policy. With this approach it is difficult for the left to attack the right that its support for deregulation and direct subsidies is anti-poor, and it [...]
Right now poor parents in India’s slums and villages do not have a palatable choice when it comes to the education of their children. Either send them to free but failing government schools, or pay for private schools. Because by and large the government does not pay for your kids’ private schooling – it will [...]
When it comes to economic policy, the average leftie thinks that righties are selfish and the average rightie thinks that lefties are stupid. Each group thinks that it speaks coherently, but to the other side it is just noise.
Yet I do not think that stupidity is the monopoly of the lefties, or selfishness the exclusive [...]
