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Trade's
Dirty War The NGO mob in Seattle represents Uncle Sam's stalking horse
What precisely are the luddites at the gate seeking? An assortment of "religious leaders" and other utopian socialists want to cancel the debt of poorer countries. Others have a more focused agenda -- stringent labour and environmental laws and reduction of agricultural subsidies. The first two are aimed at the developing world, the third at the European Union. In other words, the throng outside the convention centre in Seattle represents Uncle Sam's fifth column. No wonder Clinton is happy to (selectively) accommodate its views. A basic parameter of trade is comparative advantage -- the ability of a country to make optimal use of its strengths. The comparative advantage of India, as of many other Third World countries, is cheap labour. It is nobody's argument that workers should be exploited in the manner in which US cotton plantations once used slaves. The prison factories of China, for instance, have been correctly condemned. Even so, to convert your inability to compete against a low-cost economy into a moral crusade is simply not on. Given that an election to the White House is due in a year, Seattle-type "outbursts" can be expected to recur. Only, the next time the world will not be caught off guard. On the Gravy Train When politicians gorge and expect taxpayers to pick up the tab
Habitual defaulters, as any lending agency or credit-card company will tell you, are a dime a dozen in India. The aggrieved party moves court and patiently waits for justice to come its way. What is instructive in the ITDC case is that the corporation has made no great effort to present the unpaid bills to its VIP customers. Not that this should be surprising. It is just further evidence of the cosy nexus between bureaucrats and politicians that has, in effect, ravaged the Indian state. That the entire swindle only came to light after a spirited NGO moved a public-interest petition speaks volumes for the Indian governing system's supposedly built-in accountability. In a proper democracy, a parliamentarian would have resigned if such accusations were made against him. In India, the MP believes it is the taxpayer's duty to pamper him. That's the real pity. |
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It
would be tempting to look upon the 50,000-strong Seattle mob that spent
the better part of the past week shouting slogans against WTO, free trade
and capitalism in general as a conglomeration of the American version of
the lunatic left. To particularly misty-eyed sections of the US media, the
scene represented a return to "true" democracy, those wonderful
days when peaceniks went lachrymose over Vietnam and the more enterprising
ones dodged the draft. It would appear most appropriate that President
Bill Clinton, a man who has built a career on '60s nostalgia, would want
to "open the process to all those people demonstrating outside"
and suggest "the views of civil society must be heard and
incorporated into the WTO".
No
debate on this country's oversize public sector is complete without
somebody asking, "What is the government doing running hotels?"
Presumably providing the political class unlimited free meal tickets -- or
so it would appear from what the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC)
admitted before the Delhi High Court a week ago. Between them a host of
politicians from Chandra Shekhar to Sahib Singh Verma to Madhavrao Scindia
owe the state-owned hospitality company Rs 43.46 crore. Why, even the
Union government, in particular the External Affairs Ministry and the
Prime Minister's Office, and the Congress figure on the list of
defaulters. Given that a year ago there was a furore over unpaid telephone
-- adding up to Rs 15 crore -- and water bills of MPs and former MPs, the
ITDC scandal is scarcely unique. That a recovery suit against Chandra
Shekhar is pending before the courts does not demean only an individual;
it is an embarrassment to the entire nation of which he was once prime
minister.