Wealth of a notion

In a more mature democracy, where each institution is confident of its strengths and responsibilities, the prime minister’s speech at CII on Thursday would have elicited a measured but mostly critical response from industry. But at least industry, no matter how it chooses to handle calls of entering the public debate, knows what the basics are. Which is to say there may be ‘concern’ that senior executive pay is ‘too high’, but professionals will know the problem is not an overwhelming onset of greed. There’s — as our columnist today points out — an acute shortage of skilled high-end labour.

But can we be confident about politics? That, really, is the key question after the PM’s speech. As a report in this newspaper today points out, the PM’s CII speech marks a significant rhetorical break. He has for the first time in the many speeches he has given put the focus on individual decisions on how to spend their income, about market outcomes in determining compensation levels. We have never heard this from Dr Singh before. But we heard it many times when economic reforms began, thanks to policies undertaken by the man who gave the CII speech. Accusing liberal economics of being a socially disruptive, morally vacuous and politically unsustainable policy choice was bread-and-butter politics in the early and middle 1990s. But slowly that changed. Some rhetoric against the market was there — it will always be there and, in competitive electoral politics, that’s no bad thing. But what happened over the years is that politics gradually understood that people earning more, buying more, wanting a better life, being not terribly apologetic about it — these were positive attributes. The politics of material want, where poverty is ascribed a moral glow, where poorly-stocked shop shelves were seen

as proof of national progress —

reforms took the persuasive edge out of that language.

Now that the politician who lent his name to the new economics has taken a so very different approach, will Manmohanomics survive in politics? The change wrought by reforms is broad but not deep enough still. What if politicians across the spectrum take a cue from the PM? What if what are considered ‘excesses’ of a few are extrapolated to condemn the aspirations of the many? What if the most marvellous lesson from reforms — that economic freedom is much more democratic than a nanny state — is forgotten in the rush to target the billionaire and the CEO? Would the prime minister want that?