United States of India - Year 2147
Since my previous post, i have been chugging along having the same routine everyday. Probably thats the reason i didn't post something for sometime now. Looking back however, I can't quite say that it was totally uneventful. There were few interesting ideas that i came across. One of them, atleast according to me, is pretty revolutionary. In it I see the future of the world say 100-150 years from now. A couple of other things were the arguments that my friend(Shyam mantravadi)and I had over dinner in Saravana Bhavan and a coffee at Starbucks. One was about Gandhi (i should confess i never had a clue when i was back in India, that he could be such a controversial figure) and the other was about how closed we tamils are to people from other states.
I am travelling a bit these days (around 3 hrs). This commute gave me an opportunity to catch up with that reading habit I never quite had. My roomie recommended a book called The Next Global Stage. I started going through the book without too much of an expectation. I thought that it would be one of those books which would ramble on and on about the benefits of globalization and give strategies to succeed in this set up, only to come up with a totally new set of strategies in the name of an update a year later(Stephen covey's The Eighth Habit comes to mind). I was swept off the floor by the way the auother saw the current set up of the world and his views on how it should be. To put is simply, he is totally against the concept of nation-states. His opinion is like this. When we say India is growing at 8% that basically means that regions like Bangalore (and surrounding areas), Hyderabad, Chennai etc., are growing at 15-20% and the rest of India that is not doing anything just piggybacks on the growth these regions have. And these regions don't get the benefits nor all the investments required that they deserve. In his view that makes no-sense and that the world should be reordered into region-states. And like many other economists, he is also for the free movement of capital, goods and labour(atleast in this case, i am quite sure that its a good idea). But think about this, if the countries start becoming region-states (i.e., independent states within a federation where the centre's only job is defence), then a particular region can take advantage of everything at its disposal like geographic location, climate, terrain etc., Since there is no restriction in the movement of capital or goods or labor, the productivity and efficiency will be at its best. In pure economic sense this concept is a winner hands down. Can such a setup be possible or is it pragmatic? I think its an idea way ahead of its time. But just like democracy, there will be no stopping it when its time comes, for no one can stop an idea whose time has come (paraphrasing Victor Hugo). EU can be taken as a very primitive form of the concept he is talking about. To me this idea is pretty revolutionary. It would mean that capital and labor will be put to the best use to produce the best goods. Think about it, this might have serious implications for the future generations.
4 comments:
thanks for the comments srini. As for the inevitable war, if we tamils can defy physical laws (Rajinikanth) now, think of our capabilities in 2147 ;)
Coming back to the idea of unrestricted movement i find it pretty interesting, though i am sure there will be a lot of turmoil before the system settles down to an equilibrium (if it gets to that stage).
Arvind let me try and explain. Lets take Bangalore for example. The investments are coming in and Bangalore with the kind of money it generates should be a world class city. But its not, because the money that the Govt gets through Bangalore is redistributed throughout Karnataka by the state govt, throughout India by the central govt (though partly it can be attributed to other factors). Now everyone knows that the City of Bangalore is in a very bad state (particularly infrastructure). The argument made here is to let the regions (not states) which have a high growth rate choose their own destiny and evolve strategies to perform even better.
Also take Bihar for example, it is such a resource rich state it should have been one of the richest in India. But it is not, because of the artificial tax structure. Because of this coal across India is of the same price even though it is mined in Bihar. So industries built in Maharastra get coal for the same price as that in Bihar (common sense says that it should not be the case). The auother argues that Bihar should be able to take advantage of the resources it has got and develop.
CK
There is always a cost-benifit for this kind of approach. If the government regulates, the goverment also absorbs shocks. For e.g. here in US gas prices shot up by more than 30% in less than a week. That would never ever happen in India. But that is just btw.
How will your idea work practically ? Bangalore for e.g. will then have to import food, water, fuel and everything else from some neibour. Because bangalore is well to do neibours can charge any price they want. Bangalore has to purchase. What about defense and other issues :)
Farmers are heavily subsidised, maybe not so much in India, but in US, Australia etc. And the govt. can subsidise them only with money gained elsewhere. If New York were to become a region and have it's own separate budget and similarly LA and all other such cities then either they would have to pay heavily to import food etc from the agricultural cities in which case instead of the government balancing the economy a whole bunch of middle-men will enter the scenarion, which has all kinds of implications, or else the agricultural infrastructure will collapse which will lead us nowhere.
sorry anagha for the delayed reply. As you have mentioned there is always a cost-benefit analysis. And according to the author of the book, letting region states make their own decisions will only lead to better use (of resources) and higher productivity. In essence he wants each region to be a Special Economic Zone which would make its decisions instead of waiting for a central govt to give authorization.
Also, as i ve mentioned earlier, the central govt will be responsible for defence. As for the practicality of the issue, i have mentioned that it would take a century or two to even contemplate a non-nation type of setup (after all, a democratic type of set up is also a pretty recent development).
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