Reason had a great post today, spinning off of the movie Slumdog Millionaire (no – I haven’t seen it yet – but it’s now on my high priority list). The movie is about an Indian orphan who wins the jackpot on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The author provides a bit of Indian history lesson, and teaches us quite a lesson as well:
For decades would-be entrepreneurs [in India] staggered under the weight of corruption and bureaucracy. Want to import a computer for your business? You’d have to get permission from a bureaucrat. Want to sell food from a small cart? You’d need all kinds of licenses.
But in the 1990s, India emerged as a high-tech powerhouse. What changed?
“In the 1990s India started liberalizing its economy,” says Dalmia, “and it did three things: cut taxes, liberalized trade, and deregulated business.” Although they failed to cut the kind of red tape that entangled Slumdog‘s orphans, the reforms did make it easier for more Indians to start businesses and hire employees.
And what is America doing?
Since the early 1990s, India has cut its poverty rate in half. About 300 million Indians-equivalent to the population of the entire United States-escaped the hunger and deprivation of extreme poverty thanks to pro-market reforms that increased economic activity.
Yet here in America we’re turning away from market reform. Says Dalmia, “It’s just this great conundrum that at the same time that deregulation and markets have produced such dramatic results in India, they are falling into suspicion in America.”
Read the post, see the movie, get a clue. Here is what we DO NOT need:
1) The government handing out dollars to help “failing” businesses, and then dictating how those businesses will operate
2) Employee Free Choice Act encumbering American businesses with yet another layer of bureaucracy, AND allowing the government to write their labor agreements for them (read the law if you think it ain’t so!)
