SOCIALISM is fashionable in India today, like sideburns and tight pants in her cities. The competitive race that politicians professing socialism are running with each other does not, however, mean that socialism is good for India. Nor, that it would endure. As a citizen of Indian democracy, I oppose socialism mainly on four grounds.
First, socialism cannot solve our problem of poverty. With socialism, India would slide from poverty to pauperism.
Second, it would lead to destruction of individual liberties. Our democratic constitution would disintegrate under pressure of socialist policies.
Third, socialism would result in glaring inequalities between the rulers and ruled and lead the country away from the path of social justice.
Finally, it would come in the way of India’s greatness, while destroying her noble traditions.
Since there is considerable confusion even among socialists on what it means, it is better to define socialism. Broadly, its objective is to create a society of the free and the equal. This is also the objective of several other ideologies and non-socialists.
The crucial difference lies in the methodology of socialism. That methodology is (a) Central Planning of economic activities by the State, and (b) State ownership of means of production, distribution and exchange. This methodology has failed elsewhere. It will not succeed in India either.
Opposition to Central Planning is generally confused with opposition to all planning or all state intervention in economic affairs. It is dubbed as a plea for laissez faire. Far from it. The modern state has to plan its own duties and obligations towards citizens. For instance, defence of territorial integrity and freedom; maintenance of law and order; provision of infra-structure facilities (such as honest and good administration, roads, ports etc.) which cannot be provided by citizens by themselves but without which there can be no economic activity; provision of basic amenities like drinking water, public sanitation; education; regulation of private enterprise; a stable currency; institutional and legal framework for economic transactions etc., are obligations of the modern states. They have to be planned and provided for.
In place of these basic functions, which would keep an underdeveloped country’s government fully occupied, central planning has come to mean high cost steel plants and other inefficiently run state enterprises and a tangle of monopolies or near-monopolies in insurance, air transport, banking etc. impeding economic activities of citizens and rapid economic growth.
State ownership through a Public Sector and nationalisation of private industries is no longer acceptable even to socialists in countries like Sweden and Great Britain which have had socialist governments. In Sweden, over 90 per cent of the economy is in private enterprise. Yet Sweden has had socialist rule now for about 40 years! Most of the European socialists have found that state ownership does not transform the economy into a paradise of plenty. In state enterprises, technological and managerial problems remain much the same. Production and productivity, the very basis of a better life for all, tend to fall precipitously. If Parliamentary control over Public Sector is sought to be made effective, efficiency falls. If autonomy is granted in the interests of efficiency, then the bureaucracy in charge of Public Sector runs amuck, enjoying power without accountability. Individual freedoms, including trade union rights of employees, are progressively destroyed.
Poverty, our basic economic problem, can be solved quickly only by releasing the creative energies of the people. Freedom, not statism, is the answer.
Socialists in India have developed a vested interest in poverty, just as communists have in disorder and chaos. The prescription of both will not eliminate poverty; it will add the tyranny of Authority to the tyranny of Poverty.
Moreover, socialism in India will lead the country from poverty to pauperism because of tremendous wastage of scarce resources. The Public Sector, with its record of losses and misdirection of scarce resources into capital intensive, low-employment potential industries will aggravate Indian poverty. Other consequences of this statism are food problem and inflation (i.e. a cruel tax on hard-working fixed income groups). Neither are calculated to eradicate poverty, nor promote social justice.
If the economy and people of India have survived the shock of socialist economic policies over the past 15 years, the reasons are to be found in the fortunate circumstance of a good sector of the population being beyond the pale of monetisation (and consequently the mischief of a number of government’s economic policy) and the immense capacity of the people to circumvent the plethora of impractical laws imposed on them by the rulers in the pursuit of socialism. As an old saying attributed to a farmer says: “What I eat today is mine; what I save for tomorrow will go to the king”.
Socialism was described by someone as the bridge to totalitarianism. Socialists are verbal champions of freedom, but their actions destroy freedom. Thus, they pave the way for totalitarianism. With increasing state ownership, and control over the economy, Trotsky’s warning will come true: Formerly the rule was that he who does not work shall not eat, but now the rule is he who does not obey shall not eat! Threats to the freedom of the Press, the right to property, to every industry and trade, to sacred treaty obligations, and misuse of All-India Radio and governmental machinery for personal and factional ends, demand for a “committed bureaucracy”, which will be followed by a demand for “committed armed forces” (in other words, “commissar” system) are inevitable first steps in the march towards a full-fledged socialist state.
It is seldom realised that socialism is not only the enemy of individual freedoms—the socialist rulers always having the uncontrollable itch to control everyone except themselves—but also specially so of farmers, middle classes and generally the small man. This is necessary because state ownership has a tendency towards bigness for sake of bigness, and for easy control over all the ruled that bigness affords.
The socialists always speak of social justice, and set out to do things which destroy it. Take equality for instance. Equality of income and wealth is a mirage except in a stagnant society, or a colony of slaves. The essence of equality is equality before law. In the socialist state, it is destroyed. The rulers and the ruled become two distinct classes, with the same set of laws administered with a split personality. Socialists who preach equality of income and ceilings on income have no hesitation in enjoying huge perquisites at public cost. Central ministers who draw barely Rs. 2,500 a month and enjoy perquisites worth Rs. 17,000 a month are but one example of this conspicuous hypocrisy. Legislators are not much behind in the race for perquisites. Under socialism, professional politicians evolve a perquisitive society and destroy equality before law.
Equality is destroyed in another way. The huge and growing army of government servants is denied access to political power. The area of decision-making left to the citizens is progressively reduced and there is concentration of decision-making in a few political hands.
Social injustice is perpetuated in yet another way. The emphasis on equality of income and cry for ceilings result in similar rewards to the deserving and undeserving alike. After 50 years of bitter experience, the Soviet regime is realising the necessity for income differentials. As one Soviet economist, Prof. Alexander Birman, put it: Why should “loafers” get the same pay as good and efficient workers?
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Socialism has introduced in Indian society the poison of class warfare. Big against small business, businessmen against public, urban workers against farmers, landless labour against peasants—all are taught to hate others instead of creating economic opportunities for all and building bridges of understanding. The professional politicians are not aware of the consequences of setting a placid society on fire. When the day of disillusionment with socialism comes, as it is bound to, nobody can save these politicians from the fury of the masses which have been systematically taught to hate.
The cumulative effect of all these things is to place a premium on sub-mediocrity and to destroy excellence. Is it any wonder that with vigorous socialist measures, larger number of people are running away from this country in the phenomenon broadly known as the Brain Drain? How many socialist politicians have left this country for good? Certainly not when they can live as the self-appointed sons-in-law of the Indian people.
A strategically located country like India, with her vast natural resources and resourcefulness of people, is destined to become a Big Power. Socialism is an obstacle in the early realisation of that supreme status because socialism will take the country from poverty to pauperism; and from freedom to slavery. But with the inevitable process of disillusionment, ultimately Indian people will reject socialism and find a philosophy more in tune with their genius and requirements of the country. Till such time, those who believe in freedom and national greatness have to fight a battle against incipient authoritarianism because socialism is indeed the Road to Disaster.
This essay is part of a series from the Indian Liberals archive, a project of the Centre for Civil Society. This essay is excerpted from the booklet Freedom First with the title “Why I Oppose Socialism”, which was published in February 1970. The original version can be accessed here.