24 May, 2007

Giving something back to society

Rediff has a headline today that says, ”Don’t show off wealth, pay back to society: PM.”

I know one great way in which rich people can “pay back to society”: By spending their money. There is no better way to spread wealth. Buy a service or a good, and everyone involved in manufacturing and distributing it benefits.

Thus, I find it odd when Manmohan Singh says that Indians “cannot afford the wasteful lifestyles of the Western world.” There’s nothing wasteful about any lifestyle from the perspective of spreading wealth, unless it involves sitting at home and refusing to buy or sell anything, which is a waste of the abilities a person is born with.

Manmohan says many other astonishing things in that piece. For example:

Singh said unless workers feel they are cared for at work “we can never evolve a national consensus in favour of more flexible labour laws aimed at ensuring that our firms remain globally competitive.”

The way that sentence is structured, Manmohan seems to be saying, entirely correctly, that “more flexible labour laws” will help business growth, and thus create more jobs. Why, then, bring up the issue of workers feeling that “they are cared for at work”? If Manmohan really cared about those workers, he would try to ensure that they had more options of employment open to them, which in turn would ensure that their employers treated them better. Reforming the labour laws would help.

Sigh. Under the banner of compassion, such silliness happens!

Update: Nandan Pandit has similar thoughts on his blog, where he aptly writes that our government “shall not rob them [the poor] of their right to feel resentment.” And what better way to ensure that than by keeping them poor?