Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Economic Freedom mattered more equally as Political Freedom by Chandra

Prominent liberal Thomas Sowell wrote in his book Applied Economic Thinking Beyond Stage One. One student asked to professor, where do slave come from? But Prof replied the question is wrong one should ask where freedom comes from.

Freedom means life is in mutual with other fellow man and women. There is political freedom and there is economic freedom. Another Nobel Prize winner and economist Milton Friedman wrote in his famous book on Capitalism and Freedom, this book has important analysis of political and economic freedom.

I once had an opportunity to read this book in 2002 but could not understand fully give the background of my muddled socialist professors.

But I reread the book in 2007 and strongly feel that every student should read this book irrespective of their previous training in their subjects.  

Now there is news report which says that “India's ranking in the index, which scales prosperity of the whole society, is down by 8 notches to 77th position among 141 countries in 2006, with uneven pattern of economic reforms widening gap between the rich and the poor”, 

There is also reports view in these rich and poor divide myths.

"Unequal distribution of Economic Freedom is at the basis of India's uneven development. The reason is simple, the areas in which the middle and upper classes make their living have seen the highest degree of liberalisation, while the areas in which the poor earn their livelihood have seen the fewest reforms," it said. The rating on a scale of 10 declined from 6.6 to 6.59.? 

“Among the five components of the EFW index, the largest decline for India is in 'Sound Money' where its score decreased to 6.70 in 2006, with the country ranking at the 113th position, from 7.0 in 2005”. 

One can deem this decline may be the damages done by RBI and the Government  which still fails to reaslise “there is a strong connection between economic freedom and common well-being. Countries with higher economic freedom have higher average per-capita GDP and average per-capita economic growth”. 

It is quite interesting one read the following articles on Friedman

The man who helped millions escape poverty by Ila Patnaik  

Friedman on India by Parth J Shah

 

 


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