During a discussion with some people I came across this article. I have always believed that AAP follows communist ideology. Well, I am quoting the article here. You can read and decide it on your own. If you'll say that article provides a biased view, well you can't deny that in the article author has stated facts, quoting AAP manifesto, and derived logical inferences. Rest you can decide on your own. So here goes the article.
"With much fanfare, Aam Aadmi Party released its vision for India in the form of Election Manifesto or Lok Sabha 2014. Like other parties, there is a lot of rhetoric, a lot of promises, and a lot of utopian dreams of an everlasting life that promise a self rule, the quintessential ram rajya - the Swaraj.
Well, we do not believe in utopian dreams, instead, we are interested in topics, promises that will really move the needle; the things that will uplift the poor and take India towards social and economic stability in coming decades.
For India, in 2014-19, it is important to focus on a well rounded economic policy thereby creating more opportunity and employment. The additional revenue thus generated has to be put in social causes to uplift the meek and the poor out of misery and poverty. This is no rocket science and most of you who have some common sense understand that government does not have money of its own. It either borrows money from International bodies, earns money by selling mined resources, regulating verticals or generates money via taxes. There is no other way to earn money. If government does not have money, they cannot help the poor. It is as simple as that. Let's look at each one of these avenues before we dive into AAP's economic vision.
The foreign money does not come free. It is always a give and take either in terms of trade, geopolitics or its a loan with interest. You stop Walmart, US will trouble IT companies with work visas. Thats how global trade works, its tit for tat, so crying foul on other countries does not help.
Mined resources are finite, they do not last forever and India does not have unlimited supply. You can't bank on mined resources to run a large economy like India, unlike Venezuela.
Regulations is a double edged sword; the more regulations you have the lower is the quality of service, more are the chances of crony capitalism, in other words regulation induces license raj. Imagine if there was no or little regulation on airwaves; there would have been no 2G or 3G scams.
Generating money via taxing its people is government's last resort. Taxation and Subsidies are tools in the hands of politicians to either govern well or defer a country's crisis. If you don't raise money via taxes, you will borrow it and increase the debt on the country and if you continue to do that without growing the economy, you are facing a sure shot collapse, in worst cases disintegration of the country.
Now, that we have set the context, let's see how does Aam Aadmi Party's vision stands against the rationality of debit vs credit and the balance between good governance, growth and subsidies.
The first line of AAP's economic section in the manifesto is loaded with high sounding keywords that cry out loud ... REGULATION and SOCIALISM. They set the agenda by stating that they want equitable growth, when simplified this means we will tax one section heavily, and subsidize the other section, then distribute the wealth by taking from some and giving to others.
Equitable means be fair, be unbiased ... and who will decide that? Obviously not the market, it will be utopian AAP government. This means they will centralize and force regulations to create huge number of checks and balances in the system rather than banking on market dynamics to self regulate. Hope they are not confusing the HRD ministry with Finance ministry. An unsolicited advice to AAP members who created this utopian economic (umm ... socialist) vision. First learn economics and understand separation of concerns, talking about benefits is not the same as running an economy by setting policy. Its a known fact, that the best way to run the economy is to get out of the way of private enterprise and assist them with infrastructure development.
Once you get over the first sub-section of the economic section of Aam Aadmi Party's manifesto, it starts to appear that the people who sat down and drafted this vision are either leftists, environmentalists or communists who sincerely believe that "quality of life" can be improved by giving subsidies, creating a top heavy government and regulating the bureaucracy. Well, here is the news flash my friends: This experiment has been tried in 70 countries and has failed miserably.
In fact, in one section of the manifesto they talk about SWARAJ and DECENTRALIZATION and their entire ECONOMIC VISION is all about CENTRALIZATION, REGULATION and CONTROL ... and they seem to love this keyword "crony capitalism". It is ironic that the more regulations they induce, the more are the avenues of crony capitalism. Are you getting my point AAPsters or AAPeees or AAPites or whatever you call yourselves? .. ah I remember .. you call yourself the aam aadmi.
Further, they talk about integrating economic and environmental policies, as if it is a new thing. It is not being done already. Its a white lie, the central and state governments already have myriad policies that deal with environment. Let me give you an example: New Delhi has worked very hard to reduce its pollution footprint by inducing CNG in public transport in last 15 years. Besides that, there are 30 different certifications that have come into effect in 2012 all over the country that are related to environment .. so I must say this is populist bantor, rather than economic vision. It's like a kid in the candy store dreaming ... I will change all the shelves with chocolates, when you ask how? The answer is ... I don't know. I have not figured out the details yet.
Next, they talk about creation of world class Infrastructure and participation of private enterprise. What a new idea? What a game changer? So you may think. Well, we all know almost all government projects go through tender systems and most projects are done by private enterprise. Have you heard of the term "government contractors"? Who are they? Well, so Aam Aadmi Party is saying that they will run everything via a central politburo and put more and more regulations to ensure that no project can ever take off. We will squeeze the private enterprise to an extent that they don't participate in tenders. What a great plan my friends.
Then after two lines on populist promises, AAP manifesto turns to providing jobs and lifelong learning. Well, my AAPster friends, thats not an economic topic, its a topic that comes under human resource development. You can argue that job creation is an economic concern, not it is not. It is the result of a good economic policy. In your manifesto where is the economic policy? It is completely missing. Do you take all Indians for fools, that you will tell us that we will get chocolates without any clue on sowing cocoa?
The third subsection turns towards "administrative policy", simplification of rules. Well, once again my AAPster friends are confused, I don't blame them, they added a number of social activists, actors, and celebrities to their fold, its evident that they forgot economists. Well, if you have Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav write this economic vision, it is but obvious they will find it difficult to hide socialism and the people who understand micro and macro economics will read in-between lines easily.
The next subsection talks about "unleashing the entrepreneurial energy and the honest business". Well, how do you induce honesty in the business? Well, by creating regulations, checks and balances .. correct? Once again AAPsters contradict themselves, on one side they talk about free enterprise and on the other they use loaded words like "honest business", that means they will be hawk eyed on small businesses and will make sure you don't steal taxes. In short, Mr. Small Business owner, they are already calling you all thieves. Well, some of you may be, but all of you, I don't think so. Then they also talk about creating funds for entrepreneurial capital .. well, I have taken note of this one and I really want to see how do you do this? Where do you get the money for doing this and how many entrepreneurs do you create? And how many of them are your relatives, friends and family ... you get my point girlfriends ... this is an utopian promise. They created subsidy for water and electricity in Delhi and did not allocate funds for it. How do you think they will keep this promise?
Next subsection starts talking about "empowering the poor", it has nothing to do with economics. Enough said.
Next subsection is titled "Rural Economy" and it is funny that it does not have a single sentence that talks about Gram Udyog (village industry). They talk about the socialist order .. the gram sabha. What a new socialist experiment. For those who don't know .. in 1970s and 1980s, India had a concept of cooperatives and laghu-udyogs. It never took off because Rural India specifically survives and thrives on agriculture. Again, its ironic that the manifesto does not say anything about connecting rivers, creating dams, water harvesting. I must say that it does make a populist promise to farmers that AAP will provide them with credit, loans and insurance. Well, this is not a new promise, all political parties repeat this promise every election season. You can't do better than that AAPsters?
Then comes the natural resources: Now this is a joke that AAP will never fulfill. I have no hesitation in saying that they are lying about this one. Can you imagine the coal mine being controlled by the gram sabha next to it? Can you imagine India's thorium reserves being handled by the village next to it? this means Gram Sabhas will regulate production, extraction and selling of natural resources of India. OH MY LORD? Are these socialist jokers crazy?
Finally, comes the most dangerous section in their economic manifesto: NO CONTRACTUALIZATION of JOBS. This means .. they are asking all enterprises to give full time jobs to all the people they hire. All I can say is SOCIALISM, SOCIALISM, SOCIALISM ... and .. UNIONS, UNIONS and more UNIONS. Anyone who has lived through the communist West Bengal and Kerala can tell you how hard it is to run a business in these two states given their regulations and heavy influence of unions.
All in all, AAP's manifesto is full of contradictions, confused, lacks depth and gives their core away .. and that core is a socialist leadership leading common man using corruption as a ploy to fool simple and ignorant indian masses.
Crucify me, vilify me, hate me or love me, it does not matter. I said it the way it is. AAPsters, find some economists to help you out as you need help. You need help to understand the difference between economic policy, human resource development, social policy and environment policy. I don't blame you, I can understand you are still learning ... well, don't you think 2019 would have been a better option rather than getting your behind kicked in 2014 and cheating the real aam aadmi?"
If someone knows about the actual source of the article please let me know, I'll add it to the post.
