--By Madhukar SJB Rana

 

Creating a new mind set amidst citizens -- away from the feudalrisk-averting, rent-seeking behaviour towards competition, entrepreneurship and judicious risk taking is a challenge that needs to be faced by the victorious left of centre and centrist political parties that now dominate the Constituent Assembly. Being able to do so will deepen liberal democracy and heighten the chances for the long desired economic revolution.

 

The market assures Good Governance through Transparency, Accountability and Competition with, hopefully, a lean and efficient State where Consumer Sovereignty Is deemed to be  just as vital as People’s Sovereignty and Parliamentary Sovereignty for a dynamic liberal society.

 

Strong and sound Regulation of Business by State guarantees moral and ethical Markets to safeguard the supremacy of Consumer Rights and Welfare, as well as Labour’s Rights and Welfare. Regulated Markets helps eradicate graft and corruption from the body politic by advancing the rule of law, order and justice including laying the ground work for a stronger criminal justice system. Absence of competitive Markets adversely affects all these vitals for a vibrant political democracy. Graft and corruption is endemic when the State enters the domain of business and when these enterprises are outside the purview of regulation by independent authorities providing for a level playing field for all enterprises.

 

In short, the Market mechanism allows the fostering of a new Social Contract between the People and the State in the manner of 4 Ps -- people-private-public- partnerships if all decisions, henceforth, seek to maximise social profit and not simply private profit as happens now. Business enterprises will then begin to take their Corporate Social Responsibility statements more seriously and not use their CSR statements as new managerial fads for PR purposes.

 

Indeed, a moral market calls for the enforcement of these statements as cases to be decided by Consumer and Labour courts on grounds of morality that may thus go far beyond the rule of law. This is the essence of moral Markets.

 

Policy for marketisation: No licence be needed to enter any business. All citizens be able to a start business with due registration with Company Affairs Dept or CDO offices for proprietorships and partnerships as the case may be. All businesses must have PAN cards from Ministry of Finance or, where unable, from the Ward Office as a registered local business entity. Transaction cost for such business permits be at the minimum possible. And to convert informal businesses to formal ones, the State should encourage register at ease by providing subsidies to meet their registration costs.

 

Markets create cities and an ever expanding middle class both of which are forces and factors for inclusive social development and modernization. No institutional innovation known to mankind can crate more wealth and prosperity than does the market mechanism. Liberal democracies are best served by an expanding middle class with maximum social mobility.

 

Markets must be managed by managers whose social duty is to create a win-win situation by balancing the interests of all stakeholders -- owners, shareholders, employees, consumers, suppliers, community and ecology.

 

Governments must regulate Markets to guarantee fair and free competition and to oversee that the larger public good, including those of the next generation and the additional need to conserve and protect the natural environment.

 

Faith in the Market as an institution does not mean that it will guarantee economic or social justice. We must not subscribe to laissez faire where the property class is given free reign. Rather than seeking to curtail the excesses of wealth through all manner of wealth and estate taxes as well as capital gains taxes, the state must encourage Private Philanthropy and for this the new CA is alerted to the need to promulgate a Private Trust Act that is available for all sectors of the economy. It has been lying pending since 2005. The state must regulate the Market to ensure be actualised. For all this to be actualised, there is the supreme need for strong independent regulatory bodies to protect and promote the rule of law just as much  as there is need for a strong Executive to be kept in check and balance with the final say left to an independent  Supreme Court as the arbiter and dispense of justice and the Constitutional Court to decide on the powers and authority of the federal and local governments.

 

It should be the Constitutional Court that has the final say on when People’s Sovereignty should hold sway over Parliamentary Sovereignty so that matters for local, federal and national referenda could be decided in an apolitical manner by an organ of State other than the Parliament.

 

The Constitution must be one that enshrines liberal democracy where the State guarantees equal opportunity to all based on merit and grounded by a Social Contract where there is quality education and health services from the State for all: to ensure social meritocracy for all irrespective of race, religion, caste, class and region. All public institutions must be bound by minimum standards for infrastructure, health and hygiene, safety and security.

 

The Constitution must also enshrine values of Transparency, Accountability and Competition as the troika of Liberal Multi Party Democracy. A strong State is needed that is fully alert to the probability of collusion by and between vested interest of Political Parties acting in tandem with the wealthy and rich classes to capture Political and Market power against the larger Public Good. Only politically neutral, strong, independent and autonomous Institutions can guarantee this. Public servants holding party membership must be summarily dismissed from service and asked to become politicians rather than be ones in disguise.

 

It must punish patronage politics and political executive’s incursion into bureaucratic executive’s prerogative, which is to support the formulation of policies rationally and to execute policies efficiently and effectively. To assure this delicate balance of executive powers is in effect new forms of Accountability to Parliament must be innovated. One method is to have Ministers account for Policies and Bureaucrats account, to Parliamentary Select Committees for Policy Execution -- for its speed and also its propriety vis Acts, bye laws and regulations. Bureaucrats must be guaranteed a minimum tenure on posts they are assigned to; and for which they must be academically qualified as determined by the job specifications that befit job descriptions.

 

Gurcharan Das says beautifully, in his “India Grows At Night” (2012), that the mantra of France is ‘equality’; that of U S A it is ‘liberty’ and that of India it is ‘dharma’. Let it be so in Nepal too where our National Dharma should be democracy, duty, discipline, determination, discrimination (between good and bad and right and wrong) and devotion to God and family.

 

Conclusion

We need to found, in the 21st century, a moral State with a moral society and moral markets. That subscribes to pluralism and pragmatism; that practices unity in diversity through its diverse communities while, at the same time, empowering each person to not only take pride in his or her individual identity but the modern State providing full  societal scope for each individual to have and behold multiple identities, which should be the hallmark of the 21st century.

 

(Writer is Professor at South Asian Institute of Management and Former Finance Minister)