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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

An inefficient entrepreneur deserves to be branded as anti-social: Arvind Narottam Lalbhai

The policy, apart from encouraging, really discourages the growth of a competitive economy, which is the only antidote to monopoly.

It is a great misfortune that we are more concerned with symptoms rather than the diseases. We feel self-complacent by treating the symptoms by palliatives. If there is a shortage of sugar, we think more in terms of distribution channels, controls and price fixations. But we do not think in terms of increasing the supply and thereby respecting the law of supply and demand. 

We think seriously that controls, price fixation and distribution of commodities through co-operative stores and fair price shops will solve the problem. We do not think in terms of allowing the prices to rise according to the law of supply and demand and thereby induce entrepreneurs to expand their productive capacities or to set up new plants. The thinking in those terms requires the firm determination to enlighten and educate the public that this is the only effective way to hold the level of prices. The determination is not there. During the intervening period, prices are bound to rise. But, that being a passing phase, should not cause unusual concern. If the policy of competitive economy and free markets is allowed to operate, the prices are bound to register a permanent and substantial fall in the long run. We are not prepared to think in terms of shifting emphasis from heavy capital industries to agricultural produce and consumer products industries, nor are we taking effective measures against the rate of population growth, which substantially offsets the rate of economic growth. 

What holds good in the matter of holding the level of prices, holds good equally in respect of other fields of........

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