Part 2 of series on Socio Economic Engineering – an electoral roadmap for the Center Right
Eminent economist Dr. Surjit Bhalla writing in the Business Standard had this to say of the UPA’s flagship program – National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA/NREGS/MNREG)
Despite tall claims, the NREGA programme is just a dud as most other “in the name of the poor” expenditures – and as much of a dud as predicted by Rajiv Gandhi
Despite repeated evidence for the last 20 years that “in the name of the poor programmes” reach everybody but the poor, the well-meaning socialist but not-so-realist Congress party renamed and expanded existing food for work programmes under its own Congress brand as NREGA, and now MREGA. (Ironically, but poetic-justice style, the latter acronym also means “to die”!). It spends Rs 8,823 crore on the programme in 2006-07 (and Rs 39,000 crore in 2009-10) and is able to actually deliver only 14.7 per cent (Rs 1,270 crore) to the targeted audience?!
Dr. Bhalla is being very charitable in his description of the Congress Party but his pithy remarks on NREGA highlight the false sense of security and comfort underlying the Liberal Left policies of the UPA.
Social Engineering of the communal variety receieved a boost this week with the Supreme Court’s interim order upholding Muslim Reservations in Andhra. This is just the beginning, more can be expected if this reaction from Abhishek Singhvi is anything to go by. It is clear that the Congress Party wants to further its Liberal Left agenda by expanding group entitlements or quotas on religious grounds.
This brings us back to the fundamental challenge for Socio-economic Engineering -
how must it capture popular imagination of the aspirational voter to motivate him or her to cross-over ?
If the core premise behind Social Engineering and Left Liberalism was
to convince the voter to settle for the least common denominator within his or her group on the pretext of having the security of a safety net
then the core premise behind Socio-Economic Engineering must be
to motivate the voter that there is no reason to settle for the least common denominator within the group for even the highest of aspirations will be within reach by climbing on to the Ladder of Opportunity
There maybe merit in framing the popular debate between the Liberal Left policies of the Congress and the policy of prescriptions of the Center Right as a choice between the Ladder and the Net.
The Net may offer safety but then there is no getting out of the Net once trapped.
There is nothing progressive about the Net for there is no avenue to progress.
The Net only weighs you down as it gets burdened with more and more to support
The metaphorical Ladder on the other hand is
by design progressive with opportunities to rise in each and every step.
by design inclusive and non-discriminatory for with every step an individual takes to rise, an opportunity is created for the next to rise and occupy
Pragmatism and realism would suggest that the Ladder of Opportunity cannot stand alone without the Safety of the Net, leading one to ask where lies the distinction between Socio-economic Engineering and Social Engineering ?
That distinction will have to be made by emphasizing the primacy of the Ladder over the Net
for if there was no ladder there would be no need to cast a wide net for safety
It may also be asked how different is the metaphor of “Ladder plus Net”for Socio-Economic Engineering from the “Growth with Distribution” model touted by Rahul Gandhi.
More on that in the third and concluding part in this series on Socio-economic Engineering.
Filed under: DesiPundit, Progressivism, Narendra Modi, Left Liberalism, socio-economic engineering, Neo Middle Class, Neo Aspirational class, New Middle Class
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