The Indian Libertarian

Summary

This March 1, 1959 issue (Vol. VI No. 24) of The Indian Libertarian opens with an editorial on renewed firing along the Assam and West Bengal borders with East Pakistan, reading the incidents as a test of Indian resolve and a warning against complacency toward Pakistan and the spread of communism in the region. The issue’s bylined articles run from M. A. Venkata Rao on communism and land reforms, through a Libertarian Supplement by Prof. G. N. Lawande on fiscal policy and economic development, M. A. Sreenivasan’s ‘Pancha Stotra’ (drawn from a Forum of Free Enterprise presidential address), G. Jayachandran’s defence of a limited reading of the welfare state, and A. Ranganathan’s survey of the state of the Indian economy. Across the rendered pages the unifying note is the journal’s classical-liberal suspicion of socialist planning, collectivised land reform, and the unbounded welfare state.

Essays

Communism and Land Reforms

By MA Venkata Rao

M. A. Venkata Rao’s ‘Communism and Land Reforms’ argues that communist-style land redistribution, far from liberating the peasant, delivers him to the state. He contrasts the rhetoric of land reform with its outcome under collectivisation, warning that abolishing private property in land concentrates power and destroys the independent cultivator that a free society depends on.

• Distinguishes the rhetoric of land reform from its collectivist outcome.
• Warns that communist land policy subordinates the peasant to the state.
• Defends private property in land as a bulwark of freedom.
• Reads land reform as a vector for extending state power.

Libertarian Supplement: Fiscal Policy & Economic Development

By G N Lawande

In the Libertarian Supplement, Prof. G. N. Lawande’s ‘Fiscal Policy & Economic Development’ lays out principles of sound public finance for a developing economy. Beginning from ‘proper fiscal policy’ and the politics of planning, he assesses planned expenditure, the objects of tax policy, and how taxation should be designed to encourage rather than penalise productive enterprise and capital formation.

• Sets out principles of sound fiscal policy for a developing economy.
• Critiques the politics and economics of planned expenditure.
• Examines the proper objects of tax policy.
• Argues tax design should encourage enterprise and capital formation.

Pancha Stotra

By MA Sreenivasan

M. A. Sreenivasan’s ‘Pancha Stotra’, following a presidential speech delivered at Bangalore under the auspices of the Forum of Free Enterprise, offers a five-fold appreciation of economic freedom and enterprise. The piece praises the citizen who builds and produces and gently rebukes the climate of suspicion that planning casts over private initiative.

• Adapted from a Forum of Free Enterprise presidential address at Bangalore.
• Frames a five-fold (‘Pancha’) tribute to enterprise and freedom.
• Defends the productive private citizen against official suspicion.

A Plea for a Better Understanding of the Welfare State

By G. Jayachandran

G. Jayachandran’s ‘A Plea for a Better Understanding of the Welfare State’ tries to separate a defensible idea of the welfare state from the open-ended collectivism the term has come to license. Conceding that a society owes its members a baseline of security, he argues that an unbounded welfare state erodes self-reliance and individual freedom, and pleads for a limited, carefully bounded conception.

• Seeks a defensible, limited conception of the welfare state.
• Concedes a baseline of social security as legitimate.
• Warns that an open-ended welfare state erodes self-reliance.
• Pleads for clear boundaries on state welfare provision.

The State of the Indian Economy

By A Ranganathan

A. Ranganathan’s ‘The State of the Indian Economy’ opens by noting that ‘Mr. N. G. Ranga, M.P.’ has recently attacked the Nagpur approach to the land problem as ‘luring the country to the fundamental concepts of democracy and Marxism’. In the rendered pages Ranganathan begins surveying the condition of the Indian economy under planning; the essay continues past page 20.

• Opens with N. G. Ranga’s critique of the Nagpur land-reform line.
• Frames the assessment around planning’s economic record.
• Article continues beyond the rendered pages.

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