Devil's Advocate

Breaking news: The US goes socialistic. Well its a stale news actually because their intent should have been clear for people right when Obama announced the $800 billion bailout package. But the latest news in the series i.e. GM going bankrupt (well we all knew GM was a sinking ship, didn't we) should seal the debate once and for all, that the US is showing underpinnings of a socialistic state. The country which long stood as the supporter for free trade and unabashedly supported Adam Smith's laissez faire has to go ahead and interfere in the free functioning of the markets. What now? The markets have given their verdict loud and clear- GM was functioning as a lethargic leviathan and its own actions led to its downfall.

Obama’s speeches and the terms and conditions that followed the bailout package once again ripped off the mask, behind which the US tries to conceal its protectionist nature. There was a time in the US just after the Second World War that many people (including Charlie Chaplin) had to appear before commissions on the charges of being communists. The US had for a long time lambasted the communists and touted the fall of the USSR as the victory of capitalism.

Maybe the US can take a leaf out of a developing country like India which for long has embraced the concept of a welfare state with the leeway for capitalists to create a hybrid- socialism. And this model too has been under attack from the capitalists and they’ve tried their bit to bring in their model of development. Maybe their propagation i.e. spend spend spend will stop now. Not a single bank in India has filed for bankruptcy. The reason? Strong regulation.

Maybe the US will now realise that being a socialist state is not such a bad thing. Maybe they’ll stop wasting. Maybe the US will follow the lean model (due pun intended). Or maybe I’m expecting too much from a spendthrift country where the CEOs fly to Washington in private jets to beg.

What a shame.....