Agreement ?

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

Culled from Charu's views:
=========================

Sanjeev: 		I am
> 		proposing for the Manifesto that we are hoping to write,
> that we get rid
> 		of the word Socialistic from our Constitution. 

Charu: I agree entirely. 

Question to the group: 
----------------------

I know Charu (and perhaps some others) does not quite agree with me on
socialism being the primary cause of many of our ills, but that is
something I can live with; also I can continue to fine-tune my arguments
on this which are mostly being covered in my book. We may differ in our
understanding of how and why certain outcomes (such as corruption)  are
observed, but if we agree on not being a socialistic country, then I think
we have moved in the right direction. 

I also know that none of us wants to "duplicate" the US-style capitalism
entirely, but as a first pass, we want to get rid of the state-controlled
economy (in favor of a state-regulated one).  Therefore, looks like most
of us can agree to this. Am I right in assuming this, as we trudge forward
into the nitty-gritty of banking sector, utility deregulation, etc.? Does
anyone have anything to add/subtract to this fundamental point? 

If this is agreed upon, we can then proceed to focus on policies 

i) that will promote competition 

ii) while preventing "excessive"  concentration of power at any level or
with any individual (I think all of us are fearful of concentrated power,
some more so of power wielded by private corporations and others, like me,
of power wielded by government clerks). 

I suggest the following format to the Manifesto:

a) Preamble (why this manifesto is needed, what is its purpose, what are
the basic beliefs and goals). A page on this.

b) Overarching policy direction: This will include the point raised about
getting rid of the word socialistic from our Constitution. Also, about
focus on competition, human capital development, rapid economic growth,
social security, cutting down the size of government in many areas, but
increasing its role in others, etc. A para or two on this.

c) Category I goals: broad description and outlines of methods of
achieving goals such as education, urbanization, electoral reforms,
macroeconomic reforms, and others already outlined in an earlier mail by
Utkarsh. 

   Category II goals: those which are important enough to be included in a
manifesto but not sufficiently important to rank in category I.

I think all of us need to work together (as we are doing now) to build the
Manifesto. Once the Manifesto is broadly worked out, it would be necessary
to work out an Agenda of Action, outlining, in much more detail, the
methods to achieve the above goals. At that stage, one or more of us could
take ownership of individual areas and propose a two-three page statement
on that area to the group. 

At the end of this we should have about 50-60 pages, comprising about
10-15 pages of Manifesto and the remaining, the Agenda.

How does this sound?

Sanjeev