Now, India is going through an important period in its economic development or more precisely economic change. Capitalism is a form of economic condition, where there is free trade, we allow the market to decide the price and therefore the allocation of resources, which is the most fundamental of the economic activity. What do, the public and private benefit from this form of an economic environment? Now, if the act of doing business is free, then, as a corporate entity, one will be interested in becoming a monopoly, which means, they could enjoy freedom regarding aspects like making profit and therefore pricing.It also includes conglomeration and forming cartels.
If you visit a medical shop now in India and ask for a tooth brush, they will give you a choice of only two brands, once upon a time there were few brands, this lack of choice for the customer is the benefit for the corporates, they have bought all the other small players who were unable to compete with the bigger brands, now, I would like the person reading this as a normal consumer and think of the consequences.
we will take one more product, TEA, once upon a time just few years back, we had a lot of players in tea, both wholesalers and retailers. Today, we have only 2 or 3 players, they have bought everything else, they are maintaining the same brand names, but the suppliers to these brands are the same. So,
So, they are monopolising the market on both the ends. Now, they are the only buyers in the market for the producers and they are the one's as sellers, so, they could reduce the quality and kill a brand in the market, and as well exploit the producers and make huge profits.
Communism is being criticised as not giving enough choice to the customers, but, this way capitalism too is cutting out choices, and the worst thing about this is, they are ending up exploiting on both the ends and making huge profits.
Have you started seeing advertisements for Hospitals?
How do you react to it? Should medical services be run like business?
If I will go to a Hospital, my desire is, that those doctors there will releive me of my pain and I trust them that they will work with the intentions of helping me, and if i start thinking that they will work with the intention of making money, then does it not put a clash of interest? How am I to trust them?
The same is the case with Education, If I go to a school or a college, then I would think that they work with the intention of educating me, and in the process charge a fee, but it should not be the other way round.
I am not an anti capitalist fellow, I am just an Economist with a logical and epistemological outlook.
Now, to top them all, we have these insurance companies, private ones, they ask us to pay a premium, so that you end up with a lot of pension amount to tackle the escalating cost of education, health etc., but if one understands the concept of Inflation in economics properly, one could link that this activity of paying a premium and being able to get a lot of money tomorrow by itself will pull the costs of things up!!!! so, by paying the premium for higher returns one is actually making the services dearer in the future, now who will benefit in the process?
These are not the arguments to be seen as against capitalism, but these are to be seen with a broader perspective as to how economics influeces our lives, and to think of ways to keep it clean and help the mankind.
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