The country is being treated to the spectacle of theft of the policy documents from various Ministries. In all the excitement and indignation, nobody is going to ask the most basic question: Why should government policies matter to the businesses?
So long as government is in a position to alter business outcomes in the market, businessmen will always try to be one up on rivals, by whatever means are available to them. In a country in which corruption is raging and morality is weak and integrity is in short supply, it is natural that government employees will sell information for a price.
It should also be clear that if the money can be made in leaking the policy, the money that can be made in getting the policy changed/framed to favour a particular businessman will always be very high.
The only solution to all above problems is to take out government completely out of business. Businesses do not need any government policies. They only need rule of law.
This is the theme of the book “Corruption in India” by Anang Pal Malik. On page 153 of the book, he wrote:
“The example of the man, who from a petrol pump attendant became top industrialist of the country in twenty years flat, by bribing all sectors of the government at all levels, is often given; whenever anything is written on corruption. This example though is given as the best example of corruption, in it in fact lies clue to the cure of the disease of corruption. The question that is never asked, and which is actually the most important thing in the whole affair, is why a government should have powers to make a petrol pump attendant the top industrialist of the country. Why should bureaucrats and politicians have powers to make anybody a successful businessman? Ask any petrol pump attendant in the country whether he would bribe people in government if that makes him a top industrialist…well, you know the answer.
So long as the government has powers to alter business outcomes, there would always be businessmen ready to bribe people in the government, to get the desired outcomes.”
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