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1. Overemphasis on achieving high economic growth can often ignore the need for equity and lead of disparities. Elucidate.
उच्च आर्थिक विकास प्राप्त करने पर जोर देने से अक्सर समानता की आवश्यकता की अनदेखी हो सकती है। स्पष्ट करें।
Demand of the question:
It expects students to write about the debate between growth and redistribution along with effects of overemphasis on high economic growth and need to account measures to reduce inequality and disparities.
Introduction:
Economic growth has raised living standards around the world, but modern economies have lost sight of the fact that the standard metric of economic growth, gross domestic product (GDP), merely measures the size of a nation’s economy and doesn’t reflect a nation’s welfare. Yet policymakers and economists often treat GDP as an all-encompassing unit to signify a nation’s development, combining its economic prosperity and societal well-being.
Body:
The debate between growth and equity and redistribution is one of the oldest in economic development. The common citizens of any country care more about the real impact of growth in terms of improvement in their standard of living, provision of basic facilities such as electricity, drinking water, healthcare systems etc.
Focusing exclusively on GDP and economic gain to measure development ignores the negative effects of economic growth on society, such as climate change and income inequality. It’s time to acknowledge the limitations of GDP and expand our measure development so that it takes into account a society’s quality of life.
Fallacy of GDP growth as indicator national progress:
Though, it is necessary to generate wealth in the first place to redistribute it, however overemphasis on high growth rate may create huge inequality and disparity.
Overemphasis on GDP growth ignore account of inequality,
India need alternative metrics to complement GDP in order to get a more comprehensive view of development and ensure informed policy making that doesn’t exclusively prioritize economic growth. Bhutan’s attempt to measure Gross National Happiness, which considers factors like equitable socio-economic development and good governance, and UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), which encapsulates health and knowledge apart from economic prosperity.
As a step in this direction, India is also beginning to focus on the ease of living of its citizens. Ease of living is the next step in the development strategy for India, following the push towards ease of doing business that the country has achieved over the last few years.
Conclusion:
Covid-19 pandemic has brought in sharp focus the extent of income inequality, especially in poor countries like India. The economic philosophy of “growing the pie” followed by successive Indian governments has turned India into a 1% economy. Moving away from GDP numbers and collecting and publishing data on the income, wealth and wages, by decile and centile, will be the first step towards creating a model of equitable growth. The end goal should be more just and equitable society that is economically thriving and offering citizens a meaningful quality of life.
