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THE PRICE OF ONIONS SimplenomicsLayman's guide to price rise, liberalisation and everything. By Sumit Mitra THE PRICE OF ONIONS There are two types of writers on economic issues -- those who make simple things appear complex, generally with mathematical symbols but also with prolix hair-splitting; and those who make complex things appear simple. The body of Indian writing on economics is either heavy on mathematical reasoning or loaded with confusing agendas. Ashok Desai is a remarkable exception. Going by his record as an economic policy planner -- he was chief economic consultant to Manmohan Singh, then finance minister, between 1991 and 1993 -- he was never ambivalent about his agenda. Which was to press the accelerator on reform harder and harder, regardless of politicians urging the jamming of the brakes. The politicians won. Undeterred, Desai kept sending gratuitous advice to the government in favour of reform in My Economic Affair (1994) and in his media columns. These prescriptions may not have been enforceable, given five decades of socialist overhang to our economic policies, but Desai made a distinction by carrying economic writing closest to story-telling. Like explaining the theory of relativity in a picture-book. He was clearly targeting the average reader, not the finance minister nor the close fraternity of economists who abuse or praise each other in a language in which they alone can communicate. In The Price of Onions, Desai has moved further in his quest for a large audience, lacing his underlying advocacy for liberalisation with generous doses of wit and wisdom, added to which is a squeeze of travel experience, a shot of industrial history and a large helping of specialist insight into man's economic behaviour. The result is a heady concoction. In a chapter called "The Dance of Prices" on the subject of sugar, Desai takes the reader on a long voyage over time with Columbus and Vasco da Gama, through the slave plantations of Jamaica and Cuba, to deliver a crystalline message. The message is that the price of sugar in India can be stabilised if the government, instead of controlling its sale and public distribution, merely fixes a target price. If the market price exceeds the target price, it should release sugar. If the market price dips below, it should stop releasing sugar. Well, that's the moral of the story, but the charm lies in the fable. The onion in the book's title is more than a contemporary flavour. It is an invitation to explore the magic of long-term cycles of commodity prices. And the exploration leads to a fascinating study of standards of living, with unexpected questions raised along the way. Like why the Indian is poorer than the American despite eating 10 times more rice and 2.36 times more flour and using 1.73 times more cloth. The answer lies in the value-addition in the US, from cloth to finished garment, flour to bread. Desai keeps alive this chatty style of reflection till the last chapter, "The Lawful Robber", where he strays a bit into writing a political prescription. He wants half the seats in the legislatures to be reserved for taxpayers, with the value of their votes determined by the amount of tax paid. He wants the IAS to be a contractual job, and the junior government employee to retire at 30. Desai's remedies are unorthodox, if not quirky. But his narration has the sweep and twist of a master story-teller. NEW RELEASES Appu and the Big Fat Raindrop South Asia and its Eastern Neighbours Medal Gallery The Divorce Handbook Origin and Evolution The Tiger is a Gentleman |
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