India has to find a transformed capitalist model: Arun Maira

India can neither be a capitalist economy as we know it nor can it tread socialism or communism, Arun Maira member of India’s planning commission, said Sunday in an interview.

He said, rather than debating about who won and who lost and then reviving an old idea which didn’t work, we have to create a new idea for the economy of India.

“It cannot be the capitalism or free markets as we know it, nor can it be the socialism (that we knew) or communism. We should not come to the conclusion that there are only two ways to run a country…we have to create a new idea,” Maira told Reuters.

[caption id=“attachment_130451” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Arun Maira, member of India’s planning commission. AFP”]  [/caption]

Maira instead patronised being a socialistic society and fully include citizens.

He said, we must “use the idea of planning” and that “Real planning is when people are participating in the planning, their needs are part of the plan, as they feel their needs are, their ideas about how their needs might be delivered are considered and together, a way forward for society is developed.”

More from Economy

Inflation likely to be a big focus area for budget 2024, say sources Explained: Will the Bank of Japan break tradition and raise interest rates?

Citing the example of Scandanavian countries, he said they seem to have gotten the balance of socialism and capitalism right.

“The Scandanavian countries, like Sweden, seem to have got it right. They are wealthy countries and they look after the environment more than most do, there social security is almost for everyone and that’s not at the cost of their economies not being good economies,” he said.

“There may be many structural reasons, but there’s also an attitudinal reason - they are people who care, they are quite humble, they dont want to be seen as people who are superior, and there’s something nice about it,” Maira told Reuters.

He said that caring for the poor should not be seen as being communist and that transformed capitalism was the way ahead.

“It (transformed capitalism) will grow more vigourously and more sustainably, because there will be less resistance,” he said.

Watch Reuters video interview here.