Return of bad ideas & missing reformers: Steel lobbying and lost reforms

There are three perfectly timed triggers for this week's column: Old, povertarian instincts are back; the steel industry lobbying for more import duties; and the absence of reformers like A D Shroff

There are three perfectly timed triggers for this week’s National Interest. First, the easy virality of a social media post mixing up India’s gross domestic product (GDP) with the wealth (as determined by market capitalisation) of its billionaires and talking about how it exposes the stark inequalities in our society.

 

Some really, really smart people fell for it. All good people, after all, have their hearts in the right place. India’s inequalities are deep, wide, and in many ways getting worse. So, what is the argument?

 

It is just that GDP is the sum of all national income in a