TAKING STOCK: Markets work, govts don’t Every government wants to abolish poverty, provide us employment, get us water, educate us, give us roads, keep us secure and run a corruption-free administration. On all these fronts it fails. Miserably. Contrast government’s performance with markets where private individuals are allowed to operate, even partially. There are no shortages, quality is good and prices reasonable. Government cannot give us the roads but private companies ensure that there is no shortage of cars and other vehicles to choose from. Government cannot provide us with water in this country which has one of the world’s highest concentration of sources of water. However, private companies provide us water tankers. Whatever water is piped to us, such has been the deterioration in its quality, that many of us have turned to bottled water of private companies. Why then do we persist with a monopoly for a government water supply corporation? No one wants to send their children to government schools. Even the not-so-well-off would rather pay to a private school than accept government’s free education. And why not, for what sense does it make to study in a public school when your value in the job market will remain at zero? Has the government been successful in generating jobs? The record is abysmal. Except for creating jobs for its parasitical bureaucrats, there is hardly anything to show for its efforts. The country continues to waste the potential of its people who have nothing to do. The only way out for them is to seek jobs outside of their country. Nepalis contribute towards progress of Malaysia, Korea, Dubai and many other countries but find no avenues to do so in their own nation. Other nations which are not so bound by their government, have grown wealthy and some like Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and UAE have wiped out poverty completely. They have done it because their people have had a large dose of economic freedom, while, in Nepal, government continues to closely direct every aspect of the economy. Clearly, government has failed. Markets function when the suffocating hand of pervasive controls is lifted. If so, isn’t it time for a change? Do we have to keep going on the path which is taking us nowhere? Isn’t it time to consider options? If government education doesn’t deliver, let private schools, colleges and technical institutes be established without a maze of rules to trip them at every stage. Let foreign institutes come in. Nepal’s climate and scenic beauty is tailor-made for educating boys and girls. All that is required is for government to step aside and we will have world class educational institutes springing up everywhere attracting students from around the world. If government can’t get us water, it can, at least, get out of the way. Instead of an inane and insane attempt to send water to our homes, it should just concentrate on creating a facilitating set of laws to get private companies — domestic or foreign — to compete aggressively for supplying water to us. Why is Nepal’s phone system in a mess? Is it necessary to protect Nepal Telecom? Wouldn’t it not make more sense to break a government company’s monopoly by permitting international companies to fight each other for our custom? Does it matter to me whether it is a government, domestic or a foreign company supplying me with the service, as long as I can get my cell and landline calls through? Do roads have to be provided by the government Can’t we have them built by private companies who own them as well? Carefully worked out privatisation would give us an abundance of good roads — much in the same ways as the market provides us with vehicles. Perhaps, you may not be comfortable with the idea of paying for use of roads when today it’s free. Remember, we do pay — exorbitantly — by way of taxes. Paying directly to private operators would be far less costly — studies indicate by 50 per cent at the minimum. For almost everything that the government does, competing private individuals and companies do better. Let the government do its job — provide us with laws, justice and security — and we will do the rest. (The writer can be contacted at: