Bolstering Sovereignty Of Public Goods

The domain of the state with which provision of national public goods is served is a sovereign. The virtues of public goods are that it does not exclude anyone from its benefits.  It is non-negotiable, non-diminishable and, therefore, does not fall under competitive market process like other goods where incentive for profits drives actors. The components of public goods include national security, law and order, education, health, culture, infrastructures and nature (clean air, fresh water, sanitation, etc.). These components are interrelated and absence of any element affects the quality of the other. Sovereignty of public goods is the common concern of all Nepalis. But this sovereignty has been impaired by the neo-liberal globalisation policies, growth of free riders and special interest groups. They have weakened the hierarchy, discipline and social roles of the state and diluted national priorities.  The locus of democracy embedded in national self-determination and management of regional and global common requires coherence and coordination so that people do not have to bear the costs of scarcity and uncertainty. 

Nepali state and the people, as sovereign entities, have the right to protect public and national interests within its jurisdiction, cooperate with other nations on the promotion of regional and global commons and utilise them on a cost and benefits sharing basis. Provision of national security is planned for the entire population residing within the state as a whole, not serving only the powerful sections of society. For example, in a national security vacuum neither human security, nor democracy, nor peace, not even development can be organised. The vital function of the state is, therefore, to secure the people and the nation, their natural resources and culture and create law-based public order where illegitimate use of influence is restrained. Albert Camus rightly says, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is,” serving as a source of self-destruction. Vicious distrust, excessive exploitation of nature and people, arms race, violence and wars can lead to self-destruction and denial of freedom of the weak.

Intellectual winds

The other vital element of public goods is the impersonal operation of law and order. This helps Nepalis build trust in public institutions and leadership and enter into their creative pursuit of life, liberty and property under constitutional dispensation.  Autonomy of the courts is established to protect people from predatory forces abusing their rights and resources and among themselves and adjudicate their conflicts. Media, civil society and institutional watchdogs are designed to monitor and keep due diligence on the fair distribution of public goods.  The intellectual winds now blow through the world of institutional economics, culture and leadership that can link the people with the natural resources, policies and laws. Nepalis have the experience of solving their problems for a long time, utilising common resources such as rivers, ponds, roads, grazing lands, local forests and natural resources, increasing penal costs to free-riders and cooperating with each other through their own formal and informal institutions in which they have full ownership and stake. 

The Constitution of Nepal 2015 provides a comprehensive framework guaranteeing the rights to food, protection from hunger and food sovereignty. It has also promised fair justice, affordable health care, right to work, education and information and a series of rights for the people of various social groups.  The proper allocation of national public goods across social classes and geographical regions deem virtuous and bear positive externality.  Nepali political parties in the parliament with faith in the constitution have to craft suitable public policy for the easy availability of public goods and exercise its national self-determination rather than become a site of bargaining for the share of power and positions only where ordinary people become only frustrated spectators with no stake in politics other than to bawl. It diminishes the role of the state as a neutral arbitrator of public goods.  Ironically, partisan considerations seem to play an important role in the distribution of public goods while tax-evasion and corruption by the powerful has rigged the system against the powerless people. As a result, weaker regions and people have inferior outcomes of public policies. 

The empirical evidence of budget allocation shows that powerful leaders occupy the bulk of the pie while the deprived region and people which need the resources most consume only trickle-down. This shows that the sovereignty of public goods with equal consideration to all Nepalis remained slanted.  Political constituency orientation of most of Nepali leaders, excessive party-mindedness in gaze and priority, inability to improve moral conduct to provide benefit to the general wellbeing of the public and lack of any rational rules to govern public goods have hampered their judicious attainment, production and allocation in society offering positive spillovers. The collusion of leaders, businesspeople, bureaucracy and interest groups even in employment, education and health sectors blur the boundaries of the public and the private sphere. The primacy of the return of capital investment over labour, land and natural resources has created  a rentier society. This is exposing Nepalis to face generational poverty spirals or even compelled to emigrate in the international labour market for jobs and livelihoods.  

With proper regulation and distribution of responsibilities of public, private, cooperative and community sectors can collaborate in coordinating the supply of public goods though swindling of funds has hamstrung cooperative sectors losing its essential lustre while the private sector is only peddling grievances against the unstable government. The improvement in ethical life, character building and source for the cooperation for attainment of public goods, publicly shared by all members of society without any motive for excessive profit can provide their life-enhancing prospect and overall material progress. The existential concern of Nepalis is related to their social and cultural ties and metabolic nourishment through nature's products. Conflict occurs when private interests of the powerful collide with the public goods and there is no proper mechanism to settle them peacefully for the optimal satisfaction of all. 

The system of syndicate in Nepal in power, wealth and communication has deprived the marginalised sections of society from consuming them at optimal level. Consumers, workers, peasants and the poor are at the receiving end of public goods. Even the costs of private education and health are exorbitant, unaffordable to them. The lack of a clear boundary between the political and market processes has provided an incentive to free-riders and special interest groups offering asymmetric outcomes for the poor. Heterogeneity of political parties and the proportional election system do not encourage competitive preferences in matters of public goods. The evolution of a system of power bloc politics means the recycling of the same leaders in power life-long who have unperformed their duties contributing to the growth of negative ecological, social, political and economic indicators. 

The persistent instability of government is caused by weak political institutionalisation of parties and lack of political culture to build consensus on the determination of public goods. Some public goods are provided on a patronage basis while others by the private groups and still others by communities. The rising costs of consumer goods affects the poor and their ability to celebrate culture thus influencing the whole social life, ways of living and producing the means essential to survive and progress. The declining economy of the nation and heavy imports of essential and infrastructural goods from abroad indicate that the nation once food surplus has become dependent on even on food items and thus weathering its sovereignty. The confiscation of the economic capacity of the state through deregulation, privatization and denationalization of its public industries and some public utilities disabled it to finance even pre-state basic needs. 

The thieves of state have also appropriated state money through the help of interest groups and bichaulias and the rent-seeking nature of bureaucracy which increased the cost of achieving sustainable development goals, many of them are related to the promotion of public goods so that “no one is left behind.” Even the living costs of the poor are soaring, needing heavy subsidy and support. Erosion of the integrity of the state institutions is caused by the promotion of mediocrity fostered by the political establishment who do not know how to preserve policy sovereignty and its contribution to the establishment of sovereignty of public goods.

In most nations public goods are provided by the state because it has the larger mandate and capacity to tax the people and return part of money in their welfare benefits. Some nations have included health and education both as public and private goods and supplied by both the sectors although the private sector suppliers are costly as they are based on economic models and, therefore, the majority of people cannot afford. In other nations, communities have stepped in the supply of public goods with reasonable costs which even ordinary people can easily afford. Culture is also a matter of public goods as it fosters norms and trust for reciprocity. Since public goods include all people, it does not override individual rights and interests. In Nepali polity, a myriad of individual values and interests are allowed to flourish so long as they do not hurt public goods.

Global public goods

 The wellspring of generosity of global community has contributed in providing Nepal share of global public goods such as financial aid, trade concessions, educational and job opportunity, technology and management skills to promote life-enhancing prospects yet they have limited effects as they have not been able to increase the scale of the productive sectors, alleviate poverty, create jobs and reduce dependency. The bloated size of political classes and administration, misplaced priorities, deeply-rooted rent-seeking feudal practices and poor accountability are other reasons. Resources are deployed to win politics rather than uplift social, economic and political standards and hone the moral tone of social justice and good governance.  

The decline of educational quality in rural areas can be attributed to the domination of excessive party-minded culture of teachers and students. The poor can ill-afford the education of their children to private educational institutions because most of them are based on economic models with high fees and serve the interests of shareholders. This applies to health, banks, corporations and financial institutions as well. Remittance has emerged as a shorthand of progress for the majority of Nepalis but its costs for the workers’ families are painful. It does not foster a shared commitment to citizenship capable of working for public goods on a sustainable basis. Democracy can flourish with the leadership virtues, integrity and public-spiritedness of securing public trust in them by means of fostering public goods and promoting national capacity for self-governance. This, however, requires them to capture the moral roots of national heritage, national interests and patriotism and come out of the partisan cocoon that hardly imbibes the notion of sovereignty of public goods embedded in national perspective.

(Former Reader at the Department of Political Science, TU, Dahal writes on political and social issues.)