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Government monopolies are the worst monopolies: Minoo Masani

Private monopolies have the police power of the government to check them. But where the government becomes a factory-owner, there is no appeal, Minoo Masani said.

I speak for a Party which believes in competition. That is the classical Liberal school of economics. We believe that any restriction on competition is prima facie undesirable, though in rare cases it can be connived at by the State for social purposes. We believe that competition is a therapeutic element which cures a lot of things including exploitation of the consumer and many other malpractices. Therefore, we are vigorously opposed to all restrictive trade practices and to monopolies of any kind.

We are also opposed to concentration of power in the same hands, whether it is concentration of economic power or a combination of economic and political power. This Liberal point of view is not really different from an intelligent Democratic Socialist point of view.

We believe in the ballot of the market place, where the consumer decides the pattern of production. We are prepared to support any anti-monopoly legislation which is honest and genuine. It is against this very friendly background that we judge the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Bill.

We find the Bill terribly disappointing because it is not an anti-monopolies Bill at all. It was bad enough when it was introduced in Parliament. Even then it was not on the lines of the draft Bill attached to the Das Gupta Commission’s Report. It was a Bill entirely different from what the earlier Monopolies Commission had recommended. After coming........

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