The silence of businesses on public policy

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Editor's note: In the lead-up to Independence in 1947, the giants of Indian industry put forward a proposal, colloquially referred to as the Bombay Plan, which laid out their collective vision of India’s economy: sectoral economic goals, roles of the private sector and the state, priority areas for government investment, growth targets for household incomes and industries, and much more. Not only was the Bombay Plan an economic vision for India, but it also held forth on many larger organizing principles: the relationship between capitalism and democracy, the importance of state coordination and funding of economy-wide investments, the importance of an individual’s rights and freedoms, the necessity of social welfare policies focused on education and health, and so on. Consider the following quote: “We have, for instance, indicated in that memorandum that no economic development of the kind proposed by us would be feasible except on the basis of a central directed authority, and further that in the initial stages of the plan rigorous measures of State control would be required to prevent an inequitable distribution of the financial burdens involved. An …