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© 2012 Sanjeev Sabhlok's revolutionary blog
Free societies do not have inefficient, tenured civil services. It is fortunate for Melbourne City that it does not have IAS officers (unlike, for instance, Delhi or Mumbai).
Instead, directly elected representatives (Councillors) in the Melbourne City local government area hire excellent managers on five year contracts and pay them very well to deliver results. If they don’t deliver, these managers are fired! The citizens also actively participate in Council meetings. If despite that the Councillors fail to deliver results then they are voted out in the next elections.
In Indian governments no one is directly and solely accountable for anything. But freedom can’t exist without accountability. Therefore, India’s colonial governance frameworks and policies of socialism must go. Accountability must be established.
The city of Melbourne provides garbage bins (green bin to the left) and bicycle stands:
(This blog post is a slightly edited extract from my editorial in Towards a Great India, 15 June 2008). For more information on how local governments should be established and empowered in a free society, please read BFN (chapter 6) and my article in Freedom First, November 2008.
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Related posts:
- What local government should mean – a good example
- “The Objectivist Ethics” – Ayn Rand’s powerful summary of her philosophy
- The role and responsibility of an elected representative
- Why not spit the dummy? Let’s legislate a “Handbook for the Fools Who Elected Us”.
- Instead of recall, reduce the term of elected government to three years from five
- FPTP is a proportional system – by geography; and accommodates local policies.
- Those who make money from data about us are more trustworthy than governments
- A most powerful statement about human liberty, by Swami Vivekananda
- Funding of sports by governments: a bureaucrats’ delight
- The modus operandi of drug companies: blackmail/ bribe governments
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Very true. Whenever I enter into any discussion on freedom, people invariably end up asking "Are you saying that there should be no government?" etc. Of course I am not foolish to say that. People don't accept that governments should exist at the local level, where we can directly hold them accountable. Somehow the idea that a far away central government will be benevolent and efficient, seems to be realistic, while decentralized and barebones government ( protecting only our life, liberty and property) seems unrealistic.
The conservative-lib dem coalition in Britain seem to be taking up initiatives in this area with their Big Society idea. Let us see if we have at-least one system to look up to.