Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has challenged one of the great shibboleths of Indian politics by admitting the charge that his government is pro-business, but denying that this means it is anti-poor.

The political class thinks, or pretends to think, that economics is a zero-sum game. According to this calculus business is a fundamentally anti-social activity: anything that benefits business must ipso facto hurt the poor. The same logic also applies in reverse. The best way to help the poor is by soaking the rich and punishing the middle class. Not by growing the middle class, which might actually haul many poor people out of poverty. To be middle class is like committing original sin, for which one must forever atone. To be poor, on the other hand, is to be holy.

So widely worshipped is this holy cow that being ‘pro-business’ automatically becomes an accusation. Sonia Gandhi reportedly never met any businessmen, out of fear that she might be deemed ‘pro-business’. In this view the economy is a bit like an inflated balloon: you compress one side and the other side automatically swells up.

If you press too hard, however, the whole balloon will burst. The poverty of establishment ‘pro-poor’ thinking lies in never envisaging situations of, say, thriving industry whereby both rich and poor benefit. Conversely, India’s current stagflationary crisis hurts the interests of both rich and poor. If Jaitley can bring in speedy reforms that end the crisis, he will win. If NDA can truly usher in a low tax regime, where subsidies are rationalised rather than unlimited and people have more money in their pockets, then NDA will win.

If, on the other hand, NDA gets into the conceptual bind that commonly afflicts the political class — of reforms being seen as ‘pro-rich’ and therefore ‘anti-poor’ — then NDA will lose. The folly of this conceptual bind is easy to demonstrate by looking at the latest World Bank ‘ease of doing business’ rankings.

The top 10 countries where it’s easiest to do business (one could call them the most ‘pro-business’ countries on the planet) are, in order, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, USA, Denmark, Malaysia, South Korea, Georgia, Norway and UK. These are, mostly, countries where poverty is minimal. Moreover, remember that someone classified as ‘poor’ in countries such as the US has likely surpassed upper middle class living standards in India.

Likewise, the most ‘anti-business’ countries on the planet are: Guinea-Bissau, Venezuela, Myanmar, the 2 Congos, Eritrea, South Sudan, Libya, Central African Republic and Chad. India itself is 134th among 189 countries on the list. Whether India should move upwards or downwards on this list can be determined by a simple question: Which of these 2 groups of countries would we rather join? We know, of course, what Sitaram Yechury’s choice would be here. But that shouldn’t be Arun Jaitley’s.