One child policy

This post is my immediate response to what I read this morning – one of the sons of Rupert Murdoch is happy with the two billion dollars (tax free, I am sure) he got from his father, and he wants no more.

Oh, just two billion dollars? He is going to be on the streets in about a week or so. Let us contribute to his welfare, if only someone started a welfare account in James Murdoch’s name.

No, the above is not an appropriate start for what follows, but I had to grab the attention of the rare visitors to this space.

What is wrong with the one-child policy that China had adopted some decades ago? In recent times though that policy has not been officially withdrawn (read George Orwell’s 1984 and you would find how difficult it is to make truth an untruth, particularly in these days of cloud storage), it has been allowed to die a natural death.

What is the reason behind China’s flip-flop on this? The proximate cause has been the realization that the demographically declining working-age population will be over-burdened for supporting the economically unproductive demographically increasing parent population.

But, I am all for one-child policy.

I am sure this happens within the so-called “Undivided Hindu Family” – a fight in sharing the”spoils” of hereditary property.

About more than a decade ago, the Government of India got involved, in some measure or the other, by naming a person to mediate between two brothers of a very rich family, the patriarch having amassed that fortune by means fair or foul. Just imagine, had that one-child policy been operative in India, retrospectively by about three or four generations (definitely from before India gained Independence), such a fight would not have come to pass.

But prior to this example, there was an Indian media baron who had to divide his property between two sons (I am not aware whether he had a daughter, unmarried at the time of dividing his assets); each brother went his own way with the loot from their father.

Do not be under the wrong impression that here we are talking about only the obscenely rich. No, it happens to and within every family. It is only that the numbers are not eye-catching; hence do not deserve headlines and/or government arms-length arbitration.

I understand – correct me if I am wrong – Rupert Murdoch has at least four children. I have no idea what James Murdoch’s siblings are doing with their loot, except that one of them (the eldest and the heir apparent) is running his father’s media empire (much reduced from its heyday).

If only the patriarch-Rupert Murdoch, if anyone should have had any doubts as to who I am referring- had only one son, that son would have had control of all the billions of dollars, not just a sliver (two billion dollars is just a sliver in the rarefied atmosphere these people play their games).

Yet, there is some benefit to having more than one child – at least a tiny portion of a fortune could be going to some liberal causes.

How so, you ask. Read further, please.

To end this post, I wish to apologize for the sensationalistic scenario I sketched out in the beginning. To his credit, James Murdoch is resigning from his position in the organizational structure of Murdoch’s empire, is concerned about the spread of illiberalism and has floated some organizations to promote liberal thinking, in whatever way he thinks of it.

I wind this post, if not with a salute to, at least with the grudging appreciation of what James Murdoch is trying to do.

You seem to be on the right track, James; more power to you, but do not let that get into your head. Don’t let the demon of illiberalism take hold of you.

Raghuram Ekambaram