How do we get more politicians to move from 'fixing' the system to reforming the system? The obvious answer is to either improve the quality of public services or reduce the public's dependence on them. Both approaches are necessary.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that effective political change requires both improving public services and reducing reliance on them.
Raghuram Rajan emphasizes the need for politicians to transition from merely fixing the existing system to pursuing meaningful reform. This involves enhancing the quality of public services provided to citizens while simultaneously encouraging a shift away from over-dependence on these services. Ultimately, true reform encompasses both improving what exists and fostering independence among the public.
In practice
This quote could be used in a political debate to emphasize the need for reform.
The U.S. should worry about the effects of its polices on the rest of the world. We would like to live in a world where countries take into account the effect of their policies on other countries and do what is right, broadly, rather than what is just right given the circumstances of that country.
Customers often value a good more when its price goes up. One reason may be its signaling value. An expensive handcrafted mechanical watch may tell time no more accurately than a cheap quartz model; but, because few people can afford one, buying it signals that the owner is rich.
The problem with forbearance is that it always looks like a good thing to do until it stops working.
Perhaps the hardest challenge has been to persuade the public, impatient for rapid growth, of the need to ensure stability first. Growth, it is argued, is always more important, regardless of the looming economic risks.
Too many years away from academia renders you pretty incompetent at research and teaching. So I had to go back.
The gap in India has always been between the promise and the execution.
The people are responsible for the character of their Congress.
Autocratic power requires the degradation of moral authority - not the capture of moral high ground.
Government has a habit of blaming the private sector for its own failings while taking credit for advances we in fact owe to the private sector.
There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.
We must abandon the notion that the people govern. Instead, we must adopt the theory that, by their occasional mobilisations as a majority, people support or oppose the individuals who actually govern.
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
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