T

he word socialism is often heavily affiliated with communism, but is socialism really a bad thing for Indonesia? It seems that socialism will have a big impact on Indonesia during Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s administration, especially since he has promised 12 years of basic education and improvement to the national healthcare system, among other things.

The question, however, remains, is socialism a good thing for Indonesia? Well, let'€™s use Norway as an example. As a socialist country, Norway provides one of the best universal healthcare programs. Its public education system and HDI (Human Development Index) ranked the highest in the world, and its gross domestic product (GDP), both real and per capita, is relatively high. Because of this, Norway has one of the lowest poverty rates.

If Indonesia can implement elements of socialism like Norway does, there is no doubt that the poverty rate will decrease immensely. However, some may disagree with the concept of socialism. Looking at contemporary US political culture, socialism is not exactly well-received among conservatives and republicans. They claim that socialism discourages entrepreneurship, increase taxes and reduces economic growth.

They justify their claims by pointing out the fact that in a socialist state, the national economy is heavily regulated and a lot of welfare and benefits are provided by the government. They claim that this may discourage entrepreneurship due to strict government regulations, leading to decreased economic growth. Moreover, the amount of benefits and welfare provided to the people are very costly, meaning that taxes will increase or will be relatively high compared with other states.

In my opinion, however, these things will not happen during Jokowi'€™s administration because if you look at the vision and mission of Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla (although it is clear that a lot of it contains socialist elements) it embraces Indonesia'€™s capitalism and its growing economy. One of their missions is to stimulate the growth of local businesses by connecting rural areas with urban areas, increasing the amount of educated labor, encouraging local businesses to strive and many more. These actions can increase economic growth, encourage entrepreneurship and possibly even decrease taxes.

What Jokowi-Jusuf Kalla are doing is trying to merge both capitalism and socialism under one administration. To some, this might seem rather contradictory, but it can be done. In fact, even the US (known for its capitalist economy), is not purely capitalist. There are elements of socialism in it. For instance, in 2010, the US introduced its first universal healthcare program. That is one example of the many elements of socialism integrated in the US government.

This proves that not only can socialism and capitalism do go hand-in-hand but that a capitalist economy alone insufficiently promotes prosperity. A pure capitalist state would have a hard time eradicating poverty, as public services would be privatized, forcing people to pay more, and thereby making it harder for lower-income people to get benefits. On the other hand, socialism is ideal in decreasing poverty and unemployment rates, but not in maximizing the potential of Indonesia'€™s emerging market.

Vajra Reza Alam
Jakarta