"In order to create efficient, corruption-free and effective public goods in our country, the taxation will have to be obviously higher than what you see in developed countries. So, I personally would not at all grudge, if I have to pay a higher level of taxation," he said and pointed out that the per capita GDP of an average Indian is today hardly 2,300 US Dollars. Quoting UN he said what the UN has called “low income group countries”, is about twice of that. Murthy has also claimed to be a hard core leftist earlier and now he believes in compassionate capitalism.

Perhaps his scientific outlook, which must had been his instrument to understand the world as leftist, would have pointed out to him that irrespective of its being compassionate or barbaric, capitalist system always prospers and evolves on uncompensated labour, the produce of which is called surplus. Capitalism cannot be itself if it does not have capital, which generates more capital in the process of capitalist production. Out of this production process, the output gets its value, which in turn makes it a commodity. The labour time is the creator of the specific difference, of the value-form and consequently the commodity- form.

As Marx had pointed out in his famous book “Capital, A critical analysis of Capitalist Production”, that the use value of a product is a quality that serves the need of people, but what does belong to a commodity is its value which is realised in exchange. This is the foundational truth of capitalism. Hence, the labour is already producing without compensation, and the capitalist system thrives on that. Being an important part of the system one cannot deny the fact that the entire structure of the society stands on unpaid labour, it would amount to self negation, which in turn amounts to demagogy.

Coming back to freebies. Let us not go by pieces, since they make the entirety. It is a dialectical existence. It was decided in the 18th century itself that in the mode of production, the three components were imperative and among them, apart from raw material and the production tools, is labour, which comes from human being, and needs regularisation. It has a limit, that should never go beyond eight hours. After that, it is not the normal energy that is employed. It is the reserve energy that is spent. If a worker toils for sixty or seventy hours every week, reserve energy is sold to the capitalist master, underpriced, in fact absolutely free. Worker is today struggling even for minimum wages, if at all s/he is employed. The famous quote of NR Narayana Murthy says, "Nothing should be given free." In return, the worker is asked to sacrifice even the breathing space, which is Sunday.

Speaking at the 26th edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit 2023, , Murthy stressed that every bit the state does for its people must be compensated, that there should be a contribution "When you provide those services, when you provide those subsidies, there must be something in return that they're willing to do. For example, if you say, I will give you free electricity, then it would have been a very nice thing for the government to have said, but we want to see the percentage attendance in primary schools and middle schools go up by 20 per cent, then only we will give you that." First it is conditional, not free. And then when a child stops going to school, or does badly in studies, there are factors that have to be taken into consideration. There are loads of research work done on it. The families go half starved. Jobs are rare. Wages are highly insufficient. Even as citizens, we do not have the right to question the child’s inefficiency, without assessing in depth the atmosphere we have created for our human wealth.

Finally, he suggested, "....Ask people what are the requirements they need to work three shifts and complete the work in time and provide them that." Compassion becomes a superfluous expression here as capitalism bares all its fangs to force humanity to go beyond. It is not the people who are to slog for three shifts, it is their blood soaked starving existence that would run the machine just to keep alive!

Narayan Murthy said he believes that capitalism is based on the twin pillars of free market and entrepreneurship and that are the only solution for any country to solve its problem of poverty. But poverty is not a financial deprivation alone, it surpasses humanity too some time, history is witness to that. (IPA Service)