Nepali businessmen, especially the ones masquerading as macroeconomists on tv, know how to lose friends and alienate people. After the October 2002 royal takeover, instead of withholding judgment and waiting to see how things pan out, a number rushed to publish messages praising the king's move, casting him as the ultimate savior. True, that action did make a couple of them ministers for a while, but the collective loss has been greater. The businessmen's actions at that time has continued to cost them the trust of political parties.

Then, in the spring of 2003, some business leaders went overboard according rock-star treatment to the then-aboveground Maoist rebel leaders. Indeed, the business community was rapturous after the Maoists announced that, notwithstanding their own aspirations for a Stalinist economy, they too were "for free market". This showed that the business community, despite its self-proclaimed importance, could boast neither intellectual nor moral consistency.

Any remaining hangover of that euphoria has evaporated in past weeks as Maoist rebels forced the closure of several top businesses and imposed a seven-day-long Kathmandu blockade. Hurt in the process were many small, medium and large Nepali businesses and their customers. The most FNCCI and others could do were half-hearted rallies requesting the Maoists end the blockade. Instead of swinging back and forth like a pendulum and forever blaming politicians, could Nepali business leaders start doing something concrete and credible for peace?

This would need a change of mindset and of tactics. No matter how much they yearn for an orderly autocracy a la Singapore, business leaders must learn to see democracy as a friend of longterm economic growth. Most prosperous countries have been democratic for a long time, with a vibrant press and multiple outlets for civil society concerns.

Talking about economic freedom as something distinct from political freedom may be comforting. But as the Maoist blockade has shown, when political freedom remains under assault, economic freedom starts to wither. And economic freedom in the absence of political freedom, which values competition, ends up setting the stage for corruption, arbitrary political meddling and harmful monopolies. Surely that is not what our business leaders want.

Business leaders say that they want peace. Yet they seem content to let the donors and others pay for peace-building efforts. Isn't it time for them to start putting money where their mouth is? A change of tactics would require that instead of finger-pointing, business leaders come together and take the initiative to create something like Nepali Business Alliance for Peace. Funded and managed by Nepali businesses for collective welfare, they could start by looking at El Salvador and South Africa, where businesses played crucial roles in building peace. Unless the Nepali business community takes a pro-active stance and does its bit to address the present crisis, its complaints alone will help raise neither sales nor profits.