Nepal, April 12 -- market orthodoxy requires functioning institutions, honest courts and a rule-enforcing state. Nepal lacks these. Instead, it has a business community shielded by syndicates, political appointees in ministries and a governing class that confuses rent extraction with wealth creation. Nepal needs a competent government-lean, digital, transparent and ruthless about dismantling the mafias that have stifled productive enterprise.

The generation that elected the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) voted for this. Young Nepalis voted out of exhaustion, not ideology. They rejected ministers appointed for loyalty, border customs that required envelopes, and a country that exports its best people because it can't employ them domestica...