Not in its totality, no, obviously not, but in this particular specific the government of Iran is trying to do the right thing. To switch subsidies from things to people:
Iran’s government has begun rushing out promised direct payments to 60 million Iranians, in a sign that the regime has been spooked by the scale of protests against petrol price rises announced last week.
In some cases petrol prices are being raised by as much as 300%. Unrest continued throughout Iran on Monday and internet access remained blocked for a second day.
Videos smuggled out of the country showed municipal buildings and banks being torched and large traffic jams as drivers blocked roads. The clashes seemed fiercest in the cities of Shiraz and Ahvaz rather than in Tehran As many as 1,000 people have been arrested.
In announcing the price rise on Thursday, the government said it was not seeking to raise state revenues but instead undertaking a complex switch in government subsidies.
It’s entirely possible to argue against subsidies at all. It must be possible because we make that argument ourselves often enough. But if there are going to be subsidies then it’s vastly better for it to be a subsidy of money to the poor than it is to be one to a certain product for all.
In Iran the petrol price is subsidised, substantially. It used to be even more, along with natural gas in fact. And there was a change, to instead of subsidising energy - Iran is one of the top three such subsidisers to fossil derived energy in the world - give people the amount to spend as they wished.
The advantage is that we all enjoy agency. Give us the money for us to deploy as we wish and we’ll gain greater value for that same cost to the exchequer. Simply because we are able to expend those resources on what we’d like, not on what politics thinks we should get.
The basic point is well known, to the point that the US Census readily admits it. Poor Americans value food stamps, or Medicaid, at less than it costs to provide them. They would be made richer if they simply got the cash instead. It is also this which explains why there’s a black market in food stamps. People value, say, nappies, more than they do food and will exchange money which works only for for for that which works for nappies at a substantial - 50% - discount. Diapers are in fact the major item paid for with illegally converted to cash food stamps.
The Iranian government is actually trying to do the right thing here, make everyone richer, by moving subsidies from things to people.