tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34606979557161822202024-02-21T00:52:30.145-08:00Soldier of FreedomChandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-19416485578310509142020-07-20T00:11:00.001-07:002020-07-20T00:11:05.591-07:00Nani Palkhivala and C Rajagopalachari Speeches-1971<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/135N0DocogQ" width="459"></iframe>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-14562275147397065902020-07-04T03:31:00.000-07:002020-07-04T03:31:49.333-07:00Hobbes' Mistake - The Rational Case For Anarchy by Sauvik Chakraverti<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 33.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/Hobbes-Mistake-The-Rational-Case-For-Anarchy/articleshow/295362387.cms">Hobbes' Mistake - TheRational Case For Anarchy by Sauvik Chakraverti</a></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;">
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 11.25pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #666666;">May 27, 2001, 04.32 PM
IST</span><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/"><span style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75"
coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe"
filled="f" stroked="f">
<v:stroke joinstyle="miter"/>
<v:formulas>
<v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"/>
<v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"/>
</v:formulas>
<v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"/>
<o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"/>
</v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75"
alt="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?photoid=1799437"
href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/" style='width:186pt;height:15.75pt;
visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square' o:button="t">
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\God\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.gif"
o:title="photo"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="color: #666666;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">in his classic leviathan, written in 1651,
the english political philosopher thomas hobbes established the liberal case
for the state. he said that, without the `mortall god' of the state to hold us
all in awe, society would disintegrate, there would ensue ``a war of each
against all'' and life would be ``nasty, poore, brutish and short''. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since then, liberals in the west have
upheld statism - and have encouraged state-building in the third world. today,
it is seen that almost all the states of the third world are predatory states,
enemies of the people. they are huge kleptocracies which amass and then misuse
economic powers and keep people poor. when libertarians talk of the need to do
away with states and statism, we are accused, even by our liberal friends, of
being anarchists. how do we defend ourselves from this charge? the fact is:
thomas hobbes was wrong. very wrong. the following thought experiment will show
how. carry a tray of ripe bananas before a group of monkeys. what will happen?
the monkeys will snatch and steal all the bananas: the hobbesian war of each
against all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now take another tray of ripe bananas and
carry them to a place where there are no monkeys but lots of human beings:
chandni chowk, connaught place, crawford market... what will happen? no one
will steal your bananas. if they want your bananas, humans will politely ask
whether you will offer them in exchange for money. homo economicus is a moral
creature. because he has the ability to exchange, which the monkey does not,
homo economicus does not snatch and steal. he has an inborn morality that
respects property rights. in stark contrast, the constitution of india does not
recognise property rights! now, hang around in the market a little longer and
observe who are the monkeys amongst us. then you will see the policeman
extorting goods for free; you will see the municipal functionary preying on
urban commerce. these are the cutting-edge personnel of the predatory state.
this clearly shows that: 1) the market is a secular basis of human morality;
and 2) power corrupts. yet, it is important to note that thomas hobbes was a
liberal. in leviathan he does mention that every man would very much prefer to
rule himself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We sacrifice some of our freedoms in
exchange for the law and order that the state creates. the original cover
illustration of leviathan shows a huge king-like figure wielding a massive
sword. a little careful examination reveals that the body of the `mortall god'
is completely made up of little people: the citizens. ``leviathan bears the
body of the citizenry,'' hobbes says. in predatory states it is obvious that
the sword of state is not borne by a `mortall god'. rather, it is in the hands
of a huge monkey. and its body is not composed of the citizenry; rather, it is
composed entirely of little monkeys. why should the entire third world continue
to suffer this situation? will not absolute freedom - anarchy - be better? the
word anarchy has a beautiful meaning: no ruler. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It does not mean chaos, as the enemies of
freedom would have you believe. it means, quite simply, that the king is dead,
and there are to be no more kings. all human beings are free and equal. there
is no one to lord over us. there is no one with power. before dismissing this
option outright, let us inquire into what forces within civil society will
maintain morality and order in the absence of the state. under conditions of
anarcho-capitalism - no state - all the people will seek their survival in the
free market. statists believe that under such conditions robbery and thievery
will ensue, but are their fears based on reality? after all, in a free market,
cheating succeeds only in the short term. every capitalist knows that, for
long-term success, he has to protect his reputation. that is why brand names
and brand equity matter so much in assuring us of quality. only those who
satisfy customers will succeed in the long run, and that is why morality will
rule. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Secondly, in a completely free market,
credit will go only to the creditworthy. unlike today, when political allocation
of credit prompts many to not pay their dues, under anarcho-capitalism,
everyone will realise that creditworthiness is something to be cherished and
carefully nurtured. free banking will ensure more moral behaviour than
politicised banking. thirdly, human beings, apart from being economic
creatures, are also sexual creatures. this prompts them to raise families.
without a state that will look after them in times of trouble, under
anarcho-capitalism, the family will be the main source of support. families
will be strong. children will be well brought up. this shows that there are
only two secular bases of human morality: the market and the sexual union. not
the state, which is a promoter of immorality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some will say that the free market cannot
exist without supporting institutions. this is true. there must be courts and
justice. but law is also an enterprise. today, the monopolistic state courts
system is hopelessly clogged and does not deliver timely justice. further, it
is based on the socialistic disregard for property rights, which cannot
co-exist with the free market. we will need property rights to be enforced; we
will need disputes to be settled or adjudicated. all this can happen easily
under anarcho-capitalism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lastly, we will need some form of policing.
this must be done because there will be a few thieves, rapists and murderers
amongst us: a free society is not a perfect society. but, throughout history,
such plunderers have come from outside the city, and the city people have
always organised themselves for their own protection. today, in our cities of
joy, entire communities get murdered with tacit state police support. tomorrow,
with self-policing, we shall surely be safer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 33.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 20.25pt;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The entire third world, comprising
two-thirds of humanity, is suffering because of thomas hobbes' mistake. we must
unitedly reject the notion of leviathan. statelessness and anarcho-capitalism
will make us rich, moral and safe. we will all achieve our destiny. the path we
must take is not to reform the state and its institutions, but to do away with
them altogether. what is required is shifting the paradigm from nation-states
to associations of free trading cities: limiting politics to the polis. in
brief * predatory states amass and misuse economic powers * the free market
promotes morality, the state immorality * self-policing makes humans safer<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 33.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<br /></div>
Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-13490561804378788562019-08-16T04:59:00.003-07:002019-08-16T04:59:44.341-07:00Trading Places by Sauvik Chakraverti<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidjzs9FXyiMpuvZaNwVOyKDQKAS64BN6vCyS_PexrjB_56xc_YMlZFRWV964Roei59jy9Gi32Zp2Z5oXWl2eivikx5YerVSHOOqyDwuSLn6k9OeVWlkX2fD01jonBnJF__6bjixwpRZW0/s1600/Trading+places+by+Sauvik+Chakraverti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="556" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidjzs9FXyiMpuvZaNwVOyKDQKAS64BN6vCyS_PexrjB_56xc_YMlZFRWV964Roei59jy9Gi32Zp2Z5oXWl2eivikx5YerVSHOOqyDwuSLn6k9OeVWlkX2fD01jonBnJF__6bjixwpRZW0/s640/Trading+places+by+Sauvik+Chakraverti.jpg" width="370" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-128023287106299872019-08-16T04:58:00.000-07:002019-08-16T04:58:12.993-07:00A teenage wasteland by Sauvik Chakraverti<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhasxVB9_STuTBa8SsfkKg6jsPhdJFUijvwr3muZ2K7FmVSHXt__IbB8WjZCloeAOFFRpHT0ca-n23npLRsAXuCfRDh7s8MqjC1jmDgLs2rsBK09Isw9aAS9snz8OW1QHQfEp-g1Aq6N64/s1600/Sauvik-+Education-+the+waste+land.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="960" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhasxVB9_STuTBa8SsfkKg6jsPhdJFUijvwr3muZ2K7FmVSHXt__IbB8WjZCloeAOFFRpHT0ca-n23npLRsAXuCfRDh7s8MqjC1jmDgLs2rsBK09Isw9aAS9snz8OW1QHQfEp-g1Aq6N64/s640/Sauvik-+Education-+the+waste+land.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-76301920145140465502019-08-16T04:50:00.001-07:002019-08-16T04:50:40.237-07:00Shut down HRD ministry! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="justify" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.educationworld.in/cover-story-12/">Shut down HRD ministry!</a> by Sauvik Chakraverti</span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Shut down the union hrd (human resource destruction) ministry.</span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The ministry is manned by propagandists of a failed experiment in state socialism. It has ensured there are no genuine knowledge workers in the entire education system, except bureaucrats. Its supervision of schools, colleges and universities should be revoked.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dismantle all licensing requirements for education institutions.</span> The education sector urgently needs to be set free. This will facilitate entry of competing private firms offering short courses that equip young people for vocations or professions, be it plumbing or baking into the education sector. The three R’s can also be easily taught, especially using computers.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Free the student community.</span> In schools, colleges, universities and B-schools across the country students receive state-sponsored ‘education’. Such education churns out limited types of economic actors: bureaucrats, managers, accountants, lawyers, doctors, engineers. In the emerging free market economy, young people will find profitable niches as DJs, VJs, even tattoo artists. The burden of formal education — especially state-sponsored education — is inimical to creativity and intellectual freedom. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Revoke higher education subsidies.</span> Higher education is a privilege, not a right. Those who actually produce knowledge should be free to work, teach and sustain their respective schools of thought. Every such school should sustain itself on its own resources as it would be fatal to academic freedom to expect or receive subsidies from the state.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Moreover some Indian edupreneurs are venturing overseas. The Manipal Education & Medical Group has promoted state-of-the-art medical schools in Nepal and Malaysia, and the S.P. Jain Institute, a campus in Dubai. And most spectacularly, India-born Sunny Varkey who runs a dozen secondary schools in Dubai and the UAE, has acquired 13 independent schools in Britain and could well be the world’s premier edupreneur.</span></div>
<div align="justify" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">T</span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">his urgent flurry of activity</span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">within the hitherto somnolent education sector has ensured that the vital importance of qualitative education has permeated down to the lowest income groups across the subcontinent — a development accentuated by the promotion of the country’s 517 urban benchmarked Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya residential schools in rural India (see <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">EW</i> cover story August). Simultaneously it has focussed public attention upon hitherto arcane subjects such as syllabus design and curriculum development and shifted national attention from ritual to real education. Suddenly paper degrees and qualifications are not as important as professional and life skills which school leavers and college graduates must acquire within their institutions of learning.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Therefore the newly emergent consensus that reform of India’s Macaulayan system of education based on rote learning and memorisation rather than development of problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills requires urgent attention. And even as several specialist committees constituted by the Union ministry of human resource development are currently engaged in the process, the public interest demands a wider ambit for the national debate on syllabus and curriculum reform. To this end, to meaningfully celebrate the 5th anniversary of <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">EducationWorld</i>, we deemed it incumbent upon ourselves to ask several educationists and industry leaders with proven commitment to improving the education system to write prescriptions for a renaissance of Indian education.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Inevitably, prescriptions for the reform of India’s patently languishing, if not terminally ill education system by dedicated educationists in diverse professions and vocations differ widely. However on some points there is a broad consensus. The reforms implicitly or explicitly endorsed by all the seven eminent respondents are:</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Liberalise and deregulate the education system to encourage promotion of new schools, colleges, vocational and other institutions of higher education.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To a greater or lesser degree all the respondents are in favour of addressing the supply side of education to eliminate capacity shortages which are the root cause of the overwhelming majority of the hundreds, if not thousands, of rackets which plague post-independence India’s education system. The learned justices of the Supreme Court agree. In its historic 2002 judgement in the <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">TMA Pai Foundation Case</i> (8 SCC 481), a full bench of the court expanded the right of minorities to “establish and administer educational institutions of their choice” as mandated by Article 30 of the Constitution of India, to all citizens.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This development prescription is strongly endorsed by liberal economist and writer Sauvik Chakraverti. “The education sector urgently needs to be set free. This will facilitate entry of private firms offering short courses that equip young people for vocations and professions — be it plumbing, or baking — into the education sector. The three R’s can also be easily taught by them using computers,” says Chakraverti (see box p.39).</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SAUVIK CHAKRAVERTI </span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and former senior assistant editor of <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The</i> <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Economic Times</i>. Currently Chakraverti is the convenor of the Liberal Study Group, Mangalore.</span></span></span></div>
</div>
Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-27073994037449520232019-08-16T04:44:00.003-07:002019-08-16T04:44:40.652-07:00Need to de-school society<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="news-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<h1 style="border: 0px; color: #3c92d4; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Need to de-school society by </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></h1>
</div>
<div class="news-date" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #f06e33; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.educationworld.in/expert-comment-3/">Education World September 06 | Education World</a></span></div>
<div class="post-entry" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="rowstyle=margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="col-md-12" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="panel" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="panel-body" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="row" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="col-md-12" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">D</span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">r. Parth Shah, president of the Delhi-</span></span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">based<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Centre for Civil Society in his entertaining critique of Amartya Sen’s stand on government and State as educator of the masses,<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>wrote that a government which cannot be trusted to produce food (by cultivating fields) surely can’t be trusted to produce education, which entails cultivation of minds. That’s why nobody is willing to pay bribes for admission into government schools. Some private schools extract donations and bribes because the licence-permit raj has blocked supply. Unshackle the enterprise of educationists, and there will be enough private education for all.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Socialists like Sen, who plead for a major role for the State or government in education, do so on two grounds: equity and standards. Both pleas are based on false premises. A state that spends hugely on higher education, leaving little for primary schooling, cannot be said to be serving equity. As predicted by public choice theory (which is still not taught at the ‘elite’ Delhi School of Economics), the education budget is hogged by the middle class and the rich, who consume higher education. The poor, whose children need just a little primary education to get going, get naught. So, the equity argument isn’t valid in the current Indian context.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Next we need to address the standardisation argument. Can you imagine anything worse for the minds of children than bureaucrats approving conditions for the promotion of schools and colleges and even universities, mandating courses and syllabuses, listing ‘approved’ textbooks, fixing tuition fees and doing all the other things standardisers advocate? Will this not lead to the politicisation of knowledge? Will we not create an Orwellian ministry of truth? Like ISO certification, the private sector is quite capable of setting standards, as the privately promoted computer education firm NIIT has proved. But NIIT is still not ‘recognised’ by the Central or state governments.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Contrary to official dogma, education is one area in which there should be experimentation. Young people learn music, sports, dance, art, cooking, driving and computers (outside school) from private entrepreneurs. Thus, there is widespread variety and choice and acceptable standards over which both students and parents have control. Therefore there is negligible teacher absenteeism in such courses.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is the pointer to the future. If, as Rabindranath Tagore had dreamed, India becomes a country “where knowledge is free”, education would be a competitive enterprise over whose products consumers would exercise complete sovereignty. If poor parents want their children to learn English, as in fact most do, competitive entrepreneurs would sell them short courses, as many are already doing. If they seek other kinds of knowledge, the market economy will step in to provide it, either by studentship or apprenticeships. In such a market economy, a child from a poor family can choose a ‘calling’ and obtain knowledge relevant to that vocation. Specialised in this manner — as a beautician or tattoo artist, electrician, mason, plumber, motor mechanic, receptionist, chef or cartoonist — all poor children can seek honest survival in the urban market economy. They can be ‘rationally ignorant’ about everything else.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To understand ‘rational ignorance’, take for example, a musician. If he is adept at playing his chosen musical instrument, he has no need to learn anything else. If he wants a car, engineers build it for him, a chauffeur drives him around, and mechanics keep it in good repair. If he wants a grand house, architects design it for him, masons build it, and interior designers furnish it aesthetically. If he wants gourmet food, he hires a chef. And so on. As far as the musician is concerned, all he knows is how to play one musical instrument well. About everything else, he is rationally ignorant.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">T</span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: black; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">he notion of ‘rational ignorance’, which is the</span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">key to understanding how free markets use specialised knowledge, implies that children don’t need to spend long and boring years in school that mete out generalised knowledge. Armed with a pocket calculator and only two R’s, children from every household can begin to chase big dreams. We need to de-school society if we truly have the interests of poor children at heart. Instead, we have submitted, without even a murmur of protest, to the education cess: the state as the ‘cultivator of minds’.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A noted philosopher once remarked: “Whoever is the master of education is the master of mankind.” Our socialist state wants to be the master of education as a means to a much more sinister end — control of our minds.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The situation is critical. It demands that parents wake up to their own responsibilities. A video recording of Pink Floyd’s <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Wall</i> about how education is ‘thought control’, should be compulsory viewing. As for compulsory reading, I strongly recommend Prof. James Tooley’s <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Enterprise of Education</i>, a 38-page booklet from Liberty Institute, New Delhi, which analyses the Indian experience of state controlled education.</span></span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Sauvik Chakraverti is a journalist and author of <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Antidote: Essays Against the Socialist Indian State</i>, and its sequel, <i style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Antidote 2: For Liberal Governance, both published by Macmillan</i>)</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-51954612754946047452019-08-16T04:33:00.003-07:002019-08-16T04:45:24.987-07:00Education provision by a failed State<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="news-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<h1 style="border: 0px; color: #3c92d4; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 10px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Education provision by a failed State by </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></h1>
</div>
<div class="news-date" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #f06e33; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.educationworld.in/education-provision-by-a-failed-state/">EducationWorld June 08 | Education World</a></span></div>
<div class="post-entry" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Every activist in indian education suffers from a ‘delusion of knowledge — the notion that the socialist State, i.e. government, is in possession of knowledge that the poor need to succeed in life.In reality, the State is itself based on failed knowledge. Economic liberalisation was resorted to in 1991 after half a century of socialism, precisely because of knowledge failure. And it is only because of ‘liberty that Indian society can now access various fragments of knowledge that were previously unavailable. Now we have modern automobiles, mobile phones, plasma TVs and the like because we allowed knowledge developed abroad to flow into the country. The State-promoted IITs have been operational since the early 1960s but this knowledge wasnt available in India. The State-owned IIMs are of similar vintage — but there were hardly any business enterprises to manage then.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On the other hand, the poor have traditionally been in possession of various fragments of knowledge — but are denied entry into markets by repressive legislation. Poor girls can sing and dance, but the socialist State has outlawed nightlife. Tribals in the jungles of central India distill stimulating mahua liquor from an eponymous flower, but they cannot sell it. Tapping toddy and fermenting it is specialised knowledge. Last year Karna-taka reported a bumper toddy season — but nowhere on Bangalores swanky Brigade Road will you get a glass of toddy. The north-east is poor and underdeveloped; but boast great music bands there. But these bands cannot perform in heartland states because of State-imposed restrictions.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">These are all examples of real, hard knowledge going waste. And ironically the State, which is responsible for this waste, wants to teach. If establishment educationists shout in concert, an education tax is immediately imposed. But the ‘planned flow of knowledge from State to the poor never happens, and it never will. The minister in charge of education is a Nehru family loyalist. As such he will teach Nehruvian socialist propaganda. And his loyal educrats will dictate what private institutes will teach and meddle with what they want to teach.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Thus, for the immediate benefit of the poor, and for the immediate spread of real knowledge, liberty is essential. Just as the public has benefited from foreign car companies entering India, so we will benefit from foreign universities setting up shop here. And just as the poor benefit from freedom, so will the national knowledge pool if anyone with a fragment of knowledge can set up shop and teach to whoever is willing to pay for it. The problem which requires resolution is that of transmission of knowledge from one who has it to another individual who wants to acquire it. The market alone can solve this problem. The State has no ‘collective pool of knowledge. Indeed, the socialist Indian State is a naked propagandist, and all its attempts to secure ‘uniform standards in education have only resulted in the uniform teaching of untruths.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Therefore, the Union ministry of human resource development — actually ministry of human resource destruction — should be shut down. Every educrat should be fired, and all schools and colleges freed from government control and supervision over curriculum as well as certification. Private edupreneurs can then compete for testing scholastic competence and issuing certification — as with SAT, IB or the ISC.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What about poor kids in such a scenario? If they learn how to use a calculator, to read, write and speak English, to type on a keyboard and use a computer, to operate a mobile phone and send SMS, and how to drive a car, they will have all the basic knowledge required for success in the contemporary world. I am positive that private for-profit as well as non-profit efforts can easily transmit these fragments of knowledge to them in a manner that is efficient in terms of money as well as time.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Poor kids need to enter the workforce early. for them, 12 years of school is a massive waste of time. The basic knowledge they need, as outlined above, can be transmitted to them by private edupreneurs, cheap and quick. Thus, there is no role for the State in education either for the rich or the poor, in primary, secondary or higher education.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I conclude with what the great French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) who was also in active politics, wrote in his election manifesto over 150 years ago: Education is also bound up with the same fundamental question that precedes all others in politics: Is it part of the States duties? Or does it belong to the sphere of private activity? I believe that government is not set up in order to bring our minds into subjection, or to absorb the rights of the family… If you want to have theories, systems, methods, principles, textbooks and teachers forced on you by the government, that is up to you; but do not expect me to sign, in your name, such a shameful abdication of your rights.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Indeed, as Bastiat stressed academic monopoly of the State can only work if the State is infallible. In a nation of widespread State failure, the very idea of government infallibility lies in tatters.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 20px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(Sauvik Chakraverti is an author and journalist, closely involved with Indias liberal movement)</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-16786518241537484712012-09-04T10:25:00.003-07:002012-09-04T10:25:56.114-07:00Road to Liberty: Markets Alone Reward Diverse Knowledge Forms <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="mod-timesofindiaarticleheader mod-articleheader" id="mod-article-header" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<h1 class="multi-line-title-1" style="border: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2004-09-04/edit-page/27160381_1_toddy-mastani-bars"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Road to Liberty: Markets Alone Reward Diverse Knowledge Forms</span></a></h1>
</div>
<div class="area" id="area-article-first-block" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="pubdate" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sauvik Chakraverti,<b> </b></span><span class="separator" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px;"></span><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sep 4, 2004, 12.00am IST</span>
</span></div>
<div class="area" id="area-article-first-block" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px;">
<span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div style="border: 0px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Socialists insist education will help the poor. Actually, millions are poor not because of ignorance, but because of socialist law. Unlettered tribals in the jungles of central India, for example, know how to distil mahua but laws prevent them from selling it. Millions of poor coastal Indians know how to climb the palm tree, harvest the juice, and brew toddy. They are poor because laws prevent them from selling the fruits of their traditional knowledge. In Sri Lanka, toddy is touted as the national drink and sold in tetrapak. No toddy is sold on Brigade Road, Bangalore: Excise law.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Similarly, millions of unlettered Indians know how to sing, dance and play musical instruments. But they languish in poverty because the socialists have outlawed nightlife. The poverty-stricken north-east is full of potential rock stars. Arun Shourie showcased many great north-eastern bands in Delhi recently but where do they perform, given all the restrictions on opening bars and clubs, serving alcohol and so on? In Mumbai, entrepreneurs have invested in thousands of dance bars which fork out crores in taxes, but cops routinely raid bars and arrest these girls who are just trying to earn an honest living with skills they already possess. In Maharashtra, legends recount the Peshwa Baji Rao's deep love for the dancing girl Mastani. Today, poor Mastani would be in jail or in a municipal school! Tamasha is an ancient Maharashtrian form of ribald popular entertainment, but it has been legally crushed, and the papers report that tamasha artistes today survive as mistresses of corrupt local politicians. Mujra is banned in Lucknow.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
In America, black slaves made it big in music. New Orleans produced Satchmo and hundreds of jazz and blues stars not because of education, but because of liberty: The liberty to earn an honest living.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
The socialist emphasis on education also demonstrates complete ignorance of how knowledge operates in the market economy. Main Street, Pune, is a busy market. Walking around, you find hundreds of small bakeries that turn out a dazzling array of breads, buns, biscuits, rolls and so on. There are scores of small jewellers, tailors and</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
expert darners. Many tiny establishments make picture frames. There are Irani, Parsi, Chinese, tandoori and continental restaurants. Budhanis is famous for its potato chips. There is a popular home-made softy ice-cream joint. There is a vada-pau stall that always has crowds of customers. There are bhelpuri and chaat-wallahs. A group of acrobats perform for passers-by. The street is lined with hundreds of shops selling diverse products ranging from footwear to sarees, from electronic goods to kitchenware. This is what Friedrich Hayek called the division of knowledge: Every economic actor is operating with distinct know-how.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Important implications follow the Hayekian view of knowledge. First, that central economic planning can never work, because knowledge cannot be centralised: What cannot be known cannot be planned. The socialist central planner, Hayek said, suffers from fatal conceit: He does not see the wonder of knowledge, and thinks he knows it all. It is because of knowledge failure that there are shortages of everything that is planned, from roads to power. There are no shortages in the market economy.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Second, Hayek showed how knowledge and education are entirely different things. Hayek found much of the knowledge used in the market economy to be inarticulate and uncodifiable. The bakers, tailors, expert darners, and bhelpuri-wallahs of Main Street possess this kind of knowledge. This shows the limits of formal education as a means to economic achievement.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Formal education churns out certain types of economic actors only: Bureaucrats, managers, accountants, doctors, lawyers and so on. The vast majority of successful economic actors get their knowledge elsewhere. That is why VJs, DJs, sports-persons, fashion models, and hotel chefs earn more than professors of economics.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Liberty matters much more than all the education the socialists can impart. Liberty means free trade and open borders. Liberty means there are no restrictions placed on economic achievement and it is this freedom that empowers the poor to enter the market, not education. Liberty beats education in another important way, for education requires us to pay a new tax, while liberty is free, requiring only that repressive laws be repealed and meddlesome, corrupt bureaus be shut down. So why have almost all educated Indians agreed to the education cess?</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Perhaps their education made them forget liberty. In 1215, when the Magna Carta was signed, Englishmen were all quite illiterate, but they instinctively valued liberty: Every freeborn Englishman is the king of his own castle. Thus, we see the birth of constitutional democracy and the birth of capitalism. The merchants of cities and towns</div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
extracted from King John constitutional liberties to self-government and trade by land and sea. The richest livery companies in London then were those of the fishmongers, grocers and fruiterers because they sold what everyone consumed. The merchants of England's cities and towns comprised the commons. But in every Indian city today, people in these basic trades have their surpluses robbed by parasitic state personnel. How can we believe we are a true constitutional democracy when we don't have liberty?</div>
</span></span></div>
</div>
Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-58802103436219256432012-01-12T22:25:00.000-08:002012-01-12T22:25:42.549-08:00Unleash Tiebout forces<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;"><b>Unleash Tiebout forces by Sauvik Chakraverti</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 18.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 3.0pt;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-image: initial; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;"><a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2002-04-04/news/27337574_1_cities-roads-goods">EDITORIAL</a><b>, TNN</b></span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;"> Apr 4, 2002, 01.46am IST The Economic Times<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 3.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A survey carried out by this newspaper has ranked hyderabad as the cheapest indian city to live in, and mumbai the most expensive. delhi follows a close second. What this means is that your salary goes further in hyderabad than anywhere else: on the same salary, if you live in mumbai, your monthly expenditure goes up by a whopping 87 per cent. Therefore, salaries are necessarily higher in mumbai. If this continues, the city will get outcompeted eventually by market forces. Goods manufactured in mumbai will cost more than goods made in hyderabad. When cities compete, and when citizens 'vote with their feet', a phenomenon occurs which economists call the tiebout effect. charles tiebout had solved the 'public goods' question in a rather unique manner. He said that if mobility could be assumed, then, cities and towns would compete with each other on the basis of public goods provided and their costs as measured by taxes. People will flock to cities where taxes are low, and where public goods are excellent. They will abandon cities where taxes are high and where public goods are not provided adequately. It is this competition, and not local democracy, that will yield functioning municipalities. In the indian context, the depressing truth is that public goods are undersupplied everywhere. mumbai is so expensive only because of high housing costs. This is because of archaic land laws like the land ceiling act and rent control act as well as undersupply of a critical public good: roads. With good roads into the surrounds, more land would be colonised, and prices would fall. This is already happening in delhi. With accretions to the available stock of housing occurring in noida and gurgaon, real estate values in posh south delhi have collapsed by 40 per cent in the last two years. Of course, even in delhi, if roads to satellite towns were excellent, prices would have crashed further. This is the line indian cities and towns must pursue. The focus must be on functioning, competitive municipal organisations. They must treat citizens as customers. in this scenario, those cities that provide the best services and quality of life at the lowest cost will see more 'customers' — and hence more development. Bad cities will gradually see decline, as businesses, factories and people shift out. The greatest benefit of this approach is that we, the citizens, will no longer be viewed as a 'population problem'. We will be viewed as customers.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-32501086140164902532011-12-27T01:12:00.000-08:002011-12-27T01:12:43.061-08:00The Liberal Visions for India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>The Liberal Vision, India by <span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><a href="http://ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_sc_sauvik.htm">Sauvik Chakraverti</a></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
<a href="http://www.fnf-southasia.org/main.html" target="new"><i><span style="color: black;">Liberal Times</span></i></a>, August 2001<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Indian liberals have a powerful vision of a prosperous India: 400-500 free trading and self-governing cities. This contrasts radically with the Gandhian-socialist vision of an India composed of self-sufficient villages. Watch out for liberalism in India.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Liberals in India have been going around for quite some time selling a ‘vision’ of a modern, ‘developed’ India. This is based on simple economics and, since it has brought us considerable support, let me begin by sharing it with this wider audience. I do believe that this has tremendous implications for South Asia, and indeed the entire developing world. India has been a leader of the developing world and has led it up the grossly mistaken path of statism. When India decides to change course, the entire developing world will be influenced.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Liberal Vision for India</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The basic economic truth is that all human beings are blessed with what Adam Smith called ‘a natural propensity to truck, barter and exchange’. The ability to trade is a gift from God. Little children engage in gainful trade: give me some of your chips and have a sip of my cola. No one has to be taught how to create wealth. All human beings are born wealth creating machines. We are all born to be rich. If there is poverty all around, it is because the State has placed innumerable restrictions on the free use of this ability. This implies that population is a resource, and that State policies are the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Notion of Self Sufficiency</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Because of this inborn ability to trade, human beings operate in the exchange economy of a market system. This enables them to occupy specialised niches in the market economy: butcher, baker, tailor, sailor and so on. No human being is ‘self-sufficient’. To do so would be economic suicide; and it is no wonder that, if you ask a class of kindergarten children what they want to be when they grow up, they will answer: "policeman, singer, dancer, actor, pilot" None will say: "I want to be self-sufficient." It goes against the basic logic of little children. Yet, the economic policies of this vast nation were based on the notion of self-sufficiency. India opted out of the international division of labour.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Free Trading Cities</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now, Adam Smith had said that "the division of labour is limited by the size of the market". Thus, there is greater division of labour in crowded cities than in sparsely populated villages. In a crowded city like Delhi, it is possible to be a Thai chef, run an institute for ear diseases, drive a taxi or be a receptionist. In sparsely populated Jhoomritalaiya, it would be difficult to even be a successful dentist. Thus, it follows that cities and towns are vital engines of wealth generation. And, that population causes prosperity: cities are crowded, and rich.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The statist, socialist vision of India that planners have been selling and pursuing for over 50 years is of an India of millions of ‘self-sufficient and self-governing villages’. As opposed to this, liberals believe India should aim to become a nation of 400 to 500 free trading cities. This causes, among our potential supporters, what Thomas Sowell called ‘a conflict of visions’. As Sowell said, a conflict of visions lies at the ideological roots of all political struggles.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Liberal Vision and Recent History</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The urban vision of India’s liberals is strongly supported by recent history, which saw to the building of all our major cities, and innumerable ‘hill-stations’. It is easy to see that liberalism and a commercial spirit powered this urban boom, without which India would be much poorer today. Indeed, the greatest success story of British India was urban development.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">In a letter that survives, dated 1717, the Directors’ of the East India Company advised their Governor at Fort St. George (which developed to become Madras, now renamed Chennai): "Make your settlement a mart for all nations, that being the way God Almighty of old promised to make Jerusalem great." This was 60 years before The Wealth of Nations was penned.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cities and Hill Stations</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Because of their belief in the simple logic of commerce, the British pursued urban development that led to the building of many great cities and countless hill-stations. Independent India has only seen to the destruction of these cities and towns, and the mindless pursuit of ‘rural development’: the bread, butter and jam of the politico-administrative spoils system.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">If we study the development of the hill-stations in British times, a peculiar pattern emerges: they were all linked to a major city. The Simla-Mussoorie belt was linked to Delhi; the Darjeeling-Shillong belt was linked to Calcutta; the Poona-Mahabaleshwar belt was linked to Bombay; and Ooty and the Nilgiri hill-stations were linked to both Madras as well as Bangalore. They were satellite towns. And they could be so only because of transportation links: Darjeeling had its hill-railway before Japan had its first train.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Primacy and Urban Overcrowding</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The centrally planned socialist Indian state’s policies have, for 50 years, neglected roads. (They also did not promote car ownership.) This has caused the British-built primary cities to bloat and led to the underdevelopment of satellite towns. A typical 250 km journey out of bloated Delhi to, say, Dehradoon, will take one through several major towns: Meerut, Modinagar, Khatauli, Muzaffarnagar and Roorkee. Because the road barely exists, these towns are crippled; and all in-migration focuses on the city.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Primary City and Satellite Towns</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Urban geographers call this phenomenon ‘primacy’: where the primary city becomes over-important since it lacks sound transportational links within the domestic urban hierarchy. Thus, we have ‘overcrowding’ - which is not the same as ‘overpopulation’ - and the cure lies not in condoms, but in roads and car ownership. These will lead to the development of satellite towns and the decongestion of primary cities. We have to only follow the British pattern of building hill-stations and India can become, through sound transportational links, a nation of 400 top-class urban areas. The transportational design required is one of ‘hubs-and-spokes’: treat every primary city as a ‘hub’ and develop ‘spokes’ from it. Along the spokes, build the satellite towns.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Protectionist Policies of the State</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unfortunately, the socialist State is yet to get its act together when it comes to the roads infrastructure. And the socialists, with their preference for protectionism, have practically banned used car imports - something that would be a boon for all Indians, deprived of wheels for over 50 years. These protectionist policies are so perverse that they are now protecting multinational car companies operating in India!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">With free trade, and aggressive urbanisation, India will be a rich country. If we re-write our Constitution to respect property rights, slums will disappear as rent control will be deemed unconstitutional. This perverse law is the only cause of slums and slumlords. The socialists insist on keeping this law; liberals wish to create a vibrant market for cheap rentals.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Government of Cities</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Socialist India has, for 50 years, pursued the path of Panchayati Raj: institutions of village self-governance. Of course, they have done so without much heart, and hence, without much success. The liberals, on the other hand, stress the need for sound municipal organisation to run each of the 500 free-trading cities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Socialist India has also been run bureaucratically, and this has led, as public choice theory predicts, to massive budgetary overruns. The future requires us to get rid of bureaus in the provision of public goods and services, and have all the cities and towns run by minimalist administration, based on the principles of the New Public Management. Garbage collection - a major problem - can be contracted out. Primary education - a crying need - can be provided by voucherisation. And so on.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Principle of ‘Subsidiarity’</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">If we institute the principle of ‘subsidiarity’, there will be very few tasks left to a central authority. This will take the spoils away from politics and administration, and India will finally have honest, knowledgeable and respected politicians and administrators. The central authority of India will be but the collective representative of an association of free trading cities - something like the Hanseatic League of old. It will not be a nation-state: the kind that dominated the world the entire 20<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Future of Village India</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">At a recent talk to farmers belonging to the Shetkari Sanghatana - a free market farmers’ movement - I ‘sold’ our urban vision and was promptly asked what this had in store for our farmers. I replied that the development economics literature abounds with stories of village India being full of ‘marginal farmers’ and ‘landless labourers’. These people are all supposed to be engaged in ‘subsistence agriculture’.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">But the fact is that subsistence agriculture is not the division of labour. It is self-sufficiency - and hence, economic suicide. Those who are stuck in village India in such conditions would be better off migrating to one of the 500 cities we will build and participating in the greater division of labour possible there. Village India is poor because more and more people are sharing a pie that is steadily shrinking: the share of agriculture in GDP is under constant decline. Prosperity lies in more and more of those marginalised in agriculture shifting to the towns.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rural-Urban Migration</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is something the socialists have never encouraged. At the 1998 Economic Editors’ Conference, the then head of our Planning Commission, Jaswant Singh, said that his greatest desire was to see that no villager would move to a city! My audience liked the idea of moving to cities. Their only question was: Why can’t we have free immigration worldwide?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">If India pursues the liberal path, and aggressive urbanisation is accompanied by massive rural-urban migration, Indian agriculture will no longer be the kind it is today. Nor will there be any need for ‘land reforms’. The only role of the State will be to enforce property rights: something that is not being done properly today.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Relations with Neighbours</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The 400-500 free trading cities that will comprise India in the near future will all be self-governing. This will allow tremendous diversity. We will have towns like Haridwar where it is illegal to eat meat or drink alcohol, but it is perfectly legal to smoke hashish. In keeping with the spirit of diversity, residents of an urban area should be allowed to make their own rules as they go along; the central authority need not interfere.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">In such a scenario, taxation will be a local subject; and the cities will compete for citizens on the basis of public goods offered at specified tax rates. Those cities that offer better services at lower rates will attract citizens and taxpayers; those that are badly run and expensive on the purse will see decline. That is, local funded by contributions from the member cities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Free Trade and Free Immigration</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">In this proposed arrangement, it is difficult to expect the member cities to fund something like statist diplomacy. It would be better – and cheaper – to practice free immigration and allow the neighbourhood to adjust to the changes that will be sweeping India. Without an India that is an empire, or a hegemony, neighbouring states will be quick to see their future in the free trade and free immigration policies that India’s free trading cities will employ. The whole of South Asia will be peaceful, and prosperous – and the rest of the world will wonder at us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Happy Co-existence</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is also important to note that the Hindu-Muslim question has dominated politics in the region for much of the last century. Liberals hope this new millennium will be different. We believe Hindus and Muslims can coexist happily in a free market. Hindus were the first to note the beneficial effects of Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ and say Shubh Laabh: profits are auspicious; and the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a free trader, as was his wife Khadija. Islam is the morality of honest traders, not soldiers. If we stress this basic commonness between Hinduism and Islam – that they both believe in a free market - both communities can happily co-exist, and the entire region can be peaceful.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Urban Trends and Globalisation</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The world is 50 per cent urbanised today: 3 billion urbanites. This is expected to peak at 85 per cent within 50 years - living on just 7 per cent of the Earth’s land. India is lagging behind at 30 odd per cent urban, but the richest states of India (like Maharashtra and Gujarat) are close to the world average. What is powering today’s urban boom is globalisation - and the future lies in excellent, globally connected, free trading cities: the hubs and spokes of the global economic system that is emerging.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">World Market and World Factory</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Along with urbanisation, countries like India will also see massive industrialisation - only if they get their infrastructure working. Today, unlike the globalisation in the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries, industrialisation is not restricting itself to the ‘core’ of the world economic system. Instead, the West is witnessing ‘post-industrialisation’ and smart companies catering to the world market are moving their production facilities to places where the economics makes sense. The world is not only the market; the world is also the factory.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">India has skilled labour, and the English language is widely understood. It can be a manufacturing destination of choice in the global economy. The infrastructure is the only limitation. With good roads and ports, abundant power and water, and plenty of good cities and towns, India can emerge not only as a trading force, but also a manufacturing power. The only difference now is that the manufacturers will not be protected.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Killing Predatory States</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The vision above, which liberals in India are selling aggressively, is based on the urgent need to finish off the predatory states that have brought the entire Third World to ruin. These states have been supported by the United Nations - they are all members - and they have received monies and advice from international bodies. The vision that drove the international community was one of a world divided into nationstates, each a prison for its citizens. Here, they suffered bad government and misgovernance. Here, flourished a kleptocracy. This occurred largely because standard ‘development economics’ literature upheld a strong role for the state in the development of poor nations.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Limited Government</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Today, development economics has undergone a revolution thanks to the works of Lord Peter Bauer, Deepak Lal and Julian Simon. Today, it is seen that very few things are needed to make the Third World at par with the First: free trade, sound money and property rights. This requires limited government: a government whose powers are limited by constitution in order to provide a leading role to civil society. This intellectual revolution is sweeping the Third World, and it is undoubtedly true that huge political change will follow.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Predatory States: Kleptocracies</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The states of the Third World are largely predatory states: kleptocracies. The socialist Indian state is no different. It makes cars but does not build roads. It pursues ‘rural development’ but does not connect villages to the nearest city or town by a good motorable road - thereby creating, sustaining and preserving the ‘rural-urban divide’. And, of course, it’s policies deny affordable wheels to its citizens. It restricts trade at every level. And the petty bureaucracy of police and municipal functionaries prey on the unorganised, informal sector of hawkers and street vendors. It is because of states like this that masses of humanity remain poor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The majority of the world’s poor reside in India. Getting rid of poverty requires getting rid of the state. Nothing less. When we no longer have a nation-state, we need not belong to the United Nations, and the rest of the Third World can learn from us. The collapse of the Soviet Union changed the whole of East Europe. The collapse of Indian socialism will change the entire Third World.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Getting There</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Today, one of the blots on Indian democracy is that liberals are denied the right to form political parties and compete for votes. It is imperative that liberals form a party and actively campaign against this restriction. Liberalism in India has a powerful vision that attracts widespread support. Compared to us, the legal parties spew out the same old dead socialist rhetoric. And they have no vision. And there is simply too much corruption.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Liberal Parties and Think Tanks</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Today, there are some fledgling liberal parties in South Asia - all supporting a dynamic free market in the region so as to enable prosperity. It would help if India too had such a party, and this party could have relations with the other liberal parties in the region. In India, although liberals do not have a real political party, they have a few ‘think-tanks’ and these are doing commendable work in public education and policy advocacy. Indeed, it may even be said that these think-tanks have succeeded in creating the intellectual climate for liberalism. They have unearthed and nurtured a vast amount of liberal sentiment that lies beneath the surface of Indian society; and all that is required today is the formation of a party to carry this sentiment into political reality. I do believe that the next few years will be crucial. Watch out for India’s liberals. They are out to change the world as we know it. "</span></div><!--[endif]--></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-6396312367137641632011-10-25T05:14:00.000-07:002011-10-25T05:14:02.326-07:00Ban Communism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Ban Communism by </span><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Sauvik Chakraverti<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Dec 29, 2005, 07.49pm IST Times of India<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.75pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 1;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Communists despise private property and idealise commonly held property. But I'll bet Brinda and Prakash Karat don't share a toothbrush.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">So let us conduct a "reductio" thought experiment as to what would happen in a city if private property were abolished and all property declared to be held in common.</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Well, the first thing that would happen is that everyone would stop working. If someone needed something he would simply go to the house or shop where the object of his desire was located and demand it in the name of communist brotherhood.</span><o:p></o:p></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Within a few days of the establishment of the communist fraternity, all shops would be stripped bare, as would be all the mansions of the rich. All economic activity would come to a standstill.</span></span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The redistribution of all property in the name of communism would lead to the "levelling down" of all the members of the commune.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">Further, instead of the polite civilisation that existed previously, bound by the "natural law" of private property rights, the commies would soon descend to barbarism — snatch, grab, loot, scoot.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Observing markets easily reveals the natural law of property at work. When a fisherman returns from the sea, no one forcibly takes fish away from him because the ocean has not furnished him with a title deed to his catch.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">No one snatches bananas from any of the millions of fruit vendors. Look at any big market and you will see thousands engaging in the great game of trade, respecting private property rights.</span></span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">If this natural law was overthrown, man would be reduced to the status of ape. Indian commies do not practise what they preach to the level of the above 'reductio ad absurdum'.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">They idealise some supposedly commonly-held properties, especially the state-owned industrial sector. However, these are all really "private properties" in the control of individuals or groups claiming to represent the public.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The minister's official bungalow is his "private property". We (sic) the people cannot enter it freely. The PSU is the minister's fiefdom.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><span style="background: white; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Neither are "common property" in the sense that the term would be used for a public thoroughfare or a public park, which all can use. Thus, communism is so totally wrong, it should be banned.</span></span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2005-12-29/edit-page/27849789_1_private-property-communism-brinda"><span>http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2005-12-29/edit-page/27849789_1_private-property-communism-brinda</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-28603296326800174012011-10-07T07:36:00.000-07:002011-10-07T07:36:38.270-07:00Hobbes' Mistake - The Rational Case For Anarchy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="red16l"><b><span style="background: white;">Hobbes' Mistake - The Rational Case For Anarchy by <a href="http://ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_sc_sauvik.htm"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></a></span></b><span style="background: white;"><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="red16l"><span style="background: white;">Published in the <a href="http://www.timesofindia.com/" target="new"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Times of India</span></a>, <span>New Delhi, Saturday,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><date>May 26, 2001<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></date></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="red16l"><span style="background: white;">In his classic "Leviathan", written in 1651, the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes established the liberal case for the state. He said that, without the 'mortall god' of the state to hold us all in awe, society would disintegrate, there would ensue "a war of each against all" and life would be "nasty, poore, brutish and short". Since then, liberals in the West have upheld statism - and have encouraged state-building in the Third World.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Today, it is seen that almost all the states of the Third World are predatory states, enemies of the people. They are huge kleptocracies which amass and then misuse economic powers and keep people poor. When libertarians talk of the need to do away with states and statism, we are accused, even by our liberal friends, of being anarchists. How do we defend ourselves from this charge?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="red16l"><span style="background: white;"><br />
</span></div><span style="background: white;">The fact is: Thomas Hobbes was wrong. Very wrong. The following thought experiment will show how. Carry a tray of ripe bananas before a group of monkeys. What will happen? The monkeys will snatch and steal all the bananas: the Hobbesian war of each against all. Now take another tray of ripe bananas and carry them to a place where there are no monkeys but lots of human beings: Chandni Chowk, Connaught Place, Crawford Market... What will happen? No one will steal your bananas. If they want your bananas, humans will politely ask whether you will offer them in exchange for money. Homo Economicus is a moral creature. Because he has the ability to exchange, which the monkey does not, Homo Economicus does not snatch and steal. He has an inborn morality that respects property rights. In stark contrast, the Constitution of India does not recognise property rights!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Now, hang around in the market a little longer and observe who are the monkeys amongst us. Then you will see the policeman extorting goods for free; you will see the municipal functionary preying on urban commerce. These are the cutting-edge personnel of the predatory state. This clearly shows that: 1) the market is a secular basis of human morality; and 2) power corrupts.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Yet, it is important to note that Thomas Hobbes was a liberal. In Leviathan he does mention that every man would very much prefer to rule himself. We sacrifice some of our freedoms in exchange for the law and order that the state creates. The original cover illustration of Leviathan shows a huge king-like figure wielding a massive sword. A little careful examination reveals that the body of the 'mortall god' is completely made up of little people: the citizens. "Leviathan bears the body of the citizenry," Hobbes says. In predatory states it is obvious that the sword of state is not borne by a 'mortall god'. Rather, it is in the hands of a huge monkey. And its body is not composed of the citizenry; rather, it is composed entirely of little monkeys. Why should the entire Third World continue to suffer this situation? Will not absolute freedom - anarchy - be better?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;">The word anarchy has a beautiful meaning: no ruler. It does not mean chaos, as the enemies of freedom would have you believe. It means, quite simply, that the king is dead, and there are to be no more kings. All human beings are free and equal. There is no one to lord over us. There is no one with power. Before dismissing this option outright, let us inquire into what forces within civil society will maintain morality and order in the absence of the state.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Under conditions of anarcho-capitalism - no state - all the people will seek their survival in the free market. Statists believe that under such conditions robbery and thievery will ensue, but are their fears based on reality? After all, in a free market, cheating succeeds only in the short term. Every capitalist knows that, for long-term success, he has to protect his reputation. That is why brand names and brand equity matter so much in assuring us of quality. Only those who satisfy customers will succeed in the long run, and that is why morality will rule.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Secondly, in a completely free market, credit will go only to the creditworthy. Unlike today, when political allocation of credit prompts many to not pay their dues, under anarcho-capitalism, everyone will realise that creditworthiness is something to be cherished and carefully nurtured. Free banking will ensure more moral behaviour than politicised banking.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Thirdly, human beings, apart from being economic creatures, are also sexual creatures. This prompts them to raise families. Without a state that will look after them in times of trouble, under anarcho-capitalism, the family will be the main source of support. Families will be strong. Children will be well brought up. This shows that there are only two secular bases of human morality: the market and the sexual union. Not the state, which is a promoter of immorality.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Some will say that the free market cannot exist without supporting institutions. This is true. There must be courts and justice. But law is also an enterprise. Today, the monopolistic state courts system is hopelessly clogged and does not deliver timely justice. Further, it is based on the socialistic disregard for property rights, which cannot co-exist with the free market. We will need property rights to be enforced; we will need disputes to be settled or adjudicated. All this can happen easily under anarcho-capitalism.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Lastly, we will need some form of policing. This must be done because there will be a few thieves, rapists and murderers amongst us: a free society is not a perfect society. But, throughout history, such plunderers have come from outside the city, and the city people have always organised themselves for their own protection. Today, in our cities of joy, entire communities get murdered with tacit state police support. Tomorrow, with self-policing, we shall surely be safer.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">The entire Third World, comprising two-thirds of humanity, is suffering because of Thomas Hobbes' mistake. We must unitedly reject the notion of Leviathan. Statelessness and anarcho-capitalism will make us rich, moral and safe. We will all achieve our destiny. The path we must take is not to reform the state and its institutions, but to do away with them altogether. What is required is shifting the paradigm from nation-states to associations of free trading cities: limiting politics to the polis.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;"><a href="http://ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_sc_hobbes.htm">http://ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_sc_hobbes.htm</a></span><br />
</div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-8331287608697209192011-10-02T21:21:00.000-07:002011-10-02T21:21:02.033-07:00Alternative Nation The Public Administration of Anarchy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<b><span style="background: white;">Alternative Nation The Public Administration of Anarchy by <a href="http://ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_page.htm#sauvik"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><cj> </cj></span> <o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Published in the Times of India on 25/04/2002<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;"></span>Statism has failed both India and Pakistan. The future of both nations lies in a completely free market with free immigration. This is perfectly Islamic. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a free trader. The Islamic calendar starts on the date of migration from Mecca to Medina. Islam is based on free trade as well as free immigration. These are also in total agreement with the basic tenets of the Hindu faith which said Shubh Laabh, or profits are auspicious, aeons before Adam Smith laid down the philosophical foundations of modern capitalism. The Hindus also said that the four ends of Man are dharma, artha, kama, moksha. We can all happily and unitedly reject statism and opt for a vast free market. Both nations can reject the Hobbesian Leviathan together – that which has brought ruin, degradation, poverty and corruption to one of the most beautiful places on the planet, peopled by a deeply moral people.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The question does arise: Does anarcho-capitalism have a public administration? To answer that, let us imagine a scenario when there is no state, when there are no rulers, and let us think of ‘what’ and ‘where’ we will have to ‘organise’ things? We will feel the need for collective action mainly in our cities and towns, where people are densely crowded. We will scarcely need any organisation in scantily populated villages. This means that we will have to set up sound municipal organisations.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Now, contrast this with the socialist state’s public administration. Socialist India does not possess a single properly functioning municipality other than the NDMC which services the VVIP class. All talk about local government relates to panchayati raj, as though villages are in need of government. What villages and villagers need most of all is good connections to urban markets. Without roads, panchayati raj is just clientelism of the most perverted kind. As Arundhati Roy says: India does not live in her villages; India dies in her villages.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Hence, if we abolish the state, we will think up a far better alternative system of social organisation based on our needs. We will have municipalities that will focus on garbage collection, traffic regulation and the provision and upkeep of urban roads of good quality: because we will need just these services and nothing more. Today, municipalities run schools! Tomorrow, these municipalities can be run by just a handful of honest public spirited public functionaries, who can ‘contract-out’ the work to competing private firms. In this way, we can build an India and Pakistan of some 600 free trading cities.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">This will be the best thing that can be done for our villagers. Urbanisation will allow them to find niches in the market economy and reduce dependence on agriculture. Today, the share of agriculture in GDP is declining; but more people are dependent on it. Poverty is the inevitable result. With urbanisation, rural India will depopulate, reducing pressures on land. Agriculture will commercialise. There will be no need for land reforms. Mere property rights will suffice.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Now, in public administration, as in management, there is no one correct method of organisation. With 600 free trading cities, each can experiment with laws, rules, and systems. This will allow for diversity. Thus, there can be towns like Haridwar where it is illegal to consume alcohol or eat meat but it is perfectly legal to smoke a chillum of hashish. The US local government scenario presents us such a view: the system is not uniform. There is strong mayor-weak council; weak mayor-strong council; there are city managers. The same can be allowed in India. Let the ants decide how to run their anthills. Thereafter, free immigration will force the municipalities to compete for tax-paying citizens. If Karachi offers better public goods at lower taxes than Bombay, it will prosper as more people flock there.</span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">In this scenario, politics will be restricted to the polis, as it rightly should. There will no longer be the politics of empire: no New Delhi lording over Kohima, Kargil, and Kanyakumari. There will also be no small imperialists either: like Kolkata lording over Darjeeling, or Patna over Muzaffarpur, or Mumbai over Pune. It will be each to his own. Without the politics of empire, and without the economics of statism, it can safely be predicted that there will be very little need for collective action on a national level. Inter-city expressways can be provided by the private sector. Without statism in India and Pakistan there would be very little need for a large defence establishment. In either case, cities can contribute to a fund to finance a small force for the region for emergencies. Today, the defence establishment is hopelessly corrupt. After Bofors and Tehelka, the socialist state cannot be trusted to handle even national defence honestly.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Now, cities are not self-sufficient. They procure their needs from outside. Cities have ‘footprints’. In anarcho-capitalism, rural roads will be provided because this will be in the interest of the cities. It is said that every great city sits like a giant spider on its transportational network. Socialists have reduced our cities to blobs of jelly on the map. Tomorrow, reason will prompt us to build nimble spiders, so that the maximum amount of trade can take place at the least cost of both money as well as time. Today, our trucks do 250 km a day compared with 600 km a day in the rest of the world.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">The poor will prosper in anarcho-capitalism. With 600 free trading cities, there will be plenty space for hawkers, who are a hounded lot today. Without rent control, there will be no slums; instead there will be a vibrant market for cheap rentals. Any poor villager will be able to opt for a city or town of his choice, shift, and rent a room with a toilet. Urban overcrowding will end as more land is colonised by roads. There will be a huge real estate boom. Land in the villages will also become real estate as cities and citizens spread out, equipped with modern transportation.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="background: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">We must think we can do it. We must believe in ourselves. We have too long been dependent on the state. We must now believe that we do not really need it. We do not need our rulers. We can manage perfectly well without. After all, Man is a socially co-operative, moral creature.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p><a href="http://ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_sc_public_admin.htm">http://ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_sc_public_admin.htm</a></o:p></span></div></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-52836965429152568492011-05-18T20:20:00.001-07:002011-05-18T20:20:53.952-07:00Funny Money<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2007-04-07/edit-page/27883203_1_funny-money-inflation-buck">Funny Money by</a> <span class="pubdate"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Sauvik Chakraverti,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"> </span></span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">Apr 7, 2007, 12.00am IST</span> Times of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Inflation is not new. In my teens, Coca-Cola was 40 paise, a pack of Wills cost a buck and petrol sold at three rupees a litre. A beer was five bucks.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">This inflation has nothing to do with either the demand or the supply of the articles of everyday consumption.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">Rather, inflation is a disease that afflicts money, being but a gradual and continuous erosion of currency value.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <!--[endif]--></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Since the government is the monopoly issuer of our money, we know who the culprit is. The game that politicians and central bankers play is best understood by a parable from Ken Schooland's charming The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">In the story, the people use an inconvertible government paper money called 'kayns', named after John Maynard Keynes, the economist who designed today's world monetary system after centuries of the international gold standard.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">This particular parable tells of a circus coming to town. A big tent is set up and the people gain entry by paying 10 kayns per head.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Once inside, the show commences, with the ringmaster, every once in a while, picking one member of the audience and showering him with 1,000 kayns.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">When Jonathan remarks that the game is odd, he is told that this circus is a standing institution: it passes by every month, and all the townspeople play the game hoping they will receive 1,000 kayns someday.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">This is 'the kayns conspiracy'. The crucial thing to note is not that the game is a fraud â 'attempting to purchase public affection through gratuitous alienations of the public revenue' â but that the money used to play the game is fictitious too.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">One can perhaps feel sorry for those who worship Mammon, but what can one say of those who chase this 'funny munny'? Mankind's collective ignorance regarding the most important regulator of the market economy, money, is truly astounding.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">And the education cess will only pay the salaries of armies of Keynesians employed in government universities. This is in addition to the battalions of Marxists already there. Catch-44.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">What is extremely important for the layman to understand is that, since real goods and services are exchanged for this 'legal tender' funny munny, inflation has losers and gainers.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The gainers are those who get to spend the kayns first â the personnel of the government, their contractors and those cronies who get generous loans from banks. The losers are savers and the poor, who earn eroded money on a daily basis.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">There is thus a 'transfer of real wealth' that occurs alongside creeping monetary inflation, with savers and daily wage-earners losing the most.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Further, the statistical indices used to 'measure' inflation give a false picture of a 'price level' that is rising uniformly.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">In reality, there are zillions of prices and these move up and down in a totally uncertain world. There is no price level.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">Cellphone and computer prices, for example, are falling steadily. Stock markets and real estate values, on the other hand, are rising much faster than the statistic suggests.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">Wherever the new money (and the new credit) goes, there the price effects are most strongly felt. Again, because inflation affects some prices more than others, the effects are differently felt, and some people gain while others lose.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">This is why inflation continues â because those who produce it, the kayns conspirators, gain anyway. The solution to inflation is essentially a legal one as the existing system is based on legal fiction and fraud.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">When we pick up a Rs 100 note, we see a 'promise to pay' signed by the central banker emblazoned upon it. Under the rule of law, he must redeem his notes on demand.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">This is what prime minister Robert Peel attempted to achieve through his Act of 1844, but he made a crucial error in leaving out bank demand deposits.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">A banker can increase the money supply by making a loan and opening a current account in the borrower's name with that 'money' in it.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Bankers therefore created so much deposit money (to finance the railway boom) that the currency principle which lay at the heart of Peel's Act became unworkable, and had to be repeatedly suspended â until it was finally abandoned.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">This failure to apply good law to money and banking lies at the root of modern-day inflation, whose only cause is excessive creation of money and credit.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">A recent study of legal history reveals that, long before legislation was invented, Roman and Continental law always recognised the vital difference between a demand deposit (which is placed in the banker's custody for safekeeping) and a term deposit (which is a loan to the banker for a stipulated period).<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;">These two kinds of deposits were governed by two different contracts. In the first, the private banker was compelled to keep money deposited with him for safekeeping constantly available to the depositor, without being able to lend out any portion of it â a 100 per cent reserve.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">In the latter case, the banker could loan out the money, and was only bound to return it with interest at the end of the contracted term.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial; mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <!--[endif]--></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Under such legal principles we can have free, competitive, private banking and sound money without central banks and their fraudulent fractional reserve system. Currency notes will always be convertible, and all depositors will be secure.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Inflation and boom-bust business cycles will never recur. The poor will steadily accumulate capital. Prices will keep on falling.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <br style="border-color: initial; border-style: initial;" /> <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The writer is an economist.</span></i><o:p></o:p></div></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-53914237677764143942011-01-01T00:46:00.001-08:002011-01-01T00:46:49.851-08:00Time to scrap Planning Commission<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19971222/35650413.html">Time to scrap Planning Commission</a> by <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Sauvik Chakraverti<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Economics is about the allocation of resources and something is very wrong with the manner in which resources have been allocated in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>. Money has not been invested in the "infrastructure". Technically speaking, it can be said that "planning" has diverted scarce resources away from public goods especially roads to finance statist schemes, Laloo's fodder and the entire politico-administrative spoils system. The theoretical shortcomings of central economic planning, with which we continue, therefore needs to be thoroughly examined.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Resources can be allocated through two markets: the private market and the political market. The principal players of the private market are businessmen and consumers. The principal players of the political market are politicians, bureaucrats, vested interest groups and voters. In the private market, everyone is assumed to be working in their self-interest, trying to obtain the best deals. Towards this end, they possess the incentives to minimise costs, trace out and correct past mistakes, to innovate and to acquire all the necessary information. Resource allocation through private markets is therefore `efficient'. Political markets are different. The self-interest of its participants works to disprove its claim to `intellectual-moral superiority'.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Politicians are primarily interested in re-election, and will pursue expenditures that will return them to seats of power. They will lavish money on `populist' measures. Our State Electricity Boards have all been bankrupted by politicians allocating scarce resources through the political market.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">The self-interest of bureaucrats comes into play in two ways. First, they will tend to protect their `turf', and second, they will `rationally' seek the maximum possible budgets for their departments. All over the world, this led to the phenomenal growth of statal budgets, which refused to come under control despite strong political will. A nation with a history of imprudent deficit financing, whose completely dysfunctional bureaucratic machine has just extracted huge undeserved pay awards in the face of a spiralling deficit, should note that a vast, entrenched bureaucratic system is not as `benevolent' as it is assumed to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">Judging from the self-interest of the participants in the political market, it seems fairly obvious that if this nation continues to place reliance on planning as a system of resource allocation, the real wealth of the country will simply be frittered away. The theory of planning assumes away all imperfections in the planners. They are supposed to be dispassionate experts. This theory does not look into the motivations of the players in the political market.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;">The same point can be put another way. There are four ways of spending money. You can spend your own money on yourself; you can spend your own money on someone else gifts; you can spend someone else's money on yourself as on the `company account'; or you can spend someone else's money on someone else planning. Efficient resource allocation occurs when all the wealth of society is well invested. That will only happen when people spend money in a manner that seeks to minimise costs and maximise benefits. People who spend other people's money on other people do not spend money efficiently. We live in a country that has opted to place maximum reliance on the state in resource allocation. Statal personnel have no interest in spending money efficiently.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="color: black;">Development planning in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> also rests on very shaky economics. For example: employment is not `generated' when taxpayers' money is spent by the state. If the taxpayers had spent the money themselves, or invested in the market, the same amount of employment would have occurred `efficiently'. The fatal errors of the Planning Commission's development economics on poverty, population, urbanisation and especially on the key question that all development economists must answer, how do we become `developed'?, makes it an institution that should be immediately scrapped, and its false ideas discarded. Let the private market guide resource allocation. And let the public purse invest in what our great planners have not public good.</span> </div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-30270656801677893102010-10-11T23:58:00.000-07:002010-10-12T00:01:28.978-07:00Caste and the Market Economy<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; color: rgb(64, 0, 128); -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><b><span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.ambedkar.org/News/Castrktcnmy.htm">Caste and the Market Economy by </a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 160); font-weight: normal; font-family: arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.ambedkar.org/News/Castrktcnmy.htm">Sauvik Chakraverti</a></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "><b><span></span></b></span></p><b><span><p style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 160); font-weight: normal; font-size: small; font-family: arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(64, 0, 128); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><b><span></span></b></span></span></p><b><span><p style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 160); font-weight: normal; font-size: small; font-family: arial; ">Antidote/</span></p></span></b></span></b></span></b></span><b><span><b><span></span></b><b><span><p></p></span></b><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 160); font-weight: normal; font-size: small; font-family: arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(64, 0, 128); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><b><span></span></b></span></span></p><b><span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 160); font-weight: normal; font-size: small; font-family: arial; "></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">IT was my first day in London, my first visit to the 'developed' world. I had been invited to a pub in Leicester Square by a former girlfriend who wanted to show off her brand new husband.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So there I was, spending the evening with a completely estranged woman and a complete stranger.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The pub was quite full, but I managed a bar-stool, when suddenly there entered a handsome young man in a black suit accompanied by three extremely attractive young women.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They ordered drinks and, as luck would have it, I had to pass their glasses on to them, being closest to the bar.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I noticed that the pale yellow drink had a familiar aroma and inquired of the man as to what he was drinking. He said, "Pernod" and added that it was a French drink flavoured with anise (saunf).</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This got us talking and the group and I exchanged pleasantries for a while. The conversation then turned to occupation. I said I was there as a student at the LSE.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The man said he was a 'sanitary worker'. I couldn't get what that meant and he explained: Every morning, he puts on his overalls, boots and gloves, gets into a truck, and goes about collecting garbage.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I understood immediately that the market could do more to correct casteism than any amount of state action. In my country this handsome young man would suffer caste discrimination.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In Margaret Thatcher's England he was entertaining not one, not two, but three lovely women in a pub in Leicester Square. An he was not drinking 'country liquor'; he was imbibing Pernod.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I must say that I learned more Economics living in London and observing life than I did in the classrooms of the LSE. When I lived in Hammersmith, I used to pass an undertaker's shop every day on my way to the tube station.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I used to think: In my country, this man would be a dom - the lowest of the low. I moved to West Hamstead and took up a room in a house run by an Indian landlady where many students stayed. Once a week, an English maid would come and vacuum the entire house and clean the loos. She came in her own car!</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In New Delhi, anyone in such an occupational class lives in a jhuggi and does not even dare to dream of car ownership.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A recent television debate on caste featured a Dalit leader who kept talking about carriers of night-soil. Obviously, this is an urban phenomenon.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There cannot be such a caste in underpopulated villages. With open markets and urbanisation, this caste would prosper and get absorbed in the larger, more prosperous, and more cosmopolitan society. Very few people had flush toilets in the USA in 1900.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">One good thing: the Dalit leader was making noises in favour of globalisation.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I suggest Dalit leaders get interested in the Economics of prosperity. We urban liberals dream not just of making India prosperous; we dream of making India obscenely rich.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Dalits will gain enormously from open markets, economic freedom and urbanisation. As they claim, in their respective economic niches, a greater share of a rapidly growing pie, and as they mingle with caste anonymity in bustling metropolises, they will find the old caste equations disappearing.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is already happening: at the TV debate, when the issue was opened up to the audience, many urbanites responded saying that caste was a factor that never entered their lives.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The socialist state's response to the caste question has been insincere.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Politicians have used the state's powers of patronage to promote clientelism.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">By refusing to urbanise, and by throttling urbanisation, they have reinforced and perpetuated the 'rural-urban divide'.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There is thus an India where caste does not matter; and there is a Bharat where caste is the sole basis of identity. With free markets and urbanisation, India will take the lead.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dalit leaders should also read Thomas Sowell's slim book: Preferential Policies: An International Perspective. It shows how reservations have destroyed societies.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And this, from an African-American scholar! In free market India, the state will be so small that reservations will be unnecessary.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Instead of the clientelism and tokenism that reservations represent, Dalits should opt for the prosperity that economic freedom will bequeath to them and the caste anonymity that will certainly follow urbanisation.</span></span></p><p></p></span></b><p></p></span></b></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-33347248251774864482010-10-11T23:39:00.000-07:002010-10-11T23:41:35.577-07:00Auction Ayodhya: We'll Have Both Freedom and Justice<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; "><b><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; "><b><br /></b></span></div><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?msid=290069">Auction Ayodhya: We'll Have Both Freedom and Justice by </a></b><b><a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?msid=290069">Sauvik Chakraverti</a></b></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; "><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; "><span>Nov 19, 2003, 12.01am IST Times of India</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); "><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">The judiciary is blocking India's liberals. The Bombay high court has been sitting on a public interest litigation filed by the Indian Liberal Group for over five years.<br /><br />ILG is appealing against the section in the Representation of THE People Act restricting electoral competition to socialist parties. So let us attack socialist jurisprudence, for we have the longest constitution in the world but little justice.<br /><br />Obviously, there is something wrong with socialist law. An economist commenting on law what cheek, the legal community will cry. I must inform them that great economists have all written on law. Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence are a classic. Frederic Bastiat's slim volume The Law has been published in India. I guarantee that anyone who reads the book will be convinced that the Constitution of India is not quite all right. Friedrich Hayek wrote The Constitution of Liberty, a book Margaret Thatcher swore by; and there is Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty.<br /><br />Let us begin by understanding the origin and purpose of law. It is because of property that law was necessary. That is, it is not because of law that property exists; it is because of property that there is law. The common law evolved to sort out disputes related to the natural right to property. Liberal judges take this as their guiding principle so let us apply it to important issues before our socialist judiciary and see what results we get.<br /><br />Take, for instance, what a liberal judiciary would do if Parliament passed a law banning cow slaughter: It would simply tear up the law on the grounds that cows are private property. Each man must be free to do what he wants with his own cow and the state cannot interfere. Did any legal luminary speak this language? Now, apparently our rulers want to de-politicise Ayodhya and the issue is before the courts. What did the courts do? They asked the Archaeological Survey of India to dig up the disputed site and discover what lay underneath. Is this the application of our principle? If a temple is discovered under my house, can anyone lay claim to my property? Certainly not.<br /><br />If liberal jurisprudence is applied to Ayodhya, the solution is clear and simple: There is no clear title to the site; there are various claimants, each possessed of little legitimacy; therefore, the site must be auctioned. Socialist jurisprudence is not justice. Socialists reject the natural law of property and believe that the purpose of the law (and the state) is to redistribute property. Theirs is a Robin Hood ideology but it is time we stopped looking at their legal plunder (what they call redistributive justice) as romantic.<br /><br />Rent control, for example, is the only cause of slums. They have destroyed the market for cheap rentals. They do not like landlords so they created slumlords. And they did not settle disputes, the first purpose of law. Rather, they prolonged disputes. My uncle spent 20 years of his youth battling a rent control case. A long-term solution is to promote the teaching of law and economics. We have few economists in law schools all over the country. This must be tackled. As far as the short-term is concerned, there is no solution. We in India must face up squarely to the fact that the socialist state which we placed on the commanding heights is reporting symptoms of multi- organ failure. This is entirely because socia-lists apply completely wrong principles to government. Behind this multi-organ failure lies a far deeper knowledge failure. I can personally testify to the poor quality of teaching at the IAS Academy in Mussoorie. I went through my son's ICSE economics textbook and advised him to drop out of school.<br /><br />I find it amazing that Amartya Sen is recommending mid-day meals in state schools: It is a prescription to assuage physical hunger while ignoring the mind. If, in the short-term, we wake up to the fact that we are faced with a powerful, centralised, nuclearised state that is reporting multi-organ failure, then the medium-term solution would be to challenge what is being taught in economics, political science (or civics), public administration and law. Let us include liberal jurisprudence in law schools. Let us have the political value of freedom included in civics textbooks. Let us teach students of economics how wealth is created, so they value freedom and understand markets. Let us make a bonfire out of Indian economics textbooks, a bonfire of the socialist central planners' vanities. The liberal only appeals to reason, and it is to reason that we must appeal, even if denied entry into the electoral fray.<br /><br />In this way, liberalism will gain ground and someday soon we will have the critical mass necessary to re-invent every aspect of our government, including the law and the judiciary. A note of hope: We go through life, getting all our needs from the market, usually without recourse to either civil or criminal law. So we don't need courts that badly. Second, we have a proud history of private courts in the cities run by the East India Company. Sir Elijah Impey was a great EIC judge. With sound jurisprudence, simple law, and a short constitution, we can have freedom as well as justice.<span><br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div></div></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-1048761825622708642010-10-11T23:34:00.000-07:002010-10-11T23:35:48.927-07:00DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: Gandhian Violence<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(28, 40, 55); line-height: 19px; "><a href="http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/496-m-k-gandhi-and-the-gandhian-legacy/page__st__220">DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: Gandhian Violence</a> by Sauvik Chakraverti<br /><br /><br />RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates<br /><br />Whereas Gandhi advocated non-violence, his followers have always utilised violence in order to promote their leader's ideas of a good society.<br /><br />For example, in Gujarat, where Gandhi came from, violence is still used by the police to enforce the prohibition of alcohol.<br /><br />Gandhi's hatred for alcohol has meant that, all over India, the excise officialdom has obtained political sanction to entangle the retail trade in alcoholic beverages in a labyrinth of red tape, all of which is enforced with violence.<br /><br />Then there are the ideas of khadi and swadeshi. Gandhi's preference for homespun cloth meant that the government used violence and force in order to promote one kind of cloth at the expense of another.<br /><br />India's blooming textile industry was made into a bonsai using state violence. As far as swadeshi is concerned, the customs department enforces this idea of autarky.<br /><br />If any citizen returns from abroad with goodies and gadgets, these armed personnel of the Gandhian government use force and violence in order to deprive the citizen of his rightfully acquired properties, or to charge him a hefty fine if he wants to take them home.<br /><br />An enormous amount of violence continues to be perpetrated in order to promote Gandhian ideals. This very Gandhian violence is best exemplified by the currency note, which has Gandhi's photo on it.<br /><br />Even up to fairly recent times, eminent businessmen became victims of violence on the part of an enforcement directorate empowered to ensure that these notes of the Gandhian government could not be privately converted. Gandhian violence is a very real phenomenon.<br /><br />It exists because Gandhians have never understood the purpose for which a government is constituted. To Gandhians, and this includes all Congressmen, government exists to do 'good things'.<br /><br />This fatal flaw in their thinking occurs because their master didn't realise that any government is but a monopolist in the use of legitimate force, and that the crucial question political science must answer is to what ends this legitimate violence must be used if it is to remain legitimate.<br /><br />Since Gandhi and the Gandhians never considered this question, they continue to use violence towards illegitimate ends. Gandhianism lies at the root of bad government. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(28, 40, 55); line-height: 19px; "><br /></span></div>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-31756171027988970282010-06-29T22:10:00.000-07:002010-06-29T22:14:39.479-07:00The swadeshi serpent bites its tail; and a response<h1><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.hvk.org/articles/1296/0076.html">The swadeshi serpent bites its tail; and a response</a> by </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color:black"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Sauvik Chakraverti<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></o:p><i><span style="color: black; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">21 December 1996 Indian Express</span></span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">History does not reveal the lurid picture of colonial exploitation that</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Indian economic historiographers have painted in our minds. Well into this</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">century, when laissez-faire ruled British thinking, it was quite clear that</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">foreign capital was a good thing, and that foreign capitalists were</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">profit-seeking individuals with interests quite distinct from that of the</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">imperial state. Further, that the laissezfaire imperial state providing high</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">quality administration should perhaps be the 'model' to be emulated today,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">given the dismal record of socialist interventionism.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">India had its trains and telecom decades before Japan (Perry presented the</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Shogun with a miniature railway), and Indian cities had modern, efficient and</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">economical electric mass transportation system - so it is quite clear that</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">infrastructural development was proceeding rapidly with the inflow of foreign</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">funds, much of it private.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">When we examine the mind of the foreign capitalist, there does not seem to be</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">any indication that he is an agent of the imperialist state: he is a private</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">man, interested in private gain. The mistake made by exponents of swadeshi</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">(or those who see a sinister neo-imperialism at work in the global market) is</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">that they do not see individuals: they see states. Where liberals look upon</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">the state with unconcealed scepticism, they see states in business, and they</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">want their state to protect their businesses - at our expense of course.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The real problem with swadeshi - as with any other false ideology - begins</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">when you place yourself at the receiving end: when the serpent bites its</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">tail. If it was true that the best way to ensure national prosperity and</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">general well-being is to consume only locally-produced goods, </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">India</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> wouldn't</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">have had a caste of trader, or entire communities of them. Trade would be</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">uneconomical, unintelligent, and not worth the trouble. If you look at our</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">traders carefully, you do not see them as political agents they are economic</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">actors.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">They work in a self-regulating civic society, buying and selling for a</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">margin. You see them everywhere: from the North-East to the deep South, you</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">will find shopkeepers who all hail from some part of western </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">India</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. They</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">contribute to the local economy. What do they do when swadeshi strikes deep,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">and sub-national political movements espouse ideologies that look towards</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Indians from other parts of the country as foreigners? Keeping Indian</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">markets for Indians may be fine for some big industrialists, but what happens</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">when people want Maharashtra for </span></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Maharashtrians</span></span></st1:city><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Assam</span></span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> for the Assamese and</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">so on.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Not having thought out its economic ideology clearly, the Government of India</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">is making a fool of itself 'protecting national interests'- as at the WTO</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">meet in </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Singapore</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">. Where children study the swadeshi movement in</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">government-approved textbooks as a logically correct way of securing national</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">prosperity, how can our bureaucrats think differently? The ideology filters</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">through and is adopted at sub-national level by sub-nationalists. Fast-food</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">outlets owned by Americans are demolished by those who do not bother to</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">notice that ITC was free to set up Indian food restaurants in the </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">US</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">: the</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Government of India's exchange regulations were the only hindrance!</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Swadeshi is not truth. Chandni Chowk, where the world came to do business in</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">a prosperous </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">India</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">, is. Swadeshi is merely the ideology of Congress</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">nationalism. It should not be the ideology of the Government of India. It</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">should also not be taught to children in the manner in which it is done</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">today. They will soon be young voters, and so should be politically aware.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Economic historiography should not be nationalist propaganda that borders on</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">hysteria. Congress Raj - socialist and nationalist - must be compared with</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">British Raj - imperial and liberal.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: medium; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">It will be seen that we had a far greater share of world trade then than we</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">do now. That money was coming into the infrastructure. The government was</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">standing by, running things, and not getting in the way. That money was</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">convertible, and we were freer, economically. Big cities were built.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Municipalities worked. Is Seshan calling for a second freedom movement?</span></span></p><p></p></h1>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-1695538231850085312010-06-29T22:09:00.000-07:002010-06-29T22:10:45.173-07:00Gandhi's mistake, Gunnar's too; and a response<p class="MsoNormal"><b><a href="http://www.hvk.org/articles/1296/0027.html">Gandhi's mistake, Gunnar's too; and a response</a> by </b><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span style="font-size:13.5pt;color:black">Sauvik Chakraverti <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><i><span style="color:black">The Indian Express</span></i><span class="apple-style-span"><i><span style="font-size:13.5pt;color:black"> 10 December 1996<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Going through Gandhi, one sees how his mind was working<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>on the confusing question of technology - boon or bane?<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>In Young India, November 13, 1924, he attacked machinery:<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>"Helps a few to ride on the backs of millions". He warned<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>that 'the machine should not tend to make atrophied the<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>limbs of man'. And he made an 'intelligent exception' of<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>the Singer Sewing Machine because it had 'love at its<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>back': Mr Singer saw his wife labouring over her sewing<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>and invented a device that would save her trouble! Gandhi<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>approved.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">And he was honest about his confusion a long time later:<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>In Community Service News, September-October 1946, he<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>said: "As a moderately intelligent man, I know man cannot<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>live without industry. Therefore, I cannot be opposed to<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>industrialisation. But I have a great concern about<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>introducing machine industry. The machine produces too<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>much too fast, and brings with it a sort of economic<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>system which I cannot grasp."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Why is it so difficult to grasp what machinery does?<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>Only because we look at immediate - and not long-term<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>consequences. Industry - Gandhi agrees - is a basic<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>human impulse: we all strive to do whatever we do such<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>that we save effort. Machines do the same. If they were<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>bad, we would all be unemployed, our limbs atrophied, and<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>we would yearn to be back in the Stone Ages, when we<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>could have been much more active. But the obvious fact is<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>that machines have raised production, wages, the standard<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>of living and the sum total of human life on Planet<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>Earth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">To examine the question, we look, like Henry Hazlitt did,<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>at what happens when a new machine enters the factory of<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>an overcoat manufacturer. Since it raises productivity,<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>it displaces, say, 25 per cent of his workforce. This is<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>more than what has been employed in manufacturing the<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>machine itself. But look at the long-term consequences.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">In a few years the machine `pays for itself. It has<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>saved more than it was worth. These excess savings come<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>to the man who bought it, who can either reinvest in his<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>business, invest elsewhere or spend it thereby adding to<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>employment. Further, the machine would probably have<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>reduced costs in manufacture, giving the leader in introducing it an edge over his rivals.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Today, technophobic arguments are still heard all over<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>the world. The anti-word is 'automation'. It is bad, and<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>it reduces employment. The automobile industry is one in<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>which automation is greatly opposed. Here is an industry<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span><br />which has mechanised itself greatly, and the statistics<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>are telling. In the <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place>: 1910 - 140,000 workers; 1920 -<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>250,000; 1930 - 380,000; 1973 - 941,000.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Evidence indicates that the khadi philosophy is seriously<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>wrong. It cannot be a way of either increasing employment or national wealth. It can, at best, create a<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>constituency. What it will not offer this constituency<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>is a means by which their produce gets treated as art -<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>as hand-work should be considered - instead of a subsidised, protected something that needs the state to shelter it from the machine. It does not call for the artistic pride of the weaver. It asks for his submission to<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>state patronage under the aegis of Gandhians whose only<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>claim to fame is that they worship their God without<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>original - or even critical - thinking.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">What is surprising is that a Nobel Laureate in Economics<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>(1974) is committed to the same error. Gunnar Myrdal,<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>shortly before he won the prize, wrote that machines<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>which increased output should not be introduced into<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>underdeveloped countries because they 'decrease the<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>demand for labour. Can this be for real? At a time when<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Malaysia</st1:country-region></st1:place> has decided it will be 'developed' by 2020<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>(Mahathir drives a car numbered 2020!), how can we languish between socialism, and the unintelligent economics of<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>a Nobel Laureate who has been hugely felicitated by the<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>Indian state.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">We live in times when even the existence of an intellectual-moral elite is doubtful - forget its capacity to<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>guide the destiny of millions. Good economics and sound<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>political science can offer some respite. This will<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>never happen unless we are willing to sift through the<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt"> </span></span>heap of ideology we lug around and discard whatever is<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"> </span></span>false.</p>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-33720101754054376032010-06-07T03:48:00.000-07:002010-06-07T03:49:40.123-07:00Is This 'An Occasion to Celebrate'?<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2003/08/is-this-an-occasion-to-celebrate.html">Is This 'An Occasion to Celebrate'</a>? <span class="apple-style-span">By</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/sauvik-chakraverti/"><span style="color:windowtext">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">-</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <abbr class="published" title="2003-08-27T00:00:00-05:00"></abbr></span><span class="apple-style-span">August 27, 2003 12:00 AM<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My friend Sunondo has four children. I asked him which one he loved the most and he said the youngest one. Now, this is contrary to Carl Menger's law of diminishing marginal utility, which holds that the more we have of anything, the less we love it. So, if it was cake you were consuming, the first slice would be heaven, but by the fourth you would be sick and want to throw the rest of cake into the waste bin. How come Carl Menger's law -- and law it is -- applies for cake and for everything else we have, but not for children?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal">I ask this question in a particular context: that of the so-called "population problem" which has had a host of Third World governments, including mine in India, taking out stringent policies in order to limit the number of children people have. Recently, in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, many states have debarred candidates with more than two children from contesting local elections. If every succeeding child gives us more pleasure, what sense does it make to penalize fertility?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br />In <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the "one-child norm" was enforced because, after several generations, there were millions of Chinese with no brothers, no sisters, no aunts, no uncles, no cousins, two parents and four grandparents. What is better for a child? A large family? Or a strong state?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus worried that a growing population would outstrip a society's ability to feed itself. At the time he was writing, Malthus had many eminent classical liberal economists opposing his predictions of doom. Jean Baptiste Say and Frederic Bastiat both wrote tellingly of the mistake Malthus was making: assuming technology to be constant. In modern times, the economist Lord P.T. Bauer was a prominent critic of the "population problem" and, after him, Julian Simon proved convincingly that human beings are not a problem, but the world's "ultimate resource."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal">The planet Earth is bountiful. There will always be an abundance of resources, including energy, so long as we allow human beings the freedom to utilize the Earth's bounty and serve the needs of mankind through the free market and the price mechanism.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal">However, <st1:place st="on">Third World</st1:place> governments and the United Nations are still on the side of Malthus. The Indian Parliament, in a unanimous resolution recently passed on the 50th year of independence, asserted that population was <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s biggest problem. That is, the representatives of the people were united in saying that their constituents and their children were a problem.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal">And as for the United Nations, recently a baby girl was born and promptly billed as <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s billionth citizen. The UNFPA representative in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">New Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> said in a press statement, "This is not an occasion to celebrate." What should we celebrate instead -- the fact that tens of thousands die on our unsafe streets every year?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is an overwhelmingly young country; 96 percent of the people are below the age of 59; 74 percent are below the age of 39; and 34 percent are below the age of 15. This young country is ruled by aged rulers who believe that our babies should not have been born. What could be worse than that?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal">Third World governments like those of <st1:country-region st="on">China</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, which endorse the population problem and coerce citizens into having fewer children, should be disgraced, as should the UN. Every couple in the world should be free to decide how many children they can have. And every child should be welcomed into the world. Every birth should be celebrated and every death mourned. And it is not just additional children that give us pleasure: This pleasure is multiplied when we have more and more grandchildren. Carl Menger may have been the Emperor of Economics, but his "law" certainly overlooked the issue of reproduction. So let us have more children; let every child give us increasing marginal utility; let us have more and more grandchildren too, where marginal utility is even higher, and let us bury the ghost of Thomas Robert Malthus who was, after all, a priest who disapproved of poor English people having sex.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <u1:p></u1:p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><i>Sauvik Chakraverti, is a winner of the Frederic Bastiat Award for journalism (2002). He was senior assistant editor at</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span">The Economic Times</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i>in <st1:city st="on">New Delhi</st1:city>, and is the author of</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span">Antidote: Essays against the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Socialist</st1:placename> <st1:placename st="on">Indian</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">State</st1:placetype></st1:place></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i>(2000),</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span">Free Your Mind: A Beginners Guide to Political Economy<i>(2002),</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span">Antidote 2: For Liberal Governance</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i>(2003),</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span">Antidote 3: From the Hair of Shiva to Hair of the Prophet and Other Essays</span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i>(in press).</i></span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-72273625859894944002010-06-07T03:45:00.000-07:002010-06-07T03:47:21.108-07:00Forget the WTO; Concentrate on Trade<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2006/01/forget-the-wto-concentrate-on-trade.html">Forget the WTO; Concentrate on Trade</a> By<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/sauvik-chakraverti/"><span style="color:windowtext">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">-</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <abbr class="published" title="2006-01-12T00:00:00-05:00"></abbr></span><span class="apple-style-span">January 12, 2006 12:00 AM</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The failure of WTO talks in <st1:place st="on">Hong Kong</st1:place> wasn't difficult to predict. It has been obvious for some time that vested interests have hijacked the original agenda. Instead of free trade, influential voices are promoting a different message:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>poorer WTO members should seek to export everything, but import nothing.</i><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the face of such a bald illogic, perhaps we should reiterate a simple fact: just as we produce in order to consume, so we export in order to import. And just as consumption is the most important aspect of our visit to the market, so imports are the most important part of international trade.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Developing countries, led by India, whose people are poor in part because they have been unable to import for decades, are waiting for EU concessions on agriculture before allow them to open their markets. Many have criticized the EU's intransigence on the issue. And they should. But many others, quite rightly, have asked developing nations to look at <st1:place st="on">Hong Kong</st1:place>'s example of unilateral free trade and draw important lessons from it. Indeed, developing countries like <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> should proceed forthwith to free trade unilaterally -- even if the US and EU continue with protectionism and subsidy of agriculture.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unilateral free trade is a very good idea for a huge country such as <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. If subsidized grain enters the market, poor marginal farmers, subsistence agriculturists and day laborers get cheap food. They will move away from subsistence farming as grain will be cheaper to buy in the market. They will move 'from subsistence to exchange', in Peter Bauer's words, and integrate themselves with the urban exchange economy. Instead of grain, Indian farmers will produce fruits and vegetables or even flowers -- solid cash crops.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>And this benefit will be paid for by US and EU taxpayers.</i><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Indian farmers are also consumers. Farmers should look not only at what crop they will sow or where they will sell it, but also at the more important question of what they will buy with their money. The personal possessions of every poor Indian will record a quantum jump -- and this is the only true measure of the 'wealth of nations'.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>People trade, not nations</i><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So why is this so difficult to understand? On a simple level, trade talks of any kind -- multilateral or bilateral -- are doomed to failure because they occur between nations, while it is individuals who actually trade in the market. When individuals trade "reciprocity'" is meaningless. We never make it a point to buy from those who buy from us. A butcher does not go to the tailor who buys his cuts. He simply sells his cuts and goes to the best tailor that his money can buy. Buying and selling are independent decisions, and we seek benefit in both -- but separately. When reciprocity does not exist between individuals, what hope can there be to find it between nations?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In view of this argument -- and the dismal hijacking of the WTO by other political interests -- one is tempted to propose a radical solution: the WTO should be abandoned altogether. Nations and their governments will only get in the way of trade and cause economic losses all around. Each privilege they grant a few producers will in turn be a punishment that will rain down on the majority of consumers. If <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> opens up its borders to trade unilaterally, the developed world will benefit too, and the global recession that looms will have a softer impact when it arrives. Thus, the entire world stands to gain if more poor nations adopt free trade unilaterally<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Indians should see their 2000-mile long coastline as a huge, unutilized economic asset. With free trade, great trading cities will mushroom all along the twin coastlines. Both Hong Kong and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Singapore</st1:place></st1:country-region> prospered because of their harbors. In <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>, it is the coast that is taking the lead. The same will happen to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> if trade is made freer.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fifteen years of 'liberalization' have convinced Indians of the need for free markets. Those who want free trade are upset that WTO talks are stuck. They have long endured protectionism at the hands of the Indian state. To these people, my message is: don't expect free trade as a result of government initiative. The government will only try to sell favors and Indian businessmen are notorious favor-seekers. Call for free trade as a removal of all state interference in the global market. That is, call for unilateral free trade. The rest will fail to follow at their own peril.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sauvik Chakraverti is a journalist based at the Centre for Civil Society in New Delhi <span class="apple-style-span"><i>He is author of</i><a href="http://www.lfb.com/index.php?stocknumber=IL8255" title="http://www.lfb.com/index.php?stocknumber=IL8255"><i><span style="color:windowtext">Articles Against the Indian Socialist State</span></i></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i>and</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.bibliaimpex.com/cgi-bin/igindex.pl?ProcessType=File&ProcessCode=itemdetail.htm&itemcode=27929&Grouptheme=biblia&Shipcntry=&Sessionid=#sessionid" title="http://www.bibliaimpex.com/cgi-bin/igindex.pl?ProcessType=File&ProcessCode=itemdetail.htm&itemcode=27929&Grouptheme=biblia&Shipcntry=&Sessionid=#sessionid"><i><span style="color:windowtext">For Liberal Governance</span></i></a><i>.</i></span></p>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-85521230185136504482010-06-07T03:44:00.000-07:002010-06-07T03:45:19.778-07:00The Illiberal Democracy of India<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2006/02/the-illiberal-democracy-of-india.html">The Illiberal Democracy of </a><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2006/02/the-illiberal-democracy-of-india.html">Ind</a>ia</st1:country-region></st1:place> <span class="apple-style-span">By</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/sauvik-chakraverti/"><span style="color:windowtext">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">-</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <abbr class="published" title="2006-02-27T00:00:00-05:00"></abbr></span><span class="apple-style-span">February 27, 2006 12:00 AM<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Indians often boast that theirs is "the world's largest democracy", but electoral politics in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> offers the voter surprisingly little choice. The Indian voter can choose between the socialist, dynastic Congress party; the Hindu nationalist BJP; and the Communists. Tweedledee, tweedledum and tweedledumber. None of these parties is liberal in a free market sense. Currently, voters are stuck with the Congress party, which is stuck with Communists in a coalition. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the last election, neither Manmohan Singh, the current prime minister, nor Sonia Gandhi, currently head of the Congress party, could generate a clear majority. As a result, the Congress is in office only with support from <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s Communists. This support has meant that every liberal policy option is vetoed by the Communists, who decry the "crisis of bourgeois rule" in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But there is something more fundamentally illiberal in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s democracy than the current parliamentary arrangement. Indian liberals are legally barred from forming parties and contesting elections, because legislation has decreed that all "recognized" parties must swear by <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s socialist constitution. This is reflected in legislation and has enormous consequences for the quality of electoral politics in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Take the current situation: in all other ways, the situation is ripe for a liberal, pro-market party. In the past 15 years the ordinary Indian has seen ample evidence of the benevolence of market forces and the malevolence of statism. For example, long distance phone charges have plummeted, as have airfares, as private companies have been allowed in. In areas like consumer electronics and automobiles, Indians now have quality, choice and low prices. A newly formed liberal party could have a go at translating this positive experience into electoral victory, if given a chance, and could thereby free the rest of the economy. But this would require the liberalization of the political sphere, through the repeal of restrictive legislation.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The failure to embrace markets has immediate consequences for social cohesion. As is commonly known, the inability of socialist policies to help the poor in neighbouring <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Nepal</st1:place></st1:country-region> has meant that many have opted for armed insurrection, based on Maoist thinking.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Less well known, in many states of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> in dense forests there are alarmingly frequent reports of "Naxalite" activity. The term is used to describe armed revolutionaries who routinely attack and kill police to carry away their guns. As with <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Peru</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s misguided Shining Path guerrillas, these rebels need to be weaned away from violence and ultra-left thought by liberals offering them market solutions, like property rights and free trade. If this does not happen soon, social decay will continue.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Liberalism also needs to be allowed to enter the educational system, hitherto exclusively the domain of Marxist professors. Westerners have hailed the current government's stress on education, but the real danger is that this education will consist only of socialist and communist propaganda.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">If the political sphere is liberalized, then liberal ideas will float in the open, liberals will be heard, liberal policy options will be mentally weighed by the people -- and then only will the contents of state education be challenged. The liberalization of politics will lead to the liberalization of the mind of the average Indian.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Many years back a group of Mumbai liberals petitioned the courts, challenging the restrictive legislation that reserves <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s democracy for the illiberal parties that hold sway today. This has been pending hearing for almost a decade. It is time pressure is built towards securing a speedy hearing of this petition. It is only through liberal politics that <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s future can be secured.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-37642665789037193152010-06-07T03:42:00.000-07:002010-06-07T03:43:27.260-07:00Two Indias?<p class="MsoNormal"><b><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2006/03/two-indias.html">Two </a><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on"><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2006/03/two-indias.html">Indias</a></st1:country-region></st1:place><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2006/03/two-indias.html">?</a></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">By<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/sauvik-chakraverti/"><span style="color:windowtext">Sauvik Chakraverti</span></a></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">March 15, 2006 12:00 AM<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">When in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>, President Bush cited a range of initiatives for U.S.-India cooperation and touched on ideals the two nations should seek to work towards. Of course, the President has his own foreign policy goals to pursue and the ideas he described were noble. But he could have been talking about a different country. If we look at Indian foreign policy, its nuclear industry and the weak link between freedom and democracy, we can see how far <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> must go to match such lofty rhetoric.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Nuclear energy is a state monopoly in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> and helping this sector strengthens the Government's hand in power generation. Indians are plagued by power cuts as a result of state intervention in this industry. Further, "safeguards" have little meaning in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> where there are no tort laws. If there were a nuclear accident, no Indian would receive compensation. The <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bhopal</st1:place></st1:city> industrial disaster, for example, occurred in the mid-80s. Until now, precious few have received anything. Indians routinely die from building disasters, adulterated food and medicine and the like — but rarely receive any relief from the law of torts.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The President also spoke of cooperation on defense. Once again, this is a fine idea in theory. The President spoke widely of multi-role combat aircraft, helicopter gunships and other high-tech initiatives. The truth is that <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s defense establishment is hopelessly corrupt. They continue wars where no wars are necessary. Rajiv Gandhi was charged with receiving kickbacks when Swedish Bofors guns were purchased for the Indian army. Recently, <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region>'s Defense Minister was implicated in a shameful scandal, when it was discovered that kickbacks were paid for purchases of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> coffins for soldiers killed in the Kargil war.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As far as the senselessness of <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region>'s security establishment is concerned, the 25-year-old war with <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> on the frozen wastes of the Siachen glacier is a good example. I was close to Siachen once: it was -40 degrees Celcius in the sun! If we auctioned off the entire area, no one would offer a penny for it. But <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> has been spending over 300 million rupees every day for over 25 years in this senseless war. When the war began, we were informed that the 'strategic' goal was to command the heights dominating the proposed Karakoram highway. (William Dalrymple's<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>In Xanadu<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>recounts his travel from <st1:country-region st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region> by bus over the Karakoram highway 10 years ago.) <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> would do better to build its own highway in the region than fight this war, but it may be that the defense establishment is merely interested in budgets, rather than any serious security concerns.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After all, over a million Indians are killed every year on the unsafe streets of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> and millions more are seriously injured. Thus, the 'security' concerns of the Indian citizen are very different from those of the Indian state.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">President Bush's speech in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">New Delhi</st1:place></st1:city> spoke of the link between 'democracy' and 'freedom'. Again, these are laudable ideas. Yet, despite <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> being a democratic nation, the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Economic Freedom of the World Index</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>rates <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> close to the bottom and the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> close to the top. The title of Deepak Lal's book on <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>,<i>A Repressed Economy</i>, says it all. Indians were freer under feudal lords and even the colonial Brits than they are today. Feudal lords routinely fell in love with dancing girls; but dancing girls have been outlawed by legislative fiat today. Democracy and freedom doesn't always go hand in hand, and nowhere is this truer than in contemporary <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Free trade between the people of <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> and the people of <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> is desperately important for average Indians. Indians would benefit from buying used cars, buses and trucks. Indeed, Indians would even buy insurance write-offs, which could be cheaply repaired in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Americans would benefit from better prices for their old cars, and lower insurance costs as well. Taking the point further, Indians would also buy used refrigerators and television sets. Cheap American wine would also be a big hit, and yield public health benefits, for Indians are killing themselves with the hard liquor they are forced to drink today. There are a host of trading gains to be made, for the benefit of both ordinary Indians as well as ordinary Americans, which citizens on both sides are being denied. Instead, the corrupt and repressive socialist-communist Indian establishment — and its powerful bureaucratic elite — remain as strong as ever.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3460697955716182220.post-23312121728549811712010-05-23T21:33:00.000-07:002010-05-23T21:34:07.911-07:00Catallaxy, key to an Open Society<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.livemint.com/2010/05/23233005/Catallaxy-key-to-an-Open-Soci.html">Catallaxy, key to an Open Society </a>by <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">Sauvik Chakraverti</span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For a market society, the appropriate political value is not a sense of ‘community’. Rather, it is ‘catallaxy’</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The political value of “community” is collectivist. Community lies at the root of communism, socialism and nationalism. It stood behind Nazism, apartheid and white supremacy. It justified “ethnic cleansing” in <st1:place st="on">Eastern Europe</st1:place> recently and promotes immigration barriers worldwide. In <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the idea of community lies behind the Hindutva and Marathi<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>manoos</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>agendas. The scheming politician loves a homogeneous community.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yet, community is a bogus value in a market society, which, in order to succeed, must be urban and cosmopolitan. Community makes sense in a village comprising one caste or in a small, exclusive tribe where everyone knows everyone else. It makes no sense in a city where individuals operate, peacefully trading with complete strangers. For such a society, the appropriate political value is “catallaxy”, which means an open trading arena. But first, a little about this word.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the 20th century, Austrian economists alone used the word “catallactics” to denote the science of exchange. In Ludwig von Mises’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Human Action</i>(1949), the section dealing with traditional economic issues is titled “Catallactics”. Derived from the Greek word for “exchange”, Mises mentions that catallactics was first used by the British economist and theologian Bishop Whately in the previous century, which means the word was well known to the classical political economists. Mises’ student from his Vienna years, Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, confessed to having “fallen in love with this word”, for which he discovered two additional meanings that the ancient Greeks ascribed to it: first, “to welcome into the community”; and second, “to turn from enemy into friend”. These connotations of the word indicate its importance to an Open Society.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The ancient Greeks traded and mingled with all nations around the <st1:place st="on">Mediterranean</st1:place>. Their societies employed special people, called<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>xenos</i>, or “guest-friend”, who looked after foreigners and their wares as they went about their trades in the Greek city-states. At the pinnacle of their glory, in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Athens</st1:place></st1:city>, they achieved an Open Society, as Pericles’ “Funeral Oration” teaches us. There was no “xenophobia”, as in our modern world.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The success of any market society lies in its openness and inclusiveness, and not in a narrow sense of community. There is no “chief” issuing commands to all traders. A market society is not a “command economy”. Such a society is strongly individualistic, wherein each trader takes independent decisions and is responsible only to himself for his own gains and losses. Further, such a society is marked by “impersonality”. There are good manners, yes, but there is no personal relationship between trader and customer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Going deeper, a market society is characterized by “competitive individualism”: we all compete as sellers; we all compete as buyers. We all realize that we prosper when this catallactic competition is at fever pitch. We gain when there are a huge number of sellers as we go to buy. We gain when there are a huge number of buyers as we go to sell. The bazaar that is humming with catallactic energy is the crowded bazaar, not the vacant one. Thus, we all realize that openness matters. A successful catallaxy is open to strangers from all parts of the globe and hospitable towards them. It is not a closed community.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As we witness the economic decline of Western nations, we must realize that the primary cause of this decline is their misplaced faith in community. All of them operate “national economies” with national fiat currencies, central banking, immigration barriers, protectionism and rampant interventionism. Socialist India follows the same path. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">However, the great thing about <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is that all our cities are cosmopolitan. They are truly “melting pots” of humanity. This is our inherent strength. If we are to use it to get ahead of the competition, we must ditch the political value of community and opt instead to become a nation of free-trading and self-governing cities and towns—all of them catallaxies that are open to strangers. We must do away with trade and migration barriers. Our bazaars must be possessed of the highest degree of catallactic energy to be found anywhere in the world. Our biggest industry must be tourism.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hayek defines community as “a common recognition of the same rules”. Such rules can be religious or tribal—or they can be secular. In an open catallaxy, only one rule need be recognized by all: private property. Happily enough, as Hayek also points out, this rule has been the cornerstone of open markets for millennia. Whenever people exchange, they exchange properties. Thus, most trade takes place without legal paperwork of any kind. Hayek said that the rule of private property operates in all of us “between instinct and reason”. We follow the property rule without knowing why. We have given up the instinct to plunder, to snatch and grab—but we don’t know why.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Thus, there is a “natural order” in all cosmopolitan open catallaxies. Posses of armed policemen are not required to “maintain order” in any crowded marketplace anywhere in the world. This order exists on its own. Without the “narrow domestic walls” of community, the idea of catallaxy solves the social problem for all individuals, while also uniting humanity in a rational, natural order.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Sauvik Chakraverti is an author and columnist. He blogs at Sauvik-antidote.blogspot.com</i><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Comments are welcome at theirview@livemint.com</i><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Chandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11519400753454711358noreply@blogger.com0