Civil Society Versus Governments on Climate Change

We have all heard of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose chairman, Dr. RK Pachauri of the Delhi-based The Energy Research Institute (TERI) shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the US politician (of the statist Democratic Party) Al Gore. The critical thing to note about the IPCC is that it is governmental.

The alarmism of the IPCC-Gore camp is aimed at more and more government action to "mitigate" the crisis they themselves are predicting. More governmental action, of course, is in the interest of these government types - as the pathway to bigger budgets, vast powers etc. These big budgets will rob us of our money (taxes) and these vast powers will deprive us of Liberty - as, for example, by banning filament bulbs (which many, many Indians have never seen: Laloo Yadav's election sysmbol is the kerosene lantern).

There are many voices being raised againt this alarmism. Prominent among them is that of the President of the Czech Republic, Dr. Vaclav Klaus. His speech against this alarmism, delivered at the headquarters of the United Nations, is a must read for all Indians, especially because this comes from the Head of State of a former communist country. Communism and socialism are all based on the idea that government knows best - but this is precisely where massive failure results.

I too have written on this subject - that the IPCC-Gore agenda is "just hot air".

However, one of the most enlightening articles I have come across on the "dubious science" of these governmental climatologists is by Clifford Thies. It is also available as an MP3 download. So read it or hear it - and then, THINK!

Now, a huge coalition of civil society organizations from all over the world are meeting in Delhi tomorrow (April 2) to release their own report on the dubious science and unnecessary alarmism of the IPCC and its associated governments. The programme is available here. If you are in Delhi tomorrow then do attend. In such matters, it is important to hear both sides.

Shashi Tharoor says Engineers are Terrorists!

Mr. United Nations, Shashi Tharoor, in his latest column, writes that engineers are most likely to become terrorists, and that they should compulsorily receive education in the "humanities".

There must be many reasons why some people become terrorists, but surely a degree in engineering cannot be one of them. I am not aware of a single expert on terrorism worldwide who has arrived at such an bizarre conclusion.

But then, Tharoor has been described as 'banal' before. The word means "commonplace, trite, hackneyed and stale" - and fits Tharoor's columns to a "T". I personally found it ridiculous that, after over 30 years as a babu in the UN headquarters in New York, he should return to India and write column after trite column on the "A to Z of Indianness" - and, what is even more ridiculous, that these should be published. The reader is assumed to be an idiot.

There is, of course, something extremely wrong with education in engineering, something that Friedrich Hayek first pointed out in a little book called The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason. Here, Hayek traces the history of "positivism" in the social sciences to the Paris-based Ecole Polytechnique, and the sociologists Saint-Simon and August Comte. This exploration into the "history of ideas" is instructive as well as absorbing.

Later, he also elaborates on how this "science" perverted the social sciences, and our understanding of society, thereby becoming an enemy of Liberty.

It is in this book that Hayek deplores the tendency of what he calls the "engineering mindset", to support "social engineering" by the State (ideas like central economic planning) because to the engineer, the plan is quite like his "blueprint". Engineers therefore have a tendency to support totalitarian governments (not terrorism).

In India, I do believe that this book by Hayek (dated 1955) was itself "abused" by his enemies, the ruling socialists of the academia. From their inception in the 60s right up to this day, all the government-funded elite institutes of management (IIMs) have shown a marked preference for admitting engineers. It is not that engineers make better managers. Rather, engineers make better supporters of social engineering. The IIT-IIM type "misunderstands" society and economy. This misunderstanding, I allege, is deliberate on the part of the czars of Indian (government) education.

The truth, then, is that the "liberal humanities" are not taught anywhere in India, and in very few places in the world. Not only engineers and scientists - everyone needs to understand the basic conceptions of a liberal order. Unfortunately, there are very few who know this subject.

What the government of India teaches as "humanities" is the root cause of all the inhumanities we suffer from today - including terrorism, which is, more often than not, born out of a hatred for the State coupled with the inability to find any legitimate route for normal "politics".

Platitudes from a Top Cop

Since we are discussing cops and their writings, here is a piece by a former top cop, Julio Ribiero, on the subject of 'encounter specialists'. What is most noteworthy about this view from the top is the repetition of the same old lines we have been hearing for so long:

"Now, it is the turn of the police to change. The rule of law must be upheld, and no interference with the investigation of crime should be tolerated, however important or influential the culprit. For this, the standard of professionalism needs to be raised. The corrupt and inefficient should not be allowed to rise to the top and in any case they should not be entrusted with cutting-edge jobs involving public interaction. Station house officers should be held accountable for crime and criminals in their jurisdiction."

All this shows how the most important State function - the security of the citizenry - has been debased (like the currency) by a government whose only concern for 60 years has been occupying the commanding heights of the economy.


Now that the economy is on its way to be free, it is policing that should get top priority. Of course, there are better ways of being secure than relying on government police. If you stay tuned, we will explore these other options in future posts.

Looking Up the Ladder... and Jumping Off

Abhinav Kumar is a young officer of the Indian Police Service who also contributes regularly to the op-ed pages of The Indian Express. Good for him.

His latest piece is noteworthy as it is an example of 'looking up the ladder' and seeing the reality of the horrors on top. Consider this para:

"Today the IAS seems to exist only to deliver the patronage of the Indian state in an organised and legitimate manner to whichever coalition of vested interests comes to power through elections and ensure its own cut in cash and kind, whereas the IPS exists to ensure that the law is used as an instrument of power and the darkest deeds of the powerful are ignored or if they come to light are given a quiet burial."

What should the young man do? Well, first he should read Friedrich Heyek's The Road to Serfdom, paying special attention to the chapter "Why the Worst Get on Top" - in a socialist system based on coercion, corruption and patronage. If this convinces him that socialism is evil, he should quit - to save his soul.

Two or three generations of Indians have sent their best and brightest to the Indian civil services. If the State is to be at the 'commanding heights', obviously it will need the best and the brightest, it was thought - especially by the parents of these idealistic youngsters. They were all sacrificed at the altar of the State - a metaphysical concept that really has nothing to do with 'civil government' - which is what a 'civil service' is paid to provide.

My Antidote 2 : For Liberal Governance, contains an article entitled "Babudom is Not for India's Bright Youth". Idealistic young people yearning for a role in public affairs should read it.

There is also Ludwig von Mises' Bureaucracy, republished in India by Liberty Institute. The crux of Mises' argument is this: Society benefits if almost everything is left for 'management by profit'. Very little can actually be accomplished by 'bureaucratic management' - like the police or the tax bureaus. Societies which keep this distinction in mind succeed, while those who extend bureaucratic management to vast reaches of economic activity lose heavily.

Mises also makes the telling point that youth is sacrificed to the aged in bureaucracies. The young join at the bottom and have little else to do but follow their seniors' orders throughout their careers. Bureaucray means 'the rule of the aged'.

I hope more and more of the idealistic young people who join the civil services imbibe these ideas, look up the ladder - and jump off.

There is much that they can do for the Indian people and the country outside of this socialist State. There is enterprise - which gives pride and glory to those who succeed in satisfying customers in a competitive market. And there is the 'third sector' of voluntary activities.

Bureaucracy is not 'public service'. It is always 'at the service of the minister' - not the people, nor the law. In India, it is just another ugly vested interest.

On the Right to Bear Arms

Helga: Where are you going Hagar?
Hagar: To the friendly neighbourhood tavern.
Helga: Then why are you carrying all those weapons?
Hagar: To make sure it stays friendly.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

They say that when two armed men meet, they treat each other with respect.

There are many parts of India where everyone carries a weapon. I have lectured all over Coorg, where the British gave every man the freedom to carry a gun, a freedom they still possess. There is peace and tranquility in Coorg. There is no terrorism. And the police respect the people.

Then there is the Punjab, where Guru Gobind Singh commanded each Sikh to carry a kirpan – a curved dagger. I once lectured a gethering of over 20,000 Sikh farmers, all carrying kirpans. There was perfect order. The Sikhs of Delhi who were butchered by Congress mobs in 1984 might have turned the tables on their aggressors if they had been armed, as their religion commands them to be.

Of course, if you visit the tribal areas, you do find every man carrying some primitive weapon or the other for self-defence. Villagers in north India always walk about armed with a long, stout lathi.

Today in India, one of the biggest problems facing the people is security of life, limb and property. I do believe that, rather than relying for these on the State, self-help is a far better option.

There is a group calling for the right to bear arms. This is Indians for Guns – and I am an old member. If you believe in your right to defend yourself, join up.

Using "my" Kidneys

To add to Bibek Debroy's reasoned conclusion that organ transplants are not injurious to health but legislation on the subject is, what was missed is the 'natural' legal principle of 'self-ownership': the first legal principle of classical liberalism. If this principle is widely accepted then this should be The Popularly Binding Law, above all man-made 'legislation'. It is from self-ownership that private property is derived – another 'natural' law that socialist 'legislation' violates regularly. Bibek cites Tacitus' observation that 'the more corrupt a country the more the laws' – but all these 'laws' Tacitus talks of were not 'natural laws' like self-ownership and private property. All these were man-made 'legislations' parading about as 'law'. There was corruption because corrupt people made law. So let's 'use' our kidneys.

Which brings me to my subject: How do I 'use' my kidneys? The answer: I exercise them. How do I do that? Why, I piss, stupid! I drink beer regularly. It is great for the kidneys. Indeed, regular beer drinking flushes out kidney stones. My grandmother flushed out hers drinking beer – a German doctor's prescription for her condition. So, I drink beer – and piss.

I learnt something from Frederico Fellini's grandfather when I saw Amarcord as a lad. The old man had guzzled many glasses of wine during a long family lunch. He returned from a piss and announced to his entire clan assembled around the big table:

'To be fit as a fiddle, a man must piddle.

Something is amiss when a man doesn't piss.'

My motto too. I drink tea, coffee, beer – especially beer. Renal report says all's OK with 'my' kidneys.

We mistake hunger to be the problem. The real problem is thirst. You can stay without food for days on end: you cannot survive a few hours without something to drink. You die of thirst faster than you die of hunger. So drink. Its good for you, and good for your kidneys too. If you eat all day, you'll shit all day – and that's not what Fellini's grandpa advised. So drink all day, and piss all day – and all will be well.

But what do you drink?

Water is boring – and full of germs.

Fish f*** in water.

Think about that!

8.5 percent growth: 100 percent bullshit

The prime minister's economic advisory council met, deliberated, and predicted that economic growth in the forthcoming year would not be 9 percent as aimed at, but 8.5 percent.

There are many deliberate lies in such a statement; it is meant to decieve.

In the first place, there is no such organism like a 'national economy'. In any society there are millions of firms, individuals and households that are really 'economies' in any meaningful sense, at least in the sense that Aristotle meant: the Greek word okonomos refers to the running of a household. All these 'little economies' are growing or falling at varying rates and a national average is meaningless.

The bigger deceit, of course, is that the prime minister, his central planners, and their economic advisors, are doing something positive to make this growth happen: that is, without these efforts the 8.5 percent growth would not happen. Government and economic growth go together, the public is supposed to believe.

To a classical liberal, it is only when each individual economic agent, responsible for his own okonomos, is completely liberated under law, freed from all government imposed restraints, that each little okonomos will grow - and take the nation upwards along with it.

So if unilateral free trade was instituted, the customs department abolished, if taxes were cut and the bureaucracy greatly downsized, and all economic restrictions removed, the 'national economy' would grow at such stupendous rates that no statistician would even be able to measure it.

Which brings me to the question of measurement: What do these statistical measurements mean? Are they accurate? Do they convey any 'meaningful' information? Or are they just more and more of the Orwellian 'newspeak' of the modern State?

At least one country did without this bullshit. John Cowptherwaite, the colonial civil servant sent to run Hong Kong in the 40s, achieved a huge economic turnaround for this little island without any statistical bureau advising him. He believed that such statistics were mischievous, and would be misused by socialists someday. So he deliberately axed all plans to set up a government statistical bureau in Hong Kong. When he arrived, Hong Kong was covered with the shanties and slums of poor migrants. When he left in the 70s, Hong Kong had been transformed into an island of gleaming towers, with a per capita ownership of Rolls-Royce cars higher than that of its colonial master, Great Britain.

For more on this great civil servant, read my tribute to Sir John here.

On Dylan, and The Rolling Stone (India) magazine

Rolling Stone magazine now has an India edition. Glancing through it I can only feel great joy for the new generation of today, for whom music is truly international. In my youth, India was at the heights of socialist isolationism, and music was hard to come by. I still remember when Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was released (1980 or thereabouts). One guy got the double album (in long playing records) because of some foreign connections - and half the town descended on him to get a copy taped! So MTV, VH1 and now Rolling Stone are all GOOD FOR YOU. Appreciate freedom and defend it. Especially from the culture vultures.

Jann Wenner, who founded Rolling Stone magazine in 1967, says in a foreword to the first Indian edition that he was inspired by Bob Dylan. In that decade and the next, music was also about powerful lyrics, and few could equal Dylan's power.

I am placing below a powerful verse from a lesser known song of Dylan, one that dates back to 1964, entitled "My Back Pages":

A self-ordained professor's tongue

Too serious to fool

Spouted out that liberty

Is just equality in school

"Equality," I spoke the word

As if a wedding vow.

Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

I have always wondered why such a great song of Dylan has never had a cover version. Other songs of his, like "Blowin' in the Wind" have so many covers that one has lost count. Why not this one?

However, just a few months ago, I bought a fantastic double CD called the "Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert". This concert was held in Madison Square Garden in New York to mark 30 years since Dylan's first recording. A host of great musicians - Neil Young, Lou Reed, John Mellencamp, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and more - paid tribute to Dylan by singing his songs.

It is here that I found a cover version of "My Back Pages", sung verse by verse by all the musicians present, with Dylan himself singing just one verse (but a crucial one) that went:

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

That's the power of Dylan. And I must confess that, what with Rolling Stone magazine coming into India, I am myself feeing much younger today than I felt in India of the 70s - when socialism made us all age before our time.

I especially like the line "mutiny from stern to bow".

Sets you thinking, doesn't it?

Monkeys Deserve Peanuts

The recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission are making the news now. This reminds me of the time when the 5th Pay Commission met over a decade ago. Then, an officer of the Indian Administrative Service named Srivatsa Krishna wrote an article in The Economic Times quoting Lee Kwan Yew's dictum "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys". His argument was that IAS blokes like him must be very highly paid.

I was a regular contributor to the editorial pages of ET then, and wrote a rejoinder titled "Monkeys Deserve Peanuts". It provoked wide outrage in the IAS mafia and a flurry of letters to the editor followed. Unfortunately, this was in the pre-digital era, and no electronic records exist. But I can mail photocopies to anyone interested.

Of course, my arguments were correct. The 5th Pay Commission bankrupted the State and public services did not improve at all. This scenario will be repeated again.

Babus who perform no useful work should not get paid at all. Indeed, because they produce nothing, babus are "unproductive". What is worse, many are "misproductive", causing losses to the community - like, for example, when the beat officer extorts money from all street vendors. They produce nothing, but impose costs. That is "misproductive" employment.

The greatest joke, of course, is that these misproductive types get tonnes of cash from the public treasury in order to "generate" gainful employment!

Pay hikes for this misproductive bureaucracy must be strongly opposed.

Monkeys deserve peanuts.

REVIEW OF GABRIEL ROTH'S "STREET SMART"

I have reviewed Gabriel Roth's new book, Street Smart: Competition, Entrepreneurship & the Future of Roads, for The New Indian Express on Sundays.

This is a fascinating collection of articles on roads - a subject of vital importance for India and all Indians.

Do check out the review here. All roadies should read the book.

LIBERALISM VERSUS THE REST

Surely the first question any aspiring 'representative of the people' must ask himself is: What is the role of the State in a free (or democratic) society? To Raj and the Thackeray parivar, to Narendra Modi and the sangh parivar, to Buddhadev Bhattacharya and the communist parivar, just as it always was for the Nehru parivar, it seems perfectly apparent to me that their idea of State is 'an institution that protects us from injustices, except those it commits itself' (Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddima, circa 1350).

The reason behind this eclipse of reason is not difficult to find. Coercion is their motto not because they are anti-democratic, but precisely because they are democratic. The process we call democracy in India is riddled with coercion. Anyone who runs a political party holds vast powers over all members; a political party is a power hierarchy based on 'hegemonic relationships'. (Business hierarchies are 'contractual'.) When politicians vote within democratic assemblies, each member must respect the orders of his 'party whip'. The very term reeks of coercion. Then there is the Party High Command (or Politburo). Theirs is the 'vote motive'. Or is it 'rent motive'? Compared to these motives, the 'profit motive' is innocent: shubh laabh.

Raj Thackeray is 'political' in the sense that he seeks to represent a majority. He is the leader of a 'recognized' political party and has powers over 'party cadres': they follow his orders. Now, this is true of all political parties. It is because of this very reason that Roberto Michels propounded his Iron Law of Oligarchy way back in 1915: "Hierarchical political parties can never yield a classless, socialist society," he wrote. "Where the instrument is hierarchical, how can classlessness result?"; adding, most accurately, "socialism will fail at the moment of its adherents' triumph."

The politics of Thackerayism, Moditva, Buddhadevism, Lalooism, and Nehruvianism are all 'legitimate': all these recognized, hierarchical political parties swear by 'socialism', as defined not only in the Constitution of India, but in their party constitutions as well. But the reality of hegemonic power relations within each party hierarchy should wake us up to the fact that the way we are headed is not the classlessness of socialism, but something purely diabolical instead. It is politics without principle, based on coercion. It is aimed at taking control of the dysfunctional State – which provides access to further coercion, through legislation, through taxation, and through manipulation of the police and the administration. Never will we attain the ideal of Socialist Equality if we continue with this socialist democracy. It will always be arbitrary coercion. Oligarchies will rule. Chaos will follow.

In vivid contrast, Liberalism begins not with coercion, but with voluntary co-operation in markets: the natural order of natural liberty. Voluntary exchanges in the market order must be free, we believe. We therefore oppose legislation on 'victimless crimes' like gambling, prostitution, and ganja peddling. To us, coercion is an actionable tort, and a very grave matter indeed. We dream of a coercion-free natural order. That is why our ideal State is but a provider of Justice, whose only role in a free society is to act against those who disrupt the market order with their unjust actions. Nothing else.

This is Liberty under Law. It yields Freedom and Property, not Equality. To liberals, socialist ideas of Equality are a dangerous deception. The highest political values of liberalism are Freedom and Justice. Yet, we are barred from political participation while Raj Thackeray is legit. "Fair is foul and foul is fair," as Macbeth's witch put it.

To grasp the enormous amount of coercion that Raj Thackeray has unleashed on a very poor minority, recall that at least 50,000 north Indians have fled the state of Maharashtra since he began flexing his Maratha muscles. Why did so many run for their lives?

Unveiled threats are also coercive. Because these threats were not countered by immediate and stern State action, they were deemed imminent by all concerned, who fled. Specific provisions of the Indian Penal Code outlaw political hate speech of the kind Thackeray delivered; but then, the Indian police is itself rooted in arbitrary coercion, and is the very anti-thesis of the 'rule of law', thanks to 60 years of socialist misgovernment.

So, what would happen if liberals took over? Whom would we throw out? This is relevant given that all these politicians place before the voter their own idea of a 'class enemy'. To Raj Thackeray, north Indians are the enemy. To Modi, it is non-Hindoos. Who then are the enemies of Liberalism?

The enemies of liberalism are all those who coerce the rule-following citizenry. Today, apart from some recognized political parties, who must be defeated by State action, the biggest profiteers from arbitrary coercion are the police and the taxation bureaus. A liberal government's first task will be to bring these coercive bureaus to heel. The police must protect petty traders, not loot their surpluses. Taxation must be linked to services provided. Today, taxation is arbitrary and excessive – like those on civil aviation, which transfer business to the unsafe railways. Tolls on stretches of our 'notional highways' are double-taxation, as we already pay dedicated road taxes on automotive fuels. Since we pay the taxes, proper highways must be built as 'freeways'. Similarly, the excise department must be stripped of all licensing powers, so the business of alcohol retailing can be free. Further, the customs department must either be abolished (like octroi), or a small 'revenue tariff' should be levied on select, bulk imports. A minimalist State requiring minimal taxation: that is the liberal ideal.

Where masses are poor, taxation must be lighter still. If liberals come into positions of authority and responsibility, it is not the Muslim or the Bihari who should fear for his life – but the police, the excise, the customs, the income tax: these coercive bureaus will feel the heat. And that's a promise.

To conclude: There is hope for liberalism as compared with all other political ideologies only because we do not require coercion for the fulfillment of our political ideals. Since all other political creeds require coercion, they are foredoomed to failure because there is an limit beyond which none will submit to authority. For this crucial reason, based on an appreciation of the limits to coercion as well as a principled understanding of the legitimate use of coercive powers, liberalism is destined to prevail over all competing political visions. It is only a matter of Time.

TEACHING TO DESPISE FREEDOM

Since our enemies, the socialists, emphasize the role of their State in 'education', I have always taken the position that the content of their textbooks must be exposed as dangerous for young minds.

I am therefore happy to note that the great philosopher Anthony de Jasay has penned a column for The Library of Economics & Liberty that says Economic textbooks in Europe teach the young to despise liberty.

If this is the condition in Europe, how much worse must it be in India.

Do take a look at one of my prize-winning articles of 2002, called "Teacher! Don't Teach Nonsense", on the website of The Centre for Civil Society, New Delhi.

Do browse through this website for many more interesting articles.

If you go through the books published by CCS, you will find my Free Your Mind: A Beginner's Guide to Political Economy, which can be downloaded for free. This book has been translated into Hindi and Gujarati already, and is soon to be published in Chinese!

I have a second edition of this ready, so if any publisher is interested, do write to me.

SOCIALISM AND THE SUPREME COURT

Deepak Lal has contributed his might to the classical liberal side. In an excellent article in the Business Standard, he discusses the predatory and anti-freedom bias of socialism. Further, he also question the judgement of India's supreme court, which recently rejected a PIL challenging the Representation of Peoples Act, by which all political parties in India must swear by socialism.

I too have written on this matter, which can be accessed here.

VANISHING POINT

Or How Public Money Disappears Over Rural India

Sixty thousand crore rupees is being spent by our government to waive the loan outstandings of our rural brethren, small and marginal farmers. Just how huge a sum of money this amounts to is apparent if you consider this: if you spent eight lakh rupees each day, every day since the birth of Jesus Christ, the total sum spent would add up to 60,000 crore rupees in a few years from now. This is very big bucks.

But what is the money going to be spent on? Writing off bad debts is not the same as productive investment. Rather, it is a condoning of malinvestments. There is no reason why any section of the population should be indemnified thus. If this is a political gimmick to buy votes, then surely I can win elections in any Indian city promising to write off car and motorcycle loans. What makes it more ethical to write off the loans of poor farmers but not the loans of poor traveling salesmen?

Indeed, ethics and justice demand that the government put its weight behind all debt contracts: All must pay their debts, without exception. That is what 'the rule of law' means. This would be the natural course of events if money and banking had been retained in private hands. However, with both money and banking in the hands of the State, there inevitably ensues the blatant misuse of power for personal, political ends. And, what is worse, it is somehow deemed 'legitimate' in our intellectually corrupt country that those who command the State can nakedly attempt 'to purchase the public affection through gratuitous alienations of the public revenue'.

Yet, this is but a vain delusion. You can certainly buy individuals, but you cannot buy the votes of large masses of people in this way. The 60,000 crore rupees will soon vanish over the parched soil of rural India and not a single Indian will experience even the slightest improvement in his condition. Another government will come and another government will go. They will all perform other such vanishing tricks with 'rural development' in mind. But I bet my bottom dollar that the plight of the peasant will only worsen – especially because of the consequent inflation.

Let us not forget our recent history. Every "big idea" of the Manmohan Singh government is a very old Congress idea. They started 'employment generation programmes' more than 30 years ago. Are peasants better off today because of all this spending? 'Loan melas' were another Congress idea: the result of political control over money, banking and credit. Was a single such loan productive? – in the sense that it generated employment, profit and paid back the principal with interest? Certainly not. Of course, with all this spending, client individuals and groups were cultivated and maintained, as they still are today – but nothing was achieved in the larger interest. And certainly not any improvement in the human condition in either rural or urban India.

In the ultimate analysis, 'rural development' is the greatest hoax ever. No development has occurred anywhere in rural India because of this. Yet, in the same period, every city and town throughout India has been systematically destroyed. Further, during the same period, vast hordes of the rural poor have migrated to cities and towns. Most farmers today want their children to escape farming and set up shop in a city. Yet, a government that so easily throws 60,000 crores away on the rural poor cannot find even 10 percent of that amount to spend on 'urban development'.

Throughout history, great kings have been 'builders of great cities'. Our latter-day rulers are destroyers of great cities – not that they are builders of great villages either.

What should be done? First and foremost, get the Law and Economics theories right, so that the rule of law prevails, and all debt contracts are honoured. Privatize the banks as well as the money so that political tinkering with money, banking and credit can never be attempted by any government in India again. Then, institute free trade with sound money: end both protectionism as well as inflationism. With complete economic freedom added to this, all the right conditions would exist for all the people, especially the poor, to work hard towards improving their own condition.

Next, the voice of the people must be heard. Vox Populi, Vox Dei said the Romans. What are the people crying out for? Are all the people all over the country crying out for loan waivers? Are they crying out for daily wage employment guaranteed by the State? Certainly not. They are all crying out for bijli, paani, sadak – so much so that the acronym BIPASA has been coined to reflect these political demands. Now, bijli must be privatized. Paani too. What the government must step in to provide are roads. By which I mean good, motorable roads. Every village must be meaningfully connected to every single city and town in its neighbourhood. With free trade in used cars, this revolution in transportation will fuel an aggressive urbanization: the winds of urban commerce will fan over rural India. It can never be the other way around – as surely Manmohan Singh and his caucus of central planners should have realized by now.

Today, all the public money is being uselessly spent on things that the people did not demand, but politicians (and the 'spending bureaucracy') did. And it is a lot of money. Miles and miles of good roads could have been built with this money. That is the 'opportunity cost' of bad Economics. False ideas are draining away our national wealth. And these false theorists control 'education'. Give me hope, Joanna!

THE ANTIDOTE BLOG IS NOTICED

This blog, and the article on the Times of India's phoney liberalism, was noted by Amit Varma, Frederic Bastiat award-winning journalist, on his excellent and extremely popular blog http://www.indiauncut.com/.

This is a good beginning for this blog.

However, Amit seems to have missed the fact that I write a regular column called 'Antidote' for The New Indian Express on Sundays - and have been doing so for over 2 years.

This is the link to the archive of all the articles.

Among them is a hilarious take on the ganja scene in Goa. Enjoy the read.

PHONEY LIBERALISM IN THE TIMES OF INDIA

WRONG, MR. EDITOR

Some months ago, the editor of the Times of India, Gautam Adhikari, published a signed article entitled "Where We Stand" claiming that this leading Indian newspaper is wedded to 'classical liberalism'.

However, the lead editorial of March 15, titled "Clean up Goa", lets the side down. It is illiberal, intolerant and unsympathetic; it is blind to reality; and its prescription is astoundingly impractical. Allow me to elaborate on each point.

The editorial begins by saying that, because of the easy availability of drugs, and because 'liquor flows uninterruptedly', Goa has become 'an attractive hangout for socially dysfunctional people'. Actually, people who successfully 'score' illegal drugs are not at all socially dysfunctional; rather, they are 'black market savvy'; they are 'street smart'. Living in Goa, as I have been for over two years now, it becomes apparent that the really dysfunctional people here are the local alcoholics (and there are scores of them). Still, I wonder if Goa would be a better place if it was like New Delhi, where the government monopolistically sells warm beer in staggeringly hot weather, where drinking in bars in unaffordable even for newspaper editors, and where all queue up outside government shops to buy alcohol.

This first portion of the editorial smacks of intolerance. A true classical liberal would appreciate the fact that 'it takes all kinds to make a world' – and make room in his theories for all these types. Robert Nozick, the liberal philosopher, made the telling point that a truly free society is not one Utopia conceived of by the theorist; rather, it is a 'society of utopianism', wherein each can look for his own utopia.

The next part of the editorial lacks any sympathy for a bereaved mother. This second paragraph should never have been published, being completely irrelevant to the main issue. At a moment of stark state failure, and tragedy, it attempts to implicate a mother who was, in the deepest sense, 'liberal' with her wilful teenage daughter.

Thereafter, the editorial is blind to reality. It asks the totally stupid question: "How is it that the drug trade in Goa is flourishing, that too, in full public view and under the nose of the state police who's duties include cracking down on such activities?" The drug trade is flourishing all over the world, including New Delhi. I myself scored marijuana in London a stone's throw from the headquarters of Scotland Yard. The duties of the Goa police also include ensuring road safety. Every Goan, local as well as tourist, would be safer if this duty was performed. The drug trade should be legalized – but this is probably 'too liberal' an idea for the editor. He wants state action in checking the 'resident status and visa validity' of all foreigners here, a recipe for tyranny. A true liberal would favour a free, long-term 'visa-on-arrival' so that tourism, the largest industry in the world, is encouraged. Goa gets a full forty percent of India's tourism. Of the five million foreigners who risk their necks visiting India every year, two million come to Goa. But fifty million visit China and eighty million go to tiny France. If the editor has his way, tourism in Goa will slump.

The editorial then proceeds to display complete lack of 'knowledge' on drugs saying that 'locally available intoxicants like bhang and charas are a tradition' in Goa. The real hippy tradition here is of ganja. Bhang is not used in Goa, either by locals or tourists. Charas is not a local substance and is imported from the north. Because of illegality, quality charas is hard to find. Only brand names can ensure quality, which requires legalization. I met a group of German tourists who smuggled Moroccan hash into Goa for their holidays, knowing well that good charas is unavailable here. A Dutch tourist I met complained that Goa offered 'bush grass and horseshit hash'. In Holland, all this (and more) is legal, quality is excellent, and the cops are socially functional.

This illiberal, unsympathetic and ignorant editorial then descends to rank idiocy, calling upon Goan civil society to undertake an 'anti-drug crusade' led by the local musician Remo Fernandes. What the state police, armed with draconian legislation and guns, cannot accomplish, cannot be miraculously performed by an ageing performer. Actually, if you talk to drug dealers, you realise that they do not want legalization, which would ultimately institute a market regime of 'normal profits'. Branded ganja and charas would then be sold at probably the same price as Darjeeling tea. Drug dealers abhor this idea because today their profits are astronomical. They share these huge profits with those in authority, corrupting institutions. This also makes them much more powerful than any civil society group. If Remo took up cudgels against them armed with just his guitar, he would not get far.

The editor has revealed his Utopia as a drug-free world. He wants this accomplished by state as well as civil society. But the sorry fact is that his vision has no place for the twin liberal values of Freedom and Justice. The editor of the Times of India, thus, is not a liberal at all.