New Delhi: June 10, 2008: 1015hrs (Take #2)
Socialists claim to love society, but reality is quite different.
They do not love the society that exists around them: they love the society they have imagined in their cloudcuckooland.
Thus, they actually hate the natural society in which people engage in gainful trades among themselves; what they love is the society that they want to create, to replace the existing society, using the powers of coercion that State control gives them.
This is Jawaharlal Nehru’s “socialistic pattern of society”: it is a vision of an egalitarian order, to be attained by the means of State power.
It is also a rejection of the society that just is.
Ditto with socialist / Gandhian “morality”: they hate the natural order in which people consume alcohol, gamble, smoke ganja and charas, visit dance bars for entertainment and so on. They want all these wiped out.
Wiped out.
They hate what is; they love something else.
Thus, they hate the idea that villagers are moving to cities, for in their cloudcuckooland we are all villagers engaged in “self-sufficiency”. The fact that millions and millions of poor villagers are “voting with their feet” and moving to cities does not move them a bit. They will pursue “rural development”; they will ruin all the cities and towns. This is because of the false vision of society they harbour.
Another example is the BRT corridor bus project in Delhi. The transport planner actually hates the real world situation in Delhi in which most people now own cars.
If more and more people buy cars, then the government should build roads for these cars.
But they cannot do that because in their cloudcuckooland the citizens do not drive cars; they travel in buses.
Once again, they hate what is; they have a vision of something else.
Of course, you could level the same charge against me: that I hate what is and dream of a better world.
But I love society as it is. I do not want to change it. All I would like to do is bring the State under control, take away most of its powers, and leave natural society free.
I hate the State, not society, because the State uses coercion arbitrarily and unjustly.
If society is free, there will be inequality; there will be decadence and vice; there will be business failures – and I want to change none of these.
It is therefore the liberal who really loves human society (although it comprises strangers).
The socialist, on the other hand, is a sociopath.
He damages society.
Socialists claim to love society, but reality is quite different.
They do not love the society that exists around them: they love the society they have imagined in their cloudcuckooland.
Thus, they actually hate the natural society in which people engage in gainful trades among themselves; what they love is the society that they want to create, to replace the existing society, using the powers of coercion that State control gives them.
This is Jawaharlal Nehru’s “socialistic pattern of society”: it is a vision of an egalitarian order, to be attained by the means of State power.
It is also a rejection of the society that just is.
Ditto with socialist / Gandhian “morality”: they hate the natural order in which people consume alcohol, gamble, smoke ganja and charas, visit dance bars for entertainment and so on. They want all these wiped out.
Wiped out.
They hate what is; they love something else.
Thus, they hate the idea that villagers are moving to cities, for in their cloudcuckooland we are all villagers engaged in “self-sufficiency”. The fact that millions and millions of poor villagers are “voting with their feet” and moving to cities does not move them a bit. They will pursue “rural development”; they will ruin all the cities and towns. This is because of the false vision of society they harbour.
Another example is the BRT corridor bus project in Delhi. The transport planner actually hates the real world situation in Delhi in which most people now own cars.
If more and more people buy cars, then the government should build roads for these cars.
But they cannot do that because in their cloudcuckooland the citizens do not drive cars; they travel in buses.
Once again, they hate what is; they have a vision of something else.
Of course, you could level the same charge against me: that I hate what is and dream of a better world.
But I love society as it is. I do not want to change it. All I would like to do is bring the State under control, take away most of its powers, and leave natural society free.
I hate the State, not society, because the State uses coercion arbitrarily and unjustly.
If society is free, there will be inequality; there will be decadence and vice; there will be business failures – and I want to change none of these.
It is therefore the liberal who really loves human society (although it comprises strangers).
The socialist, on the other hand, is a sociopath.
He damages society.
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