Us... And Them

Amartya Sen addressed a packed Central Hall in parliament yesterday. According to the news report, the Nobel laureate and arch-socialist berated the government for its "failure to address social ills."

It would be preferable if they addressed "governmental ills."

These are the ills perpetrated by government – especially at the level of the petty bureaucracy, who tyrannize the poor. If every poor person was liberated from this tyranny, I believe that these poor people would survive better and look after themselves better too.

The difference in the two approaches must be understood: I believe that Liberty is necessary to enable everyone to help himself.

Sen believes in government action and politics as a means by which a wide variety of "social ills" can be cured. These social ills include "severe deprivation, child hunger, lack of educational opportunities and healthcare for the poor."

I believe in Self-Help and Liberty.

Sen wants more political and State action.

It is noteworthy that this lecture in Parliament was in honour of the late Hiren Mukherjee, a former parliamentarian and communist, who was "a severe critic of bourgeois democracy." This is the intellectual camp in which Manmohan Singh and Amartya Sen have pitched their tents.

Actually, it is liberal bourgeois democracy that has lifted the working classes of the west to where they are now. The capitalist nations of the western world are where every worker is first of all a sovereign consumer. It is this that has raised living standards of the working class to the unbelievable levels they are today.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh spoke before Sen. He said: "Those of us who are in public life find meaning in it only because we view public office as a means of alleviating the suffering of our people and contributing to their well-being and happiness."

As if we haven't heard such lines for 60 years.

Would it not be preferable to allow competing businessmen from all corners of the globe to offer our long-suffering populace goods and services that would reduce their suffering and contribute to their well-being and happiness?

Once again, it seems that our differences with the socialists are irreconcilable. The reader must choose between two diametrically opposed world-views.