This Doctor Is A Quack - Take # 2

The Congress party has released their manifesto. They have promised a massive expansion of the employment guarantee scheme (NREGS). They have also “pledged to enact a right-to-food law providing for 25 kg of rice or wheat per month at Rs 3 per kg to every family living below the poverty line (BPL) in rural and urban areas.” The quote is from the news report, which can be accessed here.

Is this the purpose of Law? Does The Law exist to provide food to the poor?

There is a photo accompanying the news report of Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi with his Soniaji at the release of this manifesto. Note that neither are politicians. He is supposed to be an economist, an expert. She is all that is left of the Gandhis.

But what kind of economist is Chacha? I daresay he is not an economist who knows how Prosperity happens. All he knows is Poverty – and the assumption he holds is that poverty is incurable. Of course, if poverty was incurable, the entire planet would still be in the Old Stone Age. America, Europe, Australia, China, Singapore, Hong Kong… all started off poor. How did they strike it rich? What can India learn from their experience? Chacha does not ask himself these questions. He sees Poverty – and he thinks that the best thing that can be done for the poor is another government program.

To put this another way: Chacha has no dreams for the people. His dreams are only for the bureaucracy, of which he is a senior member. He wants the bureaucrats who are now responsible for the implementation of the NREGS to be responsible also for the “right to food law.” The Congress manifesto promises to release large sums of money to these worthless bureaucrats, in the hope that some of this money will reach the poor. Fond hope, indeed. All that will happen is that bureaucrats will strike it rich. The poor will remain poor. And the tax payer will get no roads worth the name. The manifesto is entirely silent on roads, power and water – the bijli, sadak and paani the people are crying out for.

All three are government monopolies.

Note how socialists like Chacha only scheme of taking from X to give to Y: be it the NREGS, food security, or reservations. The manifesto is gung-ho on reservations. Ugh.

But the just role of government is only to act against outlaws. The government exists to secure the liberties and properties of all law-abiding people within their jurisdiction. A redistributive socialist State is nothing but a band of robbers. And now it seems that they are led by a quack masquerading as an economist.

In my book, the poor need no help from The State. Rather, they too need The State off their backs – complete economic freedom. With complete economic freedom, free international trade, low taxation, sound money (the manifesto is silent on this too), and a Rule of Law based on the Inviolability of Private Property, every poor person’s ability to provide for himself will improve. This is how the west got rich.

And as for The State – they should build roads. This will spur urbanization, new cities and satellite towns will mushroom, and everyone who is poor today will get richer, because the winds of urban commerce will fan his face. We must have a dream for the people. The Congress manifesto does not.

Adam Smith dreamt of "universal opulence."