Politics: From Delhi To Athens

The incident of Varun Gandhi supporting forced sterilisation to solve the “population problem” (and then withdrawing his statement) brings into relief something Peter, Lord Bauer wrote long ago:

The only question in the population debate is whether the decision to have children, and how many, should be left to the concerned couples, or should these decisions be taken by The State.

So that takes care of that.

Unfortunately, Liberty Institute is yet to put up a free pdf download of my essay “Population, Urbanization, ‘Vision’ and Abundance,” published alongside essays by Julian Simon, Peter Bauer, Deepak Lal, and others, in an award-winning volume titled Population: The Ultimate Resource.

Anyway, if Varun Gandhi exposes the poverty of BJP politics, read this to discover what a bunch of weirdos the Samajwadi party are. An earlier post had discussed their miserable manifesto. This is the party of Sanjay Dudd. Amar Singh hogs tv. He hob-nobs with them all. Their “political party” supported the Sonia-Manmohan government after the Commies departed. Such political parties will sell their votes in parliament to the winning coalition. This is the “politics” by which the Central Government is going to be formed.

Underneath, all is hollow. The Congress too has hit the dirt. Chacha Manmohan and Bhateeja Rahul fail to inspire.

I therefore found MJ Akbar’s column on how a new government will emerge in Dilli Door Ast bluntly realistic, and therefore a very good read. It is aptly titled “Prepare for a marathon at the 2009 racecourse.” He quotes a great gambler who said that the bookies win when the favourite loses. He is a journalist-politician. He should know.

Yet, the sad fact is that during these elections there was no “race” between competing candidates and no contest on such lines. Parties competed, not candidates. The winning horse who will occupy the PM’s bungalow on Race Course Road will emerge not after votes have been counted, but perhaps a fortnight later, after the votes of those elected are bought. So reality bites harder than Akbar takes cognisance of.

But to see the reality of New Delhi Sarkaar even more clearly, take this news report: It says that the chief minister of Delhi does not control the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, the Delhi Development Authority, the Delhi Police, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. All these are under the control of The Great Centralized Socialist State From On High.

Shiela Dixit just runs the booze shops – as a monopoly.

“Warm beer, cold women,” as Tom Waites put it.

Anyway, here I am, far, far away from Delhi, in cold beer country. Looking from afar helps.

My best read today was an article by Peter Jones on rhetoric in ancient Athens, written in the light of Obama’s tremendous oratorical skills. The essential difference between then and now is this:

The main difference between our orators and the ancient Greek rhêtor in democratic Athens is that the ancient rhêtor had no political power whatsoever. He was trying to persuade an Assembly of citizens (males over 18) to do what he wanted, but it was they who made the final decision whether to act on his advice or not. In our system, an Obama or Brown can speak well or badly, intelligibly or incomprehensibly, it will still be (s)he who makes the decisions and not the listeners. Ancient rhetoric, then, unlike the modern, was absolutely central to the democratic process.

It was central in another sense. No radical democracy where citizens made all the decisions could work unless everyone was able to make their contribution in the Assembly. But not everyone was a natural speaker. That was why the rules of rhetoric were developed and taught in democratic Athens. Further, they empowered any citizen not just to participate effectively in the Assembly, but also to learn to distinguish the good arguments from the bad, the false from the true.

And, even more critically, the right from the wrong.

Peter Jones concludes that the modern rhêtor is dangerous.

So I leave you with that: Think of Athens.

Don’t think too much of Dilli Door Ast.