From Internet Access... To Firewood

An editorial in the Economic Times today makes the serious intellectual error of asking for internet access being included as a “human right.” In étatist France this has just been proposed; and, as I read sometime ago on the LRC blog, this is going to happen in socialist Sweden as well, where they are going to make extremely high speed broadband access a “human right.”

This blog stands for “private law.” In a private law world, you can only have a “right” if someone else has a matching “obligation” – usually through a signed contract. Thus, I have the “right” to occupy the apartment that I have leased because the landlord has the matching “obligation,” as per signed contract, to hand over peaceful possession of his apartment to me.

In the case of “human rights,” no one has any “obligation.” Our recently acquired “right to education” will therefore go the way of all other human rights enacted by the UN, that great big club of States. And note that it is States that are invariably guilty of “human rights violations.” The solution to these violations lies in constitutional law that will strictly limit the powers of The State. But our Constitution of India is an unlimited constitution, and our The Chacha State is thus a Total State. This State is a violator of our rights, our liberties, and our properties. Our editors must call for strict laws on State functioning – the “public law” – instead of adding to State powers and responsibilities by calling for yet another useless human right.

While ET blabbers about our supposed rights to internet access, their competitors, Mint, have published an important article today on the fuelwood industry. The statistics are perhaps nothing more than guesswork, but the situation described is real enough. Even in prosperous Goa, it is quite common to see women carrying firewood on their heads and heading home.

However, let us take comfort from the fact that such scenes were commonplace in the West even as recently as a century or two ago. I have a vivid recollection of a very old souvenir shop I paid custom to in Interlaken, Switzerland, where they were selling carved wooden figurines of Swiss women carrying firewood on their heads.

The only solution is modern forms of energy – electricity, gas, etc. But these are all State monopolies in India, so there is a huge shortage. This demand-supply gap can only be bridged through privatization and free markets. Let the energy industry compete to supply these poor people dependent on firewood with the cheapest energy possible.

Again, on this score, the climate change / global warming wallahs are only talking about subsidizing “clean” energy. Against this nonsense, Cris Lingle makes this important point in his column in Mint today:

Another issue related to global climate talks is that paying for a shift to “clean” energy requires that taxpayers accept lower living standards. This is because nearly all “clean” energy initiatives involve very large subsidies that must be funded by higher taxes. Only by wilfully ignoring the large government-funded payouts can proponents of alternative energies insist they will lead to net gains.

Thus, all that these bozos will bring about is a huge increase in the numbers of tax parasites among us. They must be defeated.

Cris Lingle’s column is full of good news, though. According to his analysis, the talks in Copenhagen will achieve zilch. They will fail. They must.

Climate change, indeed. Also recommended is my old column on all this “hot air.” Complete nonsense.