Power and authority, as substitutes for performance and rational thought, are the specters that haunt the world today. They are the ghosts of awed and superstitious yesterdays. And politics is their familiar. Politics, throughout time, has been an institutionalized denial of man's ability to survive through the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare. And politics, throughout time, has existed solely through the resources that it has been able to plunder from the creative and productive people whom it has, in the name of many causes and moralities, denied the exclusive employment of all their own powers for their own welfare.
Ultimately, this must mean that politics denies the rational nature of man. Ultimately, it means that politics is just another form of residual magic in our culture — a belief that somehow things come from nothing; that things may be given to some without first taking them from others; that all the tools of man's survival are his by accident or divine right and not by pure and simple inventiveness and work.
Politics has always been the institutionalized and established way in which some men have exercised the power to live off the output of other men. But even in a world made docile to these demands, men do not need to live by devouring other men.
Politics does devour men. A laissez-faire world would liberate men. And it is in that sort of liberation that the most profound revolution of all may be just beginning to stir.
I strongly recommend that you sit back, relax, and read the entire essay. You will emerge hugely enlightened.
Having said that, what I would like to add to the world’s enjoyment of this essay full 40 years after its publication, is that the basic error in Western political thought has been over the idea of “community.” This is the cornerstone of their "conservatism." And their "socialism." This is a remnant of their tribalism; it is “atavistic,” like their socialist sympathies.
In India, a huge multi-cultural sub-continent, there is nothing called “community” in any of our great cities. The great bustling centres of Indian civilization are all melting-pots, especially New Delhi; and we in Delhi sneer at those parochial politicians of “Mumbai” who idealise the Maratha tribes of Shivaji. The BJP’s “Hindootva” agenda has not worked because the Hindoos are not a homogenous tribe, never have been, and never will be.
This is indeed our greatest strength. We are therefore in a position to view our world as a “catallaxy,” where we interact in harmony with complete strangers, and the more strangers the merrier. There is no need for us to think in terms of either "community" or even "society" - the words that lie at the root of "communism" and "socialism," both evil ideas that originated in the West.
Instead, we can conceive of our world as one of Individuals, interacting peacefully and gainfully with previously unknown individuals in markets - a world of friendly strangers, a "catallaxy."
The only requirement is that the strangers be peaceful and friendly, not belligerent and hostile, in which case I discuss below what steps we need to take...
My peaceful idyll in southern Goa became a great catallaxy every winter, when the happy and peaceful tourists of various races, religions and nationalities invaded our shores. And how the local people loved it. They put up a hundred "BAR & REST" shacks (they never write the full word "restaurant") on every beach. The more strangers come, the merrier, they always cry.
In either case, the area was always a catallaxy, there being a mosque, a temple and a church all within walking distance from our cottage. The great event was always the Saturday bazaar - where everyone came well dressed. It is there that I discovered "natural order," for cops were never seen, and also really reflected hard and deep on the MEANING of the word "catallaxy."
The entire section on what would be called “economics” in Mises’ Human Action is called “catallactics.” Mises mentions somewhere that the term was first used by Bishop Whately in the 1850s. The word means “the science of exchange.”
However, Hayek discovered two other meanings of the word in Greek:
The first, “to turn from enemy into friend”;
and the other, “to welcome into the community.”
The future lies in welcoming friendly strangers into every community – in turning communities into “catallaxies.” Through peaceful, voluntary and mutually beneficial exchanges with strangers. But what if the strangers are not friendly and peaceful and turn out to be belligerent and hostile?
First: let us not get too carried away by the great big myth of national defence, or the existence of terrorists, Maoists, Naxals, etc. We cannot depend on The Chacha State to protect us. 200 people were killed by 10 men in Mumbai only because the people have been disarmed – see what happened to Sanjay Dudd.
Anyway, 130,000 people die on our roads every year, or over 350 every day. Ever heard The Chacha State get worked up about that? And these people have all the guns.
Indians need to wake up to their rights to arm and protect themselves. They say, “A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.” They also say that if you phone the cops and phone for a pizza, the pizza always comes first.
I am an old member of Indians For Guns – and they have released an excellent essay on the subject of guns and gun control in India. You can read it here.
At the philosophical level, the man who first mooted the “private provision of security” is Gustave de Molinari, friend and associate of Frederic Bastiat, who was the Editor-in-Chief of their Journal des Economistes. Molinari correctly diagnosed State Police as based on the ideas of “monopoly” and “communism.” You can read Molinari’s brief essay here.
Finally, something to laugh about. A senior Indian cop writing about how his costumed goons “defend our liberties” and even “die for the country.” Of course, in our bazaars we all see that these costumed brutes are more self-interested than the greedy merchants this officer’s JNU professors must have taught him to despise. But this takes the cake for rank hypocrisy.
As if on cue, Aristotle the Geek has provided this "prophesy" of Any Rand on how modern "criminal justice" will turn us all into criminals, because they want the laws broken. It is all about power. Not Law.
We must think in terms of being responsible for our own protection. Guns. If we go on depending on the State Police for our protection we will be like little Linus and his "security blanket." Give me my own guns any day.
Antipolitics. Antistate. Antiwar. Pro-Market.
No comments:
Post a Comment