Evil Ways

For many years now, I have been thinking that my ideological opponents - and there are many - are "evil." In my foreword to the Victorian moralist Samuel Smiles' Self-Help, published in India by Liberty Institute in 2001, I concluded saying that "this is not a battle between Socialism and Capitalism; rather, it is a battle between good and evil."

In 2003, I wrote an article in the ToI which "proved" that Jawaharlal Nehru was an "evil man."

I have made many contributions to public understanding of the "morality of markets." But I have yet to come to any appreciation of what "evil" is all about - that is, till I began reading Wickedness by Mary Midgley, a classic in modern moral philosophy. Today, let me share with you some of my findings.

First, here is the reply Faust receives when he asks Mephistopheles who he is:

The spirit I, that endlessly denies
And rightly too; for all that comes to birth
Is fit for overthrow, as nothing worth;
Wherefore the world were better sterilized;
Thus all that's here as Evil recognized
Is gain to me, and downfall, ruin, sin,
The very element I prosper in.

To me, this sounds very much like the modern State - especially ours - and the words "wherefore the world were better sterilized" is nothing but the ideology of Sanjay Gandhi and the "population problem" wallahs that overpopulate our The State.

Further, the "element" of Evil that Mephistopheles "prospers in" - which is "downfall, ruin, sin" - is nothing but the "de-civilization" brought about by Keynesianism, welfarism, central banking and - lest we forget - all the endless wars. "War is the health of The State" - as one wise man once put it - and endless chaos and confusion, endless social disorder are precisely the "element that the State prospers in."

Who, or what, is The Devil?

Midgley offers some idea of the Christian answer to this question. Whereas the Gnostics and the Manichchaeans had proposed a world of "dualism" - with Good and Evil as separate forces at war with each other, Midgley says:

...the Fathers of the Church argued for the unity and goodness of the world repeatedly against Gnostics and Manichees. They did not of course mean that the world was at present in a good state, or likely to become so. Pessimism about that was common to all sides; sin was agreed to be rife and the end of the physical world seemed likely. All the same (said the Christians) this did not mean that two radically independent systems were at war in it. They devil was, they held, only a fallen angel, a created being lapsed from his original perfection and quite incapable of creating anything. He could only destroy.

Let us look closely at this idea so central to Christian notions of the Devil: He is "quite incapable of creating anything. He could only destroy."

What is The State? Can The State ever create anything? Certainly not! It can only spend money that it has taken from taxpayers - who have "created" - that is, "produced" - in order to pay these taxes.

Further, since all that The State is is nothing but organized force and violence, what can it accomplish but destruction? It can only destroy.

So we come back to the same "moral question" in Political Economy: What are the "just" uses of the organized force and violence of The State?

If we seek answers to this question, we will surely arrive at the conclusion that the modern State has become immoral because of wrong ideas and ideologies. These are "evil." Herein lies The Devil.

Midgley asks the question: Can we do wrong willingly? And she answers this partly by offering Socrates' views on the subject:

Here the central doctrine is perhaps the one which Socrates expressed in a drastic form by saying that nobody does wrong willingly. This obviously does not mean anything so trivial as that evil-doers are ill-informed, or need a better education. It claims that there is a confusion at the root of their thinking - a confusion which is in some sense voluntary and deliberate, therefore responsible, but which could not be embraced by anybody who fully understood it. If they really knew what they were doing they could not choose to do it. What this affirms is the unity of all human motivation... It recommends thought as central to morality.

What is the "unity of all human motivation" but the desire to survive? For that, we need economic means - money - for which we must work, produce and exchange in full competition.

But there are others who seek to live off theft and plunder - via The State - and these are all the "tax parasites" and "protectionists" we all know only too well. This is what is Evil - and it occurs because of the same ideas and ideologies I believe to be the handiwork of The Devil. Note that John Maynard, Lord Keynes, was a self-proclaimed "immoralist."

To conclude: Last week, one of the channels on our TV featured a re-run of The Godfather films, and I watched them with great interest, especially because I had never seen parts 2 and 3 before, which are all about the life and times of Michael Corleone. Some scenes remain stuck in my mind: One, the fact that Michael always refers to himself as a "businessman." Second, when a senator comes to Michael and offers him the "license" to run a casino in exchange for a huge bribe. And third, when Michael, in later life, attempting to enter "legitimate business," tells a young man who had offered him his services as a bodyguard: "I don't need gunmen any more. What I need are lots of lawyers."

Obviously, Michael Corleone, a businessman, needed gunmen and lawyers because there is too much Legislation interfering with business.

I find the Mafia moral.

I find The State to be Evil.