Why Roads Matter Most

Yesterday's post concluded saying:

Liberty! Property! Contract! That is all it takes to make a country grow.

Today, let me add just one thing to that list - and that is ROADS.

Roads matter greatly for economic growth. Growth occurs when every individual enterprise grows - and since each individual enterprise is engaged in "production" and "exchange," it follows that their produce must be physically transported from the place of production to the big centres of exchange - the markets. In India, perishable commodities like fish, fruit and vegetables are wasted in megatonnes because of poor roads. And all the other trades suffer as well.

Our horrible roads provide evidence of the fact that "pseudo-economists" dictate government spending policies here. Real economists have always emphasized the importance of roads. In the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith makes the comment that the new roads being built then were the "greatest improvement," for they enabled every remote village gain proximity to the mighty city. Carl Menger, in his lectures on Political Economy to Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria (1876), stresses the importance of roads in the very first lecture. He begins, like Adam Smith, with the "division of labour" - and then goes on to say that the better the roads, the greater the division of labour. Thus, if good roads exist between your remote patch of land and the mighty city, you might become a specialized orchard-owner. Without these roads, you will be stuck in "self-sufficiency," growing your own food and probably spinning your own yarn as well.

Then there is history. Sher Shah Suri was an Afghan warrior who took North India from Humayun, and he possessed no "economic advisors" - but it is he who built the Grand Trunk Road from Peshawar to Bengal, that is still the life-line of North India. There is the story of Akbar taking 5000 workmen personally to the Khyber Pass so as to built a road smooth enough to take wheeled vehicles. In Srinagar, Kashmir, I was told of the existence of an Old Moghul Road leading down to the plains - and that it now lies disused and abandoned. We also know that "all roads led to Rome" in very ancient times.

Ancient cites were inevitably crowded, with narrow lanes. People lived cheek-by-jowl because transport was primitive. You walked, or rode a horse, or, more likely, an ass. All old cities are like that, including the older parts of London. With modern transportation, we now have "suburbs" - and people live in space and comfort. If Indians want their overcrowded cities to become modern cities, and if they want to build new cities and towns, they will have to lay great stress on road-building. I am also a great fan of tramways. In London the Underground was built around 1905 - railways came before the car - and it is this that enabled Londoners to spread out. In India, the State is building underground railways in a few cities - but not building roads that car owners could use to spread out. They are also not allowing private entrepreneurs to build tramways that could serve all the smaller cities and towns. Calcutta's tramway was also built around 1905 - by a private company. In 1905, I am confident, there were no cars in Calcutta.

How do we build an excellent roads system in Indyeah? Well, I wrote a post on that some weeks ago.

To conclude: The "pseudo-economists" who dictate government spending policies in India, who have never invested in roads for 60 years, are utterly ignorant of both Economics as well as History. Their vision of India is Gandhian - "self-sufficient village economies." This means no division of labour, no specialization, no trade, no markets, no cities, and no civilization. It means permanent poverty for all villagers. It means ghastly overcrowding for all city-dwellers. This, in a huge country with super-abundant land. The "rural-urban divide" throughout India is because of these ignoramuses.

I hope my readers now see the colossal error we are making by entrusting this The State with "education." Once again, we must pin down the political philosopher who is really to blame - and it turns out to be the very same madman Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was Rousseau who popularized the idea of mass education by The State. I remain firmly on the side of Frederic Bastiat, who despised Rousseau, and who wrote these telling lines:

If you want to have theories, systems, methods, principles, textbooks and teachers forced on you by the government, that is up to you; but do not expect me to sign, in your name, such a shameful abdication of your rights.

You don't need this "miseducation."