I was directed to Ashok V Desai's column because it contains the expression "unilateral free trade" and I received a Google Alert. Desai not only calls for unilateral free trade, he specifically mentions this in the context of the great Indian Ocean:
The Indian Ocean area is India’s backwater; it must work on developing this area, and tying it to India with economic interrelationships.
I am in full agreement. Just about a month ago I had written a post titled "India's Urban Future - On The Coasts," in which I had also called for unilateral free trade.
Maritime trade is what created civilisation. On our western coast, where I have been living for long, all the foreign trade that is happening these days is the exportation of iron ore and the importation of nothing. You don't see many ships when you pass by any of the ports. Yet, if you read about London in the 10th century, you find the Thames described as "a forest of ship-masts."
And, just the other day, I saw an ad saying the State-owned Shipping Corporation of India is buying lots of new ships!
These will offer "unfair competition" to all private ship-owners.
Let us leave the insanity of our socialist rulers aside and get back to Ashok Desai's column - this time, to points of disagreement. His very title contains the word "superpower" - and the thrust of the column is directed towards outlining how India can become a superpower.
Is that a desirable goal? - at least for us, ordinary people.
Desai writes about the three superpowers of today - the US, the EU, and China. But are they all doing well? That is, are they all doing well for the ordinary people?
Libertarians in the US are fed up with Uncle Sam's superpower ambitions. They do not approve of their "Warfare State" - and the "foreign policy" that drives it. They are calling for a non-interventionist foreign policy - for peaceful trade among nations.
The EU is not doing too well either.
Both the US and the EU are nose-diving because of the unworkability of their fiat paper currencies. In both these "superpowers" ordinary people are suffering.
In India, ordinary people are completely screwed. The purchasing power of the rupee is in constant decline - inflation. Every city and town is close to collapse - and urban living throughout India is a nightmare. Electricity, water, roads - both rural as well as urban India cry out for these - and all three are State monopolies, just like the currency. In India, all solutions require an immediate abandonment of the idea of statism.
Why do I champion unilateral free trade? Because this will improve the life of the common man. Further, it will take politics out of international trade. Thus, politicians and diplomats in Delhi would have no say in the Great Indian Duty-Free Market. Rather, it is the Consumer - the common man - whose decisions will rule the roost.
It is for this very same reason that I champion 'sound money" - it will be great for the common man. As I wrote some days ago, quoting Mises, sound money operates as a check on government despotism.
China is having a lot of trouble with its currency - and with the "monetary policy" that guides it - as this column of today makes very clear. China covers an extremely vast and ethnically diverse territory - much of it in the doldrums. The future of centralised China is uncertain.
Deepak Lal, the "classical liberal" development economist, has written a recent book titled In Praise of Empires. But I do not share this vision of the future. My ideal is the "free trading and self-governing city." Empires require powerful central States. I don't believe in them. Such central states are good for the emperor, his court and his courtiers, and his tax collectors. Free cities are good for the ordinary people who live in them.
So that's my credo: Free trade across land and sea, sound money, mayors.
No superpowers. No empires.
No comments:
Post a Comment