Representative democracy cannot subsist if a great part of the voters are on the government pay roll. If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for.
The question to ask is: Who or what do you "represent"? In India, it is undoubtedly true that our Great Leader, cha(m)cha manmohan s gandhi, represents "those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury" - and these include Air India. As far as the taxpayers are concerned, chacha's only desire is to screw them further - education tax, VAT, GST, and, let us never forget, the "inflation tax." Of course, he himself has never been "elected by the people." He lost the Lok Sabha elections from South Delhi - and entered Parliament by the back door (Rajya Sabha: "indirect election") from Assam, of all places for a Sardar. He represents Sonia Gandhi alright - but does she "represent" Rae Bareilly? Or is this some kind of "pocket borough"? No one represents the taxpayers - although the rallying cry of democracy used to be "no taxation without representation."
In India, no one represents any city or town either. I was mortified to read that Jairam Ramesh, Central State minister for the environment, has ordered the demolition of the Adarsh building in Mumbai - while he himself is a Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh. Who represents Mumbai? Certainly not Sharad Pawar, either. What is the point in electing MPs and sending them to far away Nude Elly to represent "the poor"? And that too, falsely.
Of course, the poor are being cheated. As Mises said, what Lord Keynes was really doing was "cheating the workers." But it is Keynesian funny money that has really destroyed democracy, for it has provided the means necessary to fund all the giveaways of modern, pseudo-democratic states. With unlimited funny money, those in charge can buy all the support they need - not only in Parliament, but also in academia, and in the media. Crony capitalists are surely less harmful than crony academics and journalists.
Now for the good news: All this funny money will end in the near future. I have just read a very interesting confidential report prepared by a prestigious financial advisory that says, among other things, that "the Euro is finished." And Europe is where the "welfare state" comes from. The report says Germany is headed for a "constitutional crisis." The report says lots of things about the US dollar and Ben Bernanke - none of it very new to those who regularly read LewRockwell.com. At least the USSA has Ron Paul - and I wish that man well. I read that inflation is raging in China - thanks to their great big "stimulus" in 2008.
What the report predicts is that there will soon be a huge political backlash against funny money. I pray for that day to come soon. Limited government must mean limited by the Budget - that is, tax revenues. No more funny money. No more borrowing. No more "inflation tax." No more "buying support." Represent the taxpayer faithfully - or fuck off!
The report I referred to berates all the crony academics who are all invariably Keynesian - like our chacha. After reading the report, it struck me that "higher education" is what has really destroyed minds - all over the world. Consider the Englishman of medieval times, lamenting the inevitability of "death and taxes." Wouldn't this fellow laugh out loud if someone told him that his sovereign, while spending his revenue, was providing a "boost to aggregate demand"? Wouldn't this fellow think it inconceivable that, with his taxes, his sovereign would "help the poor"?
One of the greatest bestsellers of Victorian England was Samuel Smiles' Self-Help. Translated into Japanese in the 1860s, it fired the Japs in their catch-up with the West. In Victorian England, this book was on every bookshelf - right next to the Holy Bible. Samuel Smiles was a "moralist" - and the book tells the story of innumerable great men of humble origin who made in big in every conceivable walk of life. Allow me to quote the opening paragraphs:
Heaven helps those who help themselves is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.
Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the most they can do is to leave him free to develop himself and improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has usually been much overestimated. Moreover, it is everyday becoming more clearly understood that the function of Government is negative and restrictive rather than positive and active; being resolvable principally into protection – protection of life, liberty and property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual actions, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
Poor immigrants fleeing religious persecution in Europe built America - because of Liberty, and self-help. The socialist "New Deal" came only in 1933. There is no nation that has been built through doles from the State. Rather, many nations have been destroyed - like Sweden. The spirit of America has been destroyed by the Welfare-Warfare State of the USSA - and its paper dollar.
Interestingly, for Austrian school economists, the word "dollar" comes from a Hapsburg gold coin, the Reichsthaler - called "thaler" for short - which became the most popular coin in old America!
British India had no welfare at all - except during famines. Below is a quote from Charles Metcalfe - to whom we owe the institution of the Free Press - that says a great deal about these aliens who ruled our land so well:
Our dominion in India is by conquest; it is naturally disgusting to the inhabitants…. It is our positive duty to render them justice, to respect and protect their rights, and to study their happiness. By the performance of this duty, we may allay and keep dormant their innate disaffection; but the expectation of purchasing their cordial attachment by gratuitous alienations of public revenue would be a vain delusion.
What our socialist-democrats with all their funny money are doing is nothing but "purchasing cordial attachment by gratuitous alienations of public revenue." As far as the "positive duty to render them justice, to respect and protect their rights, and to study their happiness" they couldn't care less. Ganja, charas and opium were not illegal in British India - nor was the nautch girl. There were no parliaments passing legislation upon legislation - and none of the "delegated totalitarianism" of today. Rather, there was "happiness" - and Justice.
And then the CONgress took over. It all began in 1905, when Lord Curzon enacted the Partition of Bengal. Suddenly, the "majoritarian principle" - which is the principle of democracy - took over, with horrendous effects that continue till today. Nirad C Chaudhuri was a young man then, and he describes the ensuing chaos well in his autobiography:
Overhead there appeared to be, coinciding with the sky, an immutable sphere of justice and order, brooding sleeplessly over what was happening below. But that feeling vanished at one stroke with the coming of the nationalist agitation in 1905.
Note the word "agitation." Democratic "politics" in India even now is all about "agitation" - like Telengana. Again, CONgressmen are agitating for their own State. And the BJP-Shiv Sena are calling for a Mahasangarsh in Mumbai right now.
"Democracy is done for," as Mises said in 1940. Mises died in 1973 - the year I finished school. In 1974, I entered Delhi University to study Economics - and crony academics like chacha manmohan made sure we never read anything written by him. In any case, Mises was totally ignored in America too - as was Murray Rothbard, the most illustrious student from his New York seminars. The crony academics wanted to conceal the truth - and teach The Lie.
Yet, today, even without our willing it, it is the truth that is impossible to resist. The powerful politicians and bureaucrats, the central bankers and all the rest, might be possessed of State authority - but they cannot escape Economic Reality. The era of funny money will be over someday soon. And I wonder what will happen to Democracy.
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