Gross Errors - And chacha's Teacher

The Gross Error of the Day Award goes to the lead editorial in The Times of India, which asserts that our The State's proposal to set up seven more universities "is a step in the right direction." But before getting into that, let us look deeper at the gross error exhibited by Chetan Bhagat which I wrote about yesterday. In his column, Bhagat posed this question:

Leaders, opinion makers and all of us in our dinner table discussions should continue to bring up this single question: What should an average Indian live, work and strive for in his life?

Bhagat says he is looking for "collective values" - and this reveals he thinks like a collectivist and not an individualist. In the real world, each Individual "strives" for whatever is his "ultimate end." Of course, the "value" this Individual places on his ultimate end is a "subjective" matter. As Mises explains:

"The characteristic mark of ultimate ends is that they depend entirely on each individual's personal and subjective judgment, which cannot be examined, measured, still less corrected by any other person. Each individual is the only and final arbiter in matters concerning his own satisfaction and happiness."

Mises concludes by saying that these ultimate ends are "matters of the soul and the will." Chetan Bhagat, by thinking of "collective values" for the "average Indian," displays a mind that cannot fathom the soul and the will - of an Individual. This is only because all of us have been taught to subordinate our individuality to the collective - The State.

The ToI lead editorial giving its assent to a whole lot more State universities exhibits similar deification of the "collective mind." But collectives never think; individuals do. Knowledge is produced by individuals, not collectives. By giving to The State a role in higher education, we encourage the setting up of a cadre of "bureaucrat-professors" whose only task is to defend their employer. To understand the grave dangers of such an approach, it might be pertinent to note these evil thoughts of Professor Joan Robinson, who was chacha manmohan s gandhi's teacher at Cambridge. This is from the final chapter in Ludwig von Mises' Bureaucracy:

"The British champions of socialisation and bureaucratisation are, like the Bolsheviks and the Nazis, fully aware of the fact that with freedom of speech and thought they will never achieve their ends.... Professor Joan Robinson of Cambridge University, second only to Lord Keynes himself in the leadership of the Keynesian school, is no less intolerant in her zeal to realise socialism. In her opinion, "the notion of freedom is a slippery one." It is "only when there is no serious enemy, without or within, that full freedom of speech can be safely allowed." Mrs. Robinson is afraid not only of independent churches, universities, learned societies and publishing houses, but also of independent theatres and philharmonic societies. All such institutions, she contends, should be allowed to exist only "provided the regime is sufficiently secure to risk criticism"."

Have we instituted a State for producing and disseminating knowledge? The very idea is ridiculous - and extremely dangerous as well. The editors of the ToI propagate this idea because they have been educated into becoming State-worshippers.

The conclusion that the editorial arrives at exhibits another Gross Error:

The editors champion a higher education sector in which a "vibrant public sector competes with a vibrant private sector." Are we still in that age of PSU-worship? Can any private airline "compete" with a loss-making public airline that continues to fly, taking away passengers and consuming scarce airport facilities? After all PSUs have failed, do we now want PSU universities? The State will cultivate our minds? We will wake up only if we realise that State education has destroyed our minds.

"Free" State education does "not help the poor"; on the contrary, by giving the poor a bad "political education" this harms the entire society. Education is an industry like any other. The business is knowledge.

To conclude - the great Frederic Bastiat himself, on State education:

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.