Sick, Sicker, Sickest

Air India is "sick" in the sense that it has accumulated losses of Rs. 5000 crore (50 billion). But the politicians who run it want more and more money put in - and this money is to come from our The State, which is itself in serious deficit. Sick State running sick companies. Our "common loss." 

Praful Patel of the NCP, the minister for civil aviation on whom I have a previous post, has been promoted in the cabinet reshuffle of yesterday. He is now minister for heavy industries and public enterprises - and, in his first public statement on taking charge, has insisted that "Air India should not be declared sick." He wants our The State to pour more cash into Air India. He thinks it can be restored to good financial health - by the new minister in charge of civil aviation. Praful Patel will now have 100 or so other "sick" public enterprises to run - and we can be sure that he will demand bailouts from the Treasury for them all. This is what the CONgress calls "socialism": politicians and bureaucrats running businesses. Since the very idea is sick, all these businesses are sick.

Vayalar Ravi, a CONgress trade unionist from Kerala, is the new minister for civil aviation. In this interview, he says Air India will be his "top priority," and that he wants to bring back its "lost glory." Actually, this short-lived glory of Air India occurred because of private management - because JRD Tata, a "pioneer aviator" himself, looked after its affairs personally. Under State ownership, ministers come and go, each seeking short-term personal gains. Just as the nationalisation of Air India was "legal plunder," State ownership and management of the airline is more and more plunder. Sick idea. Sick company. Sick ministers.

Air India - and all the other PSUs - are neither capitalism nor socialism; they are "cronyism." Every single person involved in them, from minister to peon, is a crony of The State. They are not allies in business; they are allies in plunder. They give credence to Murray Rothbard's dictum: "The State is a gang of thieves writ large." They make me sick.

I watched Vayalar Ravi on television last night, being interviewed by Vikram Chandra of NDTV. As the minister went on and on mouthing socialist inanities, Chandra went on and on expressing complete agreement. Indeed, Chandra addressed the minister as "Sir" - that too, at least fifteen times in two minutes. His prime time show is called "The Big Fight." But when it comes to ministers, he doesn't fight at all. This "crony journalism" is what I find sicker. Our media is full of it.

And now - the sickest: the "crony academic."

Pratap Bhanu Mehta is a former professor of philosophy, law and governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Now, he chairs The Centre for Policy Research, a State-owned so-called "think-tank." He is a long-time columnist of The Indian Express - and his column today is on "food security." He writes, in his opening paragraph:

It is a scandal that after two decades of high growth, India still does not make adequate nutrition available to large sections of the population. There is simply no financial, technological or production related reason why this should be so. 

So, just as Praful Patel and Vayalar Ravi think that there is an inexhaustible fund they can tap to fund all their socialist schemes, Mehta too sees no financial constraints to obtaining "food security." We can safely assume that he is a Keynesian funny money man - and he must be so, because Wikipedia says he was "educated" at Oxford and Princeton - in philosophy, politics and economics. Ben Bernanke is also from Princeton, a long time chairman of their Economics department (see my old post on his academic credentials). Paul Krugman, the Keynesian Nobel laureate in Economics, is from Princeton too.

Mehta, the Keynesian funny money man who recognises no financial constraints facing The State, thus makes the case for "universalisation" of his food security scheme. He also looks favourably at the possibility of "cash transfers" - all the cash being more funny money, of course. So, when faced with the inevitable consequence of inflation, he displays the real motive behind this column: the desire to sow the seeds of confusion in public opinion, to poison the air. He writes:

The arguments over the causes of inflation — supply bottlenecks, currency policy, global trends, monetary policy, weather, hoarding, speculative investment, deficit spending — no longer serve analytical clarity. They have become contrivances to avoid the core issue: there is a serious governance deficit that will stymie both public and private provisioning.

Mehta's column is titled "A platter of blather." The above is nothing but blather. Pure blather. Every Keynesian knows that money supply increases cause a rise in all prices: the "quantity theory of money." This is the basis of all their "monetary policy."

However, midway through his piece, Mehta, former professor of philosophy, law and governance at JNU, asks two questions:

What the hell CAN government do? Why does it even exist?

 Well, the government exists because of the Constitution. 

And, since government is nothing but force - compulsion, coercion and legislation employed by tax-collectors, cops, judges, jailors and executioners - to all sensible people it makes eminent sense to direct this force very carefully. The bigger the role of The State, the greater the use of force. Thus, to keep Air India and all the loss-making PSUs afloat, force will be applied: taxation. So too with Mehta's "universal food security." Thus, it is our socialist Constitution that is the root of all evil. It has unleashed upon us an "unlimited State." Unlimited taxation, unlimited borrowing, unlimited funny money, unlimited interventionism. That is, unlimited tyranny. Unlimited plunder.

Mehta finds the absence of food security a "scandal." To me, on the other hand, our unsafe streets on which 200,000 pedestrians and cyclists are killed every year is the real "insecurity scandal." I find it a scandal that the Supreme Court has said the "criminal justice system is not working." Of course, all this "infusion" of public finds into loss-making PSUs like Air India is also a scandal - as is all the funny money being printed to fund all this shit.

"What the hell CAN government do?" asks Mehta. Well, one thing it can do very well is plunder.

So let us think of a Constitution of India framed by people like Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta. It will surely proceed like this:

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN, SOCIALIST, SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

FOOD - the government is to ensure universal provision of food,

PROFIT - the government is to run all businesses,

WORK - the government is to employ us all,

EDUCATION - the government is to cultivate our minds,

MONEY - the government is to produce all the money our society needs,

CREDIT - the government is to provide all of us credit, and that too, at very low rates of interest,

HOUSING - the government will ensure all of us are well housed,

SOBRIETY - the government is to ensure none are high,

TIMELY REST - the government is to ensure all establishments close at a decent hour, thereby playing Wee Willie Winkie to us all,

UNSEXINESS - the government is to prohibit anything and everything that makes us horny,

etc. etc....

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty first day of January, 2011, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

Sounds crazy? Or does it sound sick?

Then, what the fuck is the reason why governments are created?

One answer: To secure our lives, our properties, and to thereby ensure our LIBERTY.

And it is precisely these that are not happening. We are dying on the streets, our properties are not secure, and we possess no liberty at all.

Think about it.