Austro-Libertarian Natural Order Philosophy From Indyeah

Individualistic Austro-Libertarian Natural Order Philosophy From Indyeah

Monday, February 28, 2011

Stay Away From Me, State Police

I am off to the nearby seaside town of Honavar, which I have passed many times but never visited, and which has a long history as a free trading port - and my intentions are entirely peaceful and honourable, being to study the place and write about it. I am a journalist, an "independent media publisher," and not a politician, nor a political activist. Yes, I smoke ganja, and I also drink alcohol. I buy them and use them - because it makes me happy to do so.

I write this since I have repeatedly been interfered with by State Police agencies - not only in Karnataka earlier, but also during my recent travels.  In case these bozos get on my back again, I will take matters up with the justice of public opinion - and report all excesses committed upon me.

To that Public Opinion, let me quote from Cato's Letters on the vital importance of freedom of speech:

Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Publick Liberty without Freedom of Speech....


This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Government, that the Security of Property; and the Freedom of Speech, always go together; and in those Wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own.

All State Power, when it sees its errors exposed by private scholars, will seek to silence that voice, ridicule it, or libel against the character of that individual. In the USSR, compulsory psychiatric treatment was widely practised on dissidents. I do not want to receive the attention of the professional psychiatrist - and most certainly not at the behest of The State. However, if I cause any trouble in the local area among the local people, I will be responsible to them. I am hopeful that my visit will be peaceful, enjoyable, comfortable, educative, and productive - and my pursuits of happiness will not be disturbed.

Its the "religion of consent."

The Natural Rules Of The Natural Order

As I watched a television debate on the revolutions in the Arab world, it struck me that we need to understand how "civil order" happens - naturally. This order exists on its own because all the separate Individuals acting within it towards their own ends follow "rules" that have "evolved" alongside the human mind itself, through the processes of civilisation.

The primary rule is the Inviolability of Property - which is what we see in every bazzaar, when the goods arrayed before a vendor are treated by all as his Property. "Possession indicates Property," as they say. It follows that this unarticulated rule of civilisation ought to be the Basic Law - but communists and socialists think otherwise. Of course, as they never realise, if it were declared in any bazzaar that everything on offer is "common property," all order would instantaneously break down, and all would loot "in the name of the communist brotherhood." Anyone would take anything he wanted from anyone - and say, "Thanks, comrade."

There are two other "natural rules" that operate in human society: Contracts and Torts.  Contracts are "private law" that bind the parties who sign them. Torts are "private compensation" to victims for damages sustained.

All these natural rules we all follow create and sustain "order" - and this, while The Law secures our future. Property, Contracts and Torts are all about the future. They make the uncertain future less uncertain. This is because there is "certainty in the Law" itself.

Society therefore secures the future through "certainty" in The Law - and through the processes of entrepreneurship, for it is entrepreneurs who "make provision for the uncertain future." You get what in The Market only because of entrepreneurs - who have made provision for your uncertain need. All "speculation." But it makes the uncertain future less uncertain.

What "governs" a society is nothing but The Law. And there ought to be a wide "consensus" on this - and that ought to be the true purpose of "politics." In my previous post, I wrote of a "religion of consent." If this religion spreads, and if the "natural rules" of the natural order listed above are widely accepted, then we have the basis for a stable social order. That is, a "political order" - based on the "common recognition of the same rules." Thereafter, it is simple mechanics to establish a "government by consent." These "governors" are not "rulers" nor "law makers"; rather, they are there to perform some basic services within peaceable civil communities, and to Uphold the Law, while effectively being "under" it.

During the debate on the Arab revolutions, some voices were raised for Democracy - and we were informed of 17 "political parties" being in the fray in one such nation. It could well be that some of these parties are being supported by whatever remains of the ancien regime of the tyrants who have been overthrown. It is not "party politics" but "free politics" through which political ideas and ideals are articulated that can establish the "consensus" about the nature of the political order under which all will agree to live - which is "government by consent." The "religion of consent" on which I wrote yesterday holds the key.

The Principle upon which such a consensual society functions without any disorder is the Principle of Non-Aggression. Force is shunned by all - including especially those chosen as governors. Peace reigns. And the international division of labour keeps spreading.

Civilisation!

Liberty!

Natural Order!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

A Religion Of Consent

Decades ago, I spent a week or two with a bunch of guys and girls on a beach and, during that time, through dialogue, we established a "religion" amongst ourselves, whose chief tenet went thus:

There must not be any must-to-do. There must also not be any must-not-to-do.

A "religion of consent."

Scene II: The village pub this morning, and I am on a feni-soda. Guy comes around asking for water. I tell him, "This is a booze joint, dude. Want water, go to Gandhi's shop."

Everybody laughed - but this is Goa, where alcohol prohibition is unthinkable.

Not so in Gandhi's Gujarat - where "consent" is not the religion, but "force" is. This is not "non-violence." Indeed, this is nothing but State Violence. The inmates of Sabarmati Ashram are using State Violence to bring about their peculiar and warped vision of a "perfect society."

There can never be a "perfect society" if force and power are used to bring it about. These ideas lie at the root of all tyrannies - including religious tyrannies. Socialism, Communism, Central Planning - these are all based on conceptions of some "perfect society" or the other. All that such ideas have yielded is arbitrary power. Tyranny!

Liberty is something else - it is for each Individual to "pursue happiness" his own way. To find his own "perfect high." To find his "personal Utopia." Liberty is not the Utopia of One Mind. Rather, it is the utopianism of all.

The real problem with our country is that "consent" does not rule. Instead, we are ruled by arbitrary rules and diktats. By guns and bullets. By the danda.

The latest evidence on this comes from close by here - Jaitapur, further up the Konkan, where land is being forcibly "acquired" by our The State to build a massive nuclear power plant. This, while civil liability in case of an accident has been "limited" by Parliament in order to benefit foreign equipment suppliers. The news says:

Although the government has issued notices to acquire the 968 hectares of land needed for the project in five villages, most of the villagers have refused to accept the compensation and surrender their land. 

The news adds that the chief minister of Mahrashtra visited the area and blamed "foreign powers" for the trouble!

Methinks the real problem is our "domestic power" - The State - which violates Property. As long as this continues, there can never be a "religion of consent." There can never be any Liberty either. We in India must choose - and the time is now.

There is everything to fear in arbitrary power - which is never government, but always Tyranny.

On the other hand, there is nothing to fear in Liberty, for the religion of consent will prevail, and there will be order - the "natural order."

How do we spread the religion of consent?

Well, how else, but by consent. Each one convince another.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Independence Is Private Property

The previous generation, after "fighting for freedom" - and winning it - claimed to have established "independence": swaraj. But instead of independence, what we now have is a massive "welfare state" that seeks more and more poor people to be "dependent" on it. But this cannot possibly work because anyway The State is dependent upon us for resources: taxation, borrowing and "quantitative easing."

What is "independence for The Individual"? The Whig journalists who published Cato's Letters, gave the following answer to this vital question way back in 1721. After saying that men would much rather not live under masters as their servants and followers, the authors go on to say that Men will therefore always seek their Independence in Private Property:

And therefore all Men are animated by the Passion of acquiring and defending Property; because Property is the best Support for that Independency, so passionately desired by all Men. Even Men the most dependent have it constantly in their Heads and their Wishes, to become independent one Time or other; and the Property which they are acquiring, or mean to acquire, is intended to bring them out of it, and to procure them an agreeable Independency. And as Happiness is the Effect of Independency, and Independency the effect of Property; so certain Property is the Effect of Liberty alone, and can only be secured by the Laws of Liberty; Laws which are made by Consent, and cannot be repealed without it.

What did "socialist independence" get us? Only "collective property": Air India, SAIL, ONGC, the forest department, the CRZ Act. And slums. No clear titles to land. And now, we are headed for "universal" welfare dependency. Independence? Swaraj? Hah!

I conclude with another powerful quote from the same source:

As the Preservation of Property is the Source of National Happiness; whoever violates Property, or lessens or endangers it, common Sense says, that he is an Enemy to his Country; and Publick Spirit says, that he should feel its Vengeance.

Clear thinking from 1721; or about 125 years before Dr. Karl Marx.


Dissent On Blood-Worship

In the past few weeks, many a column and editorial has been published on the complete flop that Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi has turned out to be - the latest being on his "honesty" by Jug Suraiya, wherein he distinguishes between "economic honesty" and "ideological honesty" - and I thought it pertinent to point out that all these CONgressmen worship blood. They worship Sonia and Rahul for no other reason than that a little of Nehru's blood runs in their veins.

Funnily enough, some newspaper editors are also of like "mind." In an earlier post, I had written of one of the first editorials I had penned while with The Economic Times (1998-2002). Today, let me tell of the last.

It was on Sonia Gandhi - and I had been invited to do the job. But what I wrote was not what the paper published. Mine had ended, "the people need Liberty - not another Caesar." The one that was published worshipped blood. I quit.

Interestingly, Cato's Letters, published by Whig journalists during the 1720s in England, contains some excellent material on natural equality and inequality, and on the baneful practice of blood-worship:

Those that think themselves furthest above the rest, are generally by their Education below them all. They are debased by their Conceit of their Greatness: They trust in their Blood; which, speaking naturally, gives them no Advantage, and neglect their Mind, which alone, by proper Improvements, sets one Man above another. It is not Blood or Nature, but Art or Accident, which makes one Man excel others.

This is from the issue titled "Of the Equality and Inequality of Men," which begins thus, thereby showing none of the false equality socialists and communists uphold - and seek to institute through State controls over The Market:

Men are naturally equal, and none ever rose above the rest but by Force or Consent: No Man was ever born above all the rest, nor below them all; and therefore there never was any Man in the World so good or so bad, so high or so low, but he had his Fellow. Nature is a kind and benevolent Parent; she constitutes no particular Favourites with Endowments and Privileges above the rest; but for the most part sends all her Offspring into the World furnished with the Elements of Understanding and Strength, to provide for themselves: She has given them Heads to consult their own Security, and Hands to execute their own Counsels; and according to the Use that they make of their Faculties, and the Opportunities that they find, Degrees of Power and Names of Distinction grow amongst them, and their natural Equality is lost.

This is what we call "natural inequality."

Socialist and Communist Equality is an "unnatural inequality."

VVIP culture.

At its root lies Political Power - not Talent.

And when you dig real deep, all you find is blood-worship.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Justice, Legislation, Law, And Crime

A lead editorial in the ToI draws attention to the fact that our courts system is not working - with millions of pending cases delaying as well as denying Justice. This, while the entire effort of our The State is directed towards what Hayek called "the mirage of social justice": the title of Volume II of his Law, Legislation & Liberty.

This system has been designed and built by socialist lawyers: Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Patel - all lawyers. Lawyers benefit when litigation increases. They are also a "self-regulating profession" like doctors; only lawyers become judges, and only lawyers teach law. All the stuff they teach is "legal positivism" - that is, law that is "legally made" is law. This is the doctrine of legislative omnipotence. Socialism must depend on this doctrine of law, for "democratic legislation" is its weapon, that by which it seeks to control and direct economy and society, and empower the bureaucracy.

What they simply do not comprehend, since their entire "social science" is defective, is that human society exhibits an inner order because all the separate individuals are following rules they themselves do not know, and which have not been articulated - like Property. Society is not "lawless," nor in need of "law makers." When "normalcy" returns to Srinagar, Kashmir, what do the pictures show but streets teeming with shoppers?

Try and imagine another world - without legislation; a "private law society." Its pillars would be Property, Contract, and Torts. These pillars of Law "protect" the Individual and all that belongs to him. That is - such law is not coercive, as in the case of legislation.

We must think along these lines in India today because not only has the courts system failed, the State police are a failure too. The entire criminal justice system is a failure.

In a private law society, without legislation, there would be nothing called a "crime" - that is, in the sense of "crimes against The State." Smoking ganja is one such crime against The State, and there are so many more. All these non-crimes would be fully legit in a private law world. The only crimes, then, would be "crimes against The Individual" - and these would be primarily treated as Torts. So, if anyone injures anyone else or his properties, he compensates his victim. This builds a "caring society," because in such a society everyone takes great care not to injure anyone else through negligence. All are protected by all.

In such a world, there would be very little work for lawyers and judges - and most people would go through life without ever going to court.

Indeed, there is a "natural honesty" among the people, especially in India. And, in the England of the 1720, the subject of one issue of Cato's Letters is"The Natural Honesty of the People... "

A "natural order" exists.

Think about it.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Liberty versus Democracy

Democracy and Liberty are two entirely different things. Rebels and revolutionaries around the world who are "fighting for democracy" should heed this truth - and young Indians need to note this as well. The generation that "fought for freedom" here in 1947 didn't give us anything but the empty vote. No raja, maharaja or nawab ever outlawed ganja in Indian history, nor the nautch girl.

Democracy is not Freedom. Rather, it is Legislation - new ones with every passing day. Now they have even banned smoking cigarettes in bars and restaurants. Unlimited legislation is nothing by Arbitrary Rule - the "will of a few" - and is Tyranny.

A column by Walter Williams makes this very point with regard to America: that their founding fathers established a "republic" and not a "democracy." He writes:

What's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence when he said, "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." That means Congress does not grant us rights; their job is to protect our natural or God-given rights.

For example, the Constitution's First Amendment doesn't say Congress shall grant us freedom of speech, the press and religion. It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."

Since the republicanism of revolutionary America was heavily influenced by Cato's Letters, let me turn my reader once again to what these early "independent Whigs" thought of Liberty and Government:

By Liberty, I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruit of his Labour, Art, and Industry.... The Fruits of a Man's honest Industry are just Rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit... every Man is sole Lord and Arbiter of his own private Actions and Property - A Character of which no Man living can divest him but by Usurpation, or by his own Consent.

The entering into political Society, is so far a Departure from this natural Right, that to preserve it was the sole Reason why Men did so...

That Right being conveyed by the Society to their publick Representative, he can execute the same no further than the Benefit and Security of that Society requires he should. When he exceeds his Commission, his Acts are as extrajudicial as those of any private Officer usurping an unlawful Authority...

What is Government, but a Trust committed by All, or the Most, to One, or a Few, who are to attend upon the Affairs of All, that every one may, with the more Security, attend upon his own? A great and honourable Trust, but too seldom honourably executed; those who possess it having it often more at Heart to increase their Power, than to make it useful; and to be terrible, rather than beneficent.

If I were to re-state these Principles today, in Practical terms, it would be: Freedom and Liberty mean nothing else than that the the police do not interfere. Property is Inviolate. All consensual trades are peaceably conducted. And a Natural Order prevails. Policemen, lawyers, magistrates, and judges are not required.


The following quote from the same source tells of the harm done by "public education" - and the good done by "public intellectuals":

Of all the Sciences that I know in the World, that of Government concerns us most, and is the easiest to be known, and yet is the least understood. Most of those who manage it would make the lower World believe that there is I know not what Difficulty and Mystery in it, far above vulgar Understandings; which Proceeding of theirs is direct Craft and Imposture: Every Ploughman knows a good Government from a bad one, from the Effects of it: he knows whether the Fruits of his Labour be his own, and whether he enjoy them in Peace and Security. And if he does not know the Principles of Government, it is for want of Thinking and Enquiry, for they lie open to common Sense; but people are generally taught not to think of them at all, or to think wrong of them.

One vital area where the entire world has been "taught to think wrong" is about money. Keynesian "monetary policy" makes it full of "Difficulty and Mystery." Yet, it is nothing but "Craft and Imposture." The original US Constitution did not give the Federal Government the power to print notes - but only mint standard coins. Gold and silver coins were money. Hard money. Simple and easy for all to understand.

Let us return to that simple world of Natural Liberty and Honest Money - that is, Money grounded in our History, and not this "theoretical money."

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Next - An American Revolution?

Wish I could print money. Wouldn't that be great! But if I did, I would be a criminal - a counterfeiter.

Ditto for coins. If I made brass coins plated with gold and passed them around - that would be criminal: counterfeiting would be the charge. Yet, emperors and monarchs have been doing precisely this for millennia - and it is called "debasement." It has caused ruinous inflations, and brought flourishing empires crashing down.

Nothing much has changed, huh?

What would I do if I could print money and exchange it for goods and services? What would I buy? Well, a few kilos of ganja to begin with. Beer. And so on.

But what does Uncle Sam spend his paper US dollars on?

Some ideas emerge from this column by Lew Rockwell, titled "The Other Captive Nations," in which he lists out a long list of tyrannies in the Middle East and elsewhere that are being propped up with this funny Uncle Sam money. He writes:

One of the great shocks that has greeted Americans this year has been to discover, perhaps for the first time, that the US has long been running its own bloc of satellite dictatorships in many parts of the world. Just as the Soviet Union had its "captive nations," so too the US has its own collection of valiant allies who are as wicked and oppressive toward their own peoples as the communist dictators of old. 

Americans discovered this only recently due to the massive wave of protests all over the Arab world. Libya is one example. But there is also Egypt and Tunisia, plus Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, and Morocco, Djibouti, and other states, perhaps Saudi Arabia and the UAE too. In each case, a government in the pay and control of the US is facing a population sick of the human rights violations, the oppression, the economic backwardness, the injustice and the attacks on free speech and freedom of movement.

He adds that this "exposes the gross hypocrisy of US foreign policy."

And he concludes on a revolutionary note - calling for another American Revolution:

As such, these revolutions can mean more than the overthrow of despots; they can end in overthrowing the despotic policy and empire headquartered in Washington, DC. Want to join me in the streets?

LewRockwell.com supports Ron Paul, the Republican Congressman from Texas, a medical doctor, an Austrian economist, author of many books on Liberty including the recent End The Fed, advocating shutting down the US Federal Reserve that prints these dollars. He is pretty big in the "Tea Party Movement" - though there are many who ridicule him for his views, including especially his strong stand on a "non-interventionist foreign policy." He currently chairs a committe set up by the House to inquire into Fed matters. But if The American People wake up to his ideas, who knows, it is there that the next big Revolution could occur.

I found some quotes from Cato's Letters that ought to make Americans closely study the ideas Ron Paul is advocating. Written in th 1720s in England, these papers were widely read in the America of the old Revolution:

I have often seen honest Tories foolishly defending knavish Tories; and untainted Whigs protecting corrupt Whigs, even in instances where they acted against the Principles of all Whigs; and by that means depreciated Whiggism itself, and gave the stupid Herd Occasion to believe that they had no Principles at all, but were only a factious Combination for Preferment and Power....

Let us not therefore, for the Time to come, suffer ourselves to be engaged in empty and pernicious Contentions; which can only tend to make us the Property and Harvest of Pickpockets: Let us learn to value an honest Man of another Party, more than a Knave of our own: Let the only Contention be, who shall be most ready to spew out their own Rogues; and I will be answerable that all other Differences will soon be at an end. Indeed, there had been no such Thing as Party now in England, if we had not been betrayed by those whom we trusted.

The Republican-Democrat "party politics" of the USSA is not going to set America right. It needs The People to get involved - and the men leading the way - that is, the correct way - are Ron Paul and, of course, Rockwell, himself the founder and president of the Mises Institute. This means that some very serious Principles are involved - and will be resolutely upheld.

I conclude with another paragraph from the same issue of Cato's Letters. The authors state their creed as journalists:

This Letter of Advice is not intended for those who share already in the publick Spoils, or who, like Jackalls, hunt down the Lion's Prey, that they may have the picking of the Bones, when their Masters are glutted. But I would persuade the poor, the injured, the distressed People, to be no longer the Dupes and Property of Hypocrites and Traytors. But very few can share in the wages of Iniquity, and all the rest must suffer; the People's Interest is the publick Interest; it signifies the same Thing: Whatever these Betrayers of their Country get, the People must lose; and, what is worse, must lose a great deal more than the others can get; for such Conspiracies and Extortions cannot be successfully carried on, corrupting the Guardians of the publick Liberty, and the almost total Dissolution of the Principles of Government.

The essay is titled The Leaders of Parties, their usual Views - Advice to all Parties to be no longer misled. The authors begin thus:

A very great Authority has told us, that 'Tis worth no Man's Time to serve a Party, unless he can now and then get good jobbs by it. This, I can safely say, has been the constant Principle and Practice of every leading Patriot, ever since I have been capable of observing publick Transactions; the Alpha and Omega of all their actions.

Recommended reading: My previous post on Constitutionalism - and its Failure.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Constitutionalism - And Its Failure

As the fires of revolt and revolution spread around the world, and these oppressed peoples look for solutions like constitutions, it seems to me that these opening paragraphs from Friedrich Hayek's Law, Legislation & Liberty (Volume I: Rules and Order; University of Chicago Press, 1973) could serve as a much needed guide in such troubled times.

When Montesquieu and the framers of the American Constitution articulated the conception of a limiting constitution that had grown up in England, they set a pattern which liberal constitutionalism has followed ever since. Their chief aim was to provide institutional safeguards of individual freedom; and the device in which they placed their faith was the separation of powers. In the form in which we know this division of power between the legislature, the judiciary and the administration, it has not achieved what it was meant to achieve. Governments everywhere have obtained by constitutional means powers which those men had meant to deny them. The first attempt to secure individual liberty by constitutions has evidently failed.

Constitutionalism means limited government. But the interpretation given to the traditional formulae of constitutionalism has made it possible to reconcile these with a conception of democracy according to which this is a form of government where the will of the majority on any particular matter is unlimited. As a result it has already been seriously suggested that constitutions are an antiquated survival which have no place in the modern conception of government. And, indeed, what function is served by a constitution which makes omnipotent government possible? Is its function merely that governments work smoothly and efficiently, whatever their aims?

In these circumstances it seems important to ask what those founders of liberal constitutionalism would do today if, pursuing the aims they did, they could command all the experience we have gained in the meantime. There is much we ought to have learned from the history of the last two hundred years that those men with all their wisdom could not have known. To me their aims seem to be as valid as ever. But as their means have proved inadequate, new institutional invention is needed.

The footnotes to this section contain some definitions of constitutionalism that I am appending below:

1. "The original idea behind constitutions is that of limiting government and of requiring those who govern to conform to laws and rules."

2. "All constitutional government is by definition limited government... constitutionalism has one essential quality: it is a legal limitation of government; it is the antithesis of arbitrary rule; its opposite is despotic government, the government of will."

3. "Constitutionalism is the process by which governmental action is effectively restrained."

Immediately thereafter, another footnote says this of modern Democracy:

"The modern conception of Democracy is of a form of government in which no restriction is placed upon the governing body."

In the opening chapter titled "Reason and Evolution" Hayek tells us where we went wrong - and it all begins with not understanding that human society is a self-generating spontaneous order. The order is completely "natural" because man is a "rule-following animal" - but these rules have never been formally articulated, like Private Property. Thus, the illiterate crowds in our teeming bazaars are following these rules - which learned constitutional lawyers are unaware of - and that is why perfect order prevails, and posses of armed policemen are unnecessary. 

Hayek then goes on to point out our philosophical errors - the constructive rationalism of Rene Descartes and his contemporary Thomas Hobbes. In that Age of Reason, these ideas popularised the dangerous fiction that human society could be "designed anew" - by legislators. It was only during the Scottish Enlightenment that David Hume, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith articulated the opposing viewpoint: that human society is an "order without design." Or that the natural spontaneous order we inhabit is "a product of human action and not human design," as Ferguson put it, in his An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767). In a footnote, Hayek quotes from the introduction by Duncan Forbes to the 1966 reprint of this book, in which Forbes writes that the "superstition" that Legislators are Founders of States was precisely that these Scots destroyed:


The Legislator myth flourished in the eighteenth century, for a variety of reasons, and its destruction was perhaps the most original and daring coup of the social science of the Scottish Enlightenment.

It is only after studying these men that Charles Darwin conceived his theories of evolution - another "order without design." I have an earlier post on this.

And it was Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian school of Economics, who put it best when he wrote, in his discourse on the methodology of the social sciences (1883):

How can it be that institutions which serve the common welfare and are extremely significant for its development come into being without a ‘common will’ directed towards their establishment?

Markets have not been designed, just as languages have not. Nor have morals. Money was not invented by one mind - and certainly not that of a great ruler. All have evolved.

Ludwig von Mises must also be invoked here, for it is he who pointed out where true freedom lies:

"What gives to the individuals as much freedom as is compatible with life in society is the operation of the market economy. The constitutions and bills of rights do not create freedom."

The errors of the Cartesian-Hobbesian kind have only been multiplied by modern socialists - who speak of "social engineering" as though humanity is just putty waiting to be given shape by omniscient and omnipotent legislators. Rousseau typifies such nonsense. As with Hobbes, so with Rousseau, both popularised the false notion that society is formed by a "social contract" - and it from these errors that the problems of modern constitutionalism stem. Indeed, Contract is but Private Law. The only social contracts are treaties.

The true picture, that men are "rule-following," allows us to see Law as natural and evolved - though not articulated - and Legislation as interference, as democratic totalitarianism, and as an enemy of individual Liberty as well as a ceaseless violation of Private Property.

Without Legislation, human society would not be lawless - on the contrary, we would peacefully thrive in a "private law society."

The rebels and revolutionaries of today must therefore look towards the English Magna Carta of 1215 AD as their guide - for this is when constitutionalism began, by limiting the sovereign and guaranteeing the liberties of the people.  However, since modern democratic governments have exceeded their constitutional bounds, new limits need to imposed upon them, some of which I have attempted to outline in a previous post:

  • Freedom in the choice of media of exchange. That is, an end to the fiat money monopoly; the end of “legal tender.” Fiat paper notes can circulate – but we are free to refuse them. This will impose financial discipline on The State. Inflationism will finally end. Capital will be accumulated - not consumed. Poor people will benefit greatly.


  • The Inviolability of Private Property by any actions on the part of The State – either through Legislation or through its lawless agents.This will guarantee Liberty.


  • Freedom from the National Debt: that is, an end to State borrowing. This will impose further restrictions on recklessness and irresponsibility in State spending, while also securing the prosperity of future generations.

Unlimited government, which is arbitrary power, is an extremely destructive thing, much to be abhorred by all who desire human welfare. As Trenchard and Gordon, both Whigs (and Hayek preferred to call himself a Whig rather than a "conservative") put it in Cato's Letters, way back in the England of the 1720s:

There is something so wanton and monstrous in lawless Power, that there scarce ever was a human Spirit that could bear it; and the Mind of Man, which is weak and limited, ought never to be trusted with a Power that is boundless. The State of Tyranny is a State of War....

Power is like Fire; it warms, scorches, or destroys, according as it is watched, provoked or increased. It is as dangerous as useful. Its only Rule is the Good of the People; but because it is apt to break its Bounds, in all good Governments nothing, or as little as may be, ought to be left to Chance, or the Humours of Men in Authority: All should proceed by fixed and stated Rules....

This demonstrates the inestimable Blessing of Liberty. Can we ever over-rate it, or be too jealous of a Treasure which includes in it almost all Human Felicities? Or can we encourage too much those that contend for it, and those that promote it? It is the Parent of Virtue, Pleasure, Plenty, and Security; and 'tis innocent, as well as lovely. In all Contentions between Liberty and Power, the latter has almost constantly been the Aggressor. Liberty, if ever it produces any Evils, does also cure them: Its worst Effect, Licentiousness, never does, and never can, continue long. Anarchy cannot be of much Duration: and where 'tis so, it is the Child and Companion of Tyranny; which is not Government, but a Dissolution of it, as Tyrants are Enemies of Mankind.

I trust I have provided all those good people who are fighting their domestic tyrants and seeking their Liberty with plenty food for serious thought. Good luck to you all. May all tyrannies end. And may Liberty triumph.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Exploited Jawan

There is surely no emptier slogan in Indian politics than Jai Jawan, which translates to "glory to the Indian soldier." Today, these jawans are killing our own people - in Kashmir and in Manipur. The Adarsh scam revealed that generals misappropriated apartments meant for the widows of jawans killed in the Kargil War. The defence minister, just the other day, said that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act which establishes military rule in Kashmir and Manipur must be retained. This is neither in the interests of the local populace, nor  in the interests of the character, spirit, and soul of the jawan, for it brutalises him. The AFSPA is what the powers-that-be in Nude Elly think fit and proper, as a means of ruling this nation - not by consent, but by force.

The Indian Army is a relic from British times. As far as the Brits were concerned, they always referred to this army as a "mercenary force." If you read Philip Mason's The Men Who Ruled India - which you must - then, in the chapter dealing with the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, Mason repeatedly uses the term "mercenary" to describe the Indian Army. Poor men join this Army in search of nothing more than wages. And they will continue to do so until the economy is freed and opportunities vastly expanded. In the Kumaon today, a region from which jawans have been recruited en masse for centuries, retired soldiers make a living by selling their "army quota" rum at huge profits. In a free society, they would rather grow and sell their native charas. Today, they are just cannon fodder. Exploited.

The British did not rule this vast nation militarily - most certainly not! They established "civil government" that was run by a "covenanted civil service." The white-skinned district officer went about unarmed and unescorted, alone among millions of brown natives - who trusted in his "sense of justice and fair play." The Army was there in the background, sometimes used against malfeasants - but never against the people at large.  These kallus have launched a tyranny never heard of before in the annals of our History. And there can never be civil government under socialists, who have turned what was a "civil service" into an instrument of "party rule" through the processes of "dual subordination" - and have therefore re-christened it "administrative service." There cannot be anything "civil" without The Market.

The other day, we were on our walkabout when a young lad passed by, and I was told that this fellow was about to finish high school, after which he had decided to join the Army. I winced. Join the Army? And kill people for a living? Or just march around left-right-left-right on a parade ground like a dumbo? What kind of life is that? In truth, this is the life of a "mercenary." A citizen-soldier is a "civilian" who picks up his gun to defend his country against aggressors - and, after the war has been won, returns to his peaceful and gainful trade.

In the thinking of the classical liberals, there is no greater evil that can befall a free nation than that their rulers should be possessed of the services of a "standing army." This is not only a complete waste of revenue in peacetime, it is also a "force" that the ruler can happily use against dissidents whenever he pleases. In India, our tyrants-on-top not only have the Army, they also have some 200 battalions of armed policemen (CRPF) - and all these are used to crush dissent. All these "soldiers" are but mercenaries, not "patriots."

Below is an extract from Cato's Letters, published in the 1720s in England, on the evil of "standing armies":

... it is certain that the Body of Whigs, and indeed I may say almost all , except the Possessors and Candidates for Employments and Pensions, have as terrible Apprehensions of a Standing Army, as the Tories themselves. And dare any Man lay his Hand upon his Heart, and say, That his Majesty will find greater Security in a few Thousand more Men already regimented, than in the steady Affections of so many Hundred Thousands who will be always ready to be regimented? When the people are easy and satisfied, the whole Kingdom is his Army; and King James found what Dependence there was upon his Troops, when his People deserted him....

In short, there can be but two Ways in Nature to govern a Nation: One is by their own Consent; the other by Force: One gains their Hearts; the other holds their Hands. The first is always chosen by those who design to govern the People for the People's Interest; the other by those who design to oppress them for their own: for, whoever desires only to Protect them, will covet no useless power to injure them.

If I were to raise an alternative slogan to Jai Jawan, it would most certainly be Jai Vyapari. That is, "glory to the businessman." In socialist India, where we are all "unfree," young men cannot survive through gainful trade - and hence opt for becoming mercenaries of our The State. This is not "patriotism"; rather, this is "desperation." They all become what Donovan called "The Universal Soldier." But this is neither the pathway to peace nor to civilisation. It is the highway to self-extinction.

Below are the lyrics of "Universal Soldier":


He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend - and me for you.

And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.

And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.

But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.


If we want to put an end to war, we must trade with all nations freely, avoiding protectionism, which fuels international conflict. We must opt for the "international division of labour" - which is the way to international peace. And prosperity. And civilisation itself.

Jai Vyapari!

And Om Shanti!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

A Golden Revolution?

As events unfold in the uprising in Egypt, it seems most likely that some sops will be offered the people, like, say, "elections" in six months, the military and the secret police will continue to rule, and in the end not much will really transpire that will truly liberate the people from this abominable nationalist-socialist tyranny.

Happily, the most excellent non-violent solution to the rebels has been offered in a column titled "Monetary Revolt: The Silver Bullet to Kill a Despised Regime" by Mark R. Crovelli in LewRockwell.com (where else?). I quote the two most important paragraphs below:

The real reason for these [Egyptian State soldiers and cops] men’s ability to keep their jobs and effectively maintain the Mubarak-inspired police state is that the Egyptian people neglected the most important aspect of protest in the modern world; monetary protest. In the modern world of fiat currencies printed by governments like Mubarak’s, it is not enough to say "get out and stop oppressing us," even if millions of people are saying it. It is not enough to storm the presidential palace and string up the dictator like a hog, as the still-oppressed people of Romania know all too well. It is not enough to demand elections, and it is not enough to demand freedom. Instead, what is ultimately needed is to cut off the beast’s funding and starve it to death. No dictatorship, junta or even republic in the world can survive if it cannot finance itself. The mantra of the revolution ought to have been "Down with Mubarak money!"

The protesters thus ought to have made dumping the Egyptian pound and adopting a non-governmental currency the central plank of their protest. They should have enjoined their fellow countrymen to sell their Mubarak money for gold or silver or anything else that’s real, and the value of the pound would have plummeted instantly and massively, which would have spurred even more selling. The patriots who participated in this monetary revolt would have protected themselves from losses by getting out of the pound, while the traitors to freedom in the regime and those who supported the regime by holding onto Mubarak’s pounds would have lost everything. Moreover, the police and military that are paid with Mubarak’s crooked paper money would see an instant and massive de facto pay decrease. This would have forced Mubarak’s central bank to print even more money to finance the military, police and all other bureaucracies, which would have turned the Egyptian pound into toilet paper. The coup de grâce of the monetary racket would then be for the protestors to simply use the worthless paper the junta and Mubarak printed to pay their taxes. A hefty dose of their own crooked monetary medicine would be all that is needed to collapse the regime without even one shot being fired (by the protesters, anyway). 

Crovelli has explained in full - and very well, too - the brief advice that I had tendered the Indian citizenry in a previous post:

The best advice I can offer the citizen is to press for an end to the money monopoly. We must be free to choose media of exchange as well as stores of value. Further, there must not be any taxes or customs duties on gold and silver. We must also be free to write contracts into the future in gold and silver - and this includes bank deposits.

I see little point in mass agitation in India as in Egypt, though our problem is essentially the same: national-socialism, and Nasser was a good pal of Nehru.

The Indian State has over 200 battalions of armed reserve policemen (CRPF) - the very same guys who have shot dead hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed protestors in Srinagar, Kashmir. Their motto seems to be exactly that of the cruel and ghastly Roman Emperor Caligula - Oderint dum metuant - which translates to "Let them hate, so long as they fear." I do not want to see the blood of innocent citizens being spilled unnecessarily. Rather, I think a "monetary revolt" is what our people should seriously consider. The ability of our The State to fund itself, its mercenary soldiers and its spies, must be ended. That is the best, and an entirely non-violent, approach. Inflationism will be ended forever.

The citizenry have everything to gain - both in terms of financial security as well as Liberty, for the curse of fiat paper is what is impoverishing us, and if our The State's ability to fund all its mercenaries is ended, then Liberty will surely dawn.

Think about it.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Religion - And Civil Government

While in a Gujarat ruled by Narendra Modi of the BJP, I published a post titled "Hindu Terror? Or Terror On Hindus" in which I wrote about The Independent Whig, a journal dating back to England in the 1720s, or about 30 years after John Locke's Treatises on Civil Government, and commented on its strong anti-clerical tone. And how the authors say "tyranny destroys religion." We all know how Hindu Brahmins perverted religion until the British came and established "civil government." Indeed, various luminaries then emerged to reform Hinduism - like Raja Ram Mohun Roy.

As the introduction puts it, the authors of The Independent Whig, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, display a "general dislike of clerical pretensions to any kind of civil power or any form of special privilege or position. They viewed churchmen as the most ordinary of people at best and as men who have often perverted their role in society. Churchmen should, therefore, in the thinking of Trenchard and Gordon, be watched carefully and checked in their every effort to exceed their proper and very limited functions."

The Independent Whig was therefore of the opinion that "civil governments are instituted by men, according to their powers and to serve their purposes. They did not owe their existence to 'the immediate revelation of God'." In other words, civil government is not theocratic. Religion is a matter of private conscience, so tolerance should prevail, and the worst tyranny is that in the name of God - as Europe had witnessed for a long, long time.

Below is a long quote from the issue of The Independent Whig of February 1720, titled "Of the Contempt of the Clergy." This was a few years before the birth of Adam Smith - who called himself a "staunch Whig." It is noteworthy that in our own times Friedrich Hayek preferred calling himself a Whig rather than a "conservative."

Note that the capitalisation is as in the original; this is how they wrote those days:

All other Societies of Men are contented with the Esteem and Honour, which result from the Usefulness of their Employments and Professions, and the Worth and Capacity of their Members, and yet none stand in such a Situation, and have so many Advantages to acquire Respect and Homage, as the Clergy.

Their Office is evidently adapted to promote the Welfare of Human Nature, and to propagate its Peace and Prosperity in this World, as well as its eternal Felicity in the next: so that it is in the Interest of all Men to honour it; and none but a Madman will condemn and ridicule what has a manifest Tendency to the Security and Happiness of all Mankind.

The Temporal Condition of the Clergy does likewise place them far above Contempt: They have great Revenues, Dignities, Titles, and Names of Reverence, to distinguish them from the rest of the World; and it is too well known that Wealth, Power, and Learning, carry to the Vulgar a kind of Mystery, a distant Grandeur, and command not only Admiration and Reverence, but often a superstitious Veneration.

Added to this, they have the Possession and Direction of our Fears, and are admitted in Health and Sickness: Every Sunday they have the sole Opportunity to gain our Esteem by worthy and useful Instructions, and all the Week by their good Lives: They educate us while young, influence us in our middle Age, and govern us in our Dotage, and we neither live nor die without them.

A numerous body of Men, so constituted and endowed, so privileged and posted, are capable of being most useful and beneficent to Society, if their Actions are suitable to their Professions. All the World will acknowledge and pay a willing Homage to their Merit, and there will be no need of demanding, much less of extorting Respect, or of Complaints and Exclamations for want of it. The Danger lies on the other Side; for there are such Seeds of Superstition in human Nature, that all our Prudence and Caution will be little enough to prevent even Adoration of their Persons.

If Clergymen would avoid Contempt, let them not be starting and maintaining eternal Claims to worldly Power... Let them not be assuming to give Models of human Government... Let them not pretend to punish any Man for his Way of Worship...

Thus, The Independent Whig emphasises the fact that Tyranny destroys Religion. Rather, tyrants "establish and encourage a false religion." The BJPs Hindutva is one such false religion that seeks worldly power - and has obtained it in some parts of our country, with extremely disastrous consequences. Thus, between the utterly corrupt and brain-dead CONgress, the Communists and the BJP, and the other running-dogs of socialism, there is really nothing for the Indian voter to choose: they are all various shades of black.

The Independent Whig - as the very title suggests - stressed a distrust for the "regular party man." In the introduction to the volume, describing party politics in England then, it is stated:

As with parties in general, so it was with Whig and Tory in the 1720s. When in power, one party behaved much like he other, whatever its past declarations, and neither was to be trusted very much.

These precise words could be applied to the Republicans and Democrats of the USSA today.

The Independent Whig contrasted free government, the system of rule under which Liberty and the public prospered, with its opposite, Tyranny:

Civil Government is only a partial Restraint put by Laws of Agreement upon natural and absolute Liberty, which might otherwise grow licentious: And Tyranny is an unlimited Restraint put upon natural Liberty, by the Will of one or a few.

Thus, Tyranny can be "democratic" - for Legislation is nothing but the "will of a few." Of course, Tyranny can also be Theocratic. Tyranny can be militaristic, or it can be a "one party rule." Civil government is something else.

The book containing excerpts from The Independent Whig and another journal called Cato's Letters, also by Trenchard and Gordon, is The English Libertarian Heritage edited by David L. Jacobson, published by Fox & Wilkes of San Fransisco in 1965. I earnestly recommend this to all. These writings of Trenchard and Gordon, we are told, were extremely popular in America in the 1750s and thereafter, and had a profound influence on the libertarian bent of the original US Constitution.

These days, various nations of the Middle East are in revolt - and it is good to hear that the people are demanding Liberty and not Religion. I hope this post will be of use to them.

As for our own country, I am positive that wide reading of the above volume will surely produce the most beneficial effects.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Foreign Trade - Without Our Central State

The Central Ministry of Commerce controls all our international trade. Therefore, there is very little of it. I have many previous posts on the erstwhile commerce minister, Kamal D Nutt, famed as a WTO-wrecker and a staunch protectionist. Hence, on the west coast, all the ports export iron ore and import nothing. Makes perfect sense to Nude Elly, so very far away from the sea.

Today, there is an interview with the central State's commerce secretary, Rahul Khullar, IAS, in Mint, that reveals much about the deep errors in how these fellows think. The title says the man is very worried about our "trade deficit." The very term refers to a fictitious "national economy," whose exports and imports need to be "balanced" by such bureaucrats. Note that at a sub-national level, such statistics are never resorted to: like, say, the trade balance of Bombay or Goa. Such a concept only matters to individuals, who need to balance their sales and purchases; that is, their income and expenditure. Since only individuals (and individual firms) engage in trade, they alone are capable of taking rational decisions on this score: that is, how much to export and how much to import.

I have only the other day written a post on the fictional nature of the "national economy": that, in truth, there are only "private economies," billions of them, and that notions like GDP and its "growth rate" are false. Today, let me extend that discussion to the ideas expressed by our commerce secretary in the above interview. These are all entirely false ideas, designed to perpetuate bureaucratic and political control over foreign trade.

But why have we Indians set up this State? Is foreign trade regulation one of those purposes? Or should we not just demand from our The State the very same "liberty to trade by land and sea" that the English people seized from King John in 1215 AD?

To begin with, let us understand that we are all, as individuals, major importers. If I sell words - my export - then I import just about everything else into my house. The same applies to my town, in which there are neither any farms nor any factories, and everything on sale in its shops and bazaars have been imported from without - but from the land, and not from the sea, which lies 200 yards away. The question then arises: Why should the sourcing of products in our town and city markets be limited to what is produced domestically? When no individual, town or city is "self-sufficient," why should the nation be so? If a merchant ship laden with goodies draws up at my nearest port, should it be turned away?

In matters economic, one must always think like an individual and never in terms of "national economy" - a false concept designed to confuse the citizenry into thinking that the personnel of The State must plan, regulate and control economic affairs. If we think deep, as the classical liberals did, then The State is nothing but an organisation based on compulsion and coercion established to secure life, liberty and property, thereby allowing each citizen to pursue happiness freely. Thus they called for laissez faire - or "let free" - which means a clear separation of State and Market.

The State, to the classicals, comprised tax collectors, policemen, magistrates, jailors and hangmen - none of whom have anything to do with business. These ideas were lost when the concept of "national economy" took over the public mind, thanks to public education, and each nation-state, with its own fiat paper currency monopoly within its territory, began to intervene in matters economic.

While looking at our own The State in Nude Elly, we must note that this institution cannot even "balance" its own budget! It has always been in the red. It continues to be so. They live off the "perpetual irredeemable debt" - and some 3,50,000 crore rupees are being borrowed this year. Should we not ask of our The State: Hey, dude, why don't you "balance" your own budget instead of trying to fool us all with this bull about a "trade balance"?

Matters become clearer when we think about gold as money; that is, "private money" neither produced nor regulated by The State. Then, just as none think of how many rupees are travelling in and out of Bombay, none will bother about how much gold is flowing in and out of our borders. Each individual will manage his own gold hoard and freely speculate with it, and this includes speculation on imports. Then, just as the East India Company sent out its "tall ships" laden with gold to buy up all the spices in the fabled East and bring them back so as to be able to sell them domestically at a huge profit, many Indians will prefer to be importers rather than exporters. They will send out their gold and impatiently wait for their "ships to come in." Today, the commerce ministry in Nude Elly is giving out "incentives to exporters"! This, while the value of the rupee is in constant decline - thereby discouraging imports! If we adopted a gold standard, things would be the other way around, and imports would become progressively cheaper, especially if the rest of the world stuck to fiat paper money, which would always decline in value against gold. We would become big importers. And our exports would benefit too, because imports of raw materials, components, and technology would become cheaper. We would export high-tech stuff - not low grade iron ore dug out surreptitiously from State Property in the Western Ghats by politically connected "contractors."

With cheap imports, even our poor people would be able to consume foreign wines instead of the harsh grogs of IMFL - and the very idea of Indian Made Foreign Liquor is a product of "import-substitution industrialisation," another of the false theories our State universities teach.

Away with all these theories!

Let us instead use common sense - and let History be our guide. Ancient civilisation developed by the sea - the Mediterranean, in particular - only because there were huge gains from overseas trade. These civilisations flourished only because there was no ruler strong enough to control what went out or what came in - and gold was private money.

One account of the river Thames outside London in the 12th century described the scene as a "forest of ship-masts." This was about the time the Magna Carta was signed, delivering the people the "liberty to trade by land and sea."

Cochin, Mangalore, Surat, Porbandar (where Gandhi was born) - there are so many ancient ports on our shores. Let them all be free to trade with the world outside. And let many new port cities emerge.

Liberty!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Gujarat, Maharashtra, And Goa - Observed

I travelled by bus from the southern tip of Goa, via Bombay, to the Gujarat city of Baroda. Then, I travelled a fair bit within Gujarat, by road. Finally, I returned to Goa via Bombay, entirely by road. Below are some of my observations - and I'll bet these offer a better picture of these parts than statistics - mere numbers collected by government clerks - can ever do.

Gujarat is an urban as well as rural mess. In other words, the human habitat has been destroyed. Apart from Baroda, I saw Surat, Valsad, Ankleshwar and Rajpipla. They are all disasters. I saw poverty-stricken villages made up of rickety hutments, and I saw lots and lots of messed up small towns.

The taxi ride to Bombay took me through wide open spaces with low hills. Greenery. For hundreds of miles on end. Quite pretty. Totally "unowned." Of course, no land is really unowned in India. All such land is by default State Property. My point is that all this State Property is out of bounds for the citizens. It is thus sheer waste. We need to be free to "homestead" unowned lands like these.

I finally arrived in Virar, a far-flung suburb in northern Bombay - and it was a mess. I trained it to Bandra - and that was a mess too. I then took a taxi to Colaba - and on this ride I passed some well laid out areas, surely dating back to British times. I was driven through Marine Drive - built because then there were no environmentalists who preferred mangroves. In Colaba, I saw many splendid old buildings, now in disrepair, surely because of rent control. This legislation violates both Property as well as Free Contract - and destroys buildings because, with rents frozen, landlords can no longer maintain them. For the tenants, it is "legal plunder" - as with all such "socialist" legislation.

I then took the bus to Goa. The bus left at 5:30 pm - and it was quite dark by the time we were finally out of the city! All along, the city stretched on and on, endlessly - and all through everything seemed an almighty mess. Old, dilapidated houses, shops, shops, and more shops, dirt and filth, a uniform greyness, crowds bustling around. Commerce, yes; but civilisation, no.

Finally, when we were out of city limits, I saw a sign saying Panjim, the capital of Goa, was 560 km away. I was awake right through the night, much of the time in the cabin upfront, alongside the driver, smoking and looking out. One observation: There wasn't a single urban settlement of any size or quality the entire 560 km distance between Bombay and Goa. Except for Sawantwadi, which we reached at dawn. But Sawantwadi is not an "Indian city"; rather, it is another of those Princely States that Sardar Patel and Lord Mountbatten took over for IAS administrators. Sawantwadi borders Goa from the north.

Goa stretches 150 km from north to south - and there are three big cities: Mapusa, Panjim and Margao. These are all Portuguese-built, but today all face overcrowding and over-building. Then, there are lots and lots of little towns. Of course, they too are quite unkempt today.

All visual observations, however, strongly suggest that life in Goa is much, much better than anywhere in Maharshtra or Gujarat - including Bombay. The chief reasons for this are: far greater urbanisation and also a far greater degree of economic freedom.

There are bars in Goa everywhere, including in the villages, and even for the poor - and I mean the very poor. There are casinos. Gambling on numbers is an open business - for poorer people. The economy is also diversified, especially because of tourism. But this tourism occurred after the Portuguese had been chucked out in 1962 - and then the hippies came. Tourism ought to have urbanised the coast, but this has not transpired under IAS administrators who love panchayati raj. The beaches may be great, yet the settlements on the beaches are but overgrown, overcrowded villages. The Coastal Zone Regulations legislated by Nude Elly are only worsening things for human beings. Long live the mangroves, eh!

It is in the area of housing that Goa really stands out as compared to both Gujarat and Maharashtra. Here, everyone owns a small cottage, quite pretty. Tiled roof. Property is secure. Titles, at least to newer properties, are clear. But then, urban overcrowding is leading to a Bombay-like situation - and ugly apartment blocks have mushroomed. With so much free land around, and with better roads, Goa could urbanise in a far better fashion, spreading itself out. There could be little cottages everywhere. Towns everywhere.

Maharashtra and Gujarat - and, I daresay, the rest of India - have a lot to learn from tiny Goa. What I discovered, to my delight, is that you also get GOOD ganja here.

Boom Shankar!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Pursuit Of Happiness

The other night, I was at a fancy bar in downtown Bombay, drinking draught beer, when I was forced to step out in order to enjoy a cigarette - the curse of Legislation at work, once again. Outside, I happened to enter into conversation with two young fellows, one of whom remarked that people like me who visit such establishments are all "pleasure seekers" - and he meant this in a derogatory way. In order to demolish this stupid killjoy, I replied as follows:

All the hard work we all perform every day is nothing but pain. After the work is over, the pleasure begins - when we receive our wages or profits, which is what we are all working for. But these wages and profits are just money - hence real pleasure only comes our way when we spend that money on consumption. The work is just the "means"; consumption is the "end."

Now, while we all know that independent India has never really been a consumer's paradise, it is also an added fact that in all our cities of joy, there is very little recreation - like pubs everywhere, in which ordinary people can relax and enjoy a fresh draught beer or two or three. What is wrong with seeking such a small pleasure?

I added that the socialists who have been running our affairs since 1947 have always claimed that their policies will render India a better place for workers. They hate capitalists; they claim to love workers. But the truth is that workers obtain very little satisfaction from their wages. Import barriers hurt consumers - and, as far as pleasure is concerned, there is none. Poor people in our nation consume the worst booze, the worst tobacco (bidis) and the worst ganja-charas. There is almost no live music or dance. No casinos. No nightlife. This is precisely what happens when public opinion curses pleasure seekers.

When socialists uphold "the rights of workers" what they really defend are the legal privileges and immunities of trade union bosses. The real right of the worker is not just to his wage; rather, it is on the goods and services he can consume with these wages. That means free trade and free markets - not socialism. It surely also means the right to pursue pleasure and happiness, especially after a hard day's work.

The philosophy of pleasure as an end of civilised living is very old, dating back to Epicurus in ancient Greece. In Clive Bell's wonderful essay Civilisation, the author cites Plato's Symposium as being the best example of civilised living in the Athens of those times. The word "symposium" means "drinking party," and the tale told is of one such party that Socrates attended, where copious quantities of wine were drunk, where the conversation sparkled so much that the flute-girls were told to go away and entertain the servants so that the deep discussions could continue undisturbed. Much of the discussion was on love. Towards the end of the party, guests pass out one by one. Only Socrates remains capable of walking. Incidentally, while this party was indoors, there was also much drunken revelry going on outside on the streets!

I have just toured Gujarat, where Gandhian prohibition rules, and written a post on its horrendous effects. Gandhi also championed swadeshi - which screwed up our consumption. He championed an insane kind of work for all to perform for themselves - spin yarn on an ancient charkha. This screwed up our budding textile industry. It was Gandhi who found pleasure seeking immoral. There is nothing "theoretically valid" in this philosophy. It ought to be dumped wholesale. In Gujarat, I often spoke to the people of the wonderful taste of wine, which every European peasant enjoys a few bottles of everyday. I spoke of how healthy a drink beer is - and how micro-breweries ought to be freely established in every village, supplying fresh draught beer to the poor. I convinced all I spoke with, and I hope they will soon be fighting for the Liberty to pursue pleasure.

Finally, it must also be noted that pleasure is "subjective." Every Individual finds pleasure and happiness in his own mind, in things that please him. None can presume to dictate the pleasures of anyone else. Thus, Liberty is essential, so that each can pursue happiness in his own way.  In Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Ludwig von Mises writes of how classical British political economy was philosophically rooted in Epicureanism:

The historical role of the theory of the division of labor as elaborated by British political economy from Hume to Ricardo consisted in the complete demolition of all metaphysical doctrines concerning the origin and the operation of social cooperation. It consummated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation of mankind inaugurated by the philosophy of Epicureanism. It substituted an autonomous rational morality for the heteronomous and intuitionist ethics of older days. Law and legality, the moral code and social institutions are no longer revered as unfathomable decrees of Heaven. They are of human origin, and the only yardstick that must be applied to them is that of expediency with regard to human welfare. He does not ask a man to renounce his well-being for the benefit of society. He advises him to recognize what his rightly understood interests are. In his eyes God’s magnificence does not manifest itself in busy interference with sundry affairs of princes and politicians, but in endowing his creatures with reason and the urge toward the pursuit of happiness.

As I saw and wrote about Gandhi's Gujarat these days, the policy of alcohol prohibition is not based on "reason." Nor are these policies designed to promote happiness. Ultimately, public opinion is to blame. And public instruction as well. All the wrong philosophies are being taught. This is why tyranny rules - and not happiness. Or, indeed, civilisation itself has been lost. When tyranny rules, ruffians rule. Barbarians.