The lawyer Prashant Bhushan is a leading light of the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement currently underway, along with his father, Shanti Bhushan, who is also a lawyer.
Today, the Express reports Prashant, while speaking at a public rally, insisting that "post-1991 economic policies, and privatisation, are the root cause of corruption." To Prashant, the freeing of enterprise from the clutches of our The State is the "precise reason" why corruption has grown. Ominously, the report begins by saying:
What was initially showcased as an anti-politician front against corruption seemed to blur into an anti-economic liberalisation coalition...
Prashant was joined on the dais by Arundhati Roy, who said:
As long as we have these [liberal] economic policies in place, the National Employment Guarantee Act will never be able to do away with hunger and malnutrition, anti-corruption laws will not do away with injustice, and criminal laws will not do away with communal fascism, the twin sibling of economic totalitarianism. They will, at best, be mitigating measures. As the historian Howard Zinn said “the rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and power in such complicated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered."
Arundhati Roy added that "I have known Prashant Bhushan for years. First as a comrade and now as a close friend."
Other "activists" on the podium, according to the report, were Aruna Roy who championed the MGNREGA "right to employment" and now champions the "right to food." She never supports the "right to Property."
Aruna Roy, interestingly, is a Member of the National Advisory Council attached to Sonia Gandhi.
So, these are not rebels; they are socialist sympathisers posing as rebels. They are not "against the System." They are against The Market. They are opposed to Liberty - and Property. They champion useless rights while ignoring Property. And they are led by lawyers - that is, socialist lawyers. I have just written a post against socialist judges - all of whom start off as socialist lawyers. Beware of socialist lawyers: Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Patel - all were socialist lawyers.
Since Prashant Bhushan is a "comrade-turned-friend" of Arundhati Roy, let us examine her words quoted above - for the two obviously agree on their politics. Let is begin with her assertion that "as long as we have these [liberal] economic policies in place, the National Employment Guarantee Act will never be able to do away with hunger and malnutrition... " Does she think that if we close all markets down, the masses will be fed by our The State? Where does The State get revenue from to feed anyone - but from wealth producers of The Market?
Arundhati Roy favourably quotes a pseudo-historian who wrote that “the rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and power in such complicated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered."
This is NONSENSE!
The Rule of Law protects Private Property from State predation. Apart from the security of possession, this yields the sweet fruit of Liberty. As Mises put it:
Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will. It allows other forces to arise side by side with and in opposition to political power.
Thus, the Rule of Law does not "allocate" anything. Its motto is "to each his own." Then, with Liberty and Free Markets, individuals speculate on how they can serve their customers better, competition enters the picture, people strive, some succeed, some fail, and the previous arrangement of wealth is altered, and keeps on altering forever. Mises says:
It is precisely the necessity of making profits and avoiding losses that gives to the consumers a firm hold over the entrepreneurs and forces them to comply with the wishes of the people.
This Free Market is an "economic democracy" - and not the "economic totalitarianism" Arundhati Roy rails against. Central economic planning is totalitarian - not Free Markets, which are a creature of Liberty, and in which each is free to challenge the superiority of another - to compete. Further, as consumers are "sovereign" in The Market, and every businessman is trying to woo the consumer, there is an "economic democracy" that works even better than the political one. As Mises put it:
The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote. It is precisely the necessity of making profits and avoiding losses that gives to the consumers a firm hold over the entrepreneurs and forces them to comply with the wishes of the people.
We are "served" by businesses. We are never served by politicians and bureaucrats, who are "self-serving." They are the Predatory State. Prashant Bhushan, Arundhati Roy and Aruna Roy are actually on their side - though they may pretend otherwise.
There is either The Market - or there is The State. There is nothing else. These anti-corruption activists who are opposed to The Market are all in favour of a Bigger State - a Big Welfare State that will feed, house, clothe, educate, develop and uplift the sheeple.
They support useless "rights" - while ignoring Property, from which alone can Liberty arise. These useless rights only serve politicians and bureaucrats (whose budgets grow exponentially).
Thus, they are not against corruption; rather, they will reinforce corruption - and even enlarge it.
They are looking for State Power themselves. The Jan Lok Pal will be their little bit of The State.
In exchange, they will allow the socialists at the helm to continue to operate a Big Welfare State - which will consume all our precious Capital and therefore keep our masses permanently poverty-stricken, and our civilisation will soon collapse.
For the progress of civilisation we must "accumulate capital" - and not consume it through welfarism. All welfare is about consumption, not investment.
I have an earlier post on Anna Hazare's tin-pot dictatorship in his village.
Add to that this nonsense from his closest aide, the lawyer Prashant Bhushan, and you realise that this is another false dawn.
So, I shall stick to my prescription: The Sheeple must rise En-Masse and FORCE our The State to sign a New Magna Carta guaranteeing the inviolability of our properties, the freedom to trade by land and sea, and the freedom to run our cities and towns without interference from higher authorities. The corruption inherent in inflationism must be ended, so that our wealth is preserved with sound, hard money.
We must "Seize Liberty and End Tyranny." Our focus must be to fight tyranny, not corruption.
Our battle must be for Liberty and Property - and we must never accept any freebies doled out by The State. These freebies are paid for by us, anyway.
Lawyers are very dangerous people - look at Kapil Sibal and Arun Jaitley. Lawyers - like doctors - are a "self-regulating profession." Lawyers become judges, and lawyers teach law. Just as doctors misuse their monopoly of knowledge, so do lawyers. The only cure - the citizens must know law too. That is, the Laws of Liberty and Property.
Good post. I am puzzled by Arundhati Roy's anti-liberalisation stand given that she is an intelligent woman. However, in her op-ed piece in today's Indian Express she writes something that perhaps you could respond to. She says that pre-liberalisation we were told that it was the public sector companies who were corrupt and inefficient and this would disappear with privatisation. Now so much is privatised, she says, but corruption continues. Personally i feel corruption will always, like a weed, try to thrive. Just because a company is private does not necessarily mean it is not corrupt. But there should be a system in place that prevents powerful corporate lobbies from paying for favours (like the big pharma lobby in the US). Your comments on this, please.
ReplyDelete@Devil's Advocate:
ReplyDeleteThe "liberalisation" of 1991 occurred in an intellectual vacuum - which is why not much has really been privatised (like Air India or the "navratnas") and our The State has actually been expanding in various other directions, like "welfare," nuclear power, education and so on.
We were NOT told in 1991 that socialism is a flop - which is why Chacha Manmohan continues with "central planning."
We are still very much a socialist country - though the private sector has been considerably enlarged, the public sector has not shrunk. We remain a "mixed-up economy" run by mixed-up people. There is zero ideological clarity.
As far as corporate corruption is concerned: If any State sets up shop to sell favours, companies will surely line up to buy them. These favours typically involve shutting out competitors to tax waivers to hidden subsidies.
The best - and only - way to deal with this is to keep The State OUT of The Market: which means laissez faire capitalism. Let foreign trade be totally free. Let competition be completely open. Treat all businesses and businessmen alike - by keeping them at arm's length from The State.
The Big Pharma lobby exists because of patent protection and the "regulation" carried out by the US FDA (Food & Drug Administration). If the FDA was shut down, along with the Patent Office, Big Pharma would have no favours to buy - and consumers of food and drugs (medicines) would be protected by Tort Law.
As long as government is "arbitrary" there will be corruption among businessmen. Only strict Rule of Law can stop this - as in the case of Big Pharma and Torts. Hope this answers your query.
Have you heard of the catastrophe of the man who rid a tiger? Let us connect the dots: Anna team takes full support of the RSS to see that the anti-corruption movement they is successful. The Organization was more than happy to extend full support for obvious reasons. After all, investigative agencies have started closing in the perpetrators of home grown terror. Till then it is smooth ride for both outfits. But then, Kejriwal and associates decides to campaign against Congies in the bi-election knowing very well that it will benefit the Saffron party. A cleaver by half step only a RSS minded person can think of. Prasant and a few others were not ready for this. They decided to keep away from the electoral campaign. That did not go well with the RSS who had invested so much in making the anti-corruption campaign a successful one. They waited till the last day of the canvassing and then decided to send a strong message to Mr. Prasant and company. Don't mess with us. If we can bomb trains and mosques, teaching you a good lesson for your miss-deeds is cake walk for us. Well, this is what happens when you ride a tiger. The earlier we know our enemy within the better.
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