The Trial Of chacha manmohan s gandhi - Part 2: Take #2

Continuing from where I left off yesterday, let me now draw my reader's attention to an excellent and brief essay by Friedrich Hayek that none have ever noticed, titled "Two Kinds of Mind." This essay is to be found in his New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and the History of Ideas. In a nutshell, this Nobel laureate says that the "education system" currently in place all over the world - and this applies particularly to India - promotes and encourages those whose minds are good at memorising stuff. The crammers and muggers top the schools, enter the best colleges, and so on. Hayek says that he himself did not possess such a mind. He confesses to having not done too well at school. And he adds that whatever he did cram, for the examinations, he promptly forgot afterwards.

The other kind of mind, Hayek says, is one that assimilates "concepts." This sort of mind is slow. It is no good at memorising. Instead, it slowly and painfully assimilates concepts within it, building one on top of the other. Hayek says that his mind is of this sort. Such minds are NOT encouraged today - and certainly not in India.


Hayek has a chapter in his popular book, The Road to Serfdom, titled "How the Worst Get on Top." The education system is an integral part of this process. Good minds do not rise; the muggers do.

In India, the schools are all meant for muggers and crammers. The "education" youngsters receive is full of "formulae" that must be remembered. This is particularly true of advanced mathematics and statistics. It is also true of physics and chemistry, including organic chemistry. The study of History is NOT conceptual; rather, it requires the mugging up of chronological data: dates. Muggers top the exams. As for the rest, they forget everything they learnt soon after school.

The same continues in college. The study of "Indian Economics" is nothing but the mugging up of useless statistical data. The mathematisation of Economics is likewise. There is zero conceptual learning - that which leads to an "understanding" of the vital issues concerning market exchanges. The higher one climbs up the educational ladder, particularly in Economics, the more bizarre the curriculum becomes, and the more mathematical. And I mean highly advanced mathematics, extremely complex, which requires the memorisation of formulae. 


It is important to note that basic arithmetic is a part of every human being's mental construction. Our language contains numbers - and so we know how to count. In the Market Economy, we need nothing more than Arithmetic: addition, subtraction; and, maybe, division and multiplication. The chairmen of the biggest companies in the world use nothing more to understand their balance sheets. It was Goethe, no one less, who said that double-entry book-keeping was one of the greatest inventions of the human mind. These bastards have given us weirdo maths instead - for all to learn. This is the mathematics of The Devil.

I attended one year of the Master's degree programme at the Delhi School of Economics (and quit!) in 1977-78. We had 8 papers in all; but we also had a Course Zero, titled "Mathematics for Economists." And just the other year, I came across a bright young girl from the DSE - one who had attended some of my privatseminars - who cried on my shoulder and said, "I had come here to study Economics, but all I seem to be studying is mathematics." In my time - and things must surely be the same - the toppers at the DSE were those who took "Six Tricks": that is, six papers in Econometrics  (out of 8). Most of these muggers came from Presidency College, Calcutta. Note that it is easy to "score marks" in mathematics if you get your formulae right. This is how the worst minds get on top.


I also pursued and acquired a Master's degree in Business Economics from Delhi University between 1981-83 with specialisation in International Trade and Transport Economics. Both were taught in mathematics. We in India have NO international trade. All our sea-ports export mineral ores and import nothing. And as for our transport system, it is FUCKED. This is the result of mathematics. To pass the examinations, I even had to take tuition in math! Of course, I have forgotten all that shit.

Engineering students and medical students must, of course, mug formulae. But so do students of Law - and this is particularly harmful. They study "positive law" - that is, the written law - and they mug it all up clause by clause, article by article, Latin maxim by Latin maxim. I have personally seen the room of one such student of Law: he had written all the articles of the Constitution of India, and all the sections of the Indian Penal Code, on the walls of his hostel room, so that he could mug them all. 


It is noteworthy that chacha manmhoan's "human resource destruction minister" is a socialist lawyer. Lawyers are extremely dangerous people - especially when they are in possession of political power. Good lawyers are engaged in "private law." That is, property, contracts and torts. In India, we have NONE of these PROTECTIONS under the law. Even the BJP spokesman, Arun Jaitley, is a "constitutional lawyer." In other words, he possesses political power. He is not in the "enterprise of law." Rather, he has simply mugged up the Constitution of India, much amended, article by article, and beyond that he knows nothing. This is how the "worst get on top" and this is why there is no Justice in socialist India.

The "education system," now in the hands of CONgress lawyer, has always been engaged in the encouragement of "rote-learning." It is a "deliberate device" by which our The State, which controls and monopolises all education, makes the youth dumb and dumber. They memorise everything that our The State wants them to, but they "understand" nothing. The examinations are only a memory test - almost 90 percent of which is unnecessary in a Free Market Economy. In such an economy, where knowledge is "fragmented," people specialise, and only need to know the knowledge relevant to their calling. Just as we save on labour by specialising, so too do we save on knowledge. We do NOT need to know all there is to know. We need to be competent only in one chosen field. Thus, almost 90 percent of schooling is superfluous, and a burden. 


It is particularly shocking that the length of schooling, which was 10 years in the 50s, became 11 years in my time, and is now 12 long years. In the good old days children were only taught the 3R's - that is, reading, writing and arithmetic - after which they were encouraged to "find their calling" and acquire the relevant knowledge, either through apprenticeship, or otherwise. Apprenticeship was paid - and kids earned money, entered the Market Economy early in life, got married early, and so became self-supporting citizens by their mid-teens. Today, most kids cannot afford to marry till their 30s. This is part of the evil designs of our The State, which has delayed marriage deliberately, by legislation, in order to "control the population." It is this State that is the REAL PROBLEM. Not the kids.

Almost all of this protracted education our kids receive from The State is useless. I have simply forgotten all the higher mathematics, trigonometry, algebra, physics and chemistry I studied in school. It is NOT required for all. We need to drastically alter and cut down on education. Instead, our Great Leader, chacha manmohan s gandhi, is conspiring to inject this deadly venom into every innocent child's mind pan-India; and that too, by FORCE.

If a perfect example of the kind of bozos created by this "miseducation system" is required, it is our elite bureaucracy: the IAS-IPS-IFS types. They all cram for a tough examination in their youth - BY MUGGING - and never study anything again. They spend the rest of their lives studying government files. In their "academies" nonsensical Economics is taught - deliberately - thereby dumbing them down even further. They mug up all the "positive law" - including the Constitution of India - and the end result is that nothing from the government works; there is no "functional legitimacy" of our The State; and even the judicial system is a failure. The entire legal system is corrupt. Many judges have been found to be corrupt - in both the High Courts as well as the Supreme Court.


I have myself passed the UPSC examinations to qualify for the "public services" - not once, not twice, but three consecutive times - with Economics and Psychology as my elective subjects. Since then, after over 25 years of daily study - and public writing - I feel that the UPSC examination is nothing but a test of "how well do you know our bullshit." I have lectured twice at the IAS Academy in Mussoorie. After one of my lectures, the then Deputy Director, Yaduvendra Mathur IAS, told me: "We are knowledge-proof." They are also, interestingly, bullet-proof. They have VVIP security. And I have no gun to defend myself against them.

Thus, all the corruption we find in our society is nothing but the "corruption of the minds of the youth." It is for this great crime that chacha must be prosecuted.

This "miseducation system" is designed by our Great Leader, chacha manmohan s gandhi, who is nothing but an "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Nehru," and has served as Chairman of the University Grants Commission. In my book, all schools and colleges in India supported by our The State, or whose curricula are imposed by our The State, must be closed down immediately. This miseducation system will kill every single intellect. It will destroy this bright new generation. Even more importantly, it will WASTE TIME. The years of one's youth are precious. It is then that the mind is keen. As they say, "You cannot teach an old horse new tricks." The flower of Indian youth will be destroyed if our chacha is allowed to pursue his evil plot.

I will continue on this theme tomorrow. Stay tuned for Part 3.

The Trial Of chacha manmohan s gandhi

In 1995, I attended the centenary celebrations of the London School of Economics to present a paper at the Department of Government, and the most memorable event I witnessed during those few days was "The Trial of Karl Marx." It was held at the Old Theatre, and had three senior dons performing:

Meghnad, Lord Desai played Dr. Karl Marx;

Professor Kenneth Minogue was the Prosecutor, and

Professor Bernard Crick was the Counsel for the Defence.

The charge was read out to the audience, who were the Jury. The charge was as follows:

You, Dr. Karl Marx, are hereby accused of having wasted the time of humanity with your theories.

If found guilty, Dr. Marx would have to attend First Year BA classes at the LSE.

If found not guilty, he would be free to return to Highgate Cemetery.

The event was hilarious as well as serious. I enjoyed it thoroughly - and even wrote a column on it for The Economic Times. I was a freelancer then.

A similar charge ought to be levelled against our Great Leader, chacha manmohan s gandhi. During his long and illustrious career, spent entirely in State Employment, this man, if you can call him that, also served as Chairman of the University Grants Commission. He is, in reality, an "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Nehru." 

I wrote just the other day about the Theory of the Vicious Circle of Poverty which was taught to me on the very first day of my BA Economics (Hons.) course in Delhi University - and how this is designed to kill the intellect. 

Add to that the neo-Malthusian "population problem" bullshit - and the student of Economics, which is best defined as "the study of the production of wealth through the division of labour and the fragmentation of knowledge," is filled with complete hopelessness, as indeed I was. He sees poverty as inescapable. And he sees his fellow human beings as the problem. He sees State Power as the only solution. 

He is then taught "Indian Economics" - which contains all the pious intentions of the Central Planners, and all the statistical data which must be mugged up. This curriculum was surely designed by our Great Leader. And it is this poison that he seeks to inject into the minds of all the children of this nation. He is misusing State Power for this purpose. His Free Education comes with the Education Tax. And it is also Compulsory.

Here in Pondicherry, when I look out onto the road in the morning, I see these children going to school. What huge heavy bags they carry! How many NCERT books they buy and study. How much mathematics and how much statistics and God alone knows what else our The State has conspired to teach them. What is the need to study so much? That too, for so many years. In my own case, I scarcely remember anything I learnt in school - and the same applies to most people. All I am grateful for are Br. FitzPatrick's English essay classes, where I learnt how to write.

Some seven or eight years ago, when our chacha first announced his "free and compulsory education programme," all the newspaper editors praised him. I alone dissented. I was then writing a monthly column for the editorial page of The Times of India - and my article against State education was rejected! Jug Suraiya was then the editor of the page - and only after a protracted email dialogue, six or seven mails each way, did he finally agree to publish my dissent. This itself shows how gullible we have become BECAUSE of our "education." 

It is something like the Fisheries Department jeep I saw on the road here yesterday. Is our The State now going to catch fish for us? If you go to the seashore, you will see that real fishermen, who KNOW how to fish, lack modern equipment - like, say, a modern fishing trawler or even an outboard motor. The Education Department is much the same as this Fisheries Department. We do NOT know what government is meant for - because it is this government that is miseducating us.

There is a huge amount of "real knowledge" that is NOT allowed into our markets because of State Restrictions - like the dancing ladies of Bombay. I have seen excellent musicians languish in poverty because of restrictions on bars, pubs and nightclubs. There is no "nightlife industry" in any Indian city. We are all forced to go to sleep by their "wee willie winkie" laws. Stay home and watch TV, we are told. Bollywood Bollywood Bollywood. And UndieTV, of course. The Undie of The State.

Whereas Dr. Karl Marx faced the mild charge of having wasted the time of humanity with his theories, to my mind chacha manmohan should face a much more serious charge; indeed, the very charge that Socrates faced. And that is, of "corrupting the minds of the youth."

I would like to be The Prosecutor.


You can read Part 2 of this post here.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

The Constitution of India, the longest written constitution in the world, has a chapter mandating the "fundamental duties of the citizen." But it says nothing of the fundamental duties of The State it establishes, nor any limit to its powers, for it does not even guarantee the citizenry security in their properties. Even as I write, the Socialist Supreme Court is discussing the merits and demerits of forcible "land acquisition" by our The State.

In all our cities and towns, there is garbage all over the place. Their is dirt, filth and stench. Flies and mosquitoes proliferate - causing disease and even death. Many die of dengue fever in Nude Elly every year, a disease caused by a particular kind of mosquito.

In the meanwhile, our The State pretends to look after our health. There is a Ministry of Health, whose last incumbent, a political flyweight from Madras, banned smoking in public places; and this includes "private places" like restaurants and bars. 

But there is so much garbage in public places!

I discovered another such pretension yesterday as I examined my bottle of Carlsberg beer. The label says: "By Appointment to the King of Denmark." In other words, this sovereign recommends this fine beer to his subjects - and to the world at large. However, just alongside this solemn proclamation, our The State has FORCED the manufacturers to add their mandatory warning:

Consumption of Alcohol is Injurious to Health.

This displays ignorance; not only medical ignorance, but also historical ignorance. In the old days, no one drank water in the cities of Europe, because the water was full of germs. They drank beer - which is boiled before fermentation. They drank wine.

In India, our people do NOT drink beer or wine - because these have been overtaxed; and these high taxes have encouraged tipplers to go for hard liquor instead. Hard liquor on a daily basis is most certainly injurious to the health. You don't need a doctor to tell you that. You know how sick you feel the morning after.

Indeed, as I was travelling from Madras to Pondicherry, I passed the State-owned arrack factory. I remembered the stench from the old days. I drank this arrack once, with some rickshaw-wallahs in Madras - and it was horrible. If trade was free, arrack-drinkers would have Sri Lankan arrack, which tastes better than any Scotch whisky. Take my word for it.

Beer and wine are consumed by poor people in the West. Anthony Sampson, in his The Anatomy of Britain, records that when Labour Party meetings are held, beer is served, while when the Conservatives meet, it is champagne that flows. I read a biography of Michaelangelo once, in which it was mentioned that this great sculptor survived on wine and bread when he was poor.

Let us move on to tobacco. This is something new in India, for we have always been smokers of ganja, which is non-addictive and good not only for the health, but also the mind. It delivers the smoker a "mild euphoria": that is, it makes him "happy." It also expands the mind, which is why sadhus, while lighting a chillum, say "Alakh! Khol de Teesri Palak." Translated: "Shiva! Open my Third Eye." It is the Philosopher's Drug.

Our The State has prohibited ganja and charas - something even the Brits did not do - while unleashing tobacco upon us. And there too, it has FORCED manufacturers to place ugly "health warning" signs on cigarette packets:

Smoking Kills.

But flies and mosquitoes kill too. And they are caused by garbage.

Tobacco does NOT kill. Deng Xiao Ping smoked 90 cigarettes a day - and lived a long and happy life, during which he transformed China, throwing out Maoist Communism and replacing it with (flawed) Capitalism. 


And there is much more to tobacco than ITC cigarettes. There are cigars and cigarillos; there is pipe and rolling tobacco. All these have been blocked entry into our markets by the Customs Department. Personally, I prefer cigarillos to cigarettes - but here in India, you never get them.

I perceived this great hypocrisy on the part of our The State while in the swank Rajiv Gandhi Airport in Hyderabad. There, they did have two tiny "smoking rooms" for people like me. I pointed out to my fellow smokers there that the Hyderabad region is famous for its tobacco. I also pointed out that the last Nizam of Hyderabad chain-smoked the cheroots that his subjects produced. These locally made cheroots are NOT available in this airport. Meanwhile, the poor masses are smoking awful bidis. Open a bidi sometime and check out the tobacco within it, both quantity and quality. If cigarettes were not taxed, no one would smoke bidis. And if they could freely sell their mahua and handia, no forest-dweller would waste time picking tendu leaves.

In either case, we are dying on the streets. Over 200,000 Indians (and quite a few tourists, too) are killed on our unsafe streets and "notional highways" every year. This, while the State Police are working ever so hard on VVIP Security. They are working hard on "security concerns" that range from the Taliban to all the jehadis and terrorists and Maoists and Naxalites. Yet, they cannot look after our health on the streets. 

Making our streets safe requires no "intelligence." It does not require universal ID cards. It does not require phone tapping or e-mail interception or all the other kinds of snooping that these cops of ours are so good at. It requires Science. We must import experts in this Science. We must import experts in road design and engineering too.

And as for the Socialist Constitution of India - it is garbage itself. It needs to be dumped. We need a constitution that mandates duties for mayors - like the collection of garbage and the protection of life on the streets.

We are a very clean people. Our bodies, our homes, our kitchens - they are always spic-and-span. In Pondicherry, they wash the pavement outside their homes every morning and decorate it with a pretty rice-paste design. It is a crying shame that all our cities and towns are such a complete mess. 

This was not the case in British times. Sir Bartle Frere, while Governor of Bombay, received a letter from Florence Nightingale congratulating him on the fact that Bombay had a LOWER death rate than London! In Calcutta, the streets were WASHED every morning, and there are still to be found the hydrants installed for the purpose. Of course, these are no longer working.

Let us then think of a New Constitution. One based on the Inviolability of Private Property. And one which prescribes duties for mayors of cities and towns - while leaving the people Free. 

Free to smoke whatever they like. Free to drink whatever they like. Free to engage in commerce with the world outside. 

Free!

Pondicherry's Hideous Big Government

My intellectual journey began right here in Pondicherry - and it all came back to me as I strolled leisurely down Beach Road last evening. I used to walk up and down this road every night in the mid-80s, accompanied by my dog, who was never on a leash. Then, as now, most of the buildings in this prime part of town are State Property. First you pass the huge office of the Tourism Department. Then comes the Central Excise and Service Tax Department. There is the office of the Legal Services Authority. There is a memorial to BR Ambedkar. Tucked away is the huge office of the Inspector-General of Police. And finally, at the other end of this short road, is the gigantic, and ugly, Chief Secretariat.

Even then, I used to ponder over a little building that used to house the Mayor's office in French times. Then, it was being used as a State-run cafe. It still is.

But the huge big government of Pondicherry doesn't stop here. Just behind Beach Road is the Democratic Assembly. They put up a Chief Minister and his big Cabinet.

Heading all this is a Lieutenant-Governor!

All this - and no Mayor.

Then, as now, the town is a mess. And all the taxation is predatory. While I was breakfasting at a roadside stall this morning, a motorcycle drew up and the woman running the stall paid him some money in exchange for a tax receipt. Upon inquiry, I learnt that he was from the Municipality. What "service" does the Municipality provide for which they extort this tax? Indeed, what "service" does the entire Indian State provide us that we pay them "service tax"?

In 1988, I finally got the chance to study Comparative Local Government at the London School of Economics. Interestingly, they didn't teach me about the Lord Mayor of London - which I found out about and studied myself. I have been studying and writing ever since 

I left the LSE in 1989 - and my concern has remained the same: To solve the riddle that Government presented. In time - and intellectual evolution takes time - I finally came back to the realisation that all we need are mayors. Nothing more. This idea first came into my head 25 years ago - right here in Pondicherry. It all came back to me last evening. It  felt good to be back.

At the LSE, I learnt about William Niskanen's theory of the "budget-maximising bureaucrat." This is evident in Pondicherry. The IAS and the IPS have simply multiplied government departments, expanding staff and budgets - this, while providing no real service to the citizenry at all. On the way to Beach Road, there is a huge office of the Traffic Police. And on Beach Road itself, another of the Tourist Police. Now, that's a new one, ain't it?

Being a Sunday evening, Beach Road was milling with people. The road was closed to traffic, but a Maruti van belonging to the Tourist Police was being driven up and down. Seated within were some cops with guns. A few plainclothes guys mingling in the crowd would have sufficed, I thought. You rarely see uniformed cops in Amsterdam.

Last evening, I saw a tent at one corner of Beach Road housing a handicraft exhibition-cum-sale. It was stifling inside. But the stuff on display was quite good. And varied. No space for private commerce on this road. All the space has been taken up by The State - and the Aurobindo Ashram, of course, about which more later.

What do all these government big-wigs do here? I found the answer at the air-conditioned ATM. There was a uniformed guard inside. I told him he had a good job - sitting in air-conditioning all day, with nothing to do. He smiled happily. Then I asked him how much he earned - and he said 5000 rupees a month. I told him he could earn much more if he got off his butt, got out of the air-conditioning, and did some "real work." The roadside vendor who provides me with breakfast every morning earns many times more.

Like the guard in the ATM, our IAS-IPS chaps are just sitting in air-conditioned offices, doing nothing. Shuffling files around.

I am therefore of the firm opinion that Pondicherry should drastically reduce the size of its government and revert to French times, when all they had was a Mayor. That is all this little town needs. This huge big government is just a burden created by budget-maximisers, funded by rapacious tax collectors, and also by the "funny money" of the inflationist Reserve Bank of India.

I have a lecture ready and waiting to be delivered - Powerpoint presentation and all - on the subject of "Free Cities: Theory, History and Practice." It is scheduled to be delivered in Mangalore in July, but I would be more than happy to deliver it right here in Pondicherry, preferably under the aegis of Lions Club International, whose advertisements I saw all over town. If anyone wants to contact me for the purpose, I am available at the L'Ocean Guest House.  

Liberty - From Here To Eternity

The State does NOT create wealth; rather, it destroys it. In the England of old, the King was never rich, but the merchants of the Olde City of London were fabulously wealthy. They were not selling computers, cars and the like those days. But the fishmongers, the grocers, the vinters who imported and sold wine - these were rich beyond belief. Edward II once had only 2 shillings in his treasury. And as for Henry V, when he went to battle at Agincourt, he had to pawn his jewels with the merchants of the City to raise the necessary funds. Thus, during the send-off ceremony organised for him, the Lord Mayor sat on his right - which is why, till this day, the Lord Mayor of London is second only to the King.

In India, we think the King - or The State - will create the wealth. He will make steel. He will give us "employment." This is a great delusion. This great delusion is multiplied by the fact that The State produces the money - paper notes. Today, Mamata Banerjee is running to the Centre for funds - from Pranabda. The Centre has no funds; all they will do is print more and borrow more. Similarly, here in Pondicherry, I just read that the government of this tiny city has borrowed 4,400 crore rupees (44 billion) from the Reserve Bank of India - and cannot pay it back. With so much money, the city could be built anew. Here, there is so much commerce on the streets - too much commerce, too little street. A sum of 4,400 crore rupees could have built so many miles of broad thoroughfares. Where has the money gone?

In my view, everything begins with "self-help." We must NOT look to the Centre, to Nude Elly, for its "funny money." The merchants of London gave the King his taxes; they did not seek his assistance in running their affairs, building their streets, or other civic facilities. So, each city and town must raise its own internal resources - in gold - and elect its own Mayor, an honest and honourable man, to perform the essential tasks of maintaining a city so that commerce can transpire peacefully. The purpose of a city is commerce.

There were no "political parties" in England - not until the 17th century. In India, our political parties are all gangs of anti-socials - which is what socialism is all about. The Lord Mayors of London were all wealthy merchants themselves, among the wealthiest men in the world. But if you look at chacha manmohan, sonia gandhi, beta rahul, advani, sitaram yechury - none are creators of wealth. They are all wealth destroyers. All these parties must be abolished.

There is only ONE legal principle required to obtain Liberty for all - and that is the Inviolability of Property. If Property is violated by private persons, it is either theft or trespass. Ditto for whatever local government the people set up to run their cities and towns. The local government is established to protect Property, not to violate it. If this Principle is followed, all will be well. Perfect order will prevail along with perfect Liberty. 

The Principle of Property applies even more so to money - for money must be tangible Property and not a paper note.

As far as public thoroughfares are concerned, they are "public property" and they should not be obstructed by private persons. It is the task of the local government to ensure that all thoroughfares are kept clear of obstructions. This is not happening now. Not in Nude Elly - and certainly not in Pondicherry. Every city and town mayor must focus on this issue - roads and traffic regulation. This is much more important than the RAW and IB and their "security concerns." Over 200,000 people die on our unsafe streets every year, and many times more are injured. The IPS are as much a disgrace as the IAS. Both "services" must be abolished.

Outside the cities, lies the countryside - and here, apart from roads, what matters most is the provision of clear Property Titles. This must be done by the people through their own, new agencies, using GPS technology. The patwari system is a complete failure under IAS maladministration. It must be abolished. 

Since cities are NOT self-sufficient, and all the needs of the city come from outside, it is in the interest of the city to see that outlying farmers, for instance, can easily bring their produce to market. These arrangements can be organised by collaboration between each city and its outlying villages. In this manner, real estate development will also occur in the rural areas, benefiting all. Satellite towns will also develop.

It must be noted that England till date does NOT possess a "written constitution." Such a device is totally unnecessary. A bunch of jokers crowded into a room cannot agree on anything - and the end result is disaster for a billion people. A written Constitution is required to establish and then "limit" the government set up. This has not happened anywhere in the world - including the USSA. 

All that is required is the Principle that Private Property is Inviolable by all. If this is "public opinion" then none can use force to take away either the Liberty or the Property of anyone else.

A city mayor - and some "aldermen" or "councillors" - are not rulers. They do not "make law" as legislatures do. They are just like the governing body of a club. That is all each city and town needs. They must find their own people - because everything depends on the use of "local knowledge." If it is your city, then your people must look after it. I also believe trained and experienced city administrators can be hired from abroad - and they should.

This, in brief, is all that a "constitution of liberty" is all about. Private property, private law and private money. Liberty - and perfect order. Peace. Prosperity. Of course, foreign trade should be unilaterally freed - and the cities and towns on the coast should do this on their own. It is in their own interest to do so. The Customs Department should be abolished.

I am also of the view that all the tax arms of the socialist State should be done away with. Local taxes should be raised in each city, from owners of Property - and they alone should be entitled to vote for the mayor and aldermen. Universal suffrage is a disaster. In either case, you need Liberty more than the empty vote. No one in Nude Elly can open a beer bar - but they can vote! What sense does that make?

The motto of the Olde City of London is domini dirige nos, which translates to "Let God be our Guide." That is the motto of Liberty. They did not say "let the King be our Guide" - as we stupid Indians did.

Here in Pondicherry I awoke to the sweet sound of the muezzin's call of prayer - "Allah ho Akbar." This, too, means much the same. That God is Great, that God is our Guide, that no King and no Man can order us around. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, like the Lord Mayors of London, was a merchant, as was his wife Khadija.

With this, we can rid our nation of the pernicious disease of "politics" - and those who call themselves "politicians." Like the word "democracy," all these words are meaningless these days; or their meanings have been completely distorted. These words come from Ancient Greece, and they meant other things there.

I delivered a lecture once at the YMCA in Mangalore titled "Politics: The Root of all Corruption." When we chose Socialism and Statism, we politicised everything, and thereby corrupted everything. 

Virtue comes from The Market. When markets are free and Competition is fierce - everyone tries harder and harder to keep his customers happy. Towards this end, they "study the happiness" of the public. This is something no State ever does. All the State does is give you the Big Stick - up your ass. Get rid of that stick - and you will be free. Fix your cities and towns, free your markets, and you will slowly but surely be able to rebuild this shattered civilisation - if that word can still be applied to this sub-continent. Just keep one Principle in mind - that Property must be inviolable.

There arises the question of "unowned" things - and these should be free for "homesteading" on  a first-come-first-served basis. This includes things like radio spectrum, virgin forest lands, oil and gas fields etc. The principle here is "finder's keepers" - something all schoolchildren know only too well. 

And as for me, I have no interest in the "trappings of authority." I am awaiting for the members of my reggae band - The Ganjeras - to arrive so we can start rehearsing for an album and maybe even a show. Our first number planned is "Veeru Was A Good Man" to the tune of Bob Marley's "Johnny Was A Good Man." Let the sandalwood tree be Free! 

It's Humans versus Apes

The Science of Economics begins with an understanding of the "logical structure of the human mind" and the mental "categories" embedded within it. The first of these categories is Property - or the ability to distinguish what is "mine" from what is "thine." This, indeed, is the basis of trade - for when we trade we trade properties - and this category is exhibited by all good little children when they say to one another, "give me some of YOUR chips and I will give you some of MY cola."

With the onset of maturity, this mental category of Property develops into the category of Capital - and is exhibited even by illiterate nomadic herdsmen who carefully oversee the size of their herds to ensure that their Property, which is their Capital, does not decrease. In other words, a third category is also present, and that is Income. The human mind naturally possesses the ability to distinguish between Capital and Income in order to ensure that capital is not being consumed; rather, it is being accumulated. This accumulation of Capital is the basis of civilisation. 

This "economic calculation" is nothing but basic Arithmetic. Nothing more advanced is required in The Market. Advanced math is for the physical sciences - not the Science of Economics.

When trading individuals interact in busy markets, it is the category of Property, embedded in each human mind, that ensures perfect order prevails. No posses of armed policemen are required to "maintain order" in any crowded bazaar because everyone knows what is "mine" and what is "not mine" and that in order to obtain desired objects, he must trade some Property of his own.

This is the Human Being. And this is Capitalism - embedded in all our minds.

Let us now turn to our closest cousins - the apes.

Apes cannot trade. If a horde of monkeys descends upon a fruit market, widespread plunder will ensue. This is Thomas Hobbes' "war of each against all." Poor Hobbes. He had never seen a monkey ever. And he was a mathematician to boot. Dangerous people, these mathematicians. Both Mises and Hayek studied Law - that is, the "rules of the game." That is how we understand how society works.

Let us now turn to Socialism - which is the "ideal" upon which the Constitution of India is based. Socialists believe in the nationalisation of all Property. They despise markets and traders. Thus, they do not possess the mental category all decent little boys and girls are blessed with by their Creator. They have been created without this mental category - and thus, they are exactly like our closest cousins, the apes. They are NOT human.

The nationalisation of private property, the forcible acquisition of private lands, the cops and other State functionaries who prey on businessmen - they are all ape-like. Of course, they are supposed to be "trained." But then, as I found out to my utter shock and disbelief some years ago, the Professor of Economics at the elite IAS Academy at Mussoorie is a Marxist! An ape.

Let us now turn to the Law.

In the "natural order" of decent human beings trading peacefully in markets, where Property is respected, no outside Law is required. No "legislation" - which would be an interference. Of course, in our more advanced times, other facets of Property would have to be upheld in Law - and these are Contracts and Torts. All three - Property, Contracts, and Torts - are "private law." Human society can happily exist, and human civilisation can gallop along, without any "democratic legislation" at all - such as the prohibition of ganja, or gambling, or alcohol, or anything else. People are free to harm themselves, but they are not free to harm others or their properties - which would be a Tort, for which compensation would have to be paid. Thus, in such a private law world, there would be no "crimes"; or, in effect, all crimes would be torts; that is, they would be crimes against individuals and their properties. There would be no "crimes against The State or its interfering parliaments."

The ape-like character of democratic legislation is best demonstrated in India by the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) - which many called "draconian" but it was I who first deemed it to be "immoral." When the central banker cannot convert his paper note into money, it is he who ought to be in prison: a "debtor's prison," where traditionally such plunderers have been kept on a diet of bread and water until they repay their dues through the auction of their assets. Thus, the Enforcement Directorate, which murdered Rajan Pillai, harassed Ashok Jain to death, jailed and humiliated KL Chugh - these guys belong to the planet of the apes. The judges who tried cases under FERA, the lawyers who pleaded before them - they are all apes.

Lawyers are very dangerous people, too. Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Patel - they were all lawyers. So was Abraham Lincoln - and look what he did to the USSA. Lawyers are a "self-regulating profession" just like medical doctors. Lawyers teach lawyers, and lawyers alone become judges. So, just as we have "medical malpractice" we also have "legal malpractice." This is our precise condition.

Now, the Central State's Minister for "Free and Compulsory" Education is a socialist lawyer!

Wanna go to his schools?

So what should a Constitution of Liberty look like?

I will expound on that tomorrow. It will be very brief - unlike the socialist Constitution of India, which is the longest written constitution in the world.

Stay tuned.

My Sympathies Are For The Poor Alone

The June 11 issue of Outlook Business dedicated to "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) to which I had contributed against the motion was not available anywhere in Orissa, and I managed to find a copy only in the swanky Rajiv Gandhi Airport in Hyderabad. Yesterday, I read through the issue and quite frankly must confess that I have never read such a load of patronising and condescending tripe in my life before. You can find the entire issue here.

To begin, the proponents for CSR assert that "hunger is India's greatest problem" and they quote the fucking World Bank "measurement" that since 90 percent of Third World people survive on less than $1.25 a day, they must be hungry. I wonder if any of these bozos have ever walked the streets of our cities - like I do. This morning, for instance, here in Pondicherry, I breakfasted on 5 steaming hot idlis and one fat dosa for just 15 rupees (20 cents) from a roadside stall opposite the railway station - and that should keep me going till sundown. Lots of poor and hungry customers were being fed via the "division of labour." None had to buy "cheap rice" from our The State, nor did they have to grind it, steam it, fry it, or make coconut chutney. Just 15 rupees - and clean, healthy food at that.

But if we were to really examine the conditions under which these businessmen and women work to stave off real - and not imaginary - hunger, we will surely discover that the "health inspector" (there was a huge Public Health Department building nearby) preys on them, as do other predatory government agencies. This is a Predatory State - from Top to Bottom.

There are other problems such people face as well. For example, these food stalls never get water supply. They have to carry water from far distances. Further, if commercial space was increased, its value would fall - and these stall-owners would graduate to shops. 

Nearby was a very wide open drain that the French built to separate the "white town" from the rest. Even in the 1980s when I lived here I often told people that this should be covered and the space gained thereby used for shops - because the commercial areas were, even then, overcrowded. No one has thought of this during these 25 long years - while fools fed on fucking World Bank data feel concerned about "hunger."

Every single "philanthropist" arguing in favour of CSR has a deep desire to "educate the poor" - but these people do not need to be taught by Anu Aga or Shiv Nadar how to make idlis and dosas. Anu Aga - who sits on the National Advisory Council (NAC) that hangs around sonia suggesting ways and means of widespread "capital consumption" writes that she wants to educate the poor so that her engineering firm can hire trained people. In which case, she ought to set up a Thermax Engineering College - which is all that Thermax knows. Shiv Nadar writes that he is setting up a Shiv Nadar University to teach "arts & sciences" - but he doesn't say that State Universities should be shut down and top-notch foreign universities freely allowed to set up shop - for shop it is, and education, we all know, is a Big Business, and has nothing much to do with philanthropy.

There are some goras on their side as well - the head of Dell computers, some woman from Hewlett-Packard, and some "management guru" totally ignorant of even the basics of Market Economics. I recently bought a Dell laptop and threw it into the sea! Shouldn't these people focus on creating better products - as Steve Jobs of Apple is doing. I have earlier written how both Azim Premji as well as Bill Gates are engaged in "false philanthropy."

Then there is Mahindra Motors writing about how they renewed a forest near their plant in Nashik. But forestry and timber could be Big Business for the poor. Imagine sandalwood, ebony, teak, rosewood and mahogany being freely grown instead of being State Property. And shouldn't Mahindra's own products be better? I recently drove a Mahindra Scorpio jeep my friend owns - and gave up! Felt like a bloody truck!

There is also a "measurement" of CSR provided by the Tata Institute of Social Science (and another by KPMG). What has this Tata Institute ever contributed to our understanding of society? And have you ever taken a ride in a Tata Indica - as I did from Madras Airport to Pondicherry? Incidentally, the library at the Delhi School of (Mathematical) Economics is named after Sir Ratan Tata.

We have also had a Birla Institute of Technology co-existing with the Ambassador car. Not to mention a Bajaj Institute of Management.

To understand what can really help the poor, you must read ALL of Peter Bauer, who was a "development economist" who toured the entire Third World, observed the poor in markets - especially "informal markets" - and wrote about what he saw. It was he who said something very important about Third World poverty - and that is:

Poverty indicates just one thing - the absence of economic achievement.

He then went on to add:

Economic achievements are made in markets.

All these corporate types who profess to being philanthropic ought to read Samuel Smiles' Self-Help, written in Victorian England - a book that outsold the Bible, and fired the Japanese in their catch-up with the West. It tells the stories of many, many people of humble origins who struggled against great odds - including poverty - and rose to incredible heights through sheer effort, perseverance and dogged hard work. Such books are positive motivators - and I am proud to say that I personally edited and wrote a foreword to an Indian edition of this great book, published by Liberty Institute many years ago.

Poor people need Liberty. They need Property - including commercial property: shops. They need roads. They need modern modes of transportation, especially urban transportation. And they need encouragement. They do NOT need this patronising and condescending CSR bullshit - that too, from a bunch of CRONIES of our The State, who do not want to compete with foreigners themselves, and want to keep on selling second-rate "capital goods" to our poor people. Such people deserve to be DISGRACED.

We have had endless people faking concern for the poor - from Nehru to Manmohan to Sonia to all the NGOs put together; and now we have these rich bozos who know nothing and want to "educate" poor people who are already possessed of knowledge valuable in the market. They never utter the sweet word LIBERTY! - only because they fear it. They thrive on the misuse of State Power: the "customs barrier." Which is why I tell all poor people - never buy swadeshi; always buy videshi. Buy the best. Unilateral free trade - for the poor, against all these bozos. I have no sympathy for these bozos. All my sympathies lie with the poor.

The only true friend of the world's poor was Peter Bauer - and do read my eponymously titled tribute to him.

In the end, if there is anything that everyone needs to understand, it is Economics. It is this vital subject that is being mistaught by our The State in India, as I pointed out yesterday. If these CSR bozos go about "educating" our people, with State support, it will be DISASTER!

To conclude, let me quote Ludwig von Mises:

Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.

I hope you get the reason for my strong moral outrage.

The Philosopher's Stone

After those horrible weeks in Orissa, it was sheer delight to be in tiny Pondicherry - and civilisation. Shops, shops and more shops, bars and restaurants, masses of people everywhere, and even lots of bright neon lights. 

This small city was built by the French, the roads all neatly arranged in a "grid pattern." The central market area is called Grand Bazaar - and in 1985, I served briefly as the head of Grand Bazaar Police Station. I always recall those days, and those years, for I spent close to three years here, because while I headed Grand Bazaar PS, there was NO CRIME reported. During those years, I noticed that the people are all "god-fearing and law-abiding" and that a "natural order" prevailed. I saw that something was seriously wrong with Thomas Hobbes' view that without The State there would ensue "a war of each against all." There was no such war in Pondicherry. There was only one murder - of an MLA, and that is "political crime." Also, I personally saw the local police tear up the "history sheet" of a newly appointed CONgress minister! I found police work so boring, that I even resigned, but that's another story.

Today, I walked down these streets and their bazaars again, where perfect order prevails, wearing a t-shirt saying:

DON'T STEAL.

The Government Hates Competition.

Today, after over 20 years of "private investigations," a long "intellectual journey," I have found out why this natural order exists. It is so simply because we are all "rule following animals." Apart from religious and cultural rules, we follow commercial rules - and this results in a "commercial culture." Pondicherry exemplifies this culture as, indeed, does any place in this vast sub-continent. The existence of this commercial culture is what civilisation is all about, with its cities, their markets, and all the shops. A "nation of shopkeepers" is really what we are.

Yet, even here, as elsewhere, the truth of what my t-shirt says is evident. Much of the place, especially the commercial areas, is a mess; and traffic is worse than hell itself. In my time, most people rode cycles; today, they have progressed to motorcycles. No one has thought of tramways because I presume they have to apply to some "planner" in Nude Elly for permission. All the "political parties" are centralised, as is the IAS-IPS bureaucracy. All report to Nude Elly. And what an almighty mess Nude Elly is!

I strolled along the Beach Road promenade last night, as I used to do with my dog those long years ago, and passed the Governor's house, with its cannons mounted at the gates. There was a diesel generator on! And it is this The State that produces electricity! Sure enough, the electricity failed in my hotel. I passed a dental college set up by this State, which also runs a University and many schools. I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt saying "Studying Sucks!"

This is the fundamental error our nation has made. We have not sought Prosperity, Peace, Order and Knowledge in The Grand Bazaar; rather, we have asked the guys with the guns, with cannons at their gates, to deliver these to us. Error. The fact that these guys are clueless has already been brought out in previous posts.

Today, what I would like to add is that the guys with cannons at their gates, whether here or in Nude Elly, are issuing wrong commands to their own staff, their personnel. In the liberal scheme of things, the State does NOT command The Market. Rather, it commands its own staff to see that enemies of this market order are brought to justice. This is NOT happening. From Nude Elly you just hear nonsense about free rice for the poor and free and forced education for all, and, of course, the MGNREGA-bullshit; you never hear of all the important things that must be done in each of our cities and towns by the local people themselves, who possess the "local knowledge." They give orders to close down shops at 10pm. They give orders to harass smokers. They don't do any "useful work." This is particularly true of the Traffic Police. And this is true all over India.

Note that the masses of people roaming around in the bazaars are NOT "organised" into any "society." They are truly a "cosmos" of individual stars, an "order without design." Socialists wanted to organise and regiment such a cosmos into what Nehru called a "socialistic pattern of society" based on economic equality. It is from that point on that the guys with the guns got it wrong. And from Chacha Nehru to chacha manmohan it has been a long, downhill journey. As BR Shenoy asked of these planners, way back in the 1950s, is India to achieve "planned progress or planned chaos"? Today, it should be obvious, this IS planned chaos - especially on the streets, and we are fortunate if there are any streets at all, because these guys want to make steel and fly planes - and, of course, "educate" all the kids. 

Over my dead body, I say. For I was one of those "miseducated" kids myself. On my very first day at Hindu College, Delhi University, in 1974, there to study for a BA degree with Honours in Economics, I was taught The Theory of the Vicious Circle of Poverty. This says that poor people and poor nations are destined to remain poor forever - unless they receive outside aid, which can come from their own State, or from "foreign aid."

This was taught to me and millions of other Indians almost exactly 200 years after Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), in which he said we are all blessed by our creator with "a natural propensity to truck, barter and exchange." You see little children exchanging toys and other things amongst each other: like "give me some of your chips and I'll give you a sip of my cola." The instinct to trade is "natural." In my boarding school, we boys even developed our own "medium of exchange" - our money - and these were marbles. If you wanted something from someone else, you gave him some marbles, and different kinds of marbles had different values. That is the miracle of the trading, human mind. It needs NO COMMANDS.

The idea of a "command economy" is what has made this into a Predatory State. The commander is evil. He is possessed of two great big evil eyes. And a great big evil mind. If you want to survive, if you want your children to survive - the same children they call the "population problem" - and, most importantly, if you want this wonderful civilisation to survive, all these cities and towns, these shops and markets, these evil people must be overthrown.

Forthwith! 

If I may add, poverty is a HUGE MOTIVATOR. Poor people always struggle hard to succeed, while the children of the rich usually get addicted to luxury and vice, idling their lives away. A great big fortune made by one generation is usually completely dissipated by the next two, rarely built upon. I hope you see what a great big lie they taught me, on my very first day in class, under the head of "Economic Theory."

Song of the Day: Van Morrison's, here.

Socrates Departs From Orissa

Before studying philosophy, it is useful to inquire into the nature of the philosophers themselves: Who the fuck were these guys? Socrates becomes very interesting to know about, because he was executed by Athenian Democracy, for "impiety, and corrupting the minds of the youth." Yet, he was just a simple "street corner philosopher," always dressed in rags, always barefoot. He was given to the practice of "collaring" people on the streets and asking them questions, so that he could point out their errors.

Another kind of philosopher is Amartya Sen. I saw him at the bar in the Habitat Centre in Nude Elly once, drinking red wine with Arjun Sengupta of the Planning Commission. Sometime later, some men began entering a private room behind the bar, and I saw former Prime Minister LK Gujaral among them. Amartya Sen and Arjun Sengupta then rose and joined the secret conclave of big wigs.

Another time, I attended a public lecture by Amartya Sen in the same Habitat Centre. He was accompanied by Ted Turner of CNN and some other heavy-duty goras. Chairing the session was Gopal Gandhi, Governor of West Bengal. After the speech, I asked the people accompanying me what they understood - and both replied, "Nothing." I tried to ask a question, but Gopal Gandhi ignored me. Note the mandatory Gandhi.

Amartya Sen is unreadable as well. His Rationality and Freedom even contains numberless pages of advanced mathematics. If mathematics were the key to reality, Pythagoras would be the greatest Greek philosopher - but he was an asshole, and that's another story.

Adam Smith is eminently readable, and his prose is lucid and elegant. The Wealth of Nations was a "bestseller" of its time, and Smith is reported to have earned a "genteel fortune" from the book. Smith's life makes interesting reading too, for he spent years and years alone in his little Scottish village, taking lonely walks by the sea, thinking. Philosophers think. And thinking is done alone. Scientific knowledge is produced by men tinkering in laboratories, alone. Only Pierre and Marie Curie thought together, perhaps.

Thinking and writing - the "production of knowledge" - is a lonely enterprise. In the Science of Economics, the great men have all been lonely thinkers. The media circus and the television talking-heads ignored them all - focusing on the "politicians." Yet, in Ancient Athens there were politicians too, but Socrates was someone else, a street corner philosopher whose dialogues taught Plato much.

Mises writes that even in the USSA philosophical discussions in high-society "salons" never happen. In Europe, it was always the philosophers who carried the day, not the politicians, he writes. 

I am such a philosopher - of reality, of Freedom. I once saw a film on Hayek titled "Philosopher of Freedom." 

I am also adopting for myself a new name, by which all my future writings will appear, and that is Baba Pagal Nath Charsi.

I am leaving Orissa in a few hours, and by the evening expect to be in Pondicherry, where Aurobindo - who started off as a "terrorist" - took refuge and spent the rest of his life in metaphysical speculations. I have some lectures scheduled in the Roshni Nilaya School of Social Work, Mangalore, a Christian institution where I have taught many times before, and I guess I will make my way across to the West Coast again.

One final word for the people of Orissa: Drink coconut water. It is a healthy morning drink, better than tea or coffee, which are sugary. The coconut guys are struggling to sell their stuff, on cycles. Pepsi and Coke are selling in trucks! I suggest a major company be set up to market green coconuts - worldwide - to take on Pepsi and Coke. The ad-line can go: 

No fish ever fucked in this water!

Ha ha.

Baba Pagal Nath Charsi signing off.