Bengal - As A "Nation Of Shopkeepers"

While some have concluded, quite correctly, that the West Bengal elections were won and lost on the issue of Private Property, this blog took the point further and argued that, for the new regime, road-construction must be a top priority, because roads automatically increase the value of lands they link to. Oddly enough, the news has it that the Mamata Banerjee government has 35 ministers - but no mention is made of a roads minister!

Today, there is another piece of news from Calcutta that suggests roads must be top priority. Referring to Calcutta's street hawkers, this news report concludes with the following paragraph:

The Chief Minister said she had been holding discussions with officials concerned for improving the traffic system that would entail, among other things, widening of some roads without evicting hawkers on the pavements.

Why are there so many street hawkers in Calcutta? Two reasons: First, Calcutta is the only Big City - and so it attracts migrants like a magnet; and second, these migrants cannot afford to buy shops. How will roads help?

With roads into the surrounds, satellite towns would develop, and more and more commercial property would be built, bringing down the cost of shops. In time, more and more of these hawkers would become regular shop-owners. That is the direction in which Bengal must proceed - build roads so as to urbanise aggressively; and put an end to zoning rules so that commercial property grows without any legal restrictions.

The West was also like this. I recall visiting the ancient City of Cologne in Germany some years back, and walking about its markets with a local journalist who told me that, in the olden days, one of the legal responsibilities of the City Mayor was to oversee the smooth conduct of all business on the streets: that is, business conducted by street hawkers and vendors. 

My guide told me that in ancient times, poor people from afar would travel to Cologne to sell their wares in its markets - and the Mayor had to look after their interests. But now, said my guide, everyone owns a shop - and this legal responsibility has recently been deleted from the duties of the City Mayor. The same can happen in West Bengal - a state that has many big cities and towns apart from Calcutta. Economic progress ought to mean that street-hawkers become shopkeepers.

Of course, western cities still have informal markets and street hawkers can still be found - as in Amsterdam - but these are run by quite prosperous folk, and they rake in bigger profits than regular shopkeepers because tourists prefer to shop in such informal markets. And overhead costs in informal markets are quite low.

It is also my opinion that aiming for a Bengal that is a "nation of shopkeepers" would totally destroy the appeal of Communism, which has held the average Bengali in its thrall for decades - and encouraged him to become a government clerk: a baboo. Indeed, the very word is Bengali. 

Bengal was the first province in India to be ruled by by the British - and it was Napoleon who ridiculed the British by calling them "a nation of shopkeepers." Napoleon preferred France to be "a nation of patriotic soldiers" - but it was Britain and not France that emerged victorious. It was the nation of shopkeepers that ruled the world. Mises says something noteworthy about these shopkeepers - and the civilisation they begat:

The much abused shopkeepers have abolished slavery and serfdom, made woman the companion of man with equal rights, proclaimed equality before the law and freedom of thought and opinion, declared war on war, abolished torture, and mitigated the cruelty of punishment. What cultural force can boast of similar achievements?

The Brits built all the great markets of Calcutta - the very old "New Market" was built by Sir Stuart Hogg - and a section of it is still named after him.

Bengal has voted for poriborton - or "change." Let that change first emerge in ideology. Let Capitalism replace Communism.  The common people of West Bengal, the peasants and the workers, swallowed all the commie propaganda - and lost. Lost badly. For them, I have another noteworthy quote from Mises:

There is but one way toward an increase of real wage rates for all those eager to earn wages: the progressive accumulation of new capital and the improvement of technical methods of production which the new capital brings about. The true interests of labor coincide with those of business.

So, it not only Private Property that matters for Bengal's future. It is the entire Capitalist prescription that needs to be implemented - beginning with Free Trade, so that all the swanking new shops will have shelves overflowing with the best goods from all over the world. Calcutta Port must become a very busy port. Since this is a river port, some deep water sea ports must also be found.

And add Sound Money to the list - for the same news report quoted above talks about Mamata Banerjee's "rice for 2 rupees a kg" scheme for the poor in Jangalmahal: the area where Maoism / Naxalism is rife. This may be necessary now, for where there is no peace there can be no market. Peace is another prescription for Bengal - if she wants Capitalism.  But so long as this cheap rice is paid for by printed paper rupees, it makes no sense - for the cost of everything else rises: inflation.

Thus, the poriborton that Bengal needs is just this: 

Communism must be replaced by Capitalism.

No more a "nation of baboos."

From now on, let Bengal be a Nation of Shopkeepers!


PS: Part 2 of this post can be read here.