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.