Only Liberty And Property, Dudes

I found a strange article - actually a sort of book review - in Mint the other day, with the strange title:

More literacy + More per capita income= More democracy

And the sub-title read:

Whether education promotes democracy or the causality is the other way around, has been the subject of a heated debate, with some economists saying that institutions are the prime engine of growth, while others view human capital as the root cause of economic development

And, at the bottom, was the author, 

Manas Chakravarty's, conclusion:

Developing countries in East Asia, for instance, slowly became more democratic as they became richer. That could hold true for China as well. And for India, the success of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the concomitant higher levels of literacy, together with higher per capita income, will lead to a more meaningful participation in our democracy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Note that the author never mentions the sweet word "Liberty." Nor that other sweet word "Property." We have neither - but we have "democracy." It is democratic legislation that banned 70,000 dancing girls in Bombay - and put some 5,00,000 musicians, bartenders, waiters, bouncers and cooks out of work. It is subordinate legislation that does not permit anyone to open a simple beer bar in Nude Elly. 


Yet, we are told we have The Vote. But you cannot eat The Vote; nor can you feed it to your family. Liberty is what you need - not The Vote.


And as for State Education: There are lots of people who could survive very well without formal education - like dancing girls and musicians.


There are lots of people who know something valuable that no formal education can teach them - like the tribals who "know" how to distil mahua from a jungle flower of the same name. They need Liberty.


Democracy is "the god that failed" - and this is clear when we look at Europe and the USSA today. With a "time preference" of just five years, democratic rulers "loot and scoot." Lord Keynes has given them the ability to do so even better. And their "education" (and their "intellectuals") have just endorsed Keynesian and socialist myths. 


If you read Hoppe's book, you will find a clear demonstration of the fact that "traditional monarchies" were better than democracy - because then, the ruler was "under the law," the people had liberty as well as property, and the ruler's time horizon was limitless, because his son would take over after he died, and so he had the desire to keep on increasing the capital value of his State. 


Under democracy, all we have, internationally, is "capital consumption" - which is the road to "de-civilisation." Just wait a few months, and you will realise how The Vote has destroyed the world. Especially "western civilisation." 


Destroyed.


Apart from Liberty, people need the inviolable right to Property - because this unlocks the "mystery of capital." As Hernando de Soto has shown, through field  studies all over the Third World, from Bangladesh to Egypt, poor people own property in these "poor nations" - property worth trillions - but possess no "titles." This bars them from Capitalism. They remain poor - forever. They live in shantytowns.


The sort of book that Manas Chakravarty has reviewed for his column is a good example of the kind of "empirical research" the subject of Economics does NOT need. There is no theoretical proposition in this subject that can be either established or proved by such research. The theories of Economics are best thought through by the economist in an armchair - and then used to confirm reality in the outside world. 


The Science of Economics consists of "looking out from within the consciousness." The importance of Liberty and Property are embedded within our consciousness. 


It is tragic that a columnist who purports to talk "Simply Economics" loses sight of his objective, gets entangled in pointless "empirical research," and then arrives at conclusions that support the ambitions of our Predatory State. 


So I go beyond what I said the other day:

Our poor people need Liberty and Property - and Nothing Else. 

They do NOT need Welfare.

They do NOT need Miseducation.

They do NOT need The Vote.

PS: The picture above is of John Locke, who wrote, in 1691, "where there is no Property, there is no Justice."

The Poor Need Freedom - Not Education, Nor Welfare

I am extremely pleased to see an old post titled "Shah Rukh Kahn and the Truth" top the list of "popular posts" supplied by Google on the right-hand bar. This post makes it obvious that inflationism is bad for the poor - a point I also made the other day, when I discussed the MGNREGS.


But the question remains: What is best for the poor?


Well, for one, SOUND MONEY.


Apart from that - PROPERTY RIGHTS.


And FREE INTERNATIONAL TRADE - so their consumption can improve.


Fourth - LIBERTY!


I gave the example the other day of the NIGHTLIFE INDUSTRY. Think about it: How did black slaves become "superstars" in America? Because of New Orleans - and jazz. In India, when I watch the talent shows on TV (in regional languages, too) the plain fact emerges that millions and millions of Indians are hugely gifted in song and dance, and in playing musical instruments. But they have no place to play - play "live," that is. This hurts the poorest of them all. The better off ones make do publishing music, and appearing in movies and television. The poor ones go broke. I have personally seen hugely gifted rock and jazz artistes in Delhi broke. Broke as hell. 


Now, let us say there is LIBERTY - and a 24-hour economy. Nightlife. Ganja-charas. Casinos. Nightclubs. 


Obviously, many, many poor people will make money.


Then, they will spend this money - and other businesses will make money.


Then, these businessmen will spend - and the cycle will repeat itself endlessly.


This is Jean-Baptiste Say's "Law of Markets." In a nutshell, it says that if X sells, demand is created for all non-X. 


Do read my column on this important economic law under the title "What Pumps Up An Economy" here.  Jean-Baptiste Say was known as the "Adam Smith of France." Great man. Vital law - of markets.


The poor do NOT need (mis)education from our The State. They know lots of things that school can never teach them - from making idlis to playing the guitar. As Jimmy Page said, "The good thing about the guitar is that they do not teach it at school." Freedom is what the poor need.


And as for welfare - it is phoney. It is funded by "funny money" - which erodes the capital of the poor. End this nonsense.


Liberty!

Bastiat Demolishes The MGNREGS: Take #2

To understand why chacha manmohan’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is an extremely screwed-up idea, it is best to begin with Frédéric Bastiat’s “Broken Window Fallacy” – found in his essay “What is Seen and What is Not Seen.” Hayek considered this essay a work of “true genius.”

Even in France of the 1840s, there were socialists who had the idea of running State-owned “National Workshops” with the intention of providing employment to all. In their case, they employed city mobs and used them to beat up dissenters. A dangerous notion, that The State should employ all.

The Broken Window Fallacy runs as follows:

A mischievous boy hurls a brick into a shop-window and smashes it. He runs away. Local people gather and conclude that this is GOOD for their city, as now the glazier has got some business.

Bastiat points out why these bystanders are dead wrong. They see that the glazier has got business. They do not see that the shopkeeper had saved money for a new suit, which he will now have to use for a new window: that is, the tailor has lost business. This is “what is seen and what is not seen.”


As far as the shopkeeper is concerned, if the boy had not smashed his window, he would have possessed a suit and a window; while now, after the repairs, he has just the window, same as he had before, minus his savings, minus his suit. The city has actually LOST.

Thus, reconstruction after a war is NOT good business. Destruction is never good business. Epidemics are not good because doctors make money. Potholes are not good because mechanics gain by them; our cars get destroyed.

Similarly with MGNREGS: We see the district collector – or should we now call him “District Spender”? – spending MGNREGS money. We think the countryside will be better off. But do we do not see where the money came from.

If we look into that, we would see that the money came from us – the taxpayers. And if we had spent the money ourselves, we could have generated “useful employment” (instead of “tax parasitism”). For example, if we had drunk beer with that money instead of paying taxes, brewers and bartenders would have been employed usefully.

Indeed, even if we had saved the money with commercial banks, they would have lent it out – and even better employment would have occurred. Maybe a borrower would have invested in a brewery.

Further: chacha manmohan is also spending freshly printed rupee notes to fund this MGNREGS: “Inflationary Finance.” This erodes the Precious Capital of all citizens. It makes no sense at all. It makes all of us poorer. The value of the currency unit declines. All prices rise.

Lastly: What kind of stupid idea is it that our The State must employ all? Is that a role of the State? Is not our The State already too bloated with employees? Should they not be cutting down on State employment instead of adding yet more tax parasites?  

And is not this same State misusing force to shut down many, many trades – from ganja-charas to dance bars to nightclubs, discos and casinos? Indeed, in India, there is NO nightlife industry.

If all these trades were free, would not “real, useful employment” occur?

Thus, chacha manmohan is NOT an “economist.” He is best called a “diseconomist” – for he is a “dissaver.” He is consuming capital. His State is always in “deficit.”

All this MGNREGS money is best invested in Capital Goods like roads, sewerage, drainage and the like. With MGNREGS, all this money will just be “consumed,” with NOTHING to show for it – except a huge entry in the Union Budget.

Bye Pondicherry, Thanks For Everything, And Some Final Reflections On The Problem That Is The State: Take #2

Dylan once said, "I have new eyes to see the dawn." And Cat Stevens sang, "Morning has broken, like the first morning." 


[Though the only black birds that speak here in Pondicherry are CROWS. I have never seen a town with more crows and more garbage littered all over.]


This morning, I went to see the dawn as usual - but I am leaving today, so I was bidding good-bye to the dawn across the sea.


And how many spectacular dawns I have witnessed here these past many weeks. Sometimes, it is like the picture above - a Gold Sun, with the Gold reflecting across the waters right to your feet. Sometimes, if there are specks of clouds, dawn begins with fiery red hues. And once, only once, did it appear like God had sprayed oil across the sky, for there were speckled rainbows all over! 


Today, it was different: just pastel shades, of pink and blue, over a deep blue sea, the sun itself a pale orange. But it was beautiful.


Good-bye Pondicherry. Thanks for the good times. Hope to be back again someday.


To conclude, some observations that reveal that The People are a Resource, and it is The State that is The Problem.


The tea-shops open here at 4:30am. By that time, I am always bathed and changed, on my cycle, heading for tea - and then, the dawn. By that time, Pondicherry is wide awake, and many, many people are getting organised for their Daily Work. Hard-working, enterprising people of Pondicherry. 


Let us now turn to The State. First, they TAX you. The restaurants charge a 12% local sales tax. That's a lot. What do they do with the money? I have already written about the useless departments they open - like Fisheries! Imagine, every dawn I see REAL FISHERMEN trying to net a catch in tiny craft dating back to 3000BC - no OBM at all - and The State runs a Fisheries Department. Do these guys catch and sell fish? Or do they just live off Tax Revenue? Tax Parasites, all.


Today, let me also talk about the Public Health Department. They have a HUGE BUILDING right opposite my tea-shop. And if you sit there sipping tea in the early hours, MOSQUITOES chew you up! And there are FLIES all over!


Today, I took an early morning walkabout in a pretty park - and mosquitoes bit me there, too. Right opposite was another Public Health Department building.


Incidentally, our The State has banned DDT - the cheapest way to kill mosquitoes. I once published an interview I conducted with Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria for The Economic Times - and he argued furiously against this ban, one that was killing Africans by the million. Shortly after this interview appeared, an Indian DDT manufacturer whose business had been closed down came calling on me at my editorial offices, and told me all about the corrupt politics behind this senseless ban on DDT.


Now, tell you me: We cannot breed. If we do so, Sanjay Gandhi comes and vastectomises us BY FORCE. But mosquitoes and flies can breed freely.


And tell you me: Is General Pervez Musharraf sucking your blood? Or is the RBI Governor doing that, with his "counterfeit notes" that do not honour his SIGNED CONTRACT? All this "funny money" that depreciates in value every day?


The pretty park where mosquitoes bit me in broad daylight right opposite a Public Health Department building must have been built and laid out by the French - but, today, our fellows have built two "children's parks" on the lawns! The equipment there looked like it doesn't work, and is probably dangerous. Your kids might get hurt playing there. They might be better off playing with General Pervez Musharraf.


They are spending YOUR money - on NONSENSE.


Why can't entrepreneurs build parks for kids? Like the guy I met who said he is building a skating rink.

EVER HEARD OF DISNEYLAND?

They have privatised garbage collection - but they don't supervise the work, and much of the equipment is shoddy: little Mahindra trucks that won't carry more than a few kilos at a time, and are OPEN on top. 


The ladies who work at street-sweeping in their uniforms are all sweet and very hard-working, but they have No Capital Equipment.  Thus, their wages can never rise.


We need FOREIGN EXPERT FIRMS to do these jobs - like an ad I saw of an Australian Garbage Company that went:

We Talk Garbage

That's why I like the Philips Slogan:

Let's Make Things Better

The State can NEVER think like that.


The State's slogan is:

Let's Make Things Worse

They have made every city they inherited from the Brits or the French or the Portuguese - worse. Much, much worse.


Because they produce bads, not goods.


Bads like taxes.


Bads like inflation.


Bads like Air India.


Bads like the Indian Police.

Abolish The State.

Replace it with Honest Civic Corporations 

for each and every city and town.

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.

The Haunted, Frightened Tree Of Complete Ignorance

Vaclav Klaus regaled me with the story of how some World Bank - IMF "economists" phoned him when he assumed office as President of the Czech Republic, seeking an appointment so that they could offer him "advice." He told them he knew more Economics than them, and did not need their advice. Fuck off from Prague, dudes, he told them. Return to Washington DC or wherever the fuck you came from.

Sonia Gandhi has a National Advisory Council (NAC). She needs advice. Why does she need advice? Because she is Ignorant. According to Shekhar Gupta of the Indian Express, these "darbari jholawallahs" of the NAC are "IAS dropouts and retirees." These guys have dreamt up a new scheme for promoting "rural livelihood." But markets are in crowded cities and towns - not in the vacant countryside. As Adam Smith said in the very first chapter of the Wealth of Nations, "the extent of the division of labour is limited by the size of the market." The Principle of the Division of Labour, by which we all specialise, is what Ludwig von Mises called the "principle of cosmic change and becoming." Each of us chooses to "become" someone - singer, dancer, actor, writer, whatever. We do not all sit in villages and spin yarn for our own use. We are NOT "self-sufficient." We specialise - and this requires physical marketplaces in physical cities and towns.

While Sonia Gandhi and her darbari baboons dream of a rural utopia, it is worth noting that all our cities and towns are disasters, including Nude Elly. These socialists built three cities in the past 60 years - while the Bris built 80 "hill-stations" in 50 years - and all three are State Capitals: Chandigarh, Gandhinagar, and Bhubaneshwar, where I am now located. 

I travelled around Bhubaneshwar a fair bit by auto-rickshaw yesterday, and the broad roads lined with trees are all for The State, just like Nude Elly. I asked the driver to take me to the Central Commercial District - and there was none. At least the Brits built Connaught Place, grandly designed. 

In Bhubaneshwar, the streets where shops are located are all disasters - and this affects the poorest of the poor, who eke out their "livelihoods" on the streets, since they cannot afford proper shops. They sell bananas, coconuts, pakoras and what not - this is the division of labour. And you cannot sell coconuts where there is no market - which is the vacant village.

Population causes Prosperity - in cities and towns, and their markets.

While Sonia Gandhi and her darbari baboons dream of rural schemes by which huge amounts of fraudulent money will be spent by younger IAS baboons, the fact remains that poor people from villages are continuously coming to these ghastly cities and towns - and getting fucked. See the jhugggis of Nude Elly, the slums of Bombay and Calcutta, and from my train window I saw the poor of Bhubaneshwar too, trying to survive in huts by the railway track. All around is ABUNDANT UNOWNED LAND.

There is the metaphysical - and there is the physical: cities and towns are our Fixed Capital. City and Town Roads are Social Capital: they are "public thoroughfares" and hence "collective property." They are NOT investing in these because they know not what Capital is, the life blood of Capitalism. Rather, they are "consuming capital" - which is the highway to "de-civilisation." The Professor of Economics at the IAS Academy in Mussoorie is a Marxist - as I reported on the Barkha Dutt Show many years ago.

There is "authority" - and sometimes there comes about the total absence of authority, because of Ignorance. The Delhi Development "Authority" is NOT an acknowledged "authority" on anything: just check out the disaster called Vasant Kunj, built and designed by a bunch of assholes. Similarly, the National Highway "Authority" of India is NOT an "authority" on highways - which would be Gabriel Roth. Our National Highways are all "notional highways." The Traffic Police know nothing of the science and technology of traffic management. Everything about The State is marked by complete and total Ignorance. From top to bottom. And they want to teach your children!

The Science of Economics is the most important science for humanity to know and understand. I am proud to be an Independent Authority in this science.

And as for our The Corrupt & Ignorant State Devoid of all Authority - I have only pure contempt. You look at human society with the "evil eye" - the buri nazar. You desire not that each Indian youngster "becomes" what he or she wants to become. You desire only that they become your servants - that is, "government servants." So you want to employ "the masses" in your "work schemes." You are inventing work in villages - and stealing all the money through your "political and bureaucratic organisation" - while, simultaneously, you are hurting all livelihoods in cities and towns. In Bombay, girls can't dance free. In Nude Elly only The State can open booze shops. In Bhubaneshwar I saw many "musical bands" who had set up their counters on a roadside. One said "Brass Band." And one actually said "ROCK BAND." There are no bars in the city where live music is played. What is "knowledge"? And how much of it comes from schools, and books?

If the CONgress is so ignorant, the Opposition is even worse. The BJP's slogan remains the metaphysical - a God, and his Temple. As if any God can be found in temples. I smoked a chillum with a sadhu in Gangotri. He told me the people worshipping at the temple there were fools, and God is found in solitude, in peace, and in the Holy Smoke. Instead of the metaphysical Lord Ram the BJP has given us Narendra Modi at the top and Dara Singh at the bottom. They are as evil and ignorant as the CONgress; maybe worse. And then we have the Commies - the most Ignorant people ever born. Democracy is also metaphysical. The "power of the vote" is no power; and most people don't vote. So there must be someway outta here. And that lies in Liberty.

I conclude this post with two quotes Peter Bauer ended his essay on "The Disregard of Reality" with - an elegant essay penned on the disaster mainstream Economics has become, written towards the end of a long and productive life championing Liberty for the poor of the Third World. The first is from Pascal, and it goes:

"Let us labour at trying to think clearly: herein lies the source of moral conduct."

And the second is from George Orwell, a socialist hero who did see the horrors of statism:

"We have sunk to such a depth that the restatement of the obvious has become the first duty of intelligent men."

The Chakra... And Our Civilisation

In Juggernaut Puri, everything revolves around the chakra - the wheel. The road servicing this area is named Chakratirtha Road - which means "the pilgrimage of the wheel." The skylight in my room in a quaint, old hotel is shaped like the chakra. And I bought a souvenir of carved stone of this chakra. There are 16 spokes around the hub - and the base is held up by 10 elephants. Which means the ancients understood that the power of the spoked wheel was greater than that of 10 elephants. There are other figures holding up the chakra that I bought - and these include strange monstrous creatures as well as pretty dancing girls. I think dancing girls must have been big in our ancient civilisation - for the first hall in the Sun Temple of Konarak is the Hall of the Dancing Girls. But no music and dance on the streets of Puri - or should I say "non-streets."

It rained a bit last morning - and the whole town flooded up. Funny how excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro reveal elaborate storm-water drainage systems - that too, in a desert, where it could not have rained much. Today, our civilisation lacks storm water drainage - it floods up in Nude Elly, where it rains twice a year, at most; and it floods up in Mumbai, too, where the monsoon hits with predictable certainty. So what could be different about Juggernaut Puri.

Read a strange article by the "RTI activist" Aruna Roy trying to define "civil society." I think it might be better if we first tried to define "civilisation" - a word based on civitas, which means "city." If our cities have collapsed, so has our civilisation. And as for "civil society" - it is a meaningless socialist concept. The market order is based on individualism - and it is what Hayek called a cosmos, just like all the individual stars in the night sky, a perfect "order without design." Indeed, one of Hayek's most important books is titled Individualism and Economic Order. 

Aruna Roy is part of our "political society." All her "activism" has resulted in more jobs for the baboos - and there are now "Information Commissioners" everywhere, with their offices and big bungalows, their peons and chaprasis, and their dowdy Ambassador cars. Similarly, Kiran Bedi is "political society" - and Anna Hazare rules a little village, not a city, and it is reported he whips all those who drink alcohol in his "political domain." A real "civilian" would be the owner of the village pub, a "publican." We have none of these.

None of these "civil society activists" have anything to with "civilisation" - which means an amorphous collection of individuals peacefully co-existing in a city, serving customers, surviving thereby, and enjoying life. The emphasis is on "enjoying life" - and the essential reading on civilisation is Plato's Symposium, a word that means "drinking party." Plato tells the tale of one such drinking party that Socrates attended - and, sure enough, there were "flute girls" in attendance. Do read Symposium sometime. It will tell you what is civilisation, or, what was civilisation. We don't possess it anymore - at least not in India.

The Kiran Bedi - Anna Hazare nonsense will also create another government office. They will entrench "political society." We must focus on the root word "civilisation."

And we must also focus on the chakra - the wheel. Our people need wheels - and roads. I had to go out in an auto-rickshaw into town in the morning drizzle - and I got wet. What kind of silly vehicle is this - so open to the elements, and so uncomfortable? Is this "civilisation"? This silly vehicle hogs the non-streets of all our cities because it is "licensed" by The State - and Rahul Bajaj is an MP, a member of "political society."

Last evening, over some whiskies followed by (excellent) Royal Challenge beer, I tried smoking some of the bullshit grass my taxi driver brought me. And I thought of the guy who invented the chakra, the spoked wheel. It struck me that this unsung hero must have had some good chillums to smoke while pondering over the problem. If you remember your Sherlock Holmes, you will recall that for Holmes, a major mystery was always a "three pipe problem." To design the chakra must have taken three or four good chillums, I thought. After all, the chillum was invented long before the wheel, and ganja has been smoked in India from long before the temple of Juggernaut Puri was built. 

Enough of this bullshit grass, and this bullshit town. I am off today, by train, to Sambalpur, in the west, in the jungle, where the ganja is famous, and where Nehru built the Hirakud Dam. That was Nehru - the Dam Builder, unhappy to just sit by and "watch the river flow." Nehru's The State has persisted in blocking everything our free society could be. It was Nehru who established the "license-permit raj." This was his damned Dam Vision.

There are these dams everywhere, and even in Canacona, South Goa, I found a Big Dam (serving no ostensible purpose). 

I hate dams. I like free flowing rivers. I am a Freedom Man - that's how lucky I am.

Students! Rise Against This Tyranny

What is an "adult"? Whereas in older times puberty was considered a sign from Nature confirming adulthood, nowadays, with the curse of Legislation, all is arbitrary. You can drive at 16, you can vote at 18, you cannot marry till 21, and you cannot drink alcohol till 25 - the last, according to the State of Maharashtra.

At the London School of Economics, the Students' Union runs a pub on campus called "The Three Tuns." Even undergraduates are welcome there - and the booze is cheaper than in the market. In India, I have seen many post-graduate institutions - like IIMs - where booze is banned. This is nonsense. Students should rebel against such tyranny. 

The news report on the new Legislation in Maharashtra ends with these words:

Fine would be imposed for under-age drinking and there is a provision of more dry days every year. No liquor shop will be allowed within one kilometre of educational and social institutions, government offices, religious places and highways. There is also a limit on bottles allowed per individual and a liquor shop or bar may be shut down if 25 per cent of the residents of a municipal ward demand its closure.

This is Total Tyranny - designed to ensure that the police and excise officialdom prey on the alcohol trade, as do local "residents' associations" - thereby politicising everything. The cops will also prey on young people who might want to enjoy a drink. And what will happen to tourists who desire a beer on a hot "dry day"? That is why there are no dry days in Goa. I know one such tourist who came to Calcutta on a dry day - and took the next flight out!

What, indeed, is an "adult"? Murray Rothbard answered the question is his The Ethics of Liberty - a book all students, especially of Law, ought to carefully study (pdf here). Rothbard begins by asserting that all legislation on the matter must necessarily be arbitrary, while Nature gives its signal - puberty - most clearly and without bias. He adds that every child has the right to run away from home - and if he sets himself up in life, as a self-supporting individual, the Law ought to treat him as an adult. By that standard, while students are usually dependent on parents till very late in life, the "working children" of our streets ought to be considered as adults and allowed the free liberty that all adults enjoy.

The "ethics of liberty" do not inform this abominable piece of Legislation that has emerged from the Maharashtra Assembly. It ought to be struck down by the courts as not only arbitrary, but also as one that tramples on the rights of all young voters - who must be presumed adults, which is why the vote is entrusted to them.

It was Bastiat, of course, who said it best - of "democrats" who praise the "wisdom of the voter" before the elections; but after they are elected, they think the voter is a numskull and enact all manner of legislation to "protect the voter from himself." In reality, if the voter is so dumb that he cannot handle his drink, then he is unfit to vote, too. Thus, such Legislation takes away the legitimacy of those elected, for they have been voted into office by persons who cannot handle Freedom.

This nasty alcohol policy of the Maharashtra State is anti-student. It is anti-youth. The youth must protest.

And may The Force be with them. 

Here's to Students' Union Pubs on all campuses!

On Pornography... And Private Property

The photo alongside this post is from Khajuraho - that too, from a temple there - and my purpose is to illustrate the fact that ours used to be a sexually liberated society. Not any more. Not even in the internet age. Today, despite the internet, Playboy magazine - which once published an interview with Ayn Rand - is banned. Though thanks to "import substitution" we do have our desi version - Debonair - of which a great man like Vinod Mehta was once editor.

I was drawn to this subject by a report in the ToI which begins as follows:

Consumption of pornography is no offence. All that the law forbids is its publication or transmission. If the railway police in Mumbai could still terrorise an IIT student, just by claiming that his mobile phone stored pornographic video, they were riding roughshod over his human rights.

Once again, the only way out is the Inviolability of Private Property. It begins with the human body, and each of us is the Sole Proprietor of his or her body. We can thus display this body unclothed - if we choose to do so. Some of us do possess bodies that others consider beautiful - the "subjective" factor - and we can take advantage of this fact by posing naked for money. We can pose for stills - or for films. These stills and films will be shot in studios - which are also private property. These shots will be printed in magazines - private property once again, as are reels of film. Finally, these will be displayed in magazine shops or movie theatres, which are private property, too. The audience that buys the magazines now possesses them as private property. Similarly, those who buy tickets to see blue films possess temporary property rights to be seated in the theatre. If private property is inviolable by all, including The State, all is hunky-dory, none can interfere, and business can carry on as usual.

Now, a strange kind of man-made law like the IT Act, which allows the consumption of porn but not its production or distribution, is not unlike the Narcotics & Psychotropic Substances Act which allows smoking ganja but not its cultivation or sale. But as any ganja smoker will tell you, how can one peacefully smoke ganja if farmers cannot peacefully grow it and dealers cannot peacefully sell it? Such man-made laws are stupid - not based on any sound principle, like Private Property.

Private Property must be inviolable if we are to be completely free. Even immigration restrictions can be shown to violate property: for example, if one rents property in the US, even a hotel room, and if one is not allowed to enter the country, then the immigration authorities can be shown to have violated the property rights of both the foreigner who has rented it and the American citizen who owns it. Thus, a great deal depends on this principle - Complete Freedom.

Mises wrote something very important about Private Property:

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.

With our Socialist Constitution which glorifies "collective property," we have very little Liberty to celebrate. All we have are Air India, SAIL, ONGC et. al. What would you choose? PSUs or Liberty?

Hence, a New Constitution is an imperative. We must proceed forthwith to The Second Republic. We must be free! Liberty!

Fukuyama, Hayek, Sen - and a Cop

Francis Fukuyama, who once wrote a book arguing that liberal democracy is the "end of history," has reviewed a new edition of Friedrich Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty for the New York Times, in which he has pitted Amartya Sen against Hayek. Fukuyama writes:

There have always been two major critiques of Hayek’s arguments, neither of which are fully answered by a re­reading of “The Constitution of Liberty.” The first comes from the left. Hayek provides a very minimalist definition of freedom as freedom from coercion, and particularly coercion by a central government. But as the economist Amartya Sen has argued, the ability to actually take advantage of freedom depends on other things like resources, health and education that many people in a typical society do not possess.

Fukuyama does well to categorise Amartya Sen's critique of Hayek as "coming from the left." Sen is a "welfarist" – he won the 1998 Nobel prize for his work on “welfare economics” - and it is he who has championed and supported the "right to free and compulsory education" as well as the "right to food" and the "right to work." These are all disastrous ideas that merely serve the bureaucracy by giving them very big budgets to spend. All this big government spending does nothing for the poor - indeed, it actually hurts them by consuming precious capital and causing inflation.

Today, in India, we are suffering because Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi has followed Sen's ideas - as expressed in his Development as Freedom (1999) and its sequel Rationality and Freedom (2003). Sen's acolyte, the professor of sociology Jean Dreze, is a senior member of the National Advisory Council attached to Sonia Gandhi. In that position, Dreze supported all kinds of rights - except the Right to Property!

Fukuyama notes that:

Hayek always had problems getting the respect he deserved; even when he was awarded the Nobel in economic science in 1974, the awards committee paired him with the left-leaning economist Gunnar Myrdal.

Actually, Myrdal and Sen are more or less identical in their thinking: both believe that the masses are stupid - without "the ability to actually take advantage of freedom" - and that the baboos of our The State are an "intellectual-moral elite" who must plan the economy and take "collective decisions" on behalf of these dumb masses. These baboos must impart "education" to them, too.

It was Peter Bauer who demolished these nonsensical ideas – so contemptuous of the poor, and so much in praise of The State. And Bauer was a “development economist” who had studied the Third World - and the “informal sector” in which the poor operate - very closely.

Fukuyama therefore treads dangerous ground when he pits Sen against Hayek by writing in support of Sen’s claim that “the ability to actually take advantage of freedom depends on other things like resources, health and education that many people in a typical society do not possess.”

Did the bar dancers of Bombay lack “resources, health and education”? Do ganja farmers need freedom or welfare? Is Sen’s welfarism going to “help the poor”? Or do they need Freedom from the Centralised State? What about the Right to Property – the only solution to the “mystery of capital.”

Think things over – but I am on Peter Bauer’s side, opposed to both Myrdal as well as Sen. You can read my (unfavourable) review of Sen’s Rationality and Freedom, published in the New York Sun, here.


As far as the critique of Hayek that "comes from the right" - the charge of "moral relativism" that Fukuyama mentions - the philosopher Tibor Machan rebuts it roundly here. Machan concludes:

The relationship between objective personal morality and the principles of politics which are basic to a constitution such as Hayek's constitution of liberty is a challenging aspect of political philosophy. It does not help to casually dismiss Hayek's approach by caricaturing it as moral relativism.

After writing The Constitution of Liberty (1960), Hayek published three volumes on Law, Legislation & Liberty between 1973-79, and then The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism in 1988. He died in 1992 – at the age of 92. So it cannot be said that The Constitution of Liberty was his last word on the subject. Indeed, in Law, Legislation & Liberty he outlined the respective spheres of “private law” and “public law” – the latter being legislation. These pioneering ideas have been carried forward by many since then: you can read Hans-Hermann Hoppe arguing very strongly in favour of a private law society here. I have also written a brief column on this subject, available here.

Fukuyama concludes his review by saying that Hayek “proves himself to be far more of a hubristic Cartesian than a true Hayekian.” Actually, it is in the first volume of Law, Legislation & Liberty – titled “Rules and Order” – that Hayek demolished Cartesian rationalism and “legal positivism.” Fukuyama ought to read this too. Also, the Hayekian insight that when we buy and sell in the market we do so “between instinct and reason” – the opening chapter of The Fatal Conceit – proves that Fukuyama’s assessment of Hayek is totally unfounded.

To conclude: Here in Goa, the people suffer from various repressive pieces of legislation passed by the Central State – from the Coastal Zone Regulation Act to the Narcotics & Psychotropic Substances Act. Both are in violation of the Right to Property – a right not guaranteed to us by the socialist Constitution of India.

The other day I had a chance to interact with a Goan cop. I told him to resign from service – pointing out that he was doing “bad work” and not “good work.” There were quite a few Goan people listening in on our discussions – and they all agreed with me. In the end, the cop agreed too!

This itself is proof of the fact that our The State is repressive – and that the people need Freedom and Property. It was a vindication of Hayek’s contention that “liberty, property and law are an inseparable trinity.” So much for Amartya Sen and his “welfarism.” This welfarism funded by Keynesianism is the bane of India, detrimental to the poor. It must give way to Liberty and Sound Money.

Goa's Image - Good & Bad

The "image of Goa" is a big issue here these days, what with a Bollywood film on the "drug scene" being shot here. The majority opinion seems to be that Goa's image is being dented by this film.

My own opinion is that if Amsterdam can proudly declare itself the "Marijuana Capital of the World," why cannot Goa be proud to be such a place too? After all, it is the hippies who first put Goa on the global tourist map. If there were hash cafes here, would that dent Goa's image or improve it? Would it not attract tourists in bigger numbers - just as Amsterdam does.

To the politicians and busybodies who are bothered about Goa's image, I would like to point out that what really sucks here are the roads. Goa is a big place, stretching 150 km from end to end. The "notional highway" is of an age before the automobile explosion. Tourists can scarcely travel safely from north to south. I read the statistics of foreign tourists killed on the road - over a hundred - and this is truly bad for Goa's image.

The Konkan Railway offers NO means of travel within Goa. There are also no tramways. If internal railways and tramways were built (by entrepreneurs, of course) Goa's image would surely improve. Even the Goans would be better off. Let Switzerland, another tourist haven, be the guide here, for the transport system in this mountainous country is astounding.

Further, the internal roads by the beachside "villages" are terrible, too narrow, too unsafe, no footpaths, no signage at all. I call them "Goa Constrictors."

The beachfront settlements are also not very attractive. Every one of them seems like an overgrown village - and not a pretty town. And the old towns built by the Portuguese are facing imminent collapse. All these deserve the serious attention of the government - and the citizenry.

Indeed, Goa's politicians themselves give Goa a bad image. The State Police also have a very bad image - especially over corruption related to the drug trade.

As for this Bollywood film: It is titled Dum Maro Dum after a line in a famous song of some decades ago, and it refers to the chillum in which ganja and charas are smoked. The original song, and that film, in my opinion, gave a very bad image to all smokers of this Holy Herb. The songline went:

Dum maro dum,
Mit jaye gam...

Which means:

Smoke, Smoke, Smoke,
And your sorrows will be wiped out...

While there are many who "drown their sorrows" in alcohol, ganja-charas have the effect of opening the mind, and they are used for this purpose. Cannabliss is truly the philosopher's drug - which is why sadhus use it. The medical texts say that it delivers a mild euphoria, colours seem brighter, music resounds better, there is an effect of seeming to float, and observations are more acute. Dev Anand gave this Holy Herb and its smokers a bad image. We need to correct it.