What Is "National Greatness"?

Thanks to a link provided by a The God That Failed post, I found a brief article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe published in The Free Market in 1999, on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), arguably the greatest genius Germany has ever produced, detailing facets of Goethe's life, and ending with a long quote on Goethe's views on "national greatness." The article so moved me that I am publishing it in full below:

Goethe on National Greatness

by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

This year [1999] marks the 250th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of all German writers and poets and one of the giants of world literature. In his political outlook, he was also a thorough-going classical liberal, arguing that free trade and free cultural exchange are the keys to authentic national and international integration. He argued and fought against the expansion, centralization, and unification of government on grounds that these trends can only hinder prosperity and true cultural development.

Born in 1749 in the free imperial city of Frankfurt am Main into an upper middle-class family, Goethe studied law in Leipzig and Strassburg. However, upon receiving his doctorate and practicing briefly as a lawyer, he set out on a career that can only be characterized as a spectacular success. A poet, dramatist, novelist, lyricist, artist, and critic of architecture, art, literature, music, and nature; a natural scientist and a student of anatomy, botany, morphology, and optics, Goethe to this day, at least for Germans, defines the meaning of genius, with an oeuvre encompassing more than sixty volumes.

In 1775, at the invitation of Duke Carl August von Saxe-Weimar, Goethe visited Weimar and took up residence there until his death in 1832, interrupted by frequent and extended travels all across Germany, to Switzerland, Italy, and France. It was surely during these travels that he developed his liberal political position.

From 1648 until the Napoleonic wars, Germany consisted of some 234 countries, 51 free cities, and about 1,500 independent knightly manors. Of this multitude of independent political units, only Austria counted as a great power, and only Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Hannover could be considered major political players. Saxe-Weimar was one of the smaller and poorer countries, encompassing just a few dozen villages and small towns.

As a result of the Vienna Congress of 1815 following Napoleon's defeat, the number of independent political territories was reduced to thirty-nine. Owing to the family relationship of its ruling house with the Russian dynasty, Saxe-Weimar grew by about one third of its former size (to a size slightly larger than that of Rhode Island) and became the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Still, it remained one of Germany's smaller, poorer, and politically less significant countries.

Its capital, Weimar, was a small town of less than 6,000 inhabitants when Goethe moved there, and even at the time of his death in 1832 it had only grown to 10,000. Goethe had come to Weimar as Carl-August's favorite, and he continued in the role of Carl-August's closest personal advisor until the Duke's death in 1828. Carl-August and Goethe rode, hunted, and caroused together, and in the year following his arrival in Weimar, Goethe was appointed by Carl-August to his four-member Privy Council, becoming his second most highly paid servant (with a rather modest salary of 1,200 Taler per annum).

At the behest of Carl-August, Goethe was ennobled by the Emperor Joseph II. At various times, Goethe's duties as a member of the Privy Council involved the supervision of the Duchy's six-hundred- strong army (he reduced its size to 293), the construction of its roads and mines, the management of its finances (he cut taxes), the operation of the court theater, and the oversight of its nearby University of Jena, which at that time included among its faculty Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schiller, Humboldt, and the brothers Schlegel.

Already acclaimed throughout Germany when he settled in Weimar, Goethe's fame grew immensely in the following years. Whether it was on his travels or in Weimar, nearly everyone sought his companionship, from Johann Gottfried Herder, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Madame de Stael, Friedrich von Schiller, Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Freiherr vom Stein, and Empress Maria Ludovica of Austria, to Napoleon. Indeed, by the last decade of Goethe's life, he and Weimar had become synonymous with German culture, and Weimar and the Goethe residence became the objects of veritable pilgrimages by members of the German Bildungsbürgertum (the educated bourgeoisie).

It was during this last phase of his life when Goethe, in a conversation recorded by one of his devotees, Johann Peter Eckermann, made the following remarks concerning the relationship between political particularism (Kleinstaaterei) and culture. At the time these remarks were made, on October 23, 1828, Germany had become increasingly affected by democratic and nationalistic sentiments as a result of the French Revolution and the following Napoleonic era. Most of the German liberals had become democrats and advocates of a unified German nation state.

As a liberal, Goethe, wisely and with remarkable prescience, stood largely alone in firm opposition to this transformation of the liberal creed. In his view, mass democracy was incompatible with liberty. "Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time," he wrote in his Maximen und Reflexionen, "are either psychopaths or mountebanks." And political centralization, as Goethe explained in his conversation with Eckermann, would lead to the destruction of all culture:

"I do not fear that Germany will not be united; our excellent streets and future railroads will do their own. Germany is united in her patriotism and opposition to external enemies. She is united, because the German Taler and Groschen have the same value throughout the entire Empire, and because my suitcase can pass through all thirty-six states without being opened. It is united, because the municipal travel documents of a resident of Weimar are accepted everywhere on a par with the passports of the citizens of her mighty foreign neighbors. With regard to the German states, there is no longer any talk of domestic and foreign lands. Further, Germany is united in the areas of weights and measures, trade and migration, and a hundred similar things which I neither can nor wish to mention.

"One is mistaken, however, if one thinks that Germany's unity should be expressed in the form of one large capital city, and that this great city might benefit the masses in the same way that it might benefit the development of a few outstanding individuals.

"To be sure, the state has been compared to a living body with many parts, and a state's capital thus might be compared to the heart, which supports the life and well-being of its near and distant parts. If the parts are very far from the heart, however, the flow of life will become weaker and weaker. A thoughtful Frenchman, I believe Daupin, has drawn up a map regarding the state of culture in France, indicating the higher or lower level of enlightenment of its various 'Departements' by lighter or darker colors. There we find, especially in the southern provinces, far away from the capital, some `Departements' painted entirely in black, indicating a complete cultural darkness. Would this be the case if the beautiful France had ten centers, instead of just one, from which light and life radiated?

"What makes Germany great is her admirable popular culture, which has penetrated all parts of the Empire evenly. And is it not the many different princely residences from whence this culture springs and which are its bearers and curators? Just assume that for centuries only the two capitals of Vienna and Berlin had existed in Germany, or even only a single one. Then, I am wondering, what would have happened to the German culture and the widespread prosperity that goes hand in hand with culture.

"Germany has twenty universities strewn out across the entire Empire, more than one hundred public libraries, and a similar number of art collections and natural museums; for every prince wanted to attract such beauty and good. Gymnasia, and technical and industrial schools exist in abundance; indeed, there is hardly a German village without its own school. How is it in this regard in France!

"Furthermore, look at the number of German theaters, which exceeds seventy, and which cannot be disregarded as bearers and promoters of higher public education. The appreciation of music and song and their performance is nowhere as prevalent as in Germany, and that counts for something, too.

"Then think about cities such as Dresden, Munich, Stuttgart, Kassel, Braunschweig, Hannover, and similar ones; think about the energy that these cities represent; think about the effect they have on neighboring provinces, and ask yourself, if all of this would exist if such cities had not been the residences of princes for a long time.

"Frankfurt, Bremen, Hamburg, Luebeck are large and brilliant, and their impact on the prosperity of Germany is incalculable. Yet, would they remain what they are if they were to lose their independence and be incorporated as provincial cities into one great German Empire? I have reason to doubt this."

As highly as Germans revered Goethe as a national hero, they did not heed his advice at the end of the Cold War. Nor have most people in Europe paid heed to his warnings on the dangers of political centralization. Pertinent today as they were when written, Goethe's insights regarding the social and political foundations of culture still demand our attention.

**************        **********************      ****************

My comments:

I think what Goethe has written applies to our entire sub-continent, and I wrote a leader article along these lines in The Times of India in 2002, titled "Alternative Nation: The Public Administration of Anarchy." This article has been preserved here.

In 1947, let us not forget, there were 652 "princely states" - and Goa was Portuguese. Pondicherry was French. And the British co-existed - and our civilisation of cities and towns was well-administered.

Food for thought, what?

And I hope some people in the USSA as well as "United Germany" are reading this!

Our The State Is Usurping The Role Of Parents

As if hell-bent on proving that legislation is NOT Law, the Maharashtra government has raised the legal age for drinking alcohol from 21 to 25. This has astonished top Bollywood actors. Amitabh Bachhan tweeted:

On drinking age limit increase to 25! Err... old and mature enough to vote for the country, or join army and fight for the nation... but not old and mature enough to be told when you are allowed to drink ??? Strange?

Actress Sonam Kapoor made a similar reaction on Tweeter, saying:

If you can vote, get married, have children, drive a car ... why on earth can't you drink? It's ridiculous, we are not living in the dark ages.

The latest is that the actor Imran Khan is filing an appeal against this order in court.


The key point to note is: What about PARENTS? Don't they have a role to play here - a role that our fucked-up The State is usurping? 


In this connection, I have a story to tell, of the time when, some ten years or more ago, I took my 15-year old son to Pecos, the Hard Rock Pub in Bangalore, for a beer - and they refused to serve him! I pleaded long and hard against this injustice, saying I was the father - but to no avail. Because, as the manager put it, if an Inspector came, he would be in deep trouble. Inspector Raj! 


Anyway, regretfully, my son and I came out of Pecos, where the music was great - and loud - and stood mournfully on the street outside. Then, my son said: "Cheer up, Dad, I know a place they will serve us. Follow me."


A few minutes later, we were outside another Bangalore pub where, seeing my boy, the doorman raised a salute and said, "Hi Gaurav. Welcome!"  We went in and enjoyed a few beers.


The lesson is that all this is ARBITRARY. 


And there is nothing worse for a nation than ARBITRARY LAW.


Further, this causes CORRUPTION. In this case, it is evident that the establishment that pays the Inspector off does business-as-usual, whereas the establishment that does not gets regularly inspected, so its management must harass customers.



What is "adulthood," anyway?


Between 1800 and 1850, the Honourable East India Company ran a Haileybury College for their recruits to the Civil Service, who were all aged between 13 and 15 - and their diet was bread, cheese and beer all day (fish for breakfast)!

What is the "correct" age of adulthood? Once upon a time, in India, it was considered the attainment of puberty. Those days, you were immediately married.


Today, it is a lot of NONSENSE - as the tweets from the movie stars above indicate. One age for driving, another for voting, another for joining the Army (where they give you cheap rum to drink), another for marriage - and yet another for drinking.


NONSENSE!


Congratulations to Imran Khan for taking our The State to court.


Tip: The lawyer must read Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty, which contains much on the rights of children. PDF here.

On Kings, For Kings: Take #2

This morning, at the tea-shop, I met two Gurkhas from Nepal. One said he'd been in Pondicherry for 12 years. The other said he'd been here for 26 years! Both said that they'd prefer to stay back home - if only their country had some economic prospects to offer. Both said that today things were far worse than during King Birendra's reign. They decried Nepal's politicians. And they did not say anything good about their new king, Gyanendra, or his son, Paras.


Hans-Hermann Hoppe comes to mind. In his magnificent book Democracy: The God That Failed Hoppe puts forward the thesis that "traditional monarchies" are always much better than democracies. Yet, if we look around, we see so many kings who don't know a thing about government: Thailand, Nepal, Bhutan, Japan - and even England and all the Crowned Heads of Europe.


To me (and I do believe Hoppe will concur with me on this) the greatest monarchs of Europe were the Hapsburgs - and America did the world a great disservice by pulling them down. Of course, they had their own tragedies, too - and the mysterious death/suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf was one of these. It damaged Carl Menger's career, for sure, for Menger was Rudolf's teacher.


In the world of today, democracies are ALL failing - from the USSA to Europe to Japan to India - and the main reason is the "funny money" which is causing "capital consumption" and consequent "de-civilisation."


Traditional monarchies must replace them - or we must head for a "Natural Order."


Traditional monarchies ruled without Parliament. The monarch commanded the public administration - and that is all. People lived in a "private law society." There was zero legislation. The King rarely passed statutes binding on all his subjects. The people had Property, Contracts and Torts - and Liberty, too.


And there is more. Traditional monarchies never produced paper money. Money was GOLD - and gold is a form of "private money." Under traditional monarchies, the world was under a Gold Standard. Below is Adam Smith's famous "Three Duties of the Sovereign" - and do note there is NO mention of money:

According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common understandings:

first, the duty of protecting the society from violence and invasion of other independent societies; 

secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice;

and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.

Now, if some monarchs here and there want to emulate their ancient forbears and govern their nations well, I recommend a book, and that is Carl Menger's Lectures to Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. Menger had been hand-picked by the Empress Catherine to tutor her son in "classical liberal political economy" and had he made it to the throne, Rudolf would surely have made an excellent king.


But this book is now with us, in an edition prepared by Professor Erich Streissler of Vienna University, from the hand-written notebooks of Rudolf himself, which were found in the State Archives.


Kings who wish to deserve their crowns and thrones ought to read this book.


And then, who knows, the magic of the Hapsburgs might be recreated in some other parts of the world.

Fiscal Independence - For Pondicherry: Part II

Continuing from where I left off yesterday, it is really great to be back here in Pondicherry - a Fair City with a separate History of its own. On Beach Road, there is a grand statue of the French East India Company boss, Dupleix, who founded this fair city - only in order to Trade By The Open Sea.


This is what Wikipedia says about this Man:

Joseph-François, Marquis Dupleix (1 January 1697 – 10 November 1763) was governor general of the French establishment in India, and the rival of Robert Clive.

The Key Point to note is that, unlike our Politicians and IAS-IPS officers, Dupleix was NOT a "client" of Delhi - or Calcutta.


He built the French East India Company territories INDEPENDENTLY.


And that is what must NOW be done again.


No taxes should be sent to Nude Elly. And no "plan allocations" in "funny money" should be accepted either. Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam must BREAK FREE.


As I said yesterday, I am proposing a series of four lectures in Pondicherry University (for a fee) - one of which will be titled "Sound Money & Free Banking Under Law." This French enclave can easily solve its funny money problem.


Of course, taxes will have to be collected, honest civic corporations set up in all four territories, and these taxes - paid in Sound Money - will have to be invested well: in roads and streets, in footpaths, sewerage, drainage; that is, in City Capital. This honest tax money must not be wasted in Useless Departments as is happening today.


Free Trade over the Open Sea and a Free Economy will have to be established - Under Law.


This Law will be Private Law - that is, Property, Contracts and Torts - and I have a column on this subject that you can find here.


Further, a Private Law Society can happily exist without a Police Force. Where there is no legislation, there is no role for any "legislation enforcement." Remember, when the London "Bobby" first made his appearance in the 1830s, he was UNARMED - and Londoners jeered at him on the streets.


What will most certainly be required are EXPERTS in Traffic Safety & Engineering. The IPS knows NOTHING about this vital subject - at a time when over 200,000 Indians die on the roads every year, and many times more are seriously injured. Road safety is of paramount importance as the Automobile Revolution has been happening for many years now. To built a Great City in Pondicherry will require Foreign Experts in Traffic Safety, involving Civil Engineering, Electronics as well as Signage.


So, shall we BREAK FREE? 

It's The Ethics Of Liberty versus Inflationist-Welfarism

The Great Big Lie of the Inflationist-Welfarists led by chacha manmohan s gandhi is that State Aid is required to "help the poor." Actually, poor refugees from Europe made America the richest place on Earth - because they had Liberty (and Property). And this was BEFORE the dawn of the HORRIBLE 20th Century.


The poor should themselves find the very idea of State Aid INSULTING.


They themselves should demand LIBERTY.


This means the FREEDOM to engage in consensual trades - without let or hindrance from corrupt State Authorities.


Further, the poor should be instructed by activists to realise that this inflationist-welfarism is all a very "false philanthropy" anyway. The State is a broke institution. In many provinces, they cannot even meet their wage bills. The State is just printing paper money to pay for all the bullshit welfare schemes like the MGNREGA, the cheap rice, and the free schools where the kids' brains get dumbed down. This is causing inflation - which ERODES the SAVINGS of the poor. This ERODES the PRECIOUS CAPITAL of the poor. What bloody NONSENSE is this?


Increasing the quantity of money in circulation NEVER makes a nation rich - not even if the money is gold or silver. The Spaniards and the Portuguese plundered South America for gold and silver - and spread inflation throughout Europe. The price of gold and silver fell!


The British, on the other hand, traded. The British bought pepper, nutmeg and other spices from the East and sold them at a high profit in the West. They brought tea into India from China - and sold it in England. They brought sugar from Jamaica, tobacco from Virginia - and it is the British who got rich, not the Spaniards or the Portuguese.


This is the essence of Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations: that the wealth of a nation is NOT its stock of gold; rather, its wealth consists in the properties and possessions of The People. If the people own lots of goodies, the nation is rich. Thus, Adam Smith recommended "The System of Natural Liberty" - which means free trade and the freedom to trade.


Tp put it another way: The People must produce and sell goods and services and only then will they get rich. If they just increase the amount of money in circulation - even if that money is gold - they will fail miserably. 


Now: What are the "Ethics of Liberty"?


Very simple: First and foremost, we must aim at satisfying our Customers, who are our Kings. We must NOT cheat them, but we must try hard at keeping them happy and satisfied, so they keep coming back to us for their particular needs. If we do this - and are allowed to do so - we survive honourably and morally.


Second: When we Spend the Money we have Earned the HARD WAY - then the FUN BEGINS, and we are the Customer, and we are then the King. We must NOT be forced into buying JUNK by Customs Guards paid for by Protectionists. We must demand the BEST goods, the BEST products, the BEST services. 


This is why Free International Trade and the Freedom to Trade go hand in hand.


See you all again tomorrow.

The Trial of chacha manmohan s gandhi - Part 5

Yesterday, I discussed the "Corruption of the Law." Today, I shall conclude this Prosecution with a discussion on the natural fallout of legal corruption - and that is Corruption of the Police. They become a "legislation-enforcement agency" - and all these amoral and immoral pieces of legislation passed by our Socialist Parliament are essentially Predatory, like the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act. In any case, the Indian Police are known to be Predatory on every city and town street pan-India. They only protect the VVIPs; they prey on the rest of us.

Let us begin with some History. The modern State, equipped with a Police Force and a Central Bank, is very new. Sir Robert Peel set up the London Metropolitan Police - the unarmed "Bobby" - only in the 1830s. They used to be jeered at on the streets when they first made their appearance. 

In India, the Honourable East India Company ruled without any police force. They had an army - but no police. The "civilians" of the HEICS roamed their vast districts unarmed and unescorted, maintaining land records while sitting among the peasants, settling disputes on time, providing Justice, collecting taxes in exchange for Property Titles - and, of course, building "roads, bridges and canals."

The Indian Police Act is dated 1861. This was immediately after the horrors of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, and the Government of India had passed from the Honourable Company to the British Crown. Victoria was now "Empress of India." It is an interesting coincidence that Rabindranath Tagore was born that very same year, in 1861. While Tagore dreamt of an India "where the mind is without fear and the head is held high," the motto of the Indian Police is "Fear is the Key."

Let us fear them not - if we want to be Free.

In this post, I will relate some anecdotes. The first of this is especially for the Free Press, because these events occurred on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, the Fleet Street of Nude Elly. I was then working with The Economic Times, and my offices were in Times House. One afternoon, Professor Christopher Lingle came calling - and I invited him out for lunch. There was an Udipi restaurant nearby. The alternative was the vast array of "street food" on the opposite side of the road. Cris is adventurous, and he opted for the street food. We ate all kinds of stuff, like the delicious papaya salad one guy makes, and we washed it all down with a nimboo masala soda prepared by a guy whose masala is his own secret formula. The sign on his stall says he has been in operation since god knows when.

A few days later, I bumped into Cris again at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute, where I had gone to attend a seminar. After the seminar was over, I had to rush to office to pen my editorial of the day, and Cris tagged along  with the special purpose of trying out the BSZ Marg street food once again.

But lo and behold! When we arrived we found that every single hawker and vendor had been evicted!

Cris, who is a very widely travelled man,  then made a remark that I have never forgotten. He said:

"The poor people of India are exceptionally honest. In any other country if such things happened, the people would have turned to crime."

That is the moral choice we all face - to survive through moral, voluntary and gainful exchanges in The Market, or to live off plunder and theft.

Continuing on the same theme, my second anecdote is about India's "super-cop" KPS Gill. Around 1999 or thereabouts, Professor Madhu Kishwar raised a big stink about police predation on street-hawkers and vendors, particularly in Nude Elly itself. She even made an excellent - and blood-curling - documentary film on the subject, which I hope, if she is reading this, she will put on YouTube. 

As a columnist and editorial writer with ET, I supported Madhu to the hilt. Finally, she called me for a meeting at the India International Centre. And who should be there but KPS Gill. We briefly discussed the matter of police predation on the poor - and Gill thundered, "You cannot stop it." As if on cue, Renana Jhabwala of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), whose members include women street vendors from all over India, retorted, "In my lifetime we will stop this." It was quite a sight seeing Renana, a tiny woman, say this to this huge, big super-cop. One can only wonder what "commands" such cops issue to their subordinates. There must be come "corruption of the mind" that makes them, in reality, not super-cops, but super-thieves.

My own horrible experience with the Karnataka cops is well known: arrested repeatedly, harassed, and even an assassination attempt. They serve their political masters. Just as KPS Gill killed thousands of "Sikh terrorists" without trial for Indira Gandhi and her CONgress. The Free Press hailed him as a "hero" then; in particular, Chandan Mitra of The Pioneer.

My concluding anecdote is not about cops, but it is extremely relevant nonetheless. While I was working with ET I had to give up writing in the "white papers" as I used to do while a freelancer. Thanks to Jug Suraiya I finally managed to edge myself onto the ToI edit page - and my monthly thunder began. One such monthly thunder was titled "Predatory State: The Black Hole of Social Science." The article has been preserved here. 

A few days later, I received a phone call from Professor ML Sondhi, a former Indian Foreign Service officer who became a JNU don and was then Chairman of the Indian Council for Social Science Research as a BJP appointee. Sondhi invited me for dinner - at the IIC, of course. I took Parth J Shah along as witness. During the course of the meal, Sondhi made me the following indecent proposal:

How can we co-opt you?

My stern reply: 

"I have studied too much Political Science to allow that to happen."

I am most certainly NOT getting aboard this Pirate Ship of State.

It is my firm belief that this Predatory State must be dismissed in toto, cops and all. And by all I include all their "co-opted" professors.

Let us live in the "natural order" of The Market. As a "Private Law Society." Let us also abolish the corrupt Reserve Bank of India, which funds all this corruption with its fraudulent paper notes. Inflationism must be ended permanently - especially so in a country where millions and millions are so desperately poor. I recommend my column on the Gold Standard, and another on Private Money.

Some people might want to be "conservative." To them I address the following question:

Which Department of our The State would you like to see conserved?

And as for the cops, they are nothing but what Bob Marley called "uniforms of brutality." Gandhi made a fatal error after Chauri Chaura. Let us be a wiser nation today. A wise nation that knows what Freedom really means. And where both order as well as morality come from: which is, The Free Market.

Shubh Laabh to all of you.

[PS: On the "natural order," I recommend my column defining "catallaxy." And on how the world can live happily without police forces tyrannising us, I earnestly recommend Professor Bruce L Benson's The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without The State, of which, I have just learnt, a new edition has appeared.]

The Trial Of chacha manmohan s gandhi - Part 3: Take #2

The first post in this series referred to the charge levelled against Dr. Karl Marx at the LSE's Old Theatre - of "having wasted the time of humanity with his theories." 


In yesterday's post, the second of this series, I also pointed out that the entire "miseducation system" that chacha manmohan s gandhi has deliberately designed seeks to waste the precious years of youth in pointless - and intellectually damaging - pursuits. This delays their entry into The Market; it delays marriage by delaying the ability of young people to support themselves; and, what is worse, it corrupts sexual morality by keeping young boys and girls in college where all they do is "party." This is precisely what is happening in the USSA and elsewhere.


Now, time is of the essence. Life is measured in time. Productivity is measured in time. The wages of labour are paid according to time. Interest is charged according to time. Rents are also paid on the basis of time. It is therefore Time that is the most important "factor of production." Our chacha is wasting time - the most precious years of youth.


But it doesn't stop there.


Throughout India, our horrible transport system wastes time on a colossal scale. Our trains are the world's slowest; and as for our "notional highways," the less said the better. I do believe chacha has deliberately not built proper highways in order to FORCE our people to travel by train, which are his MONOPOLY. Modern buses on modern highways would have given the Indian Railways a run for their money. No one travels by train in the USSA because they have Greyhound buses and good highways.


And what about civil aviation? Our chacha has imposed such heavy taxes on "low cost" airlines that, once again, we are FORCED to travel by his unsafe and slow trains, his MONOPOLY.


I also believe our chacha has taken deliberate measures to ensure that the automobile revolution does NOT happen in India. He has done this deliberately in order to protect his cronies - like Rahul Bajaj MP, whose FUCKED-UP auto-rickshaws clog all the streets in all our cities and towns. Actually, Calcutta had an excellent PRIVATE tramway before the automobile was invented. Private tramways in all our small cities and towns would deliver the two- and three-wheeler industry a death-blow.


Further, our chacha has not pursued an "automobile policy" that seeks to ensure that all Indians have cars; rather, he wants all Indians to own motorcycles and scooters, thereby making their lives unsafe, especially when little children have to be ferried about. He is NOT protecting the people and their kids; he is protecting some bozos who cannot compete with duty-free second-hand car, bus and truck imports.


Amazing, ain't it? We fuckers have to sit "competitive examinations" all through our lives - CAT, IIT-JEE, UPSC et. al. But these cronies must be protected at all costs, and kept safe from competition.


One of the costs of such protectionism is human life - our lives. Over 200,000 people die on our unsafe streets and highways - and many times more are seriously injured. But our chacha, the great Central Planner, Chairman of the Planning Commission, would rather provide us with "food security." He seems to be unaware that billions of tonnes of fruit, vegetables and fish rot throughout India because these perishable commodities cannot reach markets on TIME.


Last evening, I had a great dinner off a roadside stall here in Pondicherry: dosas with fried chicken liver. Excellent! I told the vendor that he was engaged in true "social service" - and that the Pondicherry "Food Minister" was engaged in theft.


Since our chacha has also monopolised the teaching of History, I think he has deliberately kept the Babur Nama out of the curriculum, because therein this Great Mughal writes that he was horrified when, after conquering Dilli, he found there was "no cooked food available in the bazaars." He took immediate steps to ensure that this was rectified and Mughlai kebabs were available for the populace. 


Our chacha, the great History teacher, wants to parcel raw rice and wheat to all Indians! In the meantime, ask any street-food vendor in Nude Elly (or anywhere else) as to how much harassment he faces daily from chacha's khaki-costumed goons.


Theatre of the absurd, ain't it?


While we are all wasting Time, it is noteworthy that our great chacha himself has NO TIME TO WASTE. 


There is a lead editorial in The Hindu of today that points to the fact that our great chacha "has held only two press conferences and two interactions with editors in Delhi in the past seven years. As for interviews, he has allowed himself to be questioned by an Indian newspaper only once and never by an Indian [television] news channel."


In other words, these seven or eight long years of chacha's misrule have been a colossal waste of time - for the Free Press, a vital Institution of Freedom, to which I proudly belong, with a track record of 20 years of distinguished service.


Now, as the ancient proverb goes, "Time is money." 


Of course, chacha's fiat paper money loses value with the ticking of the clock. The inflationist-welfarist-Keynesian bozo!


It is HIGH TIME this waster of time and money was shown the door - Exeunt! as The Bard would put it - and this vast sub-continent got down to the serious business of making money by saving Time, which is the only way Productivity can be raised, thereby raising all wages and incomes. 


We need a wholesale transport revolution. 


We need "street security" not "food security."


And we need Sound, Private Money, which will give all our poor people "financial security." Inflationism erodes the Capital of all. And welfarism is nothing but "capital consumption."


[This will be a 5-part series. Stay tuned for more.]

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!