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 - 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.]

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.

Pondicherry's Hideous Big Government

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

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

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

Heading all this is a Lieutenant-Governor!

All this - and no Mayor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Between Instinct And Reason

While in Juggernaut Puri, my thoughts turned to Stuttgart, Germany, a beautiful city I once had the good fortune to visit, a city where both Mercedes-Benz as well as Porsche are headquartered. In Stuttgart, it struck me, God is crucified - and the people ride chariots. Here in Puri, it is God that rides the chariot, while the people can barely make their way around town. Funny old world, ain't it? In Stuttgart, the Mercedes-Benz museum displays the first "Popemobile" ever made - they made the chariot for their Supreme Pontiff. And all taxis in Germany are Mercedes - for the people. There are, of course, trains and trams - the railway station is stunningly beautiful - and the Intercity Express (ICE) train I took into town travelled at over 350 kmph. Wheels. Wheels for the people.

My thoughts then went to Friedrich Hayek's last book Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism which begins with the assertion that economic activity lies "between instinct and reason." We have given up the instinct to snatch and grab, to plunder, and prefer to trade instead - but we have not reasoned why. We are guided by a "sense of gain" and we therefore prefer survival through peaceful exchanges - but we have not reasoned beyond that. We trade because it is something we have learnt from childhood, as a "means of obtaining desired objects." The child wanting a chocolate will see his father buy it for him - and he learns that this is the way to obtain all that you need. He does so all his life - and his children and grand-children do the same, without reasoning why. It is the same with the worship of God - these are practices learnt by imitation, by following tradition, without reasoning why.

Now, chariots require roads. The road outside the Juggernaut Temple is broad and wide - but there is NO ROAD to my hotel, a cute little old building close to the sea. It has rained in the morning, and there are mud-filled puddles everytwhere. Messy. You feel icky walking around this Holy City. But in Germany, where God is crucified and people have wheels, they have the most incredible roads. There are signs on German autobahns saying "No Speed Limit" - and I once rode a Porsche Carrera at 235 kmph, feeling like James Dean, though fortunately surviving to tell the tale. In India, we have neither roads nor wheels. This is a "centrally planned economy." A planned disaster.

There are two critical areas where we humans go astray in our thinking - when we think about God, and when we think about our Kings. The Sun Temple at Konarak was built by a king in his own glory - but the people paid the taxes. What should they pay taxes for? No one has thought of this. Jawaharlal Nehru called his Big Dams the "temples of modern India" - and the people paid, people who had neither wheels, nor roads, nor phones, nor electricity. The idea was that The State creates wealth by making steel. None thought this absurd - because everyone operated "between instinct and reason," and they deferred to their King just as they defer to God.

All our politicians who wear khadi uniforms are similarly operating between instinct and reason. I asked a little boy whether he would like to make himself a t-shirt by sitting at a spinning-wheel (charkha), which would take him about two years to make one t-shirt, or whether he would just go to a shop and buy one. The little boy - with his "sense of gain" - said he would buy a t-shirt from a shop. We all specialise in the "division of labour" because of our sense of gain - but we never reason beyond that. Neither do the politicians. They themselves do not manufacture their own uniforms at home. They buy them from the Khadi Bhandar. Even Rahul Gandhi has not sat at a charkha - ever. All we see around us are people - both kings as well as commoners - operating between instinct and reason.

Economics is a very young science. It was unknown to the ancients. Its principles have become known only fairly recently. To the Austrian School, it all begins in 1871 with Carl Menger, though Menger himself studied Adam Smith carefully, and his own Lectures to Crown Prince Rudolf followed the Wealth of Nations, which is dated 1776. 

But young sciences often go wrong. Much has gone wrong with Psychiatry - another young science which also began in Vienna. And so it is with Economics. To me it appears that there are barely a handful of people who understand Economics in the entire world. All that is taught in the universities - macro, micro, welfare - is complete bunk.

Even the eminent professors are operating "between instinct and reason." They merely repeat what they have learnt by imitation - they never think things through for themselves. They are like the priests who recite ancient texts they have memorised. The true Science of Economics requires "mental reconstruction" of human actions in markets. The Marshallian diagrams and the Walrasian equations do no such thing. Junk them all, in toto.

And do read Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, Hayek's last book. Hayek wrote it hoping to challenge any eminent socialist to a debate - but none dared to debate him. They let him quietly die, hoping no one would read his last great book.

Errors.

They are all in serious error.

And these errors are destroying our civilisation.

Some of these errors are so deep that I think the world is run by "criminally insane" people. And you want to go to them for "education"?

The Sun No Longer Shines On Konarak

Took a taxi ride to see the Konarak Sun Temple, 40 km from Puri. Within a couple of kilometres we were out of city limits - and the slums.

Then, we passed some "residential localities" of the middle class - but no markets there, and poor inner roads. No space for the automobile. Or servants. 

And then, the JUNGLE started. All jungle between Puri and Konarak. Forest Department warning signs about deer crossing. Casaurina trees, cashews too - but all jungle.

Finally, reached a sort of roadside town - quite a shambles - with a statue of Biju Patnaik pointing in the general direction of The Sea. But there is no promenade for tourists. A municipal functionary operating a roadblock took 10 rupees tax from me.

A few minutes later, we were near the famous temple - and a cop had to be bribed to drive inside. Another 10 bucks for a ticket - and I made the fortunate decision to hire the services of a guide. 

The Sun Temple in Konarak is built on 24 "spoked wheels" - each with a massive "hub." That is, two hub-and-spoked wheels for every month, representing the phases of the moon. They worked as "sundials" too, my guide told me, and you could tell the time by them.

The temple is elaborately carved - but not too well maintained. Scaffolding all over the place, and many "new stones" that are out of place and ill-designed, obviously by our The State. What is interesting is the representation of the "stages of life" - with animals cavorting for the children, sexual enjoyment for the adults, and metaphysical speculation for the aged. Metaphysics has been the bane of Indian philosophy.

One interesting mural showed a day in the life of a noblewoman - she wakes up and stretches, bathes, helped by servants, and then rides out on a horse to hunt! 

No hunting allowed any more  in Orissa - a heavily forested State of the Federation. Why not deer ranching in the private sector? Barun Mitra is going gung-ho about tiger farming; but I think we should begin with deer. And ganja farming, of course.

I enjoyed a venison steak at the Ikea showroom in the outskirts of Frankfurt-am-Main. The photo accompanying this post is of deer hunters in the USSA.

I must mention what the noble-woman did after the hunt - well, she enjoyed her man. The Good Life! In three or four different positions.

My guide smoked ganja - and we shared a couple of chillums in the unkempt temple gardens. Some other chaps joined us - sellers of precious stones, which seems to be a big "street business" here. This is also "knowledge" not taught in school. The gemstone sellers commented how ganja was a "good nasha" - and how alcohol was killing the people. My guide scored some ganja for me - which did the trick this morning, somewhat.

But the Sun is not shining on this Tourist Destination. The crowd at the Sun Temple was immense! That too, on a Monday evening. All along the road, people have opened dhaba-type shacks. I even found a Cafe Coffee Day - and enjoyed a cappucino. I thought of Goa, where, all along the NH 17, you find establishments calling themselves "Bar & Rest" - the Goans are too susegaad to use the full word "Restaurant"! - but here on this jungle highway there are no bar & rest signs. No Freedom. No road. No wheels. Abundant Space.

I thought a Great Idea would be to rig up a private consortium that would build a sea-side train ride between Puri and Konarak - and develop commercial property all along. The crowd of Bengali tourists would love it. Maybe some would buy Property here for their retirement. This would be real "development" - coming from The Market, an Institution of Free Society that socialists like Biju Patnaik could never comprehend. And they never looked towards The Sea; they only looked towards Nude Elly - for "planned development funds": all the "funny money" of the RBI. Funny money that loses value even as I write.

You might as well burn your Macroeconomics textbook too.

It rained on the return journey - and all was cool. Not violent rain like the Goan monsoon, but a gentle drizzle, with blowing gusts of cool wind. It was nice driving through The Jungle, but when we reached The City all was a mess. Can't enjoy the weather in The City. 

Saw a guy with a t-shirt saying "My idea of a Balanced Diet is a Beer in Each Hand" - but I find the beer here prohibitively priced. For the price of one beer I bought a 180ml bottle of Seagram's Royal Stag IMFL whisky. It costs much less in Nude Elly. It costs even less in Goa. So the poor drink chullu. Smoke bidis. And horrible ganja. And their savings are eroded by Inflationism.

What the fuck!

You might as well burn your Microeconomics textbook too.

It is the Science of Economics you need to know - as developed in the Tradition of the Austrian School.

So stay tuned to this blog, where I will elaborate key principles each day.

To The Youth

In Puri, I noticed so much "real knowledge" ordinary Oriyas possess, that they never learnt at any school. Like the guy who gave me a great massage. The guys who do the cooking - and this includes some experimental "continental" stuff especially for the wandering gora. I bought some magnificent hand-painted postcards of Lord Juggernaut - as seen in the photo alongside. They are fabulous sculptors, too - in wood, metal and stone. They are an artistic and creative people - and on the radio in the tea-shack I heard great Oriya music. 

In this post, my central message to the youth is:

Stay away from State Education. 

There is a big world out there - and lots of real knowledge to obtain. To help you start off right, here is a short lesson for you all, things I have privately studied over many decades, and which I think it my duty to share with you all.

Let us begin with the understanding that Labour is suffering; it is disutility. The fun only begins when you start spending what you have earned with your labour. Our people work hard; they "labour" - but the little "fun" they have, they only get the worst ganja, the worst alcohol (some desi sharaab sells here) and the worst tobacco - bidis. This is a public health disaster - and it brings to mind the deep errors involved in the "labour theory of value" that the Property-hating Communists teach. What is happiness; what is anand? Value is "subjective." Utopia means Utopianism - each to his own, and to each his own: Property.

And then comes Liberty. Capitalist enterprise is the "service of your fellow man"? The camel guy on the beach answered, with the usual "wisdom" of our common people, "The service of man is the service of God." But that doesn't answer the question: What is the service of your fellow man?

The woman selling tea is serving her fellow men and women - and tirelessly so. The profit she earns is entirely honourable - shubh laabh. At the end of the day she packs up her cutlery and utensils, loads them on her head and walks home - and that is her Capital. Capitalism is poonjiwadi. Each operates with his own Capital. All are "private economies" run by subjectively valuing independent minds. This is what you see the ordinary, uneducated people doing all the time in any Indian city or town. They are going about buying and selling - and trying to "accumulate capital." 

So I told the camel guy, "God is very rich here; so many big temples; he doesn't think about you poor people and your suffering; so just serve your fellow man; serve him faithfully and honestly; and you will be Free."

Our country's problems are caused entirely by a faulty Economics - and its only cure can be the mass understanding of basic economic laws and principles that are correct and scientifically valid. One principle I have already enunciated - labour is NOT value. The second is that Inflationism erodes the Capital of all poor people. "Macroeconomics" is nonsense. And so is "Microeconomics" - but that's another story.

The "educators" of our The State have got everything totally wrong - they view Profit as Loss; and they view Loss as Profit.

They see the "population" as a Loss - but cows don't create wealth. The milkman does. Densely crowded cities and towns are richer than vacant countrysides. Our children are our wealth. They see them as a liability. 

And they view their "budget deficits" as "economic stimuli" - this is how they see Widespread Loss as Profit.

The "educators" and, hence, the "policy-makers," are thus blind to certain things that matter for economic success:

• they are blind to Markets

• since markets occur in cities and towns, they are blind to Urban Issues

• they are blind to Transportation - and all tradeables must be transported, which is why they say "every great city sits like a giant spider on its transportation network": and "all roads led to Rome."

Both their Theory and their History are wrong.

All they are doing is Misusing Force to take away Liberty and Property.

This is nothing but Arbitrary, Tyrannical Government.

It is FOOLISH to go to them for Education.

After all, they think you are the "population problem."

Indeed, in 1997, on the 50th Anniversary of Independence, the Parliament of India passed a "unanimous resolution" asserting that population was India's biggest problem. That is, in this Democracy, the "representatives of the people" think - in unanimous terms, that too - that their constituents are a Problem; and their children, too.

Sanjay Gandhi forcibly sterilised lakhs of poor people.

They are doing "rozgaar yojana" (in the villages) but they are stopping poor people from trading freely (in the cities).

They are destroying every city and town with overcrowding - thereby making an urban home even more difficult for the poor. And there is SO MUCH free land all around.

Whatever else you do, do NOT go to their institutions for Education.

Especially in Economics, Political Science, History and Law.

Do not study "Indian Economics." Burn all these books.

Do not study their "Civics." Burn all these books.

And stay tuned to this blog, which will try and guide your minds in the right direction as long as it is able, with a Daily Post.

Boom Shankar!

Holy Smoke In Juggernaut Puri - and other tales

Last evening, my hotel receptionist, knowing well my craze for ganja, dropped me off at a nearby Shiva temple where devotees supposedly gather at sundown and big chillums are smoked. The small temple had a sign outside saying Sabka Malik Ek - The Lord Is One - and it featured the symbols of four faiths - Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, and, of course, our "Om." But the great party didn't happen. A lone priest showed up late and performed some prayers and lit some incense. He offered to "score" some grass for me - but this, too, was terrible stuff. Imagine that, the holy priest of a Shiva Temple that respects all faiths smokes ganja laced with chemicals!

The sun rises very early on the East Coast. I was bathed and ready, out on the beach for a cuppa by 0530. Then, I trekked it to the market area - but everything was closed. Spotted a rickshaw-wallah - the 3-wheeled cycle type - who looked like a major stoner, wispy beard, matted hair, lean frame - and, sure enough, he confessed to smoking 10 chillums a day. We rode off down the main thoroughfare - no footpath - and it struck me that Juggernaut Puri ought to get itself a tramway. These days, underground railways are coming up in two land-locked cities, Nude Elly and Bangalore, and both are under State-ownership. But cities like Puri can get tramways from private players, preferably foreigners, who know something about these things. Our guys know nothing. This City of the Juggernaut needs The Wheel - and all these three-wheeled beasties must go the way of the dodo.

On the ride, it became apparent that this is a completely uncared for city. Passed the BNR Hotel - and how grand it still is. It came with The Wheel - the private Bombay-Nagpur Railway (BNR).

The wheels in this town are all obsolete - mainly three-wheelers, of the motorised sort. Many financed by banks. How does Kathmandu have Toyota taxis (and a tramway)? Import! Import second-hand cars from the East. Get rid of these beasties. Dump them in the sea.

The rickshaw-wallah and I had a couple of chillums - bought not from a government shop, but a private entrepreneur. Little pudias for 5 rupees each. No kick at all - but no chemicals, at least. Then the guy offered me a "trip" for 25 rupees - and they mix some hard opiate into the ganja and smoke it! I refused.

I began the post with the tale of the holy priest at the Shiva Temple smoking chemical-laced ganja. I end it with this tale of the rickshaw-wallah who gets no kick out of the stuff being sold - and so heads for opiates.

Why can't we get GOOD SMOKE?

This is VERY BIG BUSINESS.

Big ganja-charas companies ought to be floated on the Stock Exchange.

Only Brand Names can guarantee quality.

Legalise it!

Don't criticise it!

I'll advertise it!

Lessons From The Juggernaut

Man Friday took me to the shop selling ganja just opposite the Juggernaut Temple. The chariot was under construction; hundreds of carpenters working. It is the worship of The Wheel - and wheels were denied Indians during the Nehru-Indira Gandhi years. Even now, inefficient wheels rule. After all, our king rides a donkey - the Ambassador. The Sun Temple at Konarak is also about The Wheel - as the photo alongside shows.

Transportation is of key importance to trade - which is why coastal regions have always prospered. In India, transport sucks. Productivity is measured in Time. Poor transportation reduces the productivity of us all. Shubh Yatra should go with Shubh Laabh - and that requires The Wheel.

Of course, now we have wings - but I just read that IATA has placed our The State in the "Hall of Shame" for overtaxing civil aviation. I could easily have flown down here - but the taxes were more than the fare. These morons are anti-progress. And they are running Air-India! And Air India is taking passengers away from legitimate commercial airlines - "unfair competition."

Spent a lazy evening on the beach. No shacks here selling cold beer and interestingly named cocktails. Only little tea shops. Tiny little ones. I pointed out that so much sweet tea is being consumed by our people - and tea is something new, something the British introduced. They introduced tobacco too, and coffee. All these are legit - but the ganja of the ancients is illegal.

Baba Ramdev talks about "black money" - and the ganja-charas trade today must be all about Black Money. If it was legit, customers would be legally served and a bonafide industry would emerge. I found a kiosk in Bhubaneswar where the guy sells ready-made joints. These should be machine made - in big factories. 

Legalise it!!!

Don't criticise it!

I'll advertise it!

But the woman running the tea stall on the beach managed to get me a beer. 

What I would like to ask is the question "Why?" Why do people accept these restrictions on trade, on peaceful exchange, on ways to keep the customer happy without hurting anyone. Why are we so servile?

And why does The State suppress and oppress us so?

Why are there so many laws, rules and regulations?

What is the point of voting for an MP who goes to Delhi to pass more laws - while there is no one to run The City?

And all the villagers are moving to cities.

And our The State is pursuing "rural development."

The System is Wrong.