On Amarnath... And Homesteading

The law and order situation in the state of Jammu & Kashmir is precarious enough, so the state-wide unrest following the government’s “allotment” of 40 hectares of forest land on the Amarnath yatra route to the “Shrine Board” must be seen as hugely unnecessary, given the fragile peace that prevails there.

I certainly do not believe in arduous pilgrimages as a means to discover Shiva, but a smokey friend does. He trekked it to Amarnath some weeks back. I quizzed him on the facilities on the route – for it took him a few days up and a few days down, in freezing cold – and this is what I heard.

All food on the route is free, gratuitously provided by wealthy believers.

“Where did you sleep then?” I asked.

He told me an unlikely tale. There are tents all along the route where pilgrims can rent a bed for the night. If you rent the bed before 3 pm, the charge is 100 rupees. If you rent it around 5 pm the charge can exceed 500 rupees. So this is how the money is made. My smokey friend said that there were more than 100,000 pilgrims in all. Grab your calculator and do the math and you know you are looking at some pretty big money.

Now, who “owns” the forest land, the 40 hectares (just 100 acres) that the government is giving away?

Actually, nobody owns it.

The huge amount of civil unrest that is currently going on is only because of the fact that it is the government that acted as the actual “owner” of this unowned land.

In Muslim-majority Srinagar there were violent protests because it was felt that the government was showing partiality towards Hindus. So the government revoked their allotment order. This sparked off the Jammu protests – and the law and order situation in the entire state has been unstable ever since.

What would a libertarian solution be?

Let us start with the First Principle: people own things, governments do not. Governments exist only to give titles to properties people acquire – either by purchase or by “homesteading.”

Homesteading means that anyone can lay claim to any unowned land. Thereafter, if he “mixes his labour with the original soil”, he possesses a “claim to title.” This is a claim that the government, at the local level, must recognize.

If the homesteading principle is applied to the whole of India, a lot of “unreal estate” would become “real estate” instantly – including the land on the way to Amarnath. Why just the Shrine Board, lots of others – maybe many Muslims too – would occupy and develop all the unowned land just lying waste there. Then, why a bed in a tent for 500 rupees, pilgrims might get a bed in a concrete hotel with a hot shower for less. If the local government’s only duties lay in recognizing claims to title and building roads connecting all the properties, the Amarnath area would see “development” – and this would benefit the entire state of Jammu & Kashmir.

There would be no civil unrest because the role of the government would be neutral: the government would not exist to give anything to anyone. If the government never shows favours to anyone or any group, but only acts against “outlaws”, no one and no group would rise in protest against any of its actions. There would be peace, harmony, co-operation in markets, the building up of property and towns, and the spreading out of the population all over this vast landmass. The government would enjoy the support and confidence of the society it serves.

This is where liberalism and socialism collide head-on: We differ over the role of The State in a free society.

And these are irreconcilable differences.

Onwards to a Second Republic!

And Booooom Shankarrr 2U2.

With Extreme Prejudice

Since senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj’s statement that the recent serial bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad were “a conspiracy to divert attention from the ‘cash-for-votes’ scandal” has been pooh-poohed by all the Reichwing editors, allow me to bat on the other side.

In the year 1985, shortly after Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the Anti-Sikh riots that followed in Delhi, and the widespread knowledge that Mrs Gandhi had “created” Bhindranwale, I arrived in sleepy Pondicherry as a rookie cop.

Bored of life in this crime-free town, I took my trusted Bullet 350 one Saturday morn and drove down to Point Calimere, a wildlife sanctuary at the southern tip of our eastern seaboard, where flamingoes were said to be abundant. I wanted to see the flamingoes.

That night at the FRH, a man knocked on my door and informed me that “The Boss” wanted to see me. It seems they had heard I was a cop.

But I was just a trainee cop on a much-deserved holiday!

Anyway, I was escorted to a room where I had the pleasure of meeting Anton Balasingham of the LTTE – with an Australian woman and a dog, smoking 555 State Express.

He is smoking The State, I thought.

Finding me completely harmless, Anton invited me to see their “facilities” the next morning. So, instead of flamingoes, the next morning I saw the ammo dump, the fuel dump, the rubber dinghies with 4 OBMs fitted on each… and so on.

Point Calimere is the closest point in India from Jaffna.

Even as a rookie cop, my impression of The State was that there were wheels within wheels within wheels. I opted out a few years later – and never looked back.

We must not forget that these “political parties” are known throughout India, by every beat constable, as those who engineer organized violence – like riots.

And since they come to control The State, they have these “dirty tricks departments” like IB and RAW at their disposal.

And if it be admitted that Sushma Swaraj mixes in their midst, her “suspicion of a conspiracy” should be taken seriously. You never know what these rascals can be up to.

It is with this deep suspicion that the press should report on the official investigations into these blasts. They should not get sidelined by Narendra Modi’s photo-ops, the Army being called in, and all the sniffer dogs.

They should probe the official probe – and probe it deeply.

The Only Problem: Bad Government

Abandoning their fetish for 9 per cent growth, India’s central bank has now honed in on inflation control.

Why is there inflation in the first place? Because the central bank had increased the supply of money and credit. With too much money chasing too few goods, inflation is bound to occur – and so the very same corrupt institution that created inflation is being given the task of controlling inflation!

This can never work.

As long as there is a central bank, and some bullcrap called “monetary policy,” booms and busts will forever continue.

Lessons can be learnt from the US, now facing a recession/depression for precisely the same reason: the loose and cheap money policies of the US Federal Reserve.

Karen DeCoster, writing on the Lew Rockwell blog, describes the pathetic scene in southern Michigan:

“Here in Southeastern Michigan, we got a head start on y'all in terms of the Depression. Things look especially bleak here. There are empty strip malls everywhere, especially in the medium-to-nicer suburbs. There are unfinished strip malls all around where I live. There are half-finished condo and townhouse projects, with the finished phases being 50% - 80% empty, and the rest of the property in 4-foot weeds. There are prime pieces of property on the semi-rural, north end of the suburbs that are cleared for development, with the home models sitting empty, and nothing but acres and acres of weeds filling the land.
So many niche businesses have closed - scrapbooking stores, mom-and-pop pet stores and grooming businesses, car detailing/accessory shops, small clothing stores, gift shoppes, florists, sports memorabilia shops, small gyms, etc. There are more empty gas stations and auto service centers than I have ever seen before. Nice - but newer - restaurants and taverns that opened at the height of the boom are mostly gone. Only the neighborhood staples and successful chains are going to remain. The super-duper auto dealers - who built massive castles on huge plots of land – are starting to fall.”

The same fate will befall India too, when the RBI’s credit squeeze kicks in. Businesses that were viable under a low interest regime will now prove to be loss-making, and they will fold. Consumer purchases fuelled by low interest rates will drop off.

If governments are the cause of boom-and-bust sequences, the only solution that faces ordinary people is to get their own businesses going. The US could recover if immigration is freed up, and anyone from anywhere who buys a house in the US is given a green card. The US will also recover if world trade is freed up – so that overseas markets for its produce are created and sustained.

In India too, getting out of the recession that is looming ahead requires freeing of businesses – including a freeing up of international trade. Total and absolute economic freedom in India is the best medicine for this country – and the ripple effects of this will positively impact the entire globe.

Thus, Kamal Nut’s intransigence at the WTO talks, which was the prime cause behind their breakdown, goes against the national interest. It also hurts the entire world. It depresses the global catallaxy and retards the international division of labour.

The idea that K Nut is a “representative” of India’s interests is false. He is a protectionist fighting for certain particular interests – the rest of the country, and the rest of humanity, be damned.

In many a way K Nut is like ramadoss (our health dictator) who recently spoke at an international conference, arguing for alcohol and tobacco bans, claiming to be “the voice of the sentiments of 1/6th of humanity living in the world's largest democracy.”

(His political party is the hitherto unknown PMK, allied with the DMK, which is how he became a minister in the coalition. Does anyone outside Tamil Nadu know what PMK stands for?)

This is the Big Lie: the idea of “representation.”

Neither the US Fed, nor the RBI, nor K Nut, nor ramadoss “represent” anyone but their own selfish interests. If we see through this deception, we will find the solution: Freeing all economic activity from all governments – including the production and supply of money, liberty to trade with foreigners, and freedom in domestic businesses as well.

Laissez faire is the ONLY WAY.

Liberalization Requires Liberal Politics

The Manmohan pyarey government, in an unholy alliance with Communists for 4 years, did nothing on “economic reforms”. In other words, further “liberalization” of the economy did not occur, and market forces and entrepreneurs were not freed.

After the Commies made their exit, and Mulayam & Co. joined the Congress-led government, many commentators wrote of the possibility of speedy liberalization, now that the Commies were out of the way.

Yet, a news report of today says that this is unlikely, as the opposition NDA has decided to stall economic reforms. They will not support the UPA on this.

Therefore, key reforms in banking, insurance and pensions are unlikely to be carried out. This is most unfortunate for Indyeah. We will remain stuck with the poverty-stricken India of old.

This impasse has occurred only on account of the fact that the UPA lacks real “politicians” at the top. Pyarey Manmohan is a baboo, Sonia is a bahoo, and the rest are inconsequential backroom boys of the Grand Old Party of the Reich, like Kamal Nut.

Real politicians would take the issue to the people, seeking to convince them of their stand. If the people support these politicians, then politics achieves its purpose, and no opposition outfit can accomplish much.

We must therefore arrive at the sad conclusion that India is a “democracy” with very little “politics” – the engagement of the people in an open public dialogue on all the issues that confront the collective.

As with the Communists in China, everything in India that is called “politics” happens behind closed doors. Thus, just as the Chinese Communists are more like a “secret society” than a “political party” in the liberal sense of the term, so too with the Congress, the BJP, the Commies, Mulayam and Co, and Laloo’s RJD: they are all “secret societies.”

The Reichwing editors have all praised the “debate” in parliament on the “trust vote” – but those who watched the debate and know their onions would all agree that this was mere “ritualism,” totally devoid of the true essence of democracy, which is public politics.

It has been my experience over the past 15 years that it is very easy to convince people – from the illiterate poor to the educated student community – of the need to replace planning by markets, dirigisme by economic freedom, and protectionism by free trade.

It is therefore Indyeah’s loss that true-blue liberals are denied entry onto the political stage.

There cannot be any Liberty in Indyeah as long as those who believe in Liberty are kept out – by these “secret societies” of shady backroom operators.

For more on this, read my recent column, “Politics Need Liberal Politicians.”

Kamal Nut On Livelihood

Kamal Nath is at it again: blocking free international trade on behalf of a nation of over 1 billion people.

This time, however, Nath has hit on the new tack: claiming to be the spokesman of 600 million Indians who are subsistence farmers.

The issue, he claims, is the very “livelihood” of all these poor people. He will “not compromise on matter of livelihood.”

Ho hum.

Actually, at the level of Urban Ground Zero, the State is the enemy of the livelihoods of the poor.

We see it all the time, everywhere: but the Indian political class never utters a word about “economic freedom.”

It is Urban India that needs economic freedom first, because that will turn the economic engine on, fanning the winds of international commerce over all the villages.

And anyway, we also see that villagers are “voting with their feet” in millions, migrating to Urban India.

They are migrating “From Subsistence To Exchange” – just what Peter Bauer asked them to do.

Subsistence is producing for self-consumption – and this has nothing to do with Catallactics, or trade, where we produce for strangers and buy from strangers as well, in an Urban Civilization.

The minister is defending trade barriers that are designed with the express purpose of imposing Subsistence (which is what the villagers are fleeing from) on Urban India, whose glorious future lies in Catallactics, or Exchange – with everyone, including all foreigners.

My fellow citizens must therefore realize that the customs department should be abolished. It blocks more economic gains than the revenue it generates. Its purpose today is not revenue, but political patronage. Kamal Nath wants to protect auto-component manufacturers – the “infants” he wants to coochie-coo – but that will mean more expensive cars and repairs for everyone. There is no trade with 400 per cent duties on wine and 200 per cent on used cars. No trade means no revenue. It is just a misuse of coercion for private ends – the same old story.

If the customs department is shut down today, and the entire landmass becomes the world’s biggest duty-free trading arena, and every shop, even the paan-bidi shop, stocks duty-free foreign products, will Indians be richer or poorer one year hence? Think about it.

Kamal Nut makes for strange “politics”: his constituency lies in a poverty-stricken autarkic landlocked hole in Madhya Pradesh. And he is the jet-setting face of the government of India’s attitude to foreign trade, flying all over the developed world. Where he claims to “represent the poor.” And that too, I would add, as a monopolist.

This is another case of “knowledge failure” under Manmohan’s regime.

The issue is extremely serious: Livelihood.

Reflections On The Bomb Blasts

The newspapers are full of the stories of the bombs that went off, first in Bangalore, and then in Ahmedabad.

Over 40 people died.

It is precisely in moments like these that ordinary people like you and me call for the government; that too, “strong government.”

This is a grave error, especially in India, where over 100,000 people die on the potholed roads every year – an average of 274 per day, every day.

The government police and the political class do nothing (and say nothing) about these easily preventable deaths.

Are these totally insincere and incompetent rascals going to combat what they call "terrorism"? In reality, they govern by terrorising the citizenry, crushing them under the jackboots of the state police.

Funny thing about these “bomb blasts” that are becoming fairly routine is that they differ from normal “criminal” activity, in which the criminal seeks personal gain – as with dacoity, burglary etc. By letting off these blasts, the criminal gets nothing. Why do these blasts happen so regularly then?

If such bomb blasts have nothing to do with monetary gain, but everything to do with “politics,” we must surmise that something is seriously wrong with our “politics” which no amount of normal policing can cure. Indeed, the phenomenal amount of VIP security given to ordinary politicians in India is actually a sign of the fact that our politico-administrative class has many enemies and cannot hold their own in civil society: they must be “protected” from the people. In London, in stark contrast, David Cameron, the leader of the Tories, cycles to work every day – often deliberately omitting to wear the mandatory helmet. The Tories, since Thatcher, call themselves “the party for law and order” – and this is no vain boast.

The answer, then, is not “political action” and “strong government” (and certainly not “central government”); the answer is to build a “body politic” in which all the citizens of the city or town feel proud to belong. In such a “body politic” the citizens are the eyes and ears of the police. Without this direct co-operation, no government policing and no “tough anti-terror laws” can work.

We must think anew. These bomb blasts only confirm this.

That all is not well in India is proved by the fact that millions of Indians are trying to emigrate. In Delhi, queues start forming outside western embassies from 2 AM! The New Indian Express has this funny story today of a temple dedicated to the “visa god”: pray at this temple, and you are bound to get your visa! It is no more Saarey Jehan Se Accha. It is more like "there must be someway outta here."

These are all signs that something has gone horribly wrong with India’s experiment with centralized socialist democracy. Unless we change this government, we cannot fix this mess. Let no bomb blasts shake us from this resolve.

Everybody MUST Get Stoned!

Cough, cough.

Bad smoke again.

Thanks to State coercion.

They force us to buy Indian – from Old Monkey to the Bajaj autorickshaw; they force us to “serve” in villages; they force us to smoke what they allow us to smoke; they force us to use what they call money.

The State is nothing but Coercion – but the intent is good: to use coercion against those who commit injustices.

But, of course, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and coercion is now used for patently unjust ends, including private ends: like vacating some villages for a Tata car plant.

Much of this misuse of coercion lies unnoticed, because the coercion is indirect: like the customs man, whom nobody sees, so nobody sees what is NOT on the market.

A liberal party is not on the political market because coercion is used to keep us out.

This entire Socialist State is nothing but the ABUSE OF COERCION.

I wondered what I would do if I had this power of organized, legitimate, tax-funded coercion.

I would declare Bob Dylan’s “Everybody Must Get Stoned” the national anthem.

Emphasis on the MUST.

If you are not stoned, and the police notice, you might be in serious trouble, especially if you are a complete stranger to the manners and customs of the local people.

We prefer peaceful stoned strangers to drunken strangers here, or even "sober as a judge" strangers, who are often very mean machines.

The unstoned stranger would be sung the national anthem and the policeman would offer him a mighty spliff.

These are our “customs,” he would say; and, so far, no unjust force has been used.

What if the stranger refuses to light up; or worse, like clinton, refuses to inhale, thereby wasting tax money, uselessly burning up a Spliff of State?

It is then that FORCE comes in.

The policeman would pull out his .45 Magnum, “the most powerful handgun in the world, that can blow your head clean off.”

This is threat of grievous hurt – so must be seen as COERCION.

He would play the national anthem once again and then, pointing his .45 Magnum at the stranger’s head, would offer the choice: choose how your want your brains blown, punk, because the laws are very TOUGH in this land: it’s either the spliff or the .45 Magnum.

We all know how this story will end, of course.

Peace will prevail.

The stranger will get stoned and peacefully mingle in the market.

The policeman will return to his station.

There, he will light up a spliff himself, and say to the mirror on the wall: “You know why they call me Dirty Harry? Because I get all the dirtiest jobs.”