A Bullet To The Head - Of The Gandhian "Vision"

I heard a new one on the street the other day, when a tippler found the booze shop closed on Republic Day:


Museebat ka doosra naam Mahatma Gandhi.


That is: Another name for a huge fuck-up is Mahatma Gandhi.


How very true! The disastrous, corrupt, tyrannical and horrendous prohibition of alcohol in Gandhi's Gujarat is just one example - about which I have an old post here. The regular "dry days" everywhere else is another: I was told there will be four such days in February in Nude Elly. Khadi - the hatred of machinery - has produced the silly auto-rickshaw. And swadeshi has meant cronyism - while the consumer gets rooked. All this is "Gandhian Violence" - achieved with the GUNS of The State, and I have an old column on this sort of violence here.


Today, as usual, our The State used violence without reason - the bandar ke haath mein talwar syndrome. All the vendors at the Vasant Kunj D-2 Market were thrown out of business by the municipality - and all their Capital Goods confiscated. As I pondered over this Gross Injustice - which will surely end up promoting crime if allowed to continue - I realised that this, too, was because of Gandhi, who idealised "self-sufficient village republics." This is the Panchayati Raj "vision" our The State has been chasing for long. Too long.


This is the reason why our cities and towns lie neglected. This is why millions and millions have shifted from villages to cities - only to live in slums. And to have their capital and their wares stolen by this Predatory State.


Markets exist in densely populated cities and towns - and not in the vacant countryside. Further, in this market economy, no one is "self-sufficient": each produces for others - his customers. Each is specialised. And then, each buys his needs from others, when he himself becomes the customer. Gandhi was BLIND to the "division of labour" - which is NOT "theory"; rather, it is "datum." We SEE this division of labour all around us, in the market.


However, the other day, in Islam Colony, I noticed another great example of the foolishness of this Gandhian "vision" - a vision based on the total ignorance of market economics. 


I have for long believed that our The State's neglect of roads must be related to this vision of "self-sufficient village republics," where each villager spins his own yarn and so on. Obviously, such villages do not need roads to city and town markets. According to the Gandhians, these villagers have nothing to buy from urban markets, and nothing to sell there, either. Of course, this is untrue. But, from the very beginning, they have been guilty of ignoring the data of the senses. Their "vision" is precisely what Thomas Sowell called a "pre-analytic cognitive act."


The other day, a fight broke out in Islam Colony - and the police came, on a motorcycle, only to find there was no road to drive to the scene of the crime!


Now, this must be happening all over rural India - unconnected by road - but to see it happening inside a city was a unique experience.


We always hear senior police officers demanding bigger budgets for vehicles, manpower and wireless equipment. Yet, never do they say that poor roads hamper their work.


It is this gross neglect of roads that first informed me that this socialist, centrally planned The State is a PREDATOR. Rational "stationary bandits" have always built roads: from Roman Emperors to Sher Shah Suri. It is only because of poor roads into the vacant surrounds that our cities have become overcrowded and urban land impossible to buy for the poor. And this is also the main reason why villages have been depopulated - for no one can survive unconnected to the market. My very old article titled "Predatory State: The Black Hole of Social Science" can be found here.

Incidentally, today just happens to be the day Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead - by Nathuram Godse, the man in the picture on the left. Gandhi was then a guest at the Birla Mansion - and Birla still profits from his Ambassador cars, which only our The State buys. No one else does. Gandhi used to call Jamnalal Bajaj his "fifth son" - and he was the father of Rahul Bajaj, the auto-rickshaw king. These auto-rickshaws are sold, and command a hefty price, only because of this The State and its RTOs. "Gandhian Violence," once again.


It is one thing to assassinate a man. And it is another thing to assassinate his ideas. Gandhi's wrong-headed ideas have marched on and on after his death - quite like John Brown's soul. Today, I hope and trust, I have dealt them a death blow.


Interestingly, the word "assassin" has its root in the word "hashish," which means "charas." The "hashishins" were a sect of charsis in the deserts of Arabia who went about assassinating assholes.


And I smoked two big chillums of charas first thing this morning. After which I thought this up. Hashishin - that's me.


Recommended reading: My award-winning article titled "Liberals must dump Gandhi," which can be found here.

On Street-Food, Bal Thackeray, And The Shiv Sena

"Same old potatoes, and the same old beans," - the song came to mind yesterday, contemplating the same old Dilli street-food that I have been having every day for months - and it thought of Mumbai's vada-paus, something I am quite fond of, and something you don't get much outside that area, something that you certainly don't get in Delhi.


And I thought: Wouldn't it be great to encourage the internal migration of street-food vendors, so that more and more variety could be introduced. Good street-food is good for tourists - and good for poor people too, who don't own kitchens, and sleep rough.


And I thought: Bal Thackeray should think in this manner for his vada-pau and kandha-pohe wallahs - instead of insisting on reserving Mumbai and Pune for them, where there is "excess competition," and hence, poor earnings.


And I thought - of UDIPI! - the little coastal town just north of Mangalore I have passed through so often, and how there are Udipi restaurants to be found everywhere, including London: The Woodlands in Leicester Square. Yes, and tandoori food is EVERYWHERE, we all know that. But South Indian food, too. Vegetarian at its best.


And I thought: Samosas and onion bhajjis are very popular in London too!


And then I thought of the POTENTIAL for all these kinds of "knowledge."


And it struck me that I had read somewhere, long ago, that Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Sena began their career by thrashing South Indian food-sellers in Mumbai!


This is a "recognised political party."


(And SV Raju's PIL with the Mumbai High Court against the ban on classical liberals forming political parties has been pending for over 15 years. Various such PILs are also pending before the Supreme Court, especially regarding Property.)


What is "Shiv Sena"? Well, the Shiv is not Bholaynath; rather, it is Shivaji, the Marattha warlord. About them, later. 


And Sena means "army" - his followers call themselves "sainiks," which means "warriors."

CIVILISATION?

And, oh! I forgot about the Maratthas: they are warriors who took over much of the territory after the Mughals went into decline, whom they fought successfully, and the Holkars, Scindias, the guys in Baroda - they are all old Marattha warlords who learned "good government" under the tutelage of British "political service" Residents. There were schools for their Princes, too. These were the first to learn how to play cricket, for example.

There were many, many good Marattha rulers ruling little principalities until Mountbatten and Patel ended it all - all this, in violation of Old Treaties with the British Crown.

Maratthas are not really a "business community" - like, say, the Parsis or the Jains. Or the Gujaratis and the Sindhis.

And the Old Bombay ABOUNDED in these - and it was GREAT!

When Sir Bartle Frere was Governor of Bombay he received a letter of congratulations from Florence Nightingale congratulating him over the fact that Bombay had a LOWER DEATH RATE than LONDON!

"I will soon have to advise the sick of London to shift to Bombay," she wrote.

CIVILISATION!

The Greatest Creative Flowering Of The Human Race - And Uniform State Education: Part 2

Today is Saraswati Puja - the Minerva of us Hindus - and I thought that I ought to continue where I left off yesterday.


Our socialist, centralised The State now occupies the "commanding heights of education." It thinks it is the fount of all knowledge. So, this The State runs an institute of fashion technology, another on films and television, yet another on journalism and mass communication, on medicine, on veterinary sciences, on forestry, fisheries... the list is really endless. And right on top are the "elite" institutions this The State has established - the 5 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and the 3 Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), which date back to the 1960s: that is, they were set up at the height of socialism and autarky.


First: All these are "businesses" - and personnel of the State run these businesses. In most cases, just selling admission forms and collecting fees for the entrance exams earn huge profits. These profits occur because this same State disallows private entrepreneurs from setting up such institutes. The shortage of such colleges leads to all kinds of malpractices. But let us leave these issues aside and focus on the "knowledge." And let us look at the elite institutes: the IITs and the IIMs.


Socialists can never ever produce "technology" - which comes from the market, and requires capital. Socialists can only teach science. Hence, the former Soviet Union had the highest number of scientific PhDs per capita in the world - and was devoid of technology. I can think of not a single useful technology produced by any IIT. Today, we have modern cars, phones, household gadgets and so much more - and all this technology is imported. Free trade allows the importation of knowledge - while State education in a closed economy is a recipe for disaster. The 1960s and '70s were disastrous decades for India. 


Ditto with "business administration" - which is a skill required in the market economy, by big firms. Such firms did not exist in India in the 1960s and '70s. Thus, IIM-Bangalore specialised in training managers for the State-owned industrial sector.


Also - and this is very important to note - the IIMs have always preferred to train engineers from the IITs. Why? Methinks our The State wanted Indian managers to be fatally infected with a "social engineering" mindset. They also wanted to deviate attention from Economics proper - the subject that they had also monopolised the teaching of, and thereby destroyed. The Delhi School of Mathematical & Statistical Economics is also State-owned.


A State - or, to use a better word, a government - is NOT an institution society requires for learning, for knowledge development, or for knowledge transmission. A government - and a civil one at that - maybe required, if at all, for other things, the most important of which is the apprehension, trial, conviction and punishment of those who are "anti-social": that is, those who are enemies of the market order, who are enemies of property. Even this can be better provided by a system of Torts. Law comes first - and then come courts, lawyers, policemen, magistrates, etc.


Now, when we look at the real hard knowledge that a civil government ought to possess, we find that our fellows know NOTHING at all! Our courts, police, road traffic, public works - these are all a huge big MESS.


Indeed, even the IAS Academy in Mussoorie teaches rubbish to its recruits: Marxist Theory, Central Planning, etc. One Director of this Academy even had the temerity to tell me, after my lecture there, "we are knowledge-proof." 


"Are you fellas bullet-proof too?" I politely inquired.


I conclude with some words from Ludwig von Mises on "education for the poor" and also education in "business administration." These lines are from his magnum opus - Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, from Chapter XIV: "The Market." Do read this chapter for your own benefit. They don't teach such stuff even at Harvard, I can assure you.

It is often asserted that the poor man’s failure in the competition of the market is caused by his lack of education. Equality of opportunity, it is said, could be provided only by making education at every level accessible to all. There prevails today the tendency to reduce all differences among various peoples to their education and to deny the existence of inborn inequalities in intellect, will power, and character. It is not generally realized that education can never be more than indoctrination with theories and ideas already developed. Education, whatever benefits it may confer, is transmission of traditional doctrines and valuations; it is by necessity conservative. It produces imitation and routine, not improvement and progress. Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.

In order to succeed in business a man does not need a degree from a school of business administration. These schools train the subalterns for routine jobs. They certainly do not train entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur cannot be trained. A man becomes an entrepreneur in seizing an opportunity and filling the gap. No special education is required for such a display of keen judgment, foresight, and energy. The most successful businessmen were often uneducated when measured by the scholastic standards of the teaching profession. But they were equal to their social function of adjusting production to the most urgent demand. Because of these merits the consumers chose them for business leadership.

So, let us not worry too much about education. 


And, most certainly, let us get our completely IGNORANT The State OUT of the knowledge business.


This ignorant The State requires knowledge - like, for example, how to design and engineer safe roads.


This ignorant The State does NOT possess any hard knowledge in any field whatsoever that it can impart. 


What this ignorant The State is actually doing is harming knowledge.


They are also AKAL ke DUSHMAN.

This The State is an enemy of Saraswati.

The Greatest Creative Flowering Of The Human Race - and Uniform State "Education"

Handia, the smackie next door who makes Delhi's best aloo tikkis, has a young son who has dropped out of school in order to learn his father's art. I congratulated him heartily - and wished him success. 


Later, I told some other fellows in the neighbourhood the story of how a young law student who had attended my lectures in Mangalore dropped out of the legal profession and returned to learning his own father's art - which was chaat. I even visited the small town in the Westrn Ghats of Karnataka where his father ran a popular chaat shop - and found him there managing the business, while also planning to expand into other nearby towns. There, he told me how his father had ambitions for him and so had forced him into an "education."


On these occasions I also tell the tale of a young boy I met on the Mall in Kasauli, the small hill-station near Simla, who was running a tea-and-samosa stall - and how he told me that he hated school, wanted to earn his keep selling tea and samosas, and how his good father had hauled him out of education and sent him to his friend in Kasauli who ran such a stall, in order to "learn on the job." 


These are mere examples of poor people opting out of education. Yet, the "greatest creative flowering of the human race" - a phrase Karl Marx used with powerful effect - cannot ever be achieved through UNIFORM STATE EDUCATION. This is because the market economy is based on the "fragmentation of knowledge" - and much of this knowledge is "uncodifiable": music, dance, art, craft, theatre, cinema... all these and more are not really taught in school and college, nor can they ever be. Uniform State education can only produce a nation of dullards - who will surely opt for State Employment. Nothing more. 


Anyway, getting back to Handia's young son, yesterday he came out with something new: he set up his own stall selling chow mein. Good fella! Handia showed him how to stir it all up - and the boy sped off to market. Handia later told me that his biggest investment for his son's stall was the kadhai - the stirring pot. And this is precisely what the predatory municipality personnel confiscate whenever they can. The Predatory State is an enemy of each businessman's poonji - his precious Capital.


Note that the Act passed by Parliament is titled "Free and Compulsory Education." That is: BY FORCE. It is funded by an "education tax" - which is FORCE, once again. All this is "misuse of force."


I, for one, am opposed to schooling in general. In our country, almost all schools get their textbooks from the State - and all these textbooks deserve to be burnt. The schools are run by administrator-disciplinarians - and the teachers are just hired hands who never "produce knowledge" themselves. They merely parrot what the State textbooks say. This is not "dissemination of knowledge." This is but the "dissemination of State propaganda." Such an education is actually harmful for the mind.


Handia also has a little daughter - and she attended my early lecture on the fragmentation of knowledge and decided to run a small shop during the holidays when school was closed. She set up a small stall and sold biscuits, tobacco poducts, and some other snacky stuff to the people around. She seemed quite happy earning money. 


Now, school has re-opened and I see her every morning in her uniform. One day, I asked her something about the Ganga and Gangotri and she said she had never heard these words before! I inquired as to what she learnt every day in school and she told me this sad tale - that her "teacher" just comes in, signs her register, and leaves! The kids spend their time writing essays on what they did the previous day. And her father says that the school hassles him about his "papers." "Compulsory education" will only "empower" such "educational bureaucrats." They will hassle everyone - especially the poor. And they will also hassle "educational entrepreneurs." All this is actually "anti-education." 


The Greatest Creative Flowering Of The Human Race cannot be achieved via State Education.

Abolish State Education - NOW!

PS: This post is continued here.

National Economy: The Greatest Delusion, Ever

I came across two young lads studying for a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in the bus yesterday - and, quite naturally, I quizzed them on their political beliefs. The more aggressive of the two proudly declared:

We need someone to "manage the economy."

I told him that capitalism is about each individual managing his own economic life himself, taking orders from no one. His Capital is his - as his his Labour. He uses both to speculate on uncertain future conditions, hoping to make profits, and thereby accumulate capital.


Thus, capitalism is all about "private economies": millions and millions of them. Each "managed" by those who own it. It is a Private Property Order.


And as for the State managing the whole economy - just take a look at the RBI and see what a great folly such an idea is: that money is communist! Do read my "The Case for Private Money" - which you can find here. 


Now, what these BBA students are learning - that someone is required to "manage the economy" - is The Greatest Delusion Ever, one that has virtually destroyed the entire world. This delusion is best called "National Economy." Those whose minds get affected by this delusion think that The Economy is a potted plant on manmohan or montek's window-sill - and without their careful watering and caring for it, this economy cannot survive.

FALSE!

Capitalism means nothing other than the fact that each Individual is the Proprietor of his own Capital - and he tends to his own potted-plant himself. He is answerable to no one. He is the "architect of his own fortune."


Anyway, I told these boys to quit their BBA programme and actually work in a company and "learn on the job." They asked me whether they ought to shift to a BA Economics programme - and I advised them against that, too.


It is my belief that, to understand how an economy actually works, there is no alternative to thoroughly studying Ludwig von Mises' Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. For beginners, I suggest the chapter titled "The Market" - the longest chapter in this book. After going through this chapter, I suggest going to one of the closing chapters that explains why the study of Economics is so important; indeed, it is every citizen's "civic duty" to do so. Then, study the whole book carefully, from beginning to end.


Think right. Think straight. Then only will all be well.


To conclude: The delusion of "national economy" is what has caused each "nation-state" to retreat behind tariff walls and fiat paper currencies - and then engage in "international politics" with all other similar nation-states. It lies at the root of protectionism. It lies at the root of fraud paper money. And it lies at the root of war itself.


It is an EVIL idea.


Get RID of it.

The Responsibility Of The Economist

The "personal responsibility" of anyone who calls himself an "economist" is truly enormous. After all, for almost everyone, earning one's keep - and all the "toil and trouble" involved - is what life is all about. There are but a few who can step out of this sort of life and actually study the subject of wealth-creation dispassionately as well as scientifically, so as to be able to enlighten public opinion.


The vast masses are all woefully ignorant - as we saw the other day in the case of Khuch-Khuch the auto-rickshaw driver who felt machines are bad for humanity because they cause unemployment. I saw another such case today, when a taxi-driver observing a new car being brought in for repairs because of a road accident commented that such crashes are "good for the market" because they give employment to all our denter-painters. How can the destruction of property be good for the market? Bastiat's "Broken Window Fallacy" ought to be widely read.


Which brings me to the huge responsibility placed upon economists - and that is, to weed out errors from their science. Errors like he antipathy to machines. Like the Broken Window Fallacy - and so many more.


Unfortunately, those who call themselves "economists" - particularly in India - have utterly failed in fulfilling their responsibility. Our entire economic system is riddled with errors. Even the MGNREGA is an error - another Broken Window. Rural Development is an error, too - for Economics is about markets, and these are in cities and towns. The entire money and banking system is in error - which is why it is entirely based on fraud.


The main reason why Indian economists are so neglectful of their responsibilities is because almost all of them are beholdened to our The State - like manmohan and montek. Their loyalties lie with the CONgress and the gandhis - not the people, nor their Science. Thus, their anti-people, anti-market ideas have made almost every servant of this Socialist State into a bazaar ka dushman: an Enemy of the Market.


Yet, the fact remains that trade is the only moral way of survival. When economists say the market should not be free and that State interventions are required, they ought to carefully think through the implications of their policy prescriptions. What we see in India is a market riddled with politics, with legislation, with bureaucratic and police regulations, and with consequent endless litigation (which benefits lawyers). All this is actually harmful to society. It encourages anti-social behaviour and discourages honest enterprise. Even to hold on to one's property where there are no titles means that an honest man has to become a kind of dada: a bully, a toughie, a gang-leader.


Socialism is anti-social. Period.


And there is more. The other day, a huge police conference was held in this area to discuss a "spate of robberies." Yet, if we do not encourage honest enterprise, will not more and more people turn to crime? And should not more and more "consensual exchanges" be de-criminalised, too? 


It is The Market that is the source of "social order." It is in The Market that all wealth is created - and re-created anew. How can we have "economic development" if we have enemies of this market all around, pretending to be economists? As Deepak Lal has shown, what is called "Development Economics" is actually the cause of mass poverty.


Yes, all this widespread poverty in India has been caused by our economists - who are almost all anti-market.


They have all failed as economists.


I have not.

Who Is The REAL ADDICT Here?

I am, of course, a "certified addict." The good doctors at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bangalore have provided me with a certificate that says I am "dependent" on tetra-hydro cannabinol (THC), nicotine and alcohol - in that order. The certificate also says that I do not possess the "motivation" to undergo their de-addiction programme. That is, I am happy with my addictions. Since I do not harm anyone else, and I also do my Daily Work well, no one should have any legal ground to hassle me about my addictions.


Now, our The State is also an "addict." In their offices they drink sweet, milky tea all day. But their real addiction is something else: DEBT.

Our The State Is Addicted To Debt.

They are spending borrowed as well as newly printed paper money. This year, their borrowings will cross 4,00,000 crores. (1 crore is 10 million.)


They use all this "funny money" to pay off their innumerable servants, and also buy Ambassador cars for them. And their servants are as useless as that car.


Thus, their welfarism is NONSENSE because it is funded through inflationism. They are destroying capital - especially the capital of the poor, who save.


The poor are being drained of their life-blood by this process.

The State Is Addicted To The Blood Of The Poor.

It is like that old song:


Maine pi sharaab,
Arrey tum ne kya piya?
Arrey tum ne kya piya?
Aaadmi ka khoon?
Main zaleel hun,
Arrey tum ko kya kahoon?


I am glad that I am not addicted to debt, at least. I borrow very little - and promptly repay, as soon as able.


Never a borrower or a lender be - and that's an Old Proverb, too. It's my motto.


I must also add that not a single person employed by this The State creates any wealth: sonia, rahul, manmohan, advani, et. al. - they are all "tax parasites." And we the sheeple are supposed to think that they will make the poor wealthy! Garibi Hatao! What NONSENSE! In reality, these bazaar ke dushman are stopping poor people from creating wealth for themselves.


And as for my addictions - cannabliss, nicotine and alcohol (in that order) - these are the Joys of My Life. My morning begins with a chillum - otherwise, I don't quite feel right. Some people like making love in the morning - and both Donovan as well as Leonard Cohen have written great songs about doing it at that time. I don't. To me, "the night time is the right time to be with the one you love." And the morning is the right time for a SMOKE.

I LOVE MY BHOLA

And if you don't like what I do - well, you can FUCK OFF!