Know ALL Your Enemies – Even More Clearly

Continuing from where I left off yesterday, let us now proceed to the Great Democratic DELUSION: that the “elected government” exists because it enjoys the “support of the majority.”

In our overblown “multi-party democracy,” this is NONSENSE.

Take the recent UP elections, for example. There were four major parties in the fray – the CONgress, the BJP, the BSP and the SP. They all scored fairly evenly on the vote front – but the SP came out the big winner. Does the SP “enjoy majority support” of the entire electorate? Most certainly not! If an actual count is taken, their support could not be exceeding 30 per cent.

In such multi-party elections, the inevitable result is a “fractured vote.”

Then, MINORITIES rule.

This applies even more at the Centre – when we have “coalitions.” And we have been having coalitions for decades now. These coalitions are all “hobbled together” – and the member parties can often change, while the “government” goes on. It is an open secret as to how these coalitions are formed, and what “considerations” are involved. The role of the DMK in the existing UPA government led by Manmohan Singh is a perfect example.

Thus, we have a CABINET – based on “spoils.”

What some prefer to call “kleptocracy.”

Political economists call it "vote trading": the buying and selling of votes in a democratic assembly. This the the worst and most perverse aspect of the "vote motive."

Do read my popular post titled “What is an Indian political party today?”

Serious students ought to carefully study Gordon Tullock's very old book The Vote Motive, available here.

Before proceeding further to discuss as to who exactly comprise the “real majority,” allow me to talk once more about “cronyism” – about something I inadvertently left out yesterday.

The other cronies of this State are those who raise their voices in favour of “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR).

A company is “responsible” to its shareholders, and to its customers. Period. I pointed this out in a dissenting column for Outlook Business some months back.

However, when that issue of this magazine reached me, and I read the opinions of those corporates in favour of CSR, I was aghast – and wrote a post in response titled “This is an outrage!” (Do search for it, for I cannot find it somehow.)

All these CSR chappies are shills of “education.” And that means teaching what The State wants to be taught. 

MISEDUCATION.

We already have many examples of this: The Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the Ratan Tata Library at the Delhi School of (Mathematical) Economics, the Jamnalal Bajaj Management Institute, the Birla Institute of Technology, and even a more recent Ambani World School. There now exists an Azim Premji University – established by an Act of the Karnataka legislature. I saw an ad for a Shiv Nadar University – and a school as well.

FREEDOM MATTERS MUCH MORE THAN EDUCATION – and there is a lot of “hard knowledge” that is not being allowed into the market because we are not free: like music and dance, for example, or even the skill of mixing cocktails. The “performing arts” are only seen on TV. And these skills are not learnt in formal schools. The same applies to streetfood – and we are a hugely talented nation in this area.

What these CSR corporates are leading the nation towards is nothing but FASCISM. Under such a political dispensation, the ruling elite rule hand-in-glove with many chosen corporations. So, you see “businessmen” and also “markets” – and think this is the “free market.” It is not!

A free market is one in which ALL MUST COMPETE. This includes open competition with all foreign rivals. It means the consumer is King, and the producer is his servant.

Remember: In socialist India, it is the youth who really had to compete – for admissions, for jobs, for everything. And, those days as well, there were these “corporates” who always demanded “protection” – and many still do.

Traditionally, in Europe, where the word “university” comes from, these were places shielded from State interference. These were just like monasteries, in fact. This tradition is still followed to some extent in India, and the police cannot enter campuses without permission. But The State is already inside – with its grants, its syllabi, and the entire administration.

Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar are not Steve Jobs – and Jobs never set up anything more than an excellent in-house R&D department. These guys ought to do the same. Their computers are all “assembled” – from imported parts.

Further, the opinions expressed by these corporates in that particular issue of Outlook Business (June 11, 2011) show that they view out illiterate masses with scorn. They do not see that these people have plenty skills already: singing, dancing, playing instruments, streetfood, mahua, handia, apong, chhung, and what not.

And as far as these corporate honchos are concerned, in my frank opinion, the only skill they themselves posses is “knowing how to manipulate State policies in their own favour.”

Watch out for these fellows.

Nandan Nilekani is also taking us towards FASCISM – with ID cards that will empower the cops, and make the State much more powerful as well as intrusive. His excuse is “welfare” – but we need FREEDOM, and welfare is an INSULT. In any case, this State has no money. It is broke. I have a previous post against his pro-State, anti-people scheme.

All these are a “small minority” – the employees of the State, their cops, their soldiers, and their cronies.

The VAST MAJORITY of our people are ordinary folk who seek their honest survival through selling and buying in The Market.

They comprise a “Natural Order.”

(To know more about this natural order, read the first essay in the eponymously titled e-book on the right-hand bar.)

The minority comprising The State and its agents and allies is entirely “predatory.”

We “see” them preying on the poor on the streets – while over 1000+ citizens die on those very same unsafe streets each day. And the VIPs and VVIPs get “security.” This is “socialist equality.” What Orwell called “some are more equal than others.”

Liberty, Property, and Happiness!

NOT Liberty, Equality and Fraternity – which are contradictory.

Fraternity is nothing but “narrow domestic walls”: tribalism, communalism, sub-nationalism, and even Hindutva.

Do read my column titled “Catallaxy: Key to an Open Society.”

So, let us think LOCAL – with mayors.

And, thereafter, let us think GLOBAL.

Let us INTERNATIONALISE - the North-East, for example, instead of all this petty politics of tribalism and insularity.

The same INTERNATIONALISM should happen worldwide. But it can, and should, begin in India – where every city is a “melting-pot” of all kinds of races, languages, religions and cultures.

Freedom, Peace, Property, Prosperity, Happiness, and Internationalism – that is the way forward.

And all this in a Natural Order.

Lastly, I wish to dissuade my readers from buying any books of mine published by Macmillan India. They are up to mischief - and I intend to investigate them, and thereafter sue. Also, Macmillan ELT from London is selling a book purportedly written by me titled Busy Bee 4 Teacher's Resource. I have NOT written any such book. This will also be investigated. And appropriate legal action taken.

The Macmillan India stuff is anyway all "old hat": essays and columns penned over a decade ago.

Read my newer stuff.

Especially For Civilisation, Against Politics: Arguments for an Intellectual-Moral Revolution, which can be downloaded free here.