The picture above is of COAL MINERS IN INDIA TODAY.
That is, RIGHT NOW!
To progress economically, we in India must move to other sectors of economic activity - like trade and tourism, and so on.
So, Californians have long moved out and beyond GOLD MINING.
While we have low grade iron ore mining in GOA!
And this, too, is based entirely on POLITICAL CORRUPTION.
This is nothing but planned poverty. The poverty is of the workers as workers - and also as consumers. This, under so-called "socialists"!
Under conditions of freedom, private property, homesteading, free international trade, sound money and CAPITALISM, such "industries" would never have arisen; nor would they have found willing workers.
So, read these lyrics - and I will continue after that.
North Country Blues
by
Bob Dylan (1964)
Come gather 'round friends
And I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran empty
But the cardboard filled windows
And old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty.
In the north end of town
My own children are grown
But I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth
My mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother.
The iron ore poured
As the years passed the door
The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming
'Til one day my brother
Failed to come home
The same as my father before him.
Well a long winter's wait
From the window I watched
My friends they couldn't have been kinder
And my schooling was cut
As I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner.
Oh the years passed again
And the givin' was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born
The work was cut down
To a half a day's shift with no reason.
Then the shaft was soon shut
And more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
'Til a man come to speak
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closin'.
They complained in the East
They are playing too high
They say that your ore ain't worth digging
That it's much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing.
So the mining gates locked
And the red iron rotted
And the room smelted heavy from drinking
Where the sad silent song
Made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking.
I lived by the window
As he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
Then one morning's wake
The bed it was bare
And I's left alone with three children.
The summer is gone
The ground's turning cold
The stores one by one they're a-foldin'
My children will go
As soon they grow
For there ain't nothing here now to hold them.
Come gather 'round friends
And I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran empty
But the cardboard filled windows
And old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty.
In the north end of town
My own children are grown
But I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth
My mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother.
The iron ore poured
As the years passed the door
The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming
'Til one day my brother
Failed to come home
The same as my father before him.
Well a long winter's wait
From the window I watched
My friends they couldn't have been kinder
And my schooling was cut
As I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner.
Oh the years passed again
And the givin' was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born
The work was cut down
To a half a day's shift with no reason.
Then the shaft was soon shut
And more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
'Til a man come to speak
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closin'.
They complained in the East
They are playing too high
They say that your ore ain't worth digging
That it's much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing.
So the mining gates locked
And the red iron rotted
And the room smelted heavy from drinking
Where the sad silent song
Made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking.
I lived by the window
As he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
Then one morning's wake
The bed it was bare
And I's left alone with three children.
The summer is gone
The ground's turning cold
The stores one by one they're a-foldin'
My children will go
As soon they grow
For there ain't nothing here now to hold them.
For decades now, many economists have been lamenting the "resource curse": how regions blessed with plentiful "natural resources" are dirt poor; while those with nothing - like Hong Kong - are fabulously rich. This is particularly true of Africa. And in India, of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, and Orissa.
But what do we say about low grade iron mining along the West Coast?
What do we think when we see all the ancient ports - exporting this iron ore, and importing nothing! The iron ore trucks destroying the so-called highway.
Small, coastal republics never practice protectionism. It is simply not in the local interest.
This is the History of the West Coast of India - from Surat, where the Brits first landed, to Porbandar, where Gandhi was born, to Goa, Daman and Diu (the latter two on the Gujarat coast), where the Portuguese set up a century before the Brits arrived, to ports like Calicut, Cochin and Mangalore.
Because we are a HUGE NATION STATE, with a huge population, and a huge CAPTIVE MARKET, there are enormous corrupt gains to be made by politically exploiting consumers.
Bastiat had a great idea on how to prove that UNILATERAL FREE TRADE would be in the best interest of the average, working INDIVIDUAL - and that is, make an inventory of all your possessions; imagine unilateral free trade for a year, and imagine what your inventory will be then. Would it be greater or smaller? Obviously, greater! Hence, raise a holler for unilateral free trade.
Yes, it is nothing but planned poverty and planned exploitation of workers that are happening today.
So, once gain I say, let us FIRST think of the liberty to trade across the seas, of coastal republics, and then take it from there.
