There Will Be No "Professional Politicians" In Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea, And No "Political Parties" Either

The most odious creature of the modern world is the "professional politician" - and socialist, democratic India is full of them. They all live in State-owned bungalows in British New Delhi; they are driven around our broken roads in huge convoys of State-owned cars, sirens wailing; they go helicopter-hopping around rural India at State-expense; they fly abroad at State expense; and so on. They are part and parcel of the personnel of this The State. Like all the rest of them, these too are "tax parasites."


Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea will be a Capitalist City - and every single person there will have to earn his keep in The Market, including especially the Lord Mayor. In History, these men have always been among the richest men in the world - and they stunned their King with their wealth. They never took any money for being Lord Mayor. Instead, they had to perforce spend lavishly on banquets etc. so as to uphold the grandeur of that office. Indeed, many wealthy men have refused the office for this reason - and they were fined heavily. It is said that Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London "was built for those who wanted to be Lord Mayor at the expense of those who did not."


So, we do not establish any "office of profit." And all "political science" is nothing but History.


The idea of a Capitalist City is that each citizen "minds his own business" - except for the Lord Mayor, who has to neglect his private business for that year in order to look after public affairs.


Now, I have earlier written that I intend to establish my own School of Sociology in Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea - and that will keep me going pretty well, I am sure.


However, the fact remains that I am now completely broke - because my book deal is stuck in red tape or something.


However, I have found a way out - right here in Vasant Kunj D2 Market: and that is, I will set up a London Omelette Stall: ham, bacon, cheese, herbs... Stuff no one here has even heard about. The kind of omelettes you only get in 5-Star hotels - and mine are far better. Price: 50 rupees an omelette. 20 rupees for extra fillings. The Chinese takeaway sells his soups for 50 bucks. So my price is quite right. And 2 eggs cost just 6 rupees!


The investment is about 1500 rupees (US$ 30) and my daily sales are expected to be double that - Hola Singh, the tea shop guy, told me.


So, if my KNOWLEDGE in one area does not sell - I will sell my KNOWLEDGE in another area.


Note the Beauty of The Market: I provide for myself by FEEDING OTHERS!


I refuse to engage in "politics" as a "profession."


And such people will not be tolerated in Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea.


Further, I will PROVE - as in QED - that there is no Vicious Circle of Poverty: a false "theory" this The State teaches, and which was taught to me on my very first day in Hindu College, Delhi University, where I obtained a BA (Hons.) in Economics in 1977.


I will PROVE the truth of what Lord Bauer wrote:

POVERTY INDICATES JUST ONE THING:

THE ABSENCE OF ECONOMIC ACHIEVEMENT.

After which he added these words:

ECONOMIC ACHIEVEMENTS ARE MADE IN MARKETS.

Which brings me to "political parties" - and India is full of these, too. I have a very popular old post on these robber bands here. The post reveals how and why none of these political parties possess a "clear political ideology." Their motives are simply to take over Power - by taking over The State, which they use to ruthlessly repress the people and rob them, by all means possible, including inflationism.


Since we will be possessed of a clear political ideology in Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea, and we will not tolerate dissent on this score, there will be no need for any such groupings in our fair city. And since our political head will also be a Big Capitalist, and his office will not be an office of profit, no professional politician will ever emerge in our city.


I trust I have solved the Greatest Political Riddle and Problem of our Time.


Hope to see you at my omelette stall sometime.

What "I" Will Plan Very Well - In Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea

South Delhi is known as "posh" - but is road layout has been faulty from the very beginning. As with this Vasant Kunj arterial road, so with the Outer Ring Road, everything in this area is laid out in T-junctions. Thus, over the years, flyovers have become necessary. The authorities build one flyover after another - and still the traffic crawls. Building flyovers is something they like. It is their "business." And it is our money, and our Time, that gets wasted this way. 


This is a NEW CITY. This Vasant Kunj area did not exist when I was in college here in the late 1970s.


Our revered "central planners" could not plan out the layout of the city in which they are headquartered. And they want to make plans for the entire sub-continent!


The initial layout of a city is very important - because this cannot be easily changed, as private properties line both sides, and hence this layout must last. New York was laid out in a "grid pattern." New Delhi - the British part - was laid out in "hubs-and-spokes." Both work well till date. Singapore and Hong Kong are also new cities that work. We can also look at good old Calcutta - where the footpath on Chowringhee is wider that this footpathless Vasant Kunj arterial road. And as far as the Maidan opposite is concerned, you cannot see the other side of this immense public park.


Thus, in Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea, I as Lord Mayor will pay close attention to this very important Capital Investment: the streets, and their layout. Of course, experts will be hired. Today, tiny Karwar is laid out in a "grid pattern" - and we will have to build upon that. 


Connaught Place here in New Delhi is worth looking at - the architecture imported from the City of Bath, and everything arranged in "hubs-and-spokes."


Let us hope and pray that I do a good job of this. I shall surely try - very hard.


As far as our central planners go - the gist of what I wrote yesterday and also the day before, is this: Businessmen try to guess our needs in the future, and then gamble upon their guesses with their own money, their capital.


On the other hand, these planners of The State invest our taxes and printed money and borrowings et. al. in things we do Not need; things we never ever asked for. They spend this money on whatever suits them - like propaganda masking itself as education, compulsory at that. Or MGNREGA and "food security" - because they make their "ill-gotten wealth" from such expenditures.

THROW THE RASCALS OUT!

What Is A REAL ECONOMIST?

Yesterday's post on markets being infinitely superior to central planning began with the following words:

The idea of central economic planning is that a committee of very wise men will arrange to supply us with all our needs - in exchange for taxes. 

The truth is much worse than that - because this committee is never satisfied with taxes, and has to rely on many other devious ways in order to fund itself: borrowing using "permanently irredeemable debt"; currency and banking credit manipulation; and inflationary finance as well.


All this fraudulently as well as coercively raised funds are then used to expand the budgets of the BUREAUCRACY - who are then EMPOWERED to make those particular goods and services made available to all of us: forced education; free rice and wheat; paid work, etc.


I have never ever met a single Indian who actually WANTED these from The State. People mostly want to be left alone - to carry on their businesses "without let or hindrance." Many want roads and highways - desperately. But never has anyone told me they want State education or free rice.


All this fraudulently and coercively raised funds will be WASTED. These are merely ways for the politicians to buy up support in the bureaucracy - who will receive these funds to spend.


All this is CAPITAL CONSUMPTION. Not a paisa will be saved and invested - as, for example, in roads. All will be consumed.


Now, the man - if you can call him that - responsible for these decisions is chacha manmohan s gandhi, well-known as an "economist."


Yet, this manmohan has spent his entire career in the service of this State - and never has he written a word on how markets work.


His official profile says:

In 1971, Dr. Singh joined the Government of India as Economic Advisor in the Commerce Ministry. This was soon followed by his appointment as Chief Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance in 1972. Among the many Governmental positions that Dr. Singh has occupied are Secretary in the Ministry of Finance; Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission; Governor of the Reserve Bank of India; Advisor of the Prime Minister; and Chairman of the University Grants Commission.

That is, since 1971 - when I was 14 years old - till date, chacha manmohan has been a "bureaucrat" working for this Predatory Socialist State that despises Property and detests markets. Can such a man be called an "economist"?

Let us now turn to Ludwig von Mises, whose Human Action is the greatest "Treatise on Economics" ever penned. He never ever worked for any government! His biography makes great reading - and is available in India here.

And in Human Action, Mises defines his subject matter to be "a study of market phenomena." Nothing in the book has anything to do with government. The book starts with the trading mind - the mind that is possessed of "a natural propensity to truck, barter and exchange." This mind, and its "mental categories" like Capital, Income, Arithmetic, Property and so on - on this rests the opening 100 pages: the EPISTEMOLOGY. The rest then follows. The Science of Economics, thus, begins with the "trading mind" of the INDIVIDUAL - and from that the body of knowledge is constructed. Our "Indian Economics," which chacha manmohan teaches all our kids, is about the State and its "centralised mind," and its pious intentions. This is NOT Economics; it is some kind of propaganda for the State. It is "statecraft." Mises, then, is a REAL ECONOMIST. While chacha manmohan is just an "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Nehru." A thousand curses on this accursed House.

Finally, look at me. Yes, I did have the misfortune to work briefly for this State - between 1984 and 1989 - and that too, only because it was impossible to succeed in the market those days. I had tried music - and failed. Musicians still have a very hard life in India because of State-imposed restrictions on bars and nightclubs - and even on live performances. I then tried business - and failed again, in those socialist heydays. So I joined this State - and promptly quit for intellectual pursuits. These intellectual pursuits have been my life since 1989 - and I have survived by writing in the Free Press: first, as a freelancer; then, as an editorial writer for The Economic Times (1998-2002); and then, once again, as an author, monograph writer and freelance columnist. I have lectured at the IAS Academy too - but I have never worked for this State, and never will.

And so, I call myself a REAL ECONOMIST.

Yes, Economics is only about market phenomena. Those who study these can never work for governments - especially not interventionist ones. Their true role lies only in informing public opinion of the harmfulness of what the government is doing. I have performed this task for over 25 years. I am extremely proud of my track record. Everything I have written has been carefully archived - and these speak for themselves. As does this blog.

What then is chacha manmohan? Nothing much, really. He is actually a "dis-economist" - engaged in the consumption of national capital by predatory and parasitical State functionaries, to whom he is allied. Like them all, he too is an Enemy of the Market. He is just another State functionary - a "bureaucrat."

And, he has never been elected by the people either. So, there is nothing "democratic" about him.

His deputy, montek, is another bureaucrat.

I am extremely glad I am not like either of them.

Mises is my hero.

Recommended read: My earlier post on chacha manmohan, titled "The Smooth Face Of Evil," which can be found here.

What Cannot Be Known Cannot Be Planned

The idea of central economic planning is that a committee of very wise men will arrange to supply us with all our needs - in exchange for taxes. And these wise men will plan for the future - 5 years ahead.


Let us now look at how a market works.


In a market, there are a large number of sellers of various kinds of goods and services - and they have invested their own Capital. They are all hoping that at least some of the people passing by out there will be interested in their wares. All transactions are voluntary. No force is used. And the end result is that not only whatever you might suddenly need - like an umbrella in the rain - but also what you never ever dreamed of - like a video call on Skype - are available because of this market. No taxes at all. You just pay for what you consume.


What about the future?


Well, the planner claims to plan 5 years into the future - but we know this never ever worked. Electricity, water, roads - all these are in shortage only because they are State monopolies under the control of these central planners.


Now, the future is uncertain for everyone - including the entrepreneurs in the market, who are investing their capital in order to supply the needs of consumers IN THE FUTURE. You get an umbrella in the rain from a shop because, from factory owner to shop owner, these entrepreneurs have tried to guess what you might need in the uncertain future - and to supply it. 


"The social function of the entrepreneur is to make provision for the uncertain future," wrote Mises.

This works wonderfully - only because millions of entrepreneurs are trying to outguess each other in supplying you with your needs.


There is no committee of wise men controlling anything.


Instead, there is actually competition! Entrepreneurs are trying to outdo each other for your benefit.


And you, the consumer, are The King.


And all the shop shelves are full of goodies from all over the planet - tempting you.


Not just small shops, but even SUPERMARKETS.


What can a government committee ever do for you in comparison?


This central economic planning is nothing but NONSENSE-ON-STILTS. You cannot centralise the knowledge that the market relies on - which is dispersed and fragmented.


"What cannot be known cannot be planned," wrote Hayek.


So, choose between these two - and decide which you prefer for the satisfaction of all your needs.


The Market - which means competition between entrepreneurs.


Or Central Planning - which means ugly State monopolies. Like the DDA, the Jal Board, the NHAI, et. al.


Yes, it MUST be The Market.

The Other Way: Private Economies: Take #2

What is wrong in theory cannot work in practice - and so it is with socialism, which is actually "anti-social," because it is anti-property and also anti-market. 


Further, as pointed out in various recent posts, knowledge is "fragmented" in the real world - so "central economic planning," "centralised education," and even a "centralised State" cannot work: the hard knowledge required cannot be centralised. We have many big cities and thousands of small towns - and to look after each will require "local knowledge." JNNURM has failed for this reason alone.


Where do we go from here?


Let us begin with civilisation - which requires the "accumulation of capital." Today, with this centralised, socialist, inflationist and welfarist The State what is really happening is the very opposite: "capital consumption." The entire nation is being ripped off in precisely the same manner that Air India and the Indian Railways have been ripped off, with overstaffing - "jobs for the boys" - and financial mismanagement. 


The conclusion we the citizenry have to arrive at sooner or later is this: that this The State can never ever make the nation prosperous. It is now saying it will "help the poor" with welfarism - while the very same poor are being hounded out of urban markets and having their precious capital looted.


So, what is The Other Path?


The picture above is of shikaras on the lake at Srinagar, Kashmir. Almost all shikaras are operated by businessmen, who use them to approach houseboats and thereby sell their wares to tourists: flowers, leather goods, tailors, papier mache, souvenirs, handicrafts... There is even a floating market on the Dal Lake!


That is the other path - each of us operating his or her own "private economy." The "mind your own business" theory.


Now, there is simply no reason to believe that the numberless unlettered masses of this huge sub-continent will prove themselves unfit for the task. Anyone and everyone can easily manage his own private economy. This is because each of us is blessed with a human mind, and this mind has a "logical structure" that includes the "mental categories" of Capital, Income and Arithmetic, among others. Thus, even a nomadic herdsman can count his herd and differentiate between what is his Capital (his herd) and what is his Income (his earnings from, say, milk or wool.) He, too, will accumulate capital - and the size of his herd will keep growing.


Indeed, I buy my essentials from a nearby shop run by a man and his wife - and the woman cannot read or write, but she can do her accounts perfectly - IN HER MIND. Ditto for Basanti, the owner of the other tea-shop heERE. She too makes all her essential economic calculations inside her mind - correctly. As do all the other poor, unlettered people in our bazaars - or even in Africa.


Note that this The State cannot do the same. This, of course, id the old "socialist calculation debate" Mises won hands down.


So, if we opt for a world of private economies, we will surely prosper as a people, because each Individual has the incentive as well as the mind necessary for the task.


This is how the market economy works: Individualism. Each the "architect of his own fortune." Each riding his own shikara on a placid lake: "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream..."


Whereas what the socialist State stands for is Collectivism, collective property - and all that shit that can never ever work.


Interestingly, this South Delhi is the very constituency where our Great Leader, chacha manmohan s gandhi, LOST the elections of 1999. So, he is NOT "democratically elected."


He is also NOT a "liberaliser" - as the corporate media made him out to be when sonia made him PM. He has been steadily INCREASING the role of the State - welfarism, MGNREGA, food security, compulsory education, nuclear power... This loathsome State has NOT shrunk a bit since he usurped power. On the contrary, it has expanded. Look particularly at the size of its Budget, and its borrowings.


Yes - we must move from here to there: from State at the "commanding heights of the economy" to each proprietor at the command of his own enterprise; from fiat paper money to "private money"; and from legislation and subordinate legislation to "private law."


Prosperity, Peace, Order, Justice, Liberty, Property, and Civilisation - they all lie on this other path.


And as for chacha manmohan: It struck me the other day that he represents a huge error - on sonia gandhi's part. After all, if she thinks an "economist" should head her The State, then she herself suffers from the great delusion that the most important role of this State is "economic management."


It is NOT.


So, fix the roads, the footpaths, the garbage, the layout of cities and towns and their markets - with "local knowledge."


What will happen to this great big "Union of India," this "quasi-federal State"?


I recommend this recent article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe where he refers to Goethe's hatred for centralisation and even "democracy" for Germany. This para is of particular interest to the world of today:

From the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia and until the Napoleonic wars, Germany had consisted of some 234 "countries," 51 free cities, and about 1,500 independent knightly manors. Out of this multitude of independent political units, only Austria counted as a great power, and only Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Hanover could be considered major political players.

This is the Picture of Liberty - the Free City - and it lies at the root of the great success of the European Civilisation; a success they have lost with centralisation, Brussels, and the Euro.


Our Indian civilisation is a shattered one today. Every single city and town is a disaster. We must learn the right lessons - in Economic Theory, as well as from History. And then, we must put socialism and this centralised The State behind us.

On Mathematics, And Tobacco - In Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea

I bet none of you could read the Greek word in the quote from Mises that concluded yesterday's post - but we all learn Greek letters in our Mathematics classes!


Mises, Leoni, Hayek - they liked to write like that, these classical European scholars of an age gone by. French, Italian, German as well as Latin and Greek words are strewn through their pages, sometimes poetry, sometimes song, sometimes a proverb or two.


Our fellas who teach us Greek letters in Maths classes - well, that subject is probably all they know. Yeah, they can count. They like to count us - the census. And they mathematically calculate many figures they deem to be of crucial importance to the "running of The National Economy" - the GREAT DELUSION I wrote about the other day: growth rate, inflation rate, birth rate and what not. Wonder if they know the average rate at which a car moves in India?


Anyway, do read about Pythagoras sometime - how this nut thought that the whole world could be interpreted mathematically.


So, in Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea, I will encourage the learning of Greek and Latin, and also modern European languages, so that, in time, we will produce real scholars of the kind that cannot be found anywhere in the world today; indeed, not even in Europe.


Now, one of the important mathematical calculations our fellas are completely obsessed by is the "balance of foreign trade" - or exports minus imports. Note that there is no record of how much Delhi or Calcutta or Madras export and import; this statistic refers to the entire sub-continent - The National Economy.


Now, most Individuals manage their own private economies such that their own exports and imports tally. They manage their private accounts such that they accumulate capital and do not consume it. If most people are like that, a nation of private economies will forever prosper.


Now, the most peculiar fact is that these mathematics geniuses on top cannot manage the accounts of their huge The State!


This The State is FOREVER IN DEFICIT!


This The State is FOREVER BORROWING!


4,50,000 crore rupees of borrowing this year alone!


And they worry about the "trade deficit" of the whole sub-continent!


Wonder what they smoke?


Which brings me to tobacco, a leaf I am extremely fond of, and to which I am hopelessly addicted.


Now, the tobacco scene in India is COMPLETELY FUCKED - only because of the mathematical obsession referred to above, which lies at the root of our economic isolation from the winds of global free trade. But behind that statistic lies another error: 

IMPORT-SUBSTITUTION INDUSTRIALISATION

This has POLITICISED ALL ECONOMIC LIFE.


This is how businessmen become corrupt, and businesses, too.


Free trade, free competition, the reign of The Consumer - that is the Pathway to Honesty.


Take tobacco, for example. The panwari's stall at the market here shows an ad for Marlboro - made in India by Godfrey Philips, so the ad says "new taste." Why can't we get the good ol' Marlboro taste?


Godfrey Philips sells this Indian Marlboro @ 5 rupees a stick - and their staple product, the unfiltered Cavander's, retails @ 4 rupees a stick because all ganja-charas smokers in North India somehow prefer it for rolling joints.


And as for ITC - they run so many other businesses today.


And they don't really possess any KNOWLEDGE about tobacco.


I hate the fact that we do not get decent rolling tobacco in India. It is excellent for the poor.


Now, who possesses knowledge about tobacco?


Quite obviously - a good TRADER: a tobacconist.


So, in Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea, we will invite Davidoff to set up a store.

I shopped at their Geneva store - and had a great time. I bought Egyptian, Turkish and Indonesian cigarettes, and a pack of Cohibas, too. I may add that I found Mangalore Ganesh beedis there - selling at 2.30 Swiss francs a bundle.


Get it - a good tobacconist. And Davidoff is the best.


I like thin cigars very much.


Deepak Lal always smokes a pipe.


And Hayek took snuff - for I saw all his snuff-boxes on display at an exhibition of his memorabilia at the IEA, London.


Whatever happened to snuff?


Mangalore, interestingly, is a place where snuff-users about. I even met a snuff manufacturer there. Little pouches of snuff can be found selling in every paan-bidi outlet in this area.


But I was talking about Davidoff - and Geneva.


I was there in 2000, to attend the Geneva Motor Show - and the Swiss do not make cars.


They make watches, cheese, superb liquor chocolates - but not cars.


And the Geneva Motor Show is the most important motor show in Europe.


Get my drift?


Now, you wanna study maths?


Then don't come to Daulatabad-upon-the-Sea.