Only The "Natural Order" Can Resolve The Current Money & Banking Crisis: Take #2

This post is written especially in the interests of the poor - and there is "relative poverty" everywhere, though in India there is "mass poverty," and that too, crushing and grinding poverty, which covers not just peasants in remote villages, but also most of those who engage in the "urban division of labour" as well, including in our metropolitan cities.

Inflationism hurts the poor most - by eroding the value of their savings, their precious Capital, which they would like to invest in their own livelihoods.

In India, inflationism is going on - at a blistering pace.

Now, with the rupee nose-diving, imports will become more expensive.

The chief economic advisor to The State, Kaushik Basu, recently parroted the stupid line that this would "promote exports." Do read this detailed Mises Institute Daily Article demolishing this absurd point of view.

There is another interesting article from the same source pointing out that, with sovereign defaults looming in Europe, and European banks going bust, inflation is going to hit the USSA, too.

However, what is most important to note is that if Bernanke and the European Central Bank decide to "bail out" governments and banks with more fiat paper issues, and credits, inflation will skyrocket. Further, if these institutions take this line of action, and our own RBI follows suit, all hell will break loose - for the poor, everywhere.




Let us now turn to the “Natural Order.” It exists all around us – even more so in India, where billions of rupees worth of goods are “informally traded” in all our bustling bazaars by the unlettered, in complete peace, because of the “mental category” of Property we humans are all blessed with, which is what enables trade, because it makes us see “possession as property.” All these goods that are traded in our bustling bazaars are transported in by the sellers – then displayed as their property – after which occurs exchange, and these goods are then transported out, as someone else’s property, INFORMALLY.

“Man is a rule-following animal,” said Hayek – but he did not enter into these mental categories. Hayek has written zilch on epistemology. For that “Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science” you must read Mises.

In theoretical terms, what can be said is that barter trades are difficult because they require the “double coincidence of wants”: the man who wants to exchange ganja for booze must find someone with booze who wants ganja, and so on. If the guy selling ganja finds someone who wants his ganja but offers only meat in exchange, no deal is possible.

Thus, the “trading mind” looks for something else that might be acceptable – like, say cowrie shells, or whatever. He will then exchange the ganja, take the cowries, and go off to search for someone selling booze who might accept cowries. If cowries are acceptable to the booze-seller – and the process goes on – soon cowries will become “money”: which is a “medium of exchange.”

This is how the “direct exchange” of barter inevitably become “indirect exchange” mediated by money – spontaneously. Trading minds soon discover which commodities are the “most easily sellable” – and these are what they then exchange their goods for. They then use these easily sellable commodities for making their own purchases. This is how money has originated; money is NOT the invention of any superior mind, and certainly not of any “authority.”

While this is “Theory,” it is fully supported by History, which tells of so many media of exchange mankind has used for millennia, from scarabs, to animal skins (the word “buck”), to salt (the word “salary”) and then iron bars, and finally, gold and silver. Paper money is recent – and it began as a “money substitute,” which is testified by the “promise to pay” still printed on it.

In other words, money has always emerged “spontaneously” – without any “common will” exerting itself for the purpose, like a king, or a law, or a State.

The lesson: Without any “power” being exerted, the problem of money – that is, “sound money” – can easily be solved, because people will be free to choose money. We can “predict” that gold, silver and copper coins will be acceptable – but some “token moneys” for even smaller change can easily arise as well.

This sound money will be “hard money”: PROPERTY.

PRIVATE MONEY.




Now, apart from Property, mankind follows another kind of Law quite naturally, and that is “Contract.”

Banking is nothing but Contract – time deposits, demand deposits, and loans. Even the “promise to pay” on the paper money of today is a contract – that used to be honoured in History.

Of course, an older Law of human society is Tort – which covers injuries, or “crimes against the individual.” Restitution is the remedy – and the injured party receives financial compensation from the tortfeasor.

With these three pillars of Natural Law we are all protected.

This is a PRIVATE LAW SOCIETY.

But I was talking about Money & Banking.

[For a detailed discussion of these vitally important issues, the reader may check out Chapter 10: "Sound Money, the Rule of Law, and Free Banking" in my online publication dated 2007 - Natural Order: Essays Exploring Civil Government & The Rule of Law.]




With sound money and legitimate banking, human society will “accumulate capital.” The value of savings will rise – not fall. People will save more – and invest more, even the poor. Production will increase – boosting demand for everything, which is Say’s Law of Markets, explained below.

Add unilateral free trade – which means no State intervention in goods crossing borders – demand will rise worldwide.

There will follow the “international division of labour” – leading to what Adam Smith called “universal opulence.”

None will be absolutely poor – anywhere; though “economic equality” will never come about, because it simply cannot. It is just another of those socialist and communist “egalitarian” delusions – one that they “sell” to the poor, whom they make poorer, while the “leaders” remain very much a “labour elite”: like our VIPs and VVIPs.

It is either this or more fiat paper money inflationism. More fiat paper inflationism will destroy human civilization worldwide. The progress of civilization requires capital accumulation – while fiat paper inflationism proceeds in the opposite direction: de-civilisation. Increases in the supply of fiat paper money do not “stimulate demand” - as Keynes and his adepts argue. On the contrary, what actually occurs is that the value of these paper notes decline. Savings are eroded. Investments decline. Demand declines.

The true source of demand is PRODUCTION – which requires investment, which comes from private saving. Anything produced, when finally sold, enables the producer to purchase all his needs from the market – and this is what demand is all about. This is a very old Law – one that Keynes and his adepts simply refuse to acknowledge the existence of: Jean-Baptiste Say’s Law of Markets, dating back to the 1820s. I have many posts explaining various implications of this vital law under the “Say’s Law” label on the right-hand bar – and I urge my reader to study each of them with utmost care.

So, RESIST ALL MOVES TOWARDS MORE FIAT PAPER MONEY INFLATIONISM.

Let there be DEFAULTS – for bondholders are but allies of The State, who take no “risks” in the market, and who get “interest” from the taxpayers, for this is nothing but “permanent irredeemable debt.”

Let there be BANKRUPTCIES and all that.

But do not allow any NEW LEGISLATION on the matter – for legislation lies at the root of the money and banking problem. Legal tender is another form of “legal plunder.” Every central bank in the world has been established by legislation.

Thus, it is not money that is "the root of all evil." Money is a miracle human minds have created to facilitate trades - their mode of survival and wealth creation.

The root of all evil is the "love of money" - and this evil becomes grotesque when combined with the love for power, which is precisely what central banking and fiat money are all about.

With money and banking coming from the natural order and its natural laws, of which Property is a “mental category” within every trading human mind, the rest will surely follow.

Civilisation.

Civic Sword.

Republicanism.

As a study in contrast, I recommend this column by the Communist Party MP Sitaram Yechury asking The State to “invest in people.”

My question: Would you rather see your savings grow, so that you can invest in yourself – or do you want what this communist is calling for?

Poem – For Those I Hate

Poem – For Those I Hate

Sauvik von Chakraverti

Life is sweet,

Life is short,

Life is music.

I am here,

I am there,

I am gone.

Do you know,

Who I am?

Or are you guessing?

Have you read,

Every word,

I’ve put down?

Have you read,

All those words,

And known their meanings?

Or did you,

Twist them around,

To suit your schemes?

I have striven,

To be true,

To be faithful.

I have given,

All the world,

My very best.

The moving finger,

Stops not.

It’s always writing.

And that’s been me,

All these years,

These long decades.

In all this time,

You’ve been idle,

Watching movies.

Watching Bush,

Obama,

And Osama.

There’s the sun,

There’s the rain,

There’s the moonlight.

There are beaches,

Even lakes,

And verdant greens.

There are books,

Great books,

Some even holy.

And there’s this screen,

Within four walls,

And in your room.

I have written,

Many books,

Many pamphlets.

See all the evil,

I took on,

And destroyed.

Now I put down,

My simple thoughts,

In simple verses.

If you get,

What I mean,

Then I’ll be glad.

Aamir Khan, The Two Hands Of The State - And Utopia

I briefly discussed the foolishness of the Bollywood "reel-life hero" Aamir Khan's "worthy dream" of universal State healthcare yesterday - and I will continue on the same theme today, in order to drive the point home.

First: The personnel of The State are as "self-interested" as any merchant in the market-place. Politicians and bureaucrats want nothing more than to maximise their budgets and their powers, or their "turf." Thus, they despise all libertarians - and they love anyone who will ask them to "do something about something." Aaamir Khan advocates State healthcare and medical education from The State as well - and they will never see this as any "threat" to them, their powers, their revenues, and their privileges. Ditto with Harsh Mander who clamours for "food rights": or Aruna Roy who is now calling for an "old age pension." If someone champions a State-funded "river-linking project" worth millions of crores - they will welcome it. Committees will be appointed, tours undertaken, funds allocated - to bureaucrats, of course - just to prepare a "preliminary report." Atal Behari Vajpayee's grand highway project under the NHAI is welcome - and it still isn't ready, in 20 years! - but if someone calls for private highways, private railways, private electricity, complete privatisation, complete deregulation - that is, LIBERTY! - these "political market" players will be extremely upset. So, Aaamir Khan is on THEIR side.

It is the same with Anna Hazare: The State will only GROW with his proposed Lokpal - another big building will be built in Nude Elly; it will be furnished and air-conditioned; bureaucrats will be appointed, and so on. So, Anna's is just a "phoney protest movement."

Aaamir Khan's welfarism is DOUBLY RIDICULOUS when this very same State practices ECONOMIC REPRESSION. Aamir is a "performing artist" who made it big - but 70,000 "bar dancers" and lakhs of musicians, bartenders, waiters, and bouncers lost their livelihoods in the very same city of Mumbai where he lives. What the FUCK? You kill livelihoods - and then you spend on welfare? Isn't it "phoney"? And, anyway, do they even have the money? - for this year's Budget has slated borrowings of some 6,50,000 crore rupees (1 crore is 10 million).

I discussed slums yesterday, anyway - the UNHEALTHY habitat in which the vast majority of urban Indians live. Amidst ABUNDANT VACANT LAND, that too.

Thus, environmentalists are all FRIENDS OF THE STATE as well. They love the Forest department. They want to ban the ordinary Edison bulb - which poor people can afford - and FORCE everyone to buy some fluorescent "energy saving" bulb - but they do not champion PRIVATE ELECTRICITY, which would REDUCE The State and enable all of us to enjoy regular power supplies. They call for a "clean and green environment" - which means legislation and empowered bureaucrats - while every city is full of slums and garbage as well: FILTHY! They love the keekar jungles around Delhi - useless bushes growing in useless "badlands." We have the most expensive timber in the world - and the forest cover is dwindling. Commercial forestry is opposed! Veerappan would have been a rich, legal, sandalwood farmer without such evil ideas - as I wrote when the cops murdered him. I cannot find the original article in The Indian Express - but there is this blog post on the subject, quoting me, that I found. It is noteworthy that all forest-dwellers throughout India are up in ARMED REVOLT. Unfortunately, their "ideology" is completely false - Maoism - but the method being employed by The Socialist State to deal with their uprising - guns! - is even worse. They simply cannot fight wrong collectivist ideas with their own wrong collectivist ideas!

Now, the fact is that The State has TWO HANDS - one that gives away, the gentle hand, and this is the hand that The State likes to put on display: we are giving you education, healthcare, food, pensions, and so on.

And then, there is the other hand, the ROUGH HAND - the tax collectors, the police danda, the customs department, excise, the thieving policy of deliberate inflationism, and so on - and this is the one they like to conceal.

So, anyone who advocates increasing the role of the State ultimately demands increasing taxes as well - which is why Manmohan's "free and compulsory education" also got us the "education tax."

Now, what is Utopia?

Since happiness is "subjective" - and everyone finds happiness in different things - Utopia is nothing but a "society of utopianism." That is, where each INDIVIDUAL can find his very own idea of Utopia. This requires Liberty. And Free International Trade as well. Then, the worker, and the peasant, also become kings - as consumers, and as proprietors of their private properties.

Property, Liberty, Happiness - this is the DREAM that can work for ALL: that is, all EXCEPT for the personnel of The State.

This phony welfarism is nothing but begging for handouts from a complete disgrace of a State, one that is BROKE as well, and completely DYSFUNCTIONAL.

So, of course, I will be HATED by the personnel of this fucked-up The State.

But then, I choose my enemies wisely.

There are 1200 million ordinary people in India, the vast majority of them poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I choose to be their good friend.

There are just some 2000 who rule.

Of course, this blog is LIVE ON PLANET EARTH!

That's 6 billion ordinary people versus 6000.

Wisdom - what?

Aamir Khan - Corporatist, Socialist, Egalitarian, Welfarist - and NOT a "Patriot"

Aamir Khan's column in HT titled "A worthy dream" - advocating universal State healthcare - indicates that he is "asleep": for that is when you "dream."

Reality - especially in Bombay - is SLUMS. Dirt, filth, disease.

Reality - also around Bombay - is ABUNDANT SPACE.

Do we need a decent healthy HABITAT?

A CIVILISATION?

Or do we need to ADVOCATE an INCREASED ROLE FOR THIS FAILED STATE?

On the television programme he refers to, the show ended with a message from him for donations for some Ambani charitable fund or the other.

Corporatist!

Which means "fascist" - as I discussed the other day.


Note: This is precisely what has happened to "The Great American Dream" - which was Liberty, Property and Happiness. Now, they are "born to be jailed." General Motors is a State-owned company. And they have "Obamacare."


Fascism - beware.

And as for "patriotism" - we have my recent post, also on slums.

Bollywood is fine - but "political activism" for such "heroes" is dangerous territory.


I believe in PREVENTIVE HEALTHCARE.

Cleanliness.

Not garbage everywhere.

Overcrowding.

Open drains.

We need "homesteading" - based on the "Lockean Principle."

Not Aaamir's NONSENSE.

Nor that evil, anti-people ENVIRONMENTALISM which puts trees and tigers first - while human beings get fucked.

Extract from a Novel - In Which I Feature as "The Madman"

This is from an unfinished novel by a friend of mine - in which I play this "cameo role," as she calls it - yet, it very accurately describes me, as well as my misadventures in Pondicherry recently. Enjoy the read!

 

WHEN the monsoons finally burst over the hot plains I went to live in a small picturesque town on the east coast where the rains came later, in the winter months. It was an old colonial town and I found lodgings in a quiet lane, in a hotel that was cheap but decent. I was exhausted by fifteen months of travelling and by the frightening dreams that had filled my restless nights for the last two or three of these. I had been sick as well and all I wanted was to rest and recover.

During the day I stayed in my room, reading books I picked up from second-hand bookshops, or which I borrowed from the man who occupied the room next to mine. In the cool of the evenings I ventured out. Overlooking the rocks and the sea was a promenade and there I used to saunter, enjoying the sea breeze. I ate a simple meal and returned to my room for the night.

The man in the room next to mine was an author, some ten-fifteen years older than me.

We had tiny adjoining balconies and the first time I saw him, early one morning, he was smoking the fattest joint I had ever seen, made out of three or four pieces of cigarette paper. In the fragrant billowing smoke I saw his rapt, tortured expression. Another time I came out onto the balcony as he was going back into his room and he nodded and smiled to me. It was only later I heard his voice: deep and strong and yet mellifluous, a voice you could not ignore. He was not a man you could overlook. Even his physical appearance was compelling. He had longish silvery hair and thick overgrown sideburns, but it was his radiance that was so overwhelming, it seemed to burst out of him as if there was not enough space in him to contain so much energy. The radiance was there in his joyous smile, in his gleaming eyes, in the restlessness of his gestures. There was a strange mobility to his face, a slight rippling every now and then beneath the surface, a play of shadow and light, as if within him opposing forces lived in an almost ceaseless state of war. It was a face that could have belonged to a saint or to a deeply depraved human being.

Call me Madman, he said the first time we met, smiling genially. We talked often, sitting in our separate balconies. He liked to hold forth passionately on the evils of government, which he considered to be the root cause of all the suffering in the world. If I was able to nudge him away from this obsession of his, never easy to do, he became quite another person. Some tension left him. Slowly he relaxed. When he spoke about music and books, of his travels in the country and outside, his voice was gentle, his laughter easy, his face almost childlike. He was a strange man.

In the mornings after his big smoke he tapped away at his laptop. He was working on his third book, on the tyranny of the socialist state, the way it had traditionally used the police force to coerce and brutalise ordinary people. ‘I hope to outsell the bible,’ he told me. ‘I hope to be very rich with this book.’

When he wasn’t writing he sat in the balcony reading, with complete absorption, one of his heavy tomes on political economy. At night he liked to drink and then he grew even more voluble.

Near the promenade where I walked in the evenings, quite hidden from view, was a narrow paved path that ran the length of the outer wall of a tall building and ended in a cul-de-sac. On the other side was a low wall and beyond it a row of willowy casuarina trees that sloped down to the rocks and beyond that to the unseen sea. Late one evening I was walking past when I heard a familiar strong voice. My author friend was sitting on the wall with a bottle of beer.

‘Hey Gautama,’ he shouted when he spotted me, ‘come and have a smoke and a drink and a good time.’ With him were a couple of other men: the one-eyed, one-legged man I’d seen begging on the promenade, a balding sadhu with glittering eyes, and an older man who, I was told, used to be a cook till he lost all the fingers on his right hand. I spent the evening with them, drinking beer and listening to the talk. My author friend did most of the drinking and talking, telling them how the government was screwing them and their lives, cracking jokes, guffawing.

Later, quite drunk myself, the two of us staggered to a nearby eatery for some dinner.

‘I like to go there sometimes in the evenings,’ he told me next morning. ‘There’s a nice breeze and you can sit there and drink unless the cops come and bother you, even though your arse gets screwed sitting on the hard ground. I like to talk to simple people, stir them out of their lethargy.’ And he spoke with his usual passion of starting a revolution, of a second republic where people would be free and there would be no interference from the state or the police. ‘Fucking cops,’ he said. ‘Did you notice them hanging around yesterday? They’re always hassling me.’ I told him then of my own experience of cops.

Over the next few weeks we spent quite a lot of time together, pleasant times, with no hint of anything wrong. He was an interesting companion. We discussed music and he told me he used to play the acoustic guitar in college, that he’d won several prizes at inter-collegiate competitions, that when he was seventeen he had even tried to earn money playing at a restaurant in Mussoorie in the summer holidays. I showed him how to play the harmonica and he liked to hear me play. ‘Hey Mr Tambourine Man,’ he’d say, ‘play a song for me.’ Whenever I played he listened with a strange expression on his face. It reminded me a bit of the way my father used to look when he sat motionless in a tree. Someone had stolen his tape recorder and he told me he missed listening to music. ‘Music is the universal language,’ he’d sing, ‘and love is the key.’ He used to ask me to play songs for him, mostly Dylan and Neil Young, and if he was in the mood he’d sing along.

‘Why don’t you play professionally?’ he urged. ‘You’ve got a real talent. Go to Delhi. Times have changed. You can earn good money now from music.’

One night when he was very drunk he told me, ‘I had such dazzling dreams in my youth, but somehow I never succeeded. My whole life is nothing but a broken potholed boulevard of broken dreams. Don’t let it happen it to you.’

During my time in this picturesque town the terrifying dreams that had filled my nights during the last few months of my wandering, dreams from which I had woken up in cold terror, disappeared. Instead I began to have erotic dreams. Night after night I dreamed stuff I had never dreamed of in my life, not even in my adolescence. Some mornings I woke up so exhausted I could hardly get out of bed.

Madman commented on my haggard look and I confided that I was having strange dreams, incredibly erotic dreams, that they were driving me crazy.

He laughed and thumped me on the back. ‘Why are you complaining? It’s a sign you’re alive, man. Rejoice.’

But there was something odd about the dreams, something disquieting as if something was going on beneath the skin of my consciousness that I didn’t know about, like a second life stirring.

One morning I was awoken from my troubled dreams by a ruckus next door and went out to see what was happening. Two cops were in the room. One had pinned my struggling friend’s arms from behind, the other was binding his ankles with strips of cloth he tore from the shirt he’d been wearing the day before.

‘Stop these bastards,’ he shouted when he saw me. ‘Tell them to stop fucking with me.’

His eyes were wild and he struggled like a trapped, enraged tiger.

I was angry myself to see him treated like this, but the cops thrust me aside when I tried to intervene. They dragged him out of the room in his night shorts: bare-chested, unwashed, uncombed, shouting. I punched one of the cops but he gave me a blow that sent me reeling. They took him away in a cop van.

On my way to the police station to find out what was happening I met the one-eyed beggar.

‘The police have taken him to the hospital,’ he told me. ‘They did it before, about two months ago.’

‘But why?’ I asked.

‘His mother,’ he explained. ‘She came to stay here two months ago and ever since the police have been troubling him. One night they tried to pick him up on the beach and when he fought back they broke his glasses and tore his shirt. Haven’t you seen her? She’s always creeping about here, looking for him. But he won’t talk to her, says she’s not his mother. Mostly she haunts the police station: a big sly woman, pale and soft as a worm, with eyes like an albino cat. A demoness. Completely mad.'

None of it made sense but at the police station they confirmed that they had a magistrate’s order to take him by force to the psychiatric ward of the local government hospital.

‘But he’s perfectly sane,’ I protested.

The cop shrugged. ‘’Who can say? Mad people don’t always seem mad. We are only following orders.’

I made several trips to the hospital but they wouldn’t allow me to meet him. ‘Are you a relative?’ the nurse asked.

‘A friend,’ I said.

‘Sorry. Only family member is allowed.’

A few days later they let him go and he knocked on my door. ‘Do you have some smoke?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t had a smoke for so many days. I need a smoke.’ There was a dimness in his face. Even his silvery hair had lost its light.

When I said I didn’t have any he nodded and went away. I didn’t see much of him after that. He kept to his room and when we met he didn’t say much. He rarely smiled.

‘My mother is a police agent,’ he told me one day. ‘They’re all after me.’

He began to drink heavily and often in the daytime I saw him drunk. He borrowed some cash from me, promising to return it soon. ‘They’re stolen all the money from my bank account,’ he explained, ‘thieving bastards.’ He got into a fight one day. A few days later I heard him shouting at the reception and then he moved out with his two bags and laptop. A few days later I found him camping on the pavement near the promenade, beside the sadhu. His feet were bare and filthy and he had a bewildered air about him. Someone had stolen his sandals in the night, he said.

‘But it’s not so bad,’ he added uneasily. ‘I’ve always liked camping and I have the saintly sadhu as company. This is only a temporary situation, you know.’

He had also adopted a pup, a playful thing that gamboled about, climbing up onto him, wagging his tail, licking his face, making him laugh. He held the pup on his lap and stroked it. For a second I saw the radiance in his face again.

I offered to lend him some money so that he could move back into his room but he waved away the offer. ‘They’ve probably bugged my room,’ he said. ‘I can’t stay there. But if you can keep my laptop and books that would be most helpful.’ One big heavy bag was crammed with books and together we lugged the stuff into my room. ‘I must learn to travel light, like you,’ he remarked, noticing my rucksack. ‘But I need my books and clean underwear.’

For the first time I realised how ragged my clothes had become, how unkempt I must look. My curly hair hung way below my shoulders. To save myself the bother of shaving everyday I had allowed my beard to grow and it was long and thick. I looked more like a homeless bum than he did. Despite living on the pavement he had had a shave at the barber shop that morning and cleaned himself up as best as he could at the public toilets for tourists near the beach. Even his clothes, he told me, he gave to a laundry. ‘You should take better care of yourself, ’ he said reprovingly, patting my shoulder. ‘Remember, women don’t like a man who’s dirty. A clean cock and clean feet when you get into bed, that’s what the ladies like.’

He used to spend his time reading on the pavement. He sat on a chattai, leaning back against the wall. He acted as if was the most normal thing in the world to live on a pavement and read The Libertarian Handbook. Whenever I went out to eat and spotted him there I invited him to join me. He always accepted gracefully. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said formally. ‘I’m a bit broke these days, but I’ve sent my book to some publishers and I’m expecting a fat advance soon.’

One morning when I went down as usual to eat something he was no longer sitting on the pavement. His suitcase also was gone. The police, the sadhu told me, had come early that morning and taken him away.

What Is "Patriotism"? The General - versus The Slumdwellers of Urban India

General Shankar Roychoudhury, former Chief of Army Staff and a former MP as well - which is "interesting" - has written a column in The Asian Age titled "Why is Pakistan making a pass at Siachen" which concludes that, if peace is pursued, then Pakistan would end up "achieving by diplomacy what it could not by force of arms."

"The generals sat, while the lines on the map, moved from side to side."

"The generals gave thanks as the other ranks held back the enemy tanks - for a while."

Both from Pink Floyd, of course.

Now, over 50 per cent of the people living in metropolitan India live in SLUMS - like the one in the picture above.

I recently lived in one for a few months - and I know the horrendous conditions there first hand - and also the FACT that there is ABUNDANT LAND all around.

Around Nude Elly - as around Mumbai - there are millions of acres of UNOWNED JUNGLES.

But these all belong to The State - the DDA in Delhi, the Forest department, or whatever. Only because of SOCIALISM.

In Mumbai, quite recently, there was a huge scandal over Army generals misappropriating apartments meant for "war widows."

Now, what is the POINT of fighting - FOR 30 YEARS - over some acres of frozen wasteland worth NOTHING?

And what is the point of our nation being such a "huge landmass" if poor people have NO LAND to live on in CITIES?

And it's 1, 2, 3, 4... What're we fighting for?

Don't ask me I don't give a damn,

The next stop is Vietnam.

What is wrong if diplomacy achieves peace?

"War is diplomacy by other means" - that's an old saying.

And, pray, what indeed is "patriotism"?

Read my recent post against a "standing army."

There is also an older one on the "exploited jawan."

Speaking TRUTH To power – via THE PEOPLE

The Greeks have been withdrawing all their money in bank accounts and deposits for quite a few days now. And Andy Duncan’s post shows an interesting picture of two coins from Ancient Greece that “have not lost their value in 2500 years.” Says it all!

The Euro is headed for collapse.

European “financial elites” – like their counterparts elsewhere, including India – sound very much like King Canute commanding the waves of the ocean to recede.

The Daily Noose says the RBI has decided NOT to issue the “special bonds” they had announced a few days ago.

We are looking at History – at “how all the empires crumbled.”

So, what about this huge sub-continent called India? – an “empire,” and most certainly not a “republic.” Entirely misgoverned, entirely maladministered, and entirely a MESS. De-civilisation – everywhere – and continuing, by “deliberate policy.” Chaos. Disorder. Armed rebellion in hundreds of districts. Military rule – in two provinces.

“Unity and integrity of India” has been their catchphrase for long – accompanied by tired slogans like “Mera Bharat Mahaan” and “India Shining.”

In Srinagar, Kashmir, I saw concrete bunkers on traffic roundabouts with gun-holes in them – barrels peeping out and all that – with “Mera Bharat Mahaan” emblazoned on top. Made me feel kinda SICK!

And what about Manipur? I sincerely doubt whether any of their WOMEN sing these “patriotic slogans” – ever!

Paper rupees fund the Indian Army in Manipur. And more paper rupees go to their “elected” CONgress government – to pay the Manipur Police, the Forest Department, the Customs Department, Excise, Sales Tax, Income Tax, doctors who do not cure, teachers who misteach, and all that. What will happen when this paper money stops?

Well, the TYRANNY will VANISH – at one stroke!

The PEOPLE will REJOICE!

And if they do what the Greeks are doing, their savings will be preserved in gold and silver – forever and ever more.

The Daily Noose mentioned that a bus service is being set up between Imphal, the capital of Manipur, and Mandalay, in northern Burma. The distance is some 550 kms – but the road doesn’t work all-year round.

Mandalay is just a “one-horse town” – not worth the visit, not worth a proper road. Pico Iyer’s travelogue of Burma tells the tale of a poverty-stricken rickshaw-puller of Mandalay, a man who yearned for tourists – who never ever came – and who had a degree in Mathematics!

Manipur needs expressways to THE SEA – to port cities in Burma and Bangladesh. Free Trade.

And tourism – which means “catallaxies” and an Open Society, instead of the “narrow domestic walls” of tribalism.

The BEST WAY to get these expressways between the cities and towns of the North-East and the port cities of Burma and Bangladesh is to let PRIVATE ROAD COMPANIES build them – and charge tolls. Tolls are better than taxes, surely?

I spent quite some time looking at Google Maps yesterday – at the North-East, Burma, Bangladesh, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, then at Lhasa and the Chinese cities on the Karakoram Highway which ought to be accessible from Kashmir, at Ferghana and Samarkand, at Kabul – and I thought:

Just as the port cities on our 2500 km long coastline must look outwards – so must all these land-locked border provinces.

Free Trade & Free Movement of People.

The rest of my prescription remains the same:

Private Money – gold, silver and copper coins.

Private Law.

Private Guns.

Civic Swords – one in each city and town.

Republicanism.

Liberty.

Property.

Contracts.

Torts.

Happiness.

An announcement: From tomorrow, I will be taking a long break from blogging. But there are some 1500 posts already up and running for you to pore through. The early ones are unfortunately not categorized under any “label.” So, have fun – and learn all you can about Liberty.

There are quite a few of my books and booklets as well.

There are also the handful of blogs on my blog list that you can always read in the interim – and benefit from, for they are from Europe and the USSA, and they will tell you much of happenings there.

So, goodbye for a while – have fun – and I shall be back – whenever.

Remember: Empires have ALWAYS crumbled in History – and always because of financial irregularities.

History is on YOUR SIDE.

My t-shirt says: “Each Indian – One in a Billion.”

This means: Individualism – which is Private Property and Private Enterprise – and NOT Collectivism, which means, “wee the people,” all “united” in The Great Leader in Nude Elly and his All-India “National Political Party,” duly “recognized” by the Election Commission.

[It must be EMPHASISED that classical liberals and libertarians in “socialist” India are NOT allowed to form political parties and compete.]

The USSR crumbled decades ago – and quite a few of the “breakaway nations” are doing very well: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia – and so many more.

But I do NOT suggest such “homogenous nation-states” – instead, I suggest catallaxies, republicanism, and free trading and self-governing cities and towns.

Ancient Greece.

The Hanseatic League.

CIVILISATION!

Lots to THINK about, what?

Song of the Day: “Birthright” – from that fabulous album Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe – in which the lyrics go:

This place ain’t big enough for stars and stripes,

This place ain’t big enough for red and white.

This place is THEIRS – by their BIRTHRIGHT!

Srinagar, Kashmir.

Imphal, Manipur.

Kabul, Afghanistan.

And all the rest.

The same song applies.

It means PROPERTY and REPUBLICANISM.

NOT EMPIRE.

Each city and town flying its OWN FLAG.

On Dylan, Shillong, Our Rockers, Sangma, Picasso - And Abdication

It's Bob Dylan's 71st birthday today - and I am sure he has never heard of Shillong, the British-built city in India's North-East, where this day has been celebrated with great gusto for decades now, with thousands of his fans congregating with their guitars to sing his songs. There is even a "Bob Dylan of Shillong" - Lou Majaw, now 62 years old, whose photo is alongside.

It was just the other year, in Delhi, that I read of a Lou Majaw show being hosted in some bar. A friend and I went - but we were soon informed that the show had been cancelled. It was just a tiny bar, with a tiny stage.

The North-East is FULL of such rockers. When Arun Shourie was Central minister for this region, he hosted a show of a dozen or so rock bands from this neglected and strife-torn region - in the State-owned Ashoka Hotel in Nude Elly.

Why can't they play in PRIVATE NIGHTCLUBS?

Answer: Because there aren't any!

It's not just Nude Elly - it is the same story in Bangalore, where internationally famous rock stars perform live regularly, but local bands get fucked.

FREEDOM!

A "politician" from Shillong, PA Sangma, a long-time CONgressman who broke away from the Sonia gang along with Sharad Pawar and his "Nationalist CONgress Party," has now put himself forward as a presidential candidate. This is an "indirect election" - and he is therefore seeking the support of various "leaders" of various "political parties."

Sangma is a "nationalist." He is therefore looking towards Nude Elly for solutions to the problems of the North-East. He is also one of those "political fathers" - like Sharad Pawar and many others - and his daughter is a minister in Nude Elly for - guess what? - "rural development," of course!

He does not know that CITIES are CIVILISATION - which means he is NOT LOOKING at Shillong.

He was also Speaker of that infamous Parliament that passed that infamous "unanimous resolution" asserting that "wee the people" - that is, the "population," their own "constituents" - are "India's Biggest Problem."

Yet, Shillong is the most populated city in Meghalaya and the educational as well as cultural capital of the entire North-East - and that is why it is fairly prosperous.

Nude Elly and the other metros are even more populous - and they are richer still.

Sangma is a "socialist lawyer" - and what can be said about that, except that they mistake "legislation" for Law. Thus, his fatally flawed "ideology" comprises bits and pieces of Nazism - "nationalist socialism" - plus "democracy," plus this and that, including Gandhian "rural development." All nonsense. And nothing about FREEDOM.

FREEDOM FOR THE NORTH-EAST MEANS LOOKING TOWARDS THE SEA - and not towards land-locked Nude Elly - as I said yesterday. 

It means INTERNATIONALISATION. 

It means URBANISATION. 

It means TOURISM. 

It means Open Societies instead of narrow tribalism.

But it does NOT mean looking towards land-locked Nude Elly.

I see little point in any "right-thinking person" attempting to head this "headless chicken" that is the socialist Indian State.

"It Ain't Me Babe" - that's the Dylan song I would ask the DJ to play.

"To protect you and defend you, whether you're right or wrong... " and all that crap.

The rupee is crashing, as is the stock market, and they are trying to issue some "special bonds." No sensible investor will buy them - but they will surely tweak their own banks and other "financial institutions" to subscribe OUR MONEY for this lost cause.

Picasso's "Guernica," which depicted Nazi annihilation of a civilian population, got him into trouble. He was arrested by the Gestapo - who pointed to the painting and asked, "Did you do this?"

Picasso replied, "No. You did!"

And there is the famous story of Ludwig von Mises - when he was asked what he would do if made President of the USSA.

"I'd abdicate!" was Mises' instant reply.

But Dylan ought to tour India. 

In particular, he ought to play in Shillong.

One does not "abdicate one's fans."

In China, recently, the "authorities" censored him.

In Shillong, he could speak his mind.

For the times they are finally a-changin'.

A Prayer – For A Golden Future For The Numberless Poor Of India

My latest work, For Civilisation, Against Politics:Arguments for an Intellectual-Moral Revolution, is dedicated to the poor of India, in these words:

Dedicated to the poor, unlettered, huddled masses of my country, India, whose honest, backbreaking toil and endless suffering will forever continue, or even worsen, unless the establishment economists of today as well as the teachers of law – “moral sciences,” both – are proven to be in grave error.

This post is dedicated to the same cause.

China is much admired in India – but they have erred. Their strategy has been one of “export promotion” – and almost the entire proceeds of these exports have been “loaned” to the US State: the Chinese State has bought US State bonds. It has NEVER been wise, in History, to extend loans to sovereigns – because kings used the money on wars. They did not “create wealth.” The Medicis, and many London bankers of old – who were known as “goldsmiths” – went bust for this very reason.

“Sovereign default” has been ruled out these days because the State can always “create money.” But we are now in the inevitable “long run” that Keynes predicted, and which Keynesians continue to deny.

It is not just Greece – many, many sovereign defaults are expected. And wise investors today are shying away from ALL government bonds – including those of the US State.

This is the Chinese error – but they have done well on roads and highways, on railways, on new cities and towns, especially on the coast, though a property bubble has developed, as in the USSA, and as in India as well.

We in India, of course, have done NOTHING right.

The global financial scenario is surely looking FRIGHTENING for all the rich and the powerful – but India’s poor people need not worry, for they invest all their savings in gold. They are “financially excluded” from the banking sector – and this is good for them. These days, post offices sell them gold coins – but the taxes and import duties on gold cheats them. These should go.

The poor also need COPPER COINS - for their meagre savings must never lose value. Hence the picture above - of the new copper coins being sold by the Mises Institute with Mises' face upon them, as well as his motto from Virgil - Tu Ne Cede Malis - which means, "Do not give in to evil." Virgil added: "But proceed even more boldly against it." 

All Austrian School economists - followers of Menger and Mises, and their "methodology" - derive their moral courage from this motto of Mises', which all of them have adopted as their own.


But why speak for others: "Do not give in to Evil but proceed even more boldly against it" is My Motto.

Also, the poor of India do possess property – but they do not have titles to these. Property titles can be locally provided by private firms using Google Maps – and Title Insurance can help a great deal to ensure fraud does not occur. Then, the “mystery of capital” will be solved – for the poor.

Now, the Chinese have had the common sense to re-build Shanghai, and add many more new cities and towns to their east coast. Of course, they had the spectacular success of Hong Kong staring them in the face – while we are all looking at land-locked Nude Elly for answers to mass poverty.

Actually, Nude Elly became a city and a capital only in 1911 – while coastal Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay were built centuries before. Rangoon was also part of the British Empire – on the coast. Singapore – a little beyond. You do not have to read books on History or Economics to know that coastal cities flourish – you can simply consult a map.

So, for the poor, the best thing to do is allow them to “homestead” unowned land on our twin coasts, which will allow them to participate in the urban division of labour in many, many NEW free trading and self-governing port cities and towns. The poor can then PROSPER within flourishing urban, internationalized markets – instead of waiting for “welfare” from BROKE Nude Elly, and also escape the permanent poverty trap that is “rural development.” The new coastal cities and towns may also be better looked after than our devastated British-built metros – so LIFE can also be pleasant, for all.

CIVILISATION!

Now, as I started off saying, the Chinese “erred” by pursuing “export promotion.” Contrast them with the East India Company – which exported its own gold in its “tall ships” and imported “fripperies” like nutmeg and pepper.

IMPORT-PROMOTION.

“When my ship COMES IN.”

Private Profits in Private Economies – and not the BULLSHIT about “balance of payments” in a “national economy.”

The British also imported cotton and tobacco from America, and sugar from the West Indies.

Contrast them with the Spanish and the Portuguese – who only brought back gold and silver from the New World. They NEVER prospered. They caused INFLATION all over Europe.

Produce goods and services, and trade in them – that is the route to prosperity. Not the expansion of MONEY – not even GOLD.

That’s History – and Say’s Law of Markets as well, on which I have many educative posts under that “label” on the right-hand bar.

So, for the poor, we need gold, silver and copper coins as money – and gold they already have – and then we need to institute UNILATERAL FREE TRADE so that all the coastal cities and towns can prosper, with IMPORTS. The rest of the world will prosper as well – and the virtuous cycle will forever continue. So, no more Customs Department. ABOLISHED. Every shop in India becomes a “Duty Free Shop.” Think of the tourism!

What will we export? Well, I believe we can finally move into HIGH-TECH EXPORTS as imports of capital equipment - machines - components, technology and raw materials becomes cheap; for the rest is labour, which is abundant and comparatively cheap here, and “training,” which is easy. We can also export all kinds of “cash crops” – as before. And our staples: handicrafts, textiles, and so on.

I concluded my column in Mint advocating a “Return to the Gold Standard” with these words:

 Any nation can unilaterally revert to the gold standard whenever it chooses. If we do so, our rupee, now pegged to gold, will always appreciate against the rest of the world’s fiat papers. This will help us become big importers. And cheap imports, including of capital goods and components, will make our manufactured exports competitive in terms of technology, quality and price. Our banks will attract the world’s savings, and we will possess capital, the vital ingredient of “capitalism”. All prices will steadily fall and the consumption of the poor will rise in leaps and bounds. This is the power of “sound money”.

Now, something on the impoverished, neglected, and land-locked North-East – they will need access to the sea, via Bangladesh and Burma. They should also “internationalise” their societies. Catallaxies – instead of the even narrower domestic walls of tribalism. Open Societies. Tourism. They all speak English, anyway - and really know their MUSIC!

The idea of all these free trading and self-governing cities and towns is one of True Republics – thousands of them – instead of this EMPIRE misruled from land-locked Nude Elly.

LIBERTY, PROPERTY, CONTRACTS, TORTS, HAPPINESS.

LIBERTY – UNDER “PRIVATE LAW.”

ORDER – NOT CHAOS.

PROSPERITY – for the poor of today.