If you were an employer, and your employee was inefficient, incompetent, irresponsible and arrogant, you would fire him. There are other people who can do the job. If you were an employee, and the work was demeaning, the boss irascible, the pay miserly, you would quit. There are other jobs in other companies. If you were a customer, and the product was faulty, expensive, unreliable and badly designed, you would take your business elsewhere. There are other suppliers of goods and services. If you were in a partnership, and your partner was insulting, domineering, lazy and greedy, you would dissolve the partnership. We can associate with others. We all have the freedom to do the best we can and deserve our just deserts. But all bets are off when it comes to the government.
When you are dealing with the government, you have little or no choice. The government is inefficient, incompetent, wasteful, arrogant, demanding, and demeaning. Its products and services are faulty, expensive, ill-designed, and unreliable. It is greedy, wasteful, irrational and unintelligent. It occupies a monopoly position in nearly everything it deals with. The ordinary person does not have the freedom to walk away. Therefore for the ordinary citizen there is no escape from the government’s predation, plunder and the destruction of general welfare. It is mean, petty, nasty and evil to a degree that no private person or corporation is capable of or even inclined to be. The government plunders with impunity because it holds the monopoly on the use of violence against the citizens and the citizens are not free to leave.
The government is mean, petty, nasty and evil to a degree that no private person or corporation is capable of or even inclined to be.
The most dire indictment of governments is that they are the primary cause of the poverty of poor nations.
The empirical evidence makes that conclusion absolutely inescapable. Large governments — those that control large parts of the economy, the civil society, and interferes in the domestic and social affairs of citizens — are invariably implicated in the poverty of nations. China and India are classic examples of government-induced poverty.
India has suffered the consequences of foreign invasions, and colonial rule. Although the period of foreign predation (I repeat the word because its meaning of an organism feeding on others is so apt in this context) ended in 1947, that year marked the formal beginning of domestic predation. The predation of Indians by the Indian governments for the benefit of politicians, bureaucrats and their minions started with Nehru and continues unbroken to this day.
Life is a Random Draw 
Mr. Dey,
Your description of, “The government is inefficient, incompetent, wasteful, arrogant, demanding, and demeaning. Its products and services are faulty, expensive, ill-designed, and unreliable. It is greedy, wasteful, irrational and unintelligent.” with respect to India is well taken. I read somewhere that it is what the governments are by definition, to suppress their own populace. This goes to the tragic extreme in some countries. As a long term resident of U.S. I see the same traits in the government here also. They hide most of their filth gilded. Say America is able to keep 80% of its citizens in some kind of borrowed prosperity and 20% are in some kind of misery. That is not acceptable in a country overflowing in riches. The 80/20 ratio is inverted in India. One has to correct for age, a 300 year old society to a 3,000 year old society when making comparisons. In both the countries 1-5% control the whole game. In my humble opinion that is not acceptable if we claim to be educated or civilized or believe in a just god. I believe that is some of it that you are trying to educate readers through your blog. I venture to say many of us are ignorant of economic and financial matters and are not aware of it. I commend you for the educational and thought provoking articles on practical societal matters.
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Mr Rao,
Thanks for your comment. I am glad you find my blog useful.
I find it curious that people say the US is 300 old or that India is 3000 years old — or some such thing — as you did. I could never understand that.
On a different matter that you touched on: the ignorance of economic and financial matters. I have nearly zero understanding of financial matters myself. As an economist I have as little interest in finance as I have in medieval Chinese linguistics. I leave finance to financial professionals and accountants. It’s called division of labor.
Though it may sound self-serving, I do believe that everybody should have a basic understanding of economics. It is as necessary as knowing arithmetic. Once upon a time, one could get by without knowing arithmetic or being literate. But in our present world, not being literate or numerate would be a terrible handicap. So too being illiterate in economics is a needless handicap.
“No other field of study contains so many ideas ignored by so many people at such great cost to themselves and the world.” That line is from an article in the book “This Will Make You Smarter” (from Edge.org).
Of course, the first bit is that very few people even know what is the subject matter of economics. Most people think that economics is about money and finance. Not so. Economics is about the behavior of people as they go about the ordinary business of producing, consuming and exchanging stuff.
Certainly money is involved in such interactions among people but that is not what is central to the enterprise called economics. Indeed one can study economics in great depth without ever mentioning the word money at all.
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> “In both the countries 1-5% control the whole game”
I never understand why people say it as if it is a problem. In fact we have less powerful people then ever in human history. 200 years ago when there we kings, lords and local Lalaji ruled their dominions power was far more absolute and much more concentrated. In short they controlled game, rules, players and players wife as they wanted.
People had less freedom in general. People communicated less, traveled less, had less opinions, had less information, less choices for education,travel,healthcare,housing,food etc. etc. Everyone mostly was a farmer and remained to for rest of this life.
The modern world which is rich and awesome has decreased the control that Governments, senators, PMs, presidents, bankers etc. have on our life either by law or through sheet human innovation.
We communicate more freely, we have more choices of food/healthcare/housing/travel/marriage and what not.
It is much easier for a person born in a poor family to be affluent today than ever in human history.
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