Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

Time to Say Goodbye

“All things must pass. All things must pass away.”

That’s what George Harrison sang all those many years ago. I agree. All things do, and must, pass away.

I started my first blog in 1998 or thereabouts when I was a grad student at UC Berkeley. It was called “Life is a Random Draw.” That blog has since been deleted.

That’s understandable since the internet is ephemeral. Impermanence and change are the defining characteristics of the internet as much as it of the universe, as the Buddha realized about 2,700 years ago. Continue reading “Time to Say Goodbye”

Comrade Nehru and Comrade Stalin

The remarkable thing about the most successful mass murderers of the world is that they are great leaders. Great leaders are great persuaders.

You’d have to get up pretty early in the morning and work very hard all day if you aimed to kill a few million single-handedly by the end of the day. No, that won’t work. You have to persuade a whole lot of other people to do the slaughtering for you. Meaning a lot of people have to think you are a pretty neat guy and they are lucky that they get to do the great work you command them to do. Mass murderers have to be dictators because otherwise you can’t murder that many.

Lenin, as Stephen Kotkin says, is the gold standard in brutal dictators. Here’s Kotkin in conversation with Peter Robinson. A brilliant video.

Stalin killed an estimated 20 million people in the USSR, according to historian Robert Conquest. I like this limerick by him: Continue reading “Comrade Nehru and Comrade Stalin”

The Virus has Killed the Liberal Order

I like Daniel Hannan’s analysis and his position on matters political. From 1999 to 2020 he was a Member of European Parliament (MEP) for South East England. Here’s a short opinion piece he published yesterday at the John Locke Institute website.

“Free trade, the greatest blessing a government can bestow on a people, is in almost every country unpopular”, wrote Lord Macaulay in 1824. Since then, average global incomes have risen, at a conservative estimate, by 3,000 per cent – having previously barely sloped upwards at all. Globalisation and open markets have been miraculous poverty-busters. Take any measure you like: literacy, longevity, infant mortality, female education, calorie intake, height. Continue reading “The Virus has Killed the Liberal Order”

Saraswati Puja

Today is Saraswati Puja. And also Kamadeva Puja, the deva I am named after. Kamadeva is also “Atanu” — meaning “one without a body.”

On this day, we Hindus worship Devi Saraswati. Bengalis traditionally place books and pens next to an image of Ma Saraswati. She is always associated with learning and music. She is depicted playing the veena and holding a book in her lower left hand. She has to be one of my favorite Devis because I like to learn and I like music intensely.

Bengalis believe that one can have either Ma Saraswati’s blessings or Ma Lakshmi’s blessings but not both. Meaning you can either be learned or you can be rich but not both. I accepted that uncritically when I was little but when I grew up I realized that that cannot be true. Without learning there cannot be creation of wealth, and without wealth there cannot be learning. Continue reading “Saraswati Puja”

Hayek on the Impossibility of Designing Society

This week in my online class “How the World Works – an Introduction,” I introduced a few basic economics concepts — starting with the easy to understand law of demand and supply. We call it a law but it is not the same sort of thing we call laws in the natural sciences. Social sciences are qualitatively different from the physical sciences like physics and zoology. Societies are not machines made of inert matter engineered by designers; societies are ecosystems of organisms that have minds which have volition and act purposefully to achieve their goals.

Social engineering — the deliberate transformation of an entire society according to some design — is doomed to failure because people are not inanimate objects that can be manipulated at will. The basic difficulty boils down to a lack of knowledge and the open-ended nature of the future. Nobody has the required knowledge of the present conditions of every person in society and the future state of the society. Continue reading “Hayek on the Impossibility of Designing Society”

Answers

I don’t know if I’m being smart with my occasional “Ask me anything” or not. Perhaps I should charge for answers. I could use an old price list from a couple of decades ago — adjusted for inflation. But for now, I’ll keep all answers free. You’ve got a deal because all my answers require thought and are guaranteed correct.

Alright, Mohan Boggara’s question was (paraphrased): given the acceleration of digital technologies and the Covid situation, what will the future of education be? Since digital technologies allow easy partnership between content creators and learners, and allow flexibility in time and space, will in-class education as we know it end? And what will be the future of schools and universities? Continue reading “Answers”

Ask me anything — the Logic edition

Is the following a valid logical argument?

1. Roses are flowers.
2. Some flowers fade rapidly.
3. Therefore, some roses fade rapidly.

Clearly it is logically invalid but it appears logical because it accords with our knowledge of the world — that some roses do fade rapidly.

The logical validity of a conclusion depends entirely on the premises, not on whether the world is some particular way. The statement “some roses fade rapidly” may be true in reality but it does not logically follow from the two premises, and therefore it is logically invalid. Continue reading “Ask me anything — the Logic edition”

Netaji Subhas Bose’s 125th Birth Anniversary

Sri Subhas Chandra Bose, popularly known as “Netaji”, was born 124 years ago in Cuttack, Orrisa on Jan 23rd in 1897[1]. Netaji is considered by a significant portion of Indians to have been instrumental — more than M. K. Gandhi MHRH — in getting the British to give up India. Be that as it may, it is undeniable that he was one of the greatest leaders of India in the last century.

His biography is quite well researched and generally known. There’s also an unfinished autobiography which covers the period from his birth to 1921 which Bose titled “An Indian Pilgrim.”[2]

But his disappearance and death is shrouded in mystery, conspiracy and intrigue. There’s a veritable cottage industry that thrives on the idea that he did not really die in a plane crash in Taiwan in 1945 but that he lived in India for decades as a recluse ascetic. Continue reading “Netaji Subhas Bose’s 125th Birth Anniversary”

Do this, President Trump

If President Donald J Trump has any sense, he would do this. Give a presidential pardon to Julian Assange on the final day of his presidency. Listen to Tucker Carlson make the case.

Source: Fox News.

Trump should also pardon Edward Snowden so that he can end his self-imposed exile in Russia. Will Trump do that? I don’t think so. He’s too stupid to do something that important.