Category: People

A Bit about Trade

Economists are uniquely qualified in their understanding of one particular aspect of human activity, and that activity is unique to humans. No other animal trades, or exchanges, among its kind. Adam Smith wrote that “the propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.” And no other discipline focuses on trade as much as economics does. Indeed, the most parsimonious description of economics is that it is the systematic study of trade, and trade-offs.

The story of human civilization can be told as a tale of ever-expanding scale and scope of exchanges. Foraging tribes of the distant past produced very little of what they consumed. They lived in groups of 100 to 150 people, and subsisted on whatever they could hunt and gather. What little exchange they did was limited to one’s kin and neighbors, and did not extend to strangers. Continue reading “A Bit about Trade”

Gandhi — The Megalomaniac

 

Mohandas K. Gandhi is not generally included in the category of world-class tyrants but properly understood, among tyrants he is in a class of his own. Tyrants are always megalomaniacs but in Gandhi’s case the megalomania was fortified with infantile solipsism.

Only he mattered, and what mattered to him was that everyone did exactly as he dictated. And the instrument he used to compel obedience? The threat of violence. And why should people do what he dictated? Because he wanted people to be good. And what does “good” mean? Good was whatever Gandhi wanted. Continue reading “Gandhi — The Megalomaniac”

Gandhi – The Economics Retard

Modi

On social media Prime Minister Modi made these remarks on the anniversary of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s birth. Roughly translated from Hindi, he wrote in part:

“Oct 2nd is a sacred day. On this day we have to remember two of Mother India’s sons: Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Revered Bapu’s thoughts and ideals are important today, even more than before. If we had understood and adopted the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi’s economic thoughts, if we had taken that path, then we would not have needed the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan today. Gandhiji’s economic ideas were informed by a detailed knowledge and understanding of India. Bapu’s life reminds us to make sure that every action of ours benefits the poorest of the poor.”

Politician

We have to admit that Gandhi’s understanding of Indians was second to none. It could not have been otherwise because successful politicians have to know their constituents. Gandhi was arguably the most successful Indian politician, which he could not have been if he had not accurately read the Indian mind. He wasn’t very intelligent, knowledgeable, widely read or broadly educated. But intelligence, knowledge and education are not requirements for being a successful politician; in fact they may be serious handicaps. What is required to succeed in politics is shrewdness, cunning, self-assurance, guile, the ability to project virtue, talk the big talk, pander, scheme, conceal hypocrisy, charm the public, conceal the truth, fake it, divert attention and other such talents. Continue reading “Gandhi – The Economics Retard”

Gandhi – The Sexual Pervert

Hagiography

When I consider Gandhi the man as I know of him from readily available published sources, I am led to the conviction that he must have been a tortured soul. As a kind-hearted human, I am moved more to pity mixed with revulsion at who he was than I am to condemnation and hatred of the man. But at the same time, I cannot excuse neither his actions nor ignore their terrible consequences. Whether he intended the horrors he perpetrated on a vast scale or not, what he did eventually resulted in immense horrors. I am convinced that he is the most evil man in human history, bar none.


I have no training in abnormal psychology. The only training I claim is in economics, a much popularly misunderstood discipline (a state of affairs the blame for which rests on economists alone.) The disclaimer is that it is quite possible that I don’t know what I am talking about here. But I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide that. This is a blog post, not a paper submitted to a peer reviewed scientific journal. As we say in the US, you gets what you pays for. Continue reading “Gandhi – The Sexual Pervert”

Mohandas K. Gandhi – The Saint of India

Gandhi’s role in India’s independence

MK “Mahatma” Gandhi’s birthday is one of only three national holidays in India (the other two being Republic Day and Independence Day.)[1] Indians are taught that it was Gandhi’s non-violent non-cooperation movement that led to India’s gaining freedom from the British empire. There, in that one sentence, you get two blatant falsehoods for the price of one.

First, the British gave up their Indian colony not because of Gandhi but because it was no longer profitable to hold on to India, and on top of that colonialism was losing its appeal among the European powers following the Second World War. Clement Atlee, in response to a question about the role of Gandhi in India’s independence, replied, “Mi-ni-mal.” It is likely that Subash Bose was the real instrument of India’s independence from the British.[2] Continue reading “Mohandas K. Gandhi – The Saint of India”

Einstein’s Ph.D. Thesis

Einstein submitted his PhD thesis in 1905, the “miracle year” (Annus Mirabilis) in which he also published four papers on various matters:

        • Photoelectric effect
        • Brownian motion
        • Special relativity
        • Mass–energy equivalence

It was for his discovery of the photoelectric effect that Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel prize in physics, and not for his more famous work on special relativity or for the work which has the world’s most popularly celebrated equation E=mc2.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire. His citizenship is interesting. First he was a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg during the German Empire (1879–1896). After that he was stateless (1896–1901), then a Swiss citizen (1901–1955), Austrian subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1911–1912), Subject of the Kingdom of Prussia during the German Empire (1914–1918), German citizen of the Free State of Prussia (Weimar Republic, 1918–1933). He became a naturalized American citizen in 1940. He died on April 18, 1955 in Princeton, NJ (which is about an hour’s drive north of where I am now.)

Thus many countries could claim him — the US, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Einstein himself, though, recognized that he could be rejected by many as well. He wrote, “If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”

Continue reading “Einstein’s Ph.D. Thesis”

Goodbye, Prof Freeman Dyson

I was saddened, though not surprised, to learn that Prof Freeman Dyson passed away on Friday in Princeton NJ at the age of 96. I admired him immensely for his intellectual might, bravery and honesty. Thanks to the internet, I have had the great pleasure of gaining from his intelligence, his humanity, his wide-ranging interests, his unconventional ideas.

I agree with all his viewpoints that I came to know about, particularly about climate change. Like him, I believe that the problem is neither urgent nor the most important. Humanity faces many problems, has the capacity to do something about some of them, and some of them are worth allocating resources to now. But climate change isn’t in that set. Continue reading “Goodbye, Prof Freeman Dyson”

Cheers

Like many an evening, today I raise a glass to the end of a disastrous social policy in the United States on this day in 1933. The wiki informs us thusly:

The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol. The Twenty-first Amendment was proposed by Congress on February 20, 1933, and was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment, as well as being the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.

The lesson is simply this: human nature is not perfectible. People are people. Retards will retard. And impose suffering on others because they’re convinced that their will overrides individual freedom.

Here’s a piece on 6 Things We Learned from Prohibition — except that the policy makers  did not really learn that prohibition does not actually work. The baptists and bootleggers win, and everyone loses.

Modi wins and India loses. I raise a glass of alcohol in opposition to Gandhi and Modi today. Cheers.

Einstein — The Physics Giant and the Economics Dwarf

When it came to science and theoretical physics, Einstein was no dummy. Indeed Einstein’s contribution to science is unparalleled. Many of the technological tools we routinely depend on would not exist without Einstein’s theories of relativity. Examples abound: cellular telecommunications, GPS, space travel.

Without doubt Einstein was a smart cookie. With reference to him, the year 1905 is called Annus Mirabilis  (in English “miracle year”, in German Wunderjahr). That year, he published four papers in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, Special relativity, and Mass-energy equivalence. They dramatically changed our understanding of space, time, mass and energy, thus building one of the pillars of modern physics (the other pillar being quantum mechanics built by Planck, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Born, et al.) The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.” (Fun fact:  The 1921 Physics prize was actually awarded a year later in 1922.)

Einstein was clever. But when it comes to understanding how that great big enterprise we call society operates in terms of production, distribution, exchange and consumption, Einstein was evidently clueless. His basic instincts of compassion, generosity, and altruism combined with his ignorance of economics, political economy, and economic history led him to fundamentally flawed conclusions about capitalism and socialism. It appears that he perhaps read a bit of Marx — just enough to get the wrong ideas. The kind of ideas that instinctively appeal to bleeding-heart teenagers, but which with some maturity, are discarded with a “I can’t believe that I actually believed in that pile of horse manure. Was I stupid or what?” Continue reading “Einstein — The Physics Giant and the Economics Dwarf”

An 1980 interview with Hayek

This is a Friedrich Hayek interview by Bernard Levin at the University of Freiburg which was broadcast in May 1980. Hayek was, in my professional opinion, one of the greatest economists of all times. We are wonderfully privileged to be able to watch videos of his brilliant exposition on the web. I am also impressed by Mr Levin; he does his job as the interviewer magnificently. Continue reading “An 1980 interview with Hayek”