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My normative ethical position has a simple side-constraint[1] which is that it is immoral to enslave people or to impose costs on them. Enslaving people entails using them for one’s own ends, and it is a violation of rights of others. Each individual has a right to his body, labor and talents. Using a person in service of one’s own ends is impermissible. Here nothing is said about what ends one may pursue. The only imperative — a categorical imperative and not a contingent imperative — is that enslaving others is a violation of their rights to self-ownership.

I subscribe to deontological ethics.[2] That means, one is morally obligated to do one’s duty, whatever that may be. This is distinct from consequentialist ethics which hold that the right thing to do is whatever has good consequences. One variety of consequentialist ethics is utilitarianism which views moral actions to be those that result in the greatest good for the greatest number. Continue reading “What I Believe”

The world today is quite different from the world of 1945, when the last world war ended. The map above broadly identifies colonies of the Western/European powers. (Click on the map to embiggen.)

Great Britian, an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe, is around 210,000 sq kms. In 1945, in just the Indian subcontinent, Britian colonized an area 22 times larger than its home territory, or around 4.5 million sq kms (India – 3.3m, Pakistan 0.9m, Bangladesh 0.13m sq kms.)

Practically all parts of the world at some time in the not too distant past have been under the control of the European powers — Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands and Belgium. Britain has been the most successful. The list of countries that were at some point controlled by the British is really long. Here’s a list (from this wiki page.) Continue reading “Was the British Empire Good for the World”

I am sad to  learn that Ennio Morricone passed away today in Rome. He was 91 years old. During his career as a music composer, he scored the music for an unbelievable over 400 movies.

I’ve been a fan of his music for over 40 years and had the pleasure of introducing many of my friends to his music. People familiar with the tunes of “sphagetti westerns” such as “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” generally don’t know the name of the composer. Of all the music he wrote, my favorite is the score for the 1986 film “The Mission.” The basic musical theme is outlined in the song “Gabriel’s Oboe.” Listen. Continue reading “Ennio Morricone. RIP.”

Some people in Los Angeles, CA appear to have decided to ignore the license-permit raj regarding fireworks and celebrated the birth of the United States of America with real fireworks. One twitter user posted a video with the message:

IN THY FACE AUHORITARIAN SWINE! SO HAPPY AND PROUD! GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Continue reading “Fourth of July Fireworks”

I like the Americanism which says, “Good, fast, cheap: Pick at most two.” There is some overlap between any pair of the three but there’s no overlap between all three. Good and fast won’t be cheap; fast and cheap won’t be good; and good and cheap won’t be fast.

With regards to economic prosperity, I have something similiar to that “good, fast, cheap” rule. I call it “Orwell’s Rule for Economic Prosperity” which says “Rules, Leaders, People: Pick at least two.” If a country has good rules, good leadership and good people then its prosperity is guaranteed. That much is clear. But at the very least, you must have two of the three to have any hope of being prosperous. Continue reading “Orwell’s Rule for Economic Prosperity”

Here’s a simple illustration of how the government systematically robs the poor of their meagre possessions with total impunity. Consider a poor farmer who owns a small bit of land — say a couple of acres — which he farms. It provides him a subsistence existence because the land is not very productive. That land is not really suited for farming. 

Suppose that the land could be better utilized in some non-agricultural activity. Let’s say that by farming, the land provides an income of $1000, but in an alternate non-agricultural use such as in manufacturing the land would provide an income of $10,000. That means that the land value is much higher if it is employed in non-ag activity compared to farming. Continue reading “Stealing from the Poor”

Consider a simple economy. It has two people,  A and B. And there’s the government (or state) G. Person A’s net worth is $100 in cash, and person B’s net worth is $0. This economy run on fiat money. Meaning, G has the power to print money whenever it feels like it.

Suppose G is concerned about inequality and prints $100 and gives it to B. The amount of stuff  in the economy that can be consumed has not changed. What the increase in money supply by $100 does is to raise the prices of stuff. General increase in the level of prices is called inflation. The same amount of goods but twice the amount of money chasing thoe goods. Inflation is therefore 100 percent. Continue reading “Inflation”

The story of modern China is at once frightening and encouraging. It’s hard to comprehend something that involved hundreds of millions of people. It’s impossible to imagine what is is like to lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty. China did it. I don’t excuse the human rights abuses that China routinely indulges in but I celebrate the reduction in human suffering that it achieved. I have special contempt for the Chinese Communist Party leadership. They are evil but at least they did one thing right: they relieved the suffering of their people.

I would fall to my knees in deep gratitude to those who were responsible for sparing me the torture of a life of grinding poverty. Conversely, if I had been condemned to a life to unrelenting poverty — as is the fate of hundreds of millions of Indians even today — I would curse those responsible to be tortured in hell for eternity. That includes those of every political party that has ruled India since 1947. Continue reading “70 Years of China in One Image”

The earliest known instance of taxation dates back 5,000 years in Egypt. I suppose the pharaohs needed it to finance those pyramids. Before that, death was the only thing that was certain; after that, taxes became as certain as death. Good ol’ Ben Franklin[1] noticed that.

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes taxation as “imposition of compulsory levies on individuals or entities by governments. Taxes are levied in almost every country of the world, primarily to raise revenue for government expenditures, although they serve other purposes as well.”

It goes on to add that:

Taxes differ from other sources of revenue in that they are compulsory levies and are unrequited—i.e., they are generally not paid in exchange for some specific thing, … While taxes are presumably collected for the welfare of taxpayers as a whole, the individual taxpayer’s liability is independent of any specific benefit received. Continue reading “Taxes”