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My blog post of Jan 26th (Whoever Fights Monsters …) was republished by The Quint and subsequently ended up on Yahoo also.

At the Yahoo site, a few hundred comments (and replies to comments) were posted. Most of the comments were critical of my opinion, and many simply declared that I was a paid Congress agent, and anti-Hindu and anti-India to boot. I had stirred a hornet’s nest.

Which was sad because it showed that those people have reading comprehension problems. In my piece I severely criticized Nehru and Indira, and the Congress. And I faulted Modi for not keeping his “Congress-mukt Bharat” promise. The Congress is corrupt, not stupid. It would have been stupid for them to pay someone who is implacably opposed to them.

Modi bhakts read my criticism of Modi as an endorsement of his opponents. That’s stupid. My limited point in my opinion piece was that Modi has not been good for India. That is not meant as an endorsement of the opposition. It is possible to be the best (which is a relative term) and also be quite terrible (which is an absolute term.)

Some even doubted whether I had ever supported Modi. Here’s a piece I wrote in May 2014 — a few days after the 2014 election results: Narendra Modi will Transform India.

I was so wrong.

It would be wonderful if our schools exposed students to those great ideas that are the foundation upon which our modern civilization is built. These ideas are primarily from the social sciences. Social sciences, such as economics, explore and explain how society functions, and the pathology of failed societies. Among great ideas, I think the idea that the individual matters is paramount.

The institution of slavery has been abolished. At least that’s what we’d like to believe. But in truth, the individual is ruled by the collective, even in the best of societies. Even in the “civilized world”, the individual is de facto partially enslaved although de jure he is free. That’s a truth that very few people recognize. That’s a truth that every student should be exposed to because it matters immensely. That truth matters because only when one realizes that one is not free that the struggle for freedom begins. Continue reading “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”

Is my flight from IAD to LHR (scheduled departure 7 PM) going to take off or not?

JUST IN: Heathrow airport has suspended departures due to “drone sighting”. https://t.co/Rve1LoJ3Pb pic.twitter.com/BuMnJCPvGg

— euronews (@euronews) January 8, 2019

It makes good sense for the slave master to persuade his slaves that idleness is a sin and he’s doing god’s work when he flogs the slaves to work harder. The harder the slaves work, the more the master can take for himself. But of course the real motive has to be concealed and clothed in moral raiment.

“Work hard, you b*tches, and stop complaining.” That’s what Mohandas Gandhi meant but put it so very piously by saying, “Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible.” See what I mean? Continue reading “In Praise of Idleness”

Even though I know precious little about the formation of mass psychology, I am certain that how the citizens of a nation collectively view the world must have a causal relationship with the fortunes of a nation.

As individuals we are singularly powerless to alter the environment we grow up in. We have to take that as a given, outside our control, exogenous. How we view the world is not of our choosing. Our mental models are formed largely unconsciously, and shaped contingently. It is an enormous intellectual challenge for us to critically examine our conditioning — and in most cases plain old-fashioned brainwashing by state institutions  — and change our perception of the world.

Most critically, how people perceive government and governance matters. The what, why, and how of government differs from nation to nation, and those differences are consequential. To change how the collective’s conception of government and governance is to change its destiny.

This line of thinking is motivated by an email that my colleague Rajesh Jain received, and forwarded to me. I include the full text of the email and my response, for the record. Continue reading “Government as the Overlord”

Today, Saturday 20th October, Rajesh Jain and I will be hosting a webinar titled “How to Walk the Path to Prosperity”. It starts at 8:30 PM India time (8 AM Pacific, 11 AM Eastern.)

Register here for the event. To join the webinar, click on this zoom link at 8:30 PM India time (8 AM Pacific, 11 AM Eastern.)

Here are the details.  Continue reading “Webinar on “The Path to Prosperity” Today”

Here we go again. Now that India’s 2019 general elections are just a few months away, Mr Modi wants you to help him “transform India.”

Here’s an opportunity for India’s best brains to work for PM Modi’s campaign in 2019. 

Take a sabbatical from your current job and work with Nation with NaMo till May 2019.

Dedicate your 8 months to transform India in the next 5 years.

“… work with Nation with NaMo …”  Seriously? Couldn’t find a decent copy editor even?

It’s déjà vu all over again, as the great sage Yogi Berra said.  Continue reading “Modi Needs You to Transform India”

“War is a judgement that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe … Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations.”
— Dorothy L Sayers.[1]

That quote is from E. F. Schumacher’s book Small is Beautiful [2] where he meditated upon the causes of the bind that humanity finds itself in and indeed is responsible for. He posited that it was lack of wisdom that impels people to ‘cure a disease by intensifying its causes.’ Here’s what he wrote:  Continue reading “Curing a disease by intensifying its causes”

In a comment baransam1 asks, “Should the government fund primary education, fund higher education, fund research in basic sciences?” The answer is “No, no, and no.” Emphatic no’s.

No for the same reason that the government should not be in the business of income and wealth redistribution. It should not be in the business of charity. It should not be in the business of taking care of the indigent, the sick and the victims of accident and natural disasters. The government should not be in the business of religious indoctrination, or indeed indoctrination of any kind. The government should not engage in commercial activities like transportation and communications. It should not run hospitals and hotels, clubs and cafes, factories and farms. It should not run banks and non-banking financial institutions.

The list of prohibitions — the “blacklist”– is too long. It is best to have a “whitelist” of what the government is allowed and required to do, and nothing beyond that.  Why? The answer is one word: violence.  Continue reading “What Should the Government Do?”

What is not privately owned is public wealth. It’s everything that exists within the territorial boundaries of a country and the citizens have a legitimate claim to it. The question is this: who has the authority and the right to control it? Furthermore, when and how do the citizens of a country get access to their share of what wealth they collectively own?  Continue reading “Public wealth return”