Last year, the Supreme Court of India asked for the reasons about why the government allowed the ruin of food grains in governmental stock facilities and go-downs while many millions in India were suffering hunger and malnutrition. According to newspapers, a fifth of India’s population remains undernourished and some 3,000 children die each day from hunger-related causes while around 6 million tons of food grains were ruined in the year 20121 . Obviously, it was a clear indication that governmental intervention in the market causes extreme failures and loss. However, instead of learning this clear lesson from the situation, the government and the socialist bureaucrats of India suggested furthermore interventionist approach towards the issue and in 2013; the government announced their will to pass the Food Security Bill in the parliament. The food security bill suggests that every citizen has a right to get food (as a privilege of being a citizen of India) and the government has a duty to ensure that nobody is suffering lack of food or hunger. In other words, food security bill suggests that food is a human right. While this bill is still hanging in the parliament because of the uproar of opposition parties against the ongoing issues of governmental scams, this bill will finally be passed in the parliament sooner or later. Is it Moral? Food is not freely available; rather it requires capital, factor of production and human labour to produce food grains. In order to provide food for everyone, the government first requires attaining enough food grains and since government cannot produce food or food grains, it is scheduled to collect the harvest of those individuals, farmers, who work hard and use their resources to produce food grains. In other words, by announcing food security bill, the government has virtually announced …Read the Rest
Socialism is Existence of Government
One of my friends was contemplating about the “nature of Indian Economy and Role of Government” and he concluded that Indian economy is “mixed” but its intent is socialistic. I admire his article for the fact that he is beginning to analyze things with better perspective. However, I also realize that he is wrong if he believes that there can be a free economy in presence of the government. I explained Mixed Economy as the “Middle Vice” in one of my previous articles that I wrote a few years ago. The idea of Mixed economy or Fabian Socialism comes from the misunderstanding of the Aristotelian Nicomachean Ethics that suggests that out of the two extremes, the middle path is preferable. However, the middle path is not always right and often, it is worse than the two extremes. Issue of mixed economy is the same, it is the worst path. If Individual Freedom (Capitalism) is Good, if Socialism is Bad, then Mixed Economy is ugly1 . While I appreciate his article to the extent that he was right about analyzing nature of Indian economy and government, reading his article was painful. Let me tell you why. While this blogger is expressively …Read the Rest
Socialism is Existence of Government
One of my friends was contemplating about the “nature of Indian Economy and Role of Government” and he concluded that Indian economy is “mixed” but its intent is socialistic. I admire his article for the fact that he is beginning to analyze things with better perspective. However, I also realize that he is wrong if he believes that there can be a free economy in presence of the government. I explained Mixed Economy as the “Middle Vice” in one of my previous articles that I wrote a few years ago. The idea of Mixed economy or Fabian Socialism comes from the misunderstanding of the Aristotelian Nicomachean Ethics that suggests that out of the two extremes, the middle path is preferable. However, the middle path is not always right and often, it is worse than the two extremes. Issue of mixed economy is the same, it is the worst path. If Individual Freedom (Capitalism) is Good, if Socialism is Bad, then Mixed Economy is ugly1 . While I appreciate his article to the extent that he was right about analyzing nature of Indian economy and government, reading his article was painful. Let me tell you why. While this blogger is expressively …Read the Rest
Austrian Economics and Objectivism : Austrian Value Theory and Objective Value Theory
Logic can be expressed in a number of ways; however, if it is sound logic, no expression of it can negate other expression. This is true with the case of differences between Austrian school of economics and the philosophical movement known as Objectivism. However, different terminologies often create various misunderstandings and confusion that furthers the yawning gap between these two branches of libertarianism. Austrians often remain in influence of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard, on the other hand, Objectivists enjoy impressions of Ayn Rand. Recently, I observed a similar debate over the value of Gold. There are three Classic value theories of goods namely, intrinsic, subjective, and objective. First, I will discuss about these three classical value theories and then I will discuss about the Austrian value theory as supported by Austrians and the Objective theory of Values as supported by Ayn Rand and other Objectivists. Classical Concepts of Value Theory Concept of Intrinsic value of a good: According to Richard Cantillon, who was the first of the modern economists, the intrinsic value of an object or good is the measure of land and labour that has been used in production of that good. However, Cantillon conceded that …Read the Rest
The Failure of Right to Education
The Indian UPA government announced the right to education in 2009 and no opposition party opposed it. However, it was pretty clear that declaring education as a right is ridiculously irrational and unrealistic. Obviously, the whole concept of Right to Education was destined to fail in a dismal manner and it was destined to ruin whatever goodness Indian education system had. I have discussed about the irrationality of right to education and the myth of education for all (or Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan) in previous posts and now, after three years of that dreadful political gimmick, when the whole concept of RTE Act or similarly, the free healthcare system; is a proven failure, I would like to discuss about why Right to Education was bound to be a failure. According to the Annual Status of Educational Report (ASER), “the number of class III students in both government and private schools who could not do simple arithmetic has increased. In 2011 only 21% students could do simple subtraction against 19% in 2012.” That is, 81 out of 100 Indian students of Class III couldn’t do simple subtraction in 2012. I must clarify that Indian education system is almost completely governed by the …Read the Rest
