yea may be that’s why Local and STD calls were so costly before 1991 when Telecommunication sector was not privatized and was in Government’s hand.

And may be that’s why communication is so cheap and user friendly now a days that even a poor vegetable vendor can afford to have a cell.

Its silly, idiots never learns.

BUT why is privatisation given so much importance. Privatisation only adds to the increase in the value of direct/indirect services.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT WHICH I BELIEVE YOU GUYS MISSED IS THE POINT OF PASSPORT OFFICES. IT IS SUCH AN IMMATURE EXAMPLE, BECAUSE SUCH BRIBES ARE CAUSING THE HIGHEST INFLOW/OUTFLOW OF TERRORISTS AS WELL AS NON-STATE ACTORS. PLEASE READ DEFENCE ARTICLES & PUT UP SUCH EXAMPLES.
i don’t question the regards of the author, but it is disturbing to know why the whole article was put in a very minimalistic & one-dimension approach.

de bribed policeman is indeed incentivised to catch more overspeeding bikers. but since the bikers have to pay only Rs.50 instead of Rs.500,aren’t they also incentivized to overspeed

And if too many bikers overspeeding despite of the private fines traffic cops are taking then won’t that incentivise the policemen to raise the bribe he is asking for?
Won’t Cop be tempted to ask for more money now since giving Rs 50/- does not seem to matter to these people, they still don’t care for breaking the law? Well its a fact that bribing also works on supply demand basis. If there are too many cops around in one area, you can get away by paying Rs 5/-, if there are less cops in an area, he will demand more money from you(his goal is to get maximum money possible from you). If its really difficult for the cops to accept bribe, then he will accept only a higher bribe(again the supply of corrupt cops have been reduced so he charges more money).

it is indeed the biker’s individual right to overspeed or not

There is no such thing as Right to Overspeed. You only have to drive at whatever speed you want on your own property, if its my road and I don’t want you to overspeed, I am not violating any of your rights.
Please understand the difference between Positive Rights and Negative Rights, Libertarianism does not support ANY positive right.
Positive right means “right which permits or oblige an action”, like right to education, right to food etc etc.
Negative rights means “right which permits or oblige an inaction”, like right to not be raped, right of not be prevented from overspeeding on my own property, right to not to be prevented in eating my own food on my property, right of not to be killed.

but just imagine every biker in delhi overspeeding without helmets bcoz they can bribe officials!!

As I already said before, if every biker in Delhi is overspeeding, then cops will be even more alert to catch these people because now this means they can make even more money. Also the Cops will start to charge more and more money now, the bribes will go upto Rs 450, and if the bikers STILL are overspeeding, then the cops will have to use other means to deter them, like not taking bribe and simply giving them official tickets, if the bikers STILL don’t deter then its clear that your system of traffic fines is failing, well corrupt traffic officers tried their best, the only solution is to hike the fine to Rs 1000, and allow traffic cops again to charge bribes.
There are places in UP where cops are so free to do whatever they want that there are systems of bribery, a network of cops taking bribes, though I cannot validate this story, as I just heard it from someone long time back but its quite possible. The cops would take bribe from you, and they will hand you an unofficial receipt if you are stopped by a cop again for that day you can always show them the receipt and they will let you go.
This system developed because people traveled from this cop’s area to the other cop’s area complained of being charged twice, so cops started having their own system of taking bribe from one person only once.
The whole point of this article is not some defense of corruption or anything, but a utilitarian defense of giving bribes. When readers are asking “what if the cop takes bribe for raping a woman and let you go”,well so what this is a corrupt cop we are talking about, even if you go ahead and legalize taking bribes for victim-less crimes, the bribery for victim crimes will never be legalized, you still will have the same problem, except now the cops will be earning more honest money.

Okay, I dont have data on the number of bridge-failures in India.

As I said earlier, there is no way out to expect professionalism and honesty in infrastructure until it is totally PRIVATIZED, with no intervention of government in it.

Why do you think you will make a strong and proper building for your own residency?

Let’s say I have to make a road for private business purpose  (Read More about Private Roads) , It becomes my responsibility to make sure road comes out to be of good standards and viable for the purpose I am making it. So that my consumers may not feel any problem in that, better and honest work will increase my profits, and my will to make profits will drive me provide honest and best possible services at cheapest prices. That is the way it is.

In governmental system, Roads/bridges/Housing buildings can never work good. Why?

Because greed is a natural part of Human Nature. every person working needs incentive.

So what is incentive for an engineer and a builder working under government? NONE. What is incentive of inspectors? none. they look for incentives, which causes bribery.

If you remove governmental system, the structure to be made comes under private ownership, and the owner will be in loss if there happens to be mismanagement and he will do his best to stop it.

For that, not only he be more attentive professional and assertive, also he will provide enough incentives for the work team involved to be honest and efficient worker.

In economic sector, Honesty is possible ONLY IF government stops Interventionism.

In social sector, like policing, traffic check ups, ticket checking, license checking etc, bribery provides the incentive.  Let privatizes security system flourish and you will find honest alert police and security systems too.

Human greed , his affection toward incentive and progress is the basic driver for any work any progress. Governmental system lacks that because there is no competition to government, government acts as monopoly. Destroy that monopoly and Dishonesty and inefficiency will run away.

Can you guarantee this unpre ?

This is Renegade here, the author of this article. Well can you guarantee that by you not bribing the policemen, the policemen will become honest?
If not then how can you ask the guarantee of otherwise? Its like Coke saying that ‘there is no guarantee that Pepsi is not having pesticide’, when they themselves cannot give a guarantee of their drinks.
But if you wanna look at the logic, then I can surely give you some.

A policeman receives a salary of Rs 15,0000/-.
Case A: He receives no bribe by the common law offenders. Like traffic violators, parking fines, etc etc. Bribery is illegal too, if caught there is heavy penalty.
A rich guy does a rape, and he offers him Rs 20,000/- to look the other side, or in fact gives him a monthly retainer of Rs 3,000/-(like Mafia does to policemen).
Will he accept that money?

Case B: He receives a lot of bribe by common law offenders. His salary may be Rs 15,000/- per month, but his other bribe adds upto Rs 20,000/- There is more social acceptance to this money. If caught with this bribery he is just let go with warnings but never severely punished(the case what I made for it).
Now a rich guy does a rape and offers him Rs 20,000/- to look the other side.
Will he accept that money?
If yes then what are the chances? Are chances more or less in him accepting the money compared to Case A?

See my point is clear, if offering bribe to Police for victimless crimes does not increase, in fact reduces the chances of a cop accepting bribes for a serious crime, isn’t it better thing to do?

The cops accept bribe and salaries from Organized crime syndicates everywhere, whether in Chicago or Calcutta.

The answer to your question is, no I cannot guarantee any such thing, but neither can you.

Nihari case, and Jessica Lal case will be there in a monopolistic police organization, whether you allow bribery or run a huge campaign against it.

What about the bribes that are taken to use sub-standard materials in bridges, dams, roads etc. all over the country ?

Sorry dude, but how many bridges have fallen because of using sub-standard materials in bridges?

Compare to the amount of corruption and bribery which goes on in Irrigation and Public Works dept there are very LESS number of bridges and dams which have fallen over the years.

Please read my 5th comment on this article, where I have explained in great detail what kind of corruption which goes on in such places.

Plus how can a common man bribe officers at these places anyways? All I am saying is that if you wanna make the office you deal with more efficient, just bribe them for the job.

Most govt officers who accept bribes for making dam from sub standard bridge are morons. Trust me when I say to you you can skim public money off without compromising on the quality of the dam.

On the top of that when companies bribe the public works offices and they compete with it, for public offices it become insignificant whether one guy is offering him Rs 1 lakh and other Rs 2 lakh. Now after clearing over a basic level of bribe what he cares more is what will make his ass more safe.

Its the long term sustainance what a govt official now looks on, he can take a one Rs 10 lakh bribe, or he can take 20 Rs 1 lakh bribes.

On the other hand, if you have a problem wearing helmets while reading ur bike, lobby ur legislator and get the public opinion on ur side and effect a change in the law.

Exactly, all you have to do is convince 4,634,323 people in your constituency to vote for not wearing a helmet and then you can not wear a helmet. Democracy is such an amazing system. If you don’t wanna wear a helmet all you hav eto do is convince 4.5 lakh people and you are good to go.

Maybe wearing a helmet is good for me, but can you explain me why I can’t pay for having sex??
Why do I have to convince half of the country of 1.1 billion people just so that I can pay for sex?

Can you guarantee this unpre ? There are quite a few high profile cases of murder (Nithari, Jessica Lal) where the police were accused of shielding well connected perpetrators.  We cannot leave the functioning of a modern society to such subjective notions. You can definitely not extend trivial cases like being fined for a traffic offense to the general workings of the state. What about the bribes that are taken to use sub-standard materials in bridges, dams, roads etc. all over the country ? They endanger thousands of lives.

On the other hand, if you have a problem wearing helmets while reading ur bike, lobby ur legislator and get the public opinion on ur side and effect a change in the law. Or keep bribing the policemen .

What I am talking about is Logic and Human Action.
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Are human actions logical?
Actually logic is in humans mind, which has been taught to him. So chances that their actions are in accordance to what has been taught to them are very high. As an economist one has to know a higher level of (logical) truth.
But logic is not the only thing that humans behave in accordance with. So one has to learn “Psychology”, in order to understand historical human being.

I do not really understand when people criticize Marx and all. Those people really had very deep understanding of all social sciences, so that they were able to talk about things that may happen after few centuries.

If you come to me on the road and offer me a gold ring and ask for $500, if I choose to buy that ring from you there is a possibility:
1) Ring actually costs more than $500 in market
2) Ring costs less than $500 in market

Now you might say that there is no certain way to predict what will really happen, and that’s right. But from the viewpoint of Economists you don’t have to worry about what really will happen.

As economists you have to deal with both the situations.
If the ring costs more than $500 then yes I did the right judgment, I made some profit, and I totally deserve the profit because of my risk taking
If the ring cost less than $500 then yes my judgment got screwed up, I made some loss, and the loss is totally mine because I took the risk.

Now you are talking about “Nobody knew whether the prices of housing will fall considerably”, well it doesn’t matter to you what happens. The people who purchased those houses assumed the risks, since the price fell too much they took the losses.
Your concern should not be whether it can be predicted what will happen to the prices as economist.

And

But after having enough units of water to survive, at one point next unit of water will start to have lesser value than next unit of diamonds. Because you have enough water now so you now want diamonds.
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Both the cases above have got something to do with “Psychology” of people. Which could be a complex matter.
If life is so complex, how can you say then that “Actually nothing is unpredictable”?

This is called Adam Smith Paradox, its usually put forward as, why does 1 oz of water cost less than 1 oz of diamond when the utility of former is way more than the utility of latter.

Well the answer is because the marginal utility of next unit of diamonds is way more than marginal utility of water.
In simple words the first unit of water will be way more valuable to you than first unit of diamonds(by first unit I mean you have no water, and this 1 oz of water will be your first unit of water,  and you have no diamonds and this 1 oz of diamond will be your first unit of diamonds), because without water you will die so you will readily take water over diamonds.

But after having enough units of water to survive, at one point next unit of water will start to have lesser value than next unit of diamonds. Because you have enough water now so you now want diamonds.

Nobody knew that housing rates in metro cities will see these rapid changes.

That’s not the point. The point was “if you assume risks, and the risks come in favor of you, you will make money”.
The point you are making is about risks going against you. Yeah that happens, nobody made any money and so many people lost their money.

For me, the statement is doubtful.

I am glad you said so.
The point is not that Money and Labor are completely interconvertable, but that Money is not acquired through luck and is mostly a product of your labor.

People tend to think so because usefulness of labour is actually unpredictable. And it has got something to do with the social dynamics. I will never understand why a particular stone is so important, thus costliest than lives of thousands.

Actually nothing is unpredictable, its all a matter of Marginal utility of labor or something. For example if you are a brain surgeon then your labor is more marginally useful than labor of a factory worker.

What is Marginal Utility of labor?
Well you cannot directly calculate the cost of your labor by measure it, what you have to do is to remove that specific person and then see how much less money you are making in a factory. For example removing 1 worker out of 10,000 workers will make little difference, the productivity will come down by $50 a day, then that means the marginal utility of the worker is $50 a day.

Similarly if you remove a brain surgeon from a hospital it will cause HUGE difference in the total productivity so his marginal utility is more.

What Marginal utility of anything?
The marginal utility of a good or service is the posited quantified change in utility obtained by using one more or one less unit of that good or service.
You pay $400 for an iPhone because the marginal utility of first unit of an iPhone is more to you than $400.
But you then are not willing to pay $400 for another unit of iPhone, because the marginal utility of $400 is more to you than second unit of iPhone, because you already have an iPhone you don’t need two iPhones.
Although you might be willing to pay $200 for second unit of iPhone because marginal utility of second unit of iPhone is more than $200, because you might gift that phone to someone.
Similarly, third unit of iPhone will have even lesser marginal utility to you.

I will never understand why a particular stone is so important, thus costliest than lives of thousands.

Risk taking and accurate decision making
Nobody knew that housing rates in metro cities will see these rapid changes. Most of the crises also are explained afterwords.

Economic systems (just like marriage) can never be truly transparent and satisfactory both at a time, and outcomes always unpredictable.