A few days back a politico-philosophical debate enraged in this very site as to who is to be blamed for innocent civilian deaths in course of a military operation, the political masters or the military executioners. The debate however did not encompass another very important facet of the free democratic nations, the role of citizens. If we are men of free nation and it’s with our free will we elect our representatives to rule our nations on our behalf, are we too not party to any crime done by our representatives. If we were to ask someone (politicians) kill on our behalf, and the killer (Military) is being trained and armed by money provided by us, aren’t we guilty in part for the crime that he commits. Military heads are accountable to their political masters and they in turn to the citizens of the nations they represent. It seldom happens in a democratic set up that a nation goes into war or undertakes military operations without public will in its favor.

The first Irony of the political freedom is the very logic of democracy¹ which just seeks a 50% + 1 as the mandatory majority for any democratic resolution to get through. Even though this tyranny of majority on the free will of the minority defies all logic of individual liberty and freedom, it is still hailed as one of the most fair and just political systems which at any time represents will of the majority of its citizens. For instance we may have voted against the present regime of government, but we still honor outcome of a democratic contest and accept its decision as our own. In American context Barak Obama² is president of each and every American irrespective of whom they voted in the election. The moment we accept this as a fact and with our free will decides to follow and exercise democracy, we cannot exonerate ourselves thereafter from consequence of any decision our representatives take on our behalf. Citizens of nations under monarchies, or military dictatorship or for that matter under a communist regimes, where irrespective of the civic freedom, political freedom is considerable negligible, can feign away from this responsibility. It is so that Iraqi citizens cannot be held responsible for the gulf war but American citizens have to shoulder their part of responsibility for the event. It can thus be stated that freedom is a great privilege and power and with it comes great responsibility.

Let us now examine the nature of freedom, what is its essence, what really constitutes our idea of freedom and how it manifests in our day to day life and society. If you equate freedom to lawlessness, some kind of manifestation of wild, where there are no laws no regulations to follow, we would arrive at rather dubious conclusions out of it. Many war trodden countries of Africa where civic administration has completely collapsed, there exist no civic laws for that matter no traffic laws. You don’t have to stop at every red light that you encounter on the road, and can even get away with a murder for that matter. Will it be then prudent to state that citizens of these seemingly lawless countries enjoy more freedom than countries with democratic set ups like India or America? The answer is an obvious no, and as to why these civic laws and regulations do not infringe our freedom is simply because these laws exist as an exercise of free will and rationality at the first place. As rational human beings we felt the need for these laws and so it was imposed on ourselves and our society. In addition we reserve the rights to amend or remove the laws that are found to be inappropriate or have out lived its utility. We have choice with these laws but once in place we need to follow them, similarly we do have choice with our governance, but once in place we have to bear with it till its allocated period in office is over. There are provisions of impeachments and dissolution of government available in democratic set ups, It is however a rather difficult task and quite out of hand with respect to an ordinary citizen.

The second Irony of democratic political freedom is that although we do have a choice, we do not have choice of action but merely choice of electing representatives who would thereafter act on our behalf. Even though governments do try and sway the public opinion in their favor over major issues of national interest, it is merely a political compulsion rather than political necessity. Political freedom thus essentially manifests in the truest sense in a very brief window. It is the time when we exercise our liberty to choose our representatives and empower them to take decisions on our behalf. Thereafter public opinion acts merely as a subtle pressure on the political forum.

Idealistically we can at this point denounce the very concept of democratic political freedom, and argue that we have indeed got very little on the name of freedom.³ Pragmatically however we all are aware that democracy is here to stay. It has established itself as one of the most stable and effective forms of governance. Society is not yet grown to accept anarchy and dissolution of state as a viable solution. If we are to accept this fact then the only solution we are left with is to revitalize and strengthen democracies. Find means to plug the loopholes existing in the system and make it as foolproof and workable as possible.

At this juncture let us re-examine our idea of freedom. If we dissect our concept of freedom we would realize that it finally manifests merely as some choices that we get to make. How dimensionless free will gets limited to freedom to make certain choice would be a philosophical ordeal for us to fathom. It is also perhaps beyond the scope of this article, but what needs to be crucially examined is if the choices that we finally make are rational and a legitimate exercise of free will. Although lots of studies exist on mind and its nature both in philosophy and psychology, one that especially pertains to our context is Hegelian dialectics named after Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel a nineteenth century philosopher. He in his philosophical work examined the very nature of human reality as a prelude to understanding human choices emanating out of it. Hegelian dialectics state that our reality consist of two essential part a thesis (what it is subset) and an antithesis (what it is not subset) and our idea of reality a synthesis (a superset) of both. It applies to both perceptual reality and conceptual reality that our minds can figure. For instance idea of color red is incomplete without having an idea of both what red color is and what it is not. If you see everything red you cannot distinguish it from any other color. A blind man is presumed to see everything dark or black, but a person who is born blind cannot explain the concept of darkness, for he has never seen any light to distinguish his perception as one of darkness. Conceptual realities to same phenomenon exists our idea of good is incomplete without an idea of bad. That is if there is no conception of bad there is no conception of good either. A good example for this would be movies of super heroes. The moment we create a super hero we need to create a super villain to validate his existence. What use is spider man if he was to just deal with petty thieves and burglars who are no match to his powers. Only through induction of a super villain and his triumph over this villain can we really accept him as a super hero. Almost every religion conceived the idea of bad and evil the moment they conceived the idea of good and God. Without dwelling in further detail this duality or dichotomy of our reality let us examine its implication on our idea of freedom and choices that we tend to make.

The applied studies of this concept are popularly known as perception management also quite infamously known as problem- reaction-solution among conspiracy theorist. The point however is not how extensively it has been used the state but the viability of the whole idea and its implication on our freedom. If we are to be denied any part of the information both from thesis or antithesis front our perception of reality will alter dramatically. Our perception further has lacunae which are known in psychological parlance as availability heuristics and confirmation bias. Simply put our minds have a tendency to put one and one together at the first available opportunity and thereafter have a tendency to stick to this idea even when presented with contradicting information. This phenomenon is also brought forth in the popular idiom ‘First impression is the last impression’.
Both America and India, the strongest and the largest democracies in the world have had instances of 9/11 and 26/11⁴ respectively wherein there was an equal failure in the part of intelligence administration and also at the later stages states ability to tackle a developing disaster. The perception of the public was however managed away from these glaring failures of state administration to external enemies, on whom the whole blame was fixed. There is so much of red tape-ism which regulates and at times manages the flow of information between the state and its citizens that it is practically possible for the state to actually do what these conspiracy theorist claim.

How is it then that we can really envisage a more enduring freedom for ourselves?⁵ The answer lies in slowly dis-empowering the state. To start with government must have no control over the media. Media must not be state run at all as far as possible and it must be kept insulated from other instruments of state. Media itself however has to rise to the need of the hour and act in an utmost responsible manner. In addition all other instruments of state like judiciary, policing and investigation must be privatised or private players must also be included to prevent state from manipulating these instruments to get public perception in their favour.

It is very necessary at this juncture that we make some modifications to our idea of freedom itself. Most of us tend to carry an 18th century baggage with respect to this concept. To many a people, slavery is when one is chained and made to work like an animal and relatively anything else is more or less freedom. Many others misinterpret self governance to freedom. To most Indians, India was free before the English came and free thereafter. Not many are able to really apply logic and explain how is it that a rule of Indian monarchic ruler better than rule of queen of Britain. Post independence which is also termed as freedom struggle, India happened to inherit the concept of democracy from Britain itself. It is what is now celebrated as the coveted freedom by most. If we have to make progress towards ensuring that our so called freedom has some real viability. If we have our choices marked out clear in light of reason and justice and not on some manipulated emotional or non consequential agenda brought forth by political parties to sway our judgment, we have to first admit the limitation and nature of freedom that have in our hand and thereafter make endeavor to improve upon it by slowly dis-empowering the state and reducing its power to more manageable limits. At this moment we are far away from it and in fact moving in opposite direction. The new anti terror laws in India and patriotic acts⁶ in America are instances of such infringement of our freedom to further incapacitating levels. It is for us to decide which way we would like to move and exercise our choice before we are left with none.

1. Impasse of Democracy, Voting is not a solution, it is a Killer [↩]
2. Killing Instinct of President,Barack Obama [↩]
3. Need of Individual Autonomy,Reason for Liberty [↩]
4. Terrorist attack on Hotel Taj, 26/11/08 [↩]
5. Sovereign Citizen, Sovereign state [↩]
6. UAPA and Patriot Act, Military Keynesianism [↩]

The first person to ever dwell upon this topic was Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis. He is rather the first one perhaps to add a rational aspect to the subject through his work on the field of psychoanalysis. Freud’s study on various aspects of human psychology is challenged these days as it was based on case study methodology. Since all his subjects were patients suffering from some or other mental disorder, it is often contested that his derivation cannot be implied as general human behavior trends. Especially his controversial thesis on Oedipus and Electra syndromes, what cannot be contested however is his general observation that in a society/ civilization there is always certain amount of discontent. In a society not all individual can get what they desire, there are always conflict of interests among the members of a group and discontents arising thereof.

His studies were predominantly based on sexual frustrations which as per his studies certain people known as neurotics cannot tolerate and thus leading to various behavioral abnormalities. Later as psychology evolved into its present form of cognitive psychology, human needs and development of consciousness were studied with respect to not some quantifiable needs and desires but as a result of continuous interaction of the mind with its surrounding environment and experiences it gathers from it. What changed basically is that the process of human psychological development became very dynamic and role society and environment per say increased multi folds.

To out the subject in perspective, human beings have tangible needs but intangible desires. There may be a society which has all the resources in plenty, but there will be still discontent within the society. Many of the readers would be prompted to attribute all the evils and problems that we face to these desires. There is nothing wrong for it is what most of us have been conditioned to think from our very childhood. Truth is we are very instinctively like that, nature has designed us thus to struggle and thrive and leave no stone unturned to get better off than our peers. In the process improve upon our self, each generation as a great iteration filtering out the undeserving and promoting the deserving to inherit the earth. We have evolved this far only due to the presence of this desire. More so all our inventions and discoveries, progress of human kind can be attributed to this one intrinsic nature of man. To be never satisfied with what he has, to continuously struggle and compete, if he has gone past every one, then against himself, but never stop.

This incredible and unquantifiable energy, has however been seen as an evil, a problem by the societies and civilization across the world. Attempt was always been to somehow subdue these desire so that they fit into the social models better. Across the world many control mechanisms evolved to reign in this so called evil within the man. Almost every law structure we see, studies of ethics, more importantly religions are mechanism designed to regulate this intrinsic aggressiveness and reign of desires within a man. You would have invariably all religious doctrine dictating men what to do and what not to, invoking strong sense of fear and sense of guilt with in an individual. Everything that you hear about taboos, sins are more or less based on this concept. Idea is simple man is born an animal, a sinner (the original sin) but he can be trained to become a man.

There are even political systems that have derived some of its thinking from such control mechanism. Communism being the most coercive of them needs a special mention. The attitude of communism in fact finds reference in Freud’s thesis on this subject.

The communist believe that they have found the path to deliverance from our evils. According to them man is wholly good and well disposed to his neighbor; but the institution of private property has corrupted his nature. The owner ship of private wealth gives individual power and with it temptations to ill treat his neighbor; while the man who is excluded from the possession is bound to rebel in hostility against his oppressor. If private property were abolished, all wealth is held in common and everyone is allowed to share in the enjoyment of it.

He being a doctor adds at the end rather benignly that he has no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system, but he is unable to recognize that the psychological premise on which the system is based is untenable. We however today know not only through theory but by practical experience that nothing can be more absurd. There theory of removing the bone of contention to solve the problem is akin of the story we all would have come across in our childhood. There are two cats that are fighting for a piece of cake, a monkey comes and volunteers to mediate. He divides the cake into two halves and then keeps hogging on the bigger piece to make them equal and slowly gobbles away the entire cake. It’s true that monkey has left cats with nothing to fight for, but also hungry and deprived of what legitimately belonged to them. I am sure most would agree that communist monkey business is not the solution to the problem in hand.

If so what is solution to the problem in hand, can this problem be resolved in a legitimate rational way, or is it that we have to resort to mysticism or cynical or rather sinister ploys to resolve this issue? Do we have an option at all, or is it some chronic disease that we have to live with? Well I have had earlier in the article brought forth two important issues, firstly that it is intrinsic to human beings and thus cannot be dispensed with, secondly that almost all (or rather each and every) achievement of our society has come through individuals. They are results of the constructive and channelized venting of the same energy that tend to create this discontent. If we develop a society with higher level of freedom more sources of enterprise, more options for men to constructively compete and vent out this energy in a more productive way, wont our society be better? Will it not bring down the level of this discontentment drastically down?
It means that more freedom can indeed lead to a society with lesser crimes, swifter progress and growth and happier individuals. While most other political philosophies are centered on egalitarian ethics, Libertarianism is perhaps the only political philosophy which assumes this very much required freedom as the most indispensable requirement for building a stable and happy society. We have got so used to living in the controlled conditioned environment that the moment we hear of freedom, we tend to imagine some jungle with no law, with no control and no security. It is a widespread misconception that has been carefully doctored and fed into our mind from our very childhood. Truth is that all the laws and regulation that we are subjected to are unwarranted. Most can be dispensed with, and if we ever want human societies to evolve into more stable, progressive and happy entity, this is what we finally need to do. I believe that the world that we live in is far better than the one our ancestors lived in, it is the same responsibility that we owe to our next generation. We need to look into our world rather critically and change what we can. It is said that changes comes in quantum in civilizations, for centuries there is stagnation and then a revolution that changes the course of the history. We may or may not be on the brink of one, but we need continuously prepare for one, endeavor to change what is wrong with our present even if we are not there to see that future dawn.

Is it that any action done for the others good is necessarily selfless? More so, is every action done in interest of self, selfish? Our understanding of terms selfishness and altruism are often derived from the general social view that we are carrying about them. Further linguistic limitations make us misinterpret concepts and therefore the completely related idea. What does each word stand for in our mind, and how our idea about a word manipulates our idea and understanding of a concept using that word, is a subject of study itself. My endeavor here is not to point out the linguistic limitations but to put in perspective few terms that are widely used and misinterpreted. Firstly ‘selfishness’, a classical vice which was given a whole new perspective by Author and Philosopher Ayn Rand, and secondly ‘altruism’ the classical virtue which modern philosophies went about challenging to its very existence.

Altruistic paradox is unlikely a new term for most readers, especially those who have some inclination into objectivist or rather post/pro Darwinian philosophies if I am asked. I would however start with an attempt to firstly state what this paradox is all about in its classical sense. A psychological overview based on certain studies, which were done specifically to prove or disprove this theory. Finally, I shall attempt to put in perspective the term ‘selfishness’ as brought out in Objectivist philosophy.

Before the Darwinian theory of evolution came forth, the most accepted theories on origin of man were religious philosophies. All of them invariably pointed towards an intelligent design of universe and man. They held man as the finest creation of God, and qualities like altruism and love for fellow being intrinsic qualities that were embedded in man heart by the divine creator himself. Darwinian Theory of evolution changed this perception forever, with scientific proofs backing his theory he put forth the various laws of evolution. His theories of ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ brought forth aggression and continuous competition between the species and more visibly within the species as most intrinsic and instinctive behavior. He argued that each living entity aggressively struggles for ones survival and further procreation. Implication of the theory was therefore that Altruism among humans is simply a paradox and our actions are not motivated by any higher altruistic goals but very selfish instincts.

Human behavior as understood by the present day psychology however transcends both these arguments. The studies that were conducted to understand various behavioral aspects of humans both clinical methods and psychoanalytic have revealed various interesting facts about these debated behavioral aspects. Altruism has been found as a behavioral trait in many species like squirrels monkeys and humans. Female Squirrels for instance make distress calls and assess its male counterparts based on their response. Guerrillas and monkeys are known to respond when the members of their clan are attacked at times some members even risking their life for the group. Discovery is rather filled with documentaries showing mothers of various species risking their lives to save their offspring. These behaviours are not in contradiction with the Darwinian Theory of evolution. Theory of Natural selection gives room to nature to select certain characteristics that aid in a species successful survival. Nature seems to encourage altruistic traits in species where offspring need a lot of support and care before they are on their own. Humans too invariably fall in that category, invariable all females have tendency to prefer protective and caring males because such instincts are more beneficial towards protection and care of offspring. Females being the one with limited capacity to procreate tend to be choosy in this regard.

What nature promotes is certain characteristic traits that are altruistic in nature overtly, but serves a very selfish purpose of self procreation covertly. Nature favors genes and not individuals based on traits that help survival the best. A classical example being the species of Black widow spider, the female has the tendency to feed on male during intercourse. Invariably the male is killed in the process and male spiders are afraid of female for this reason. It is thus that the male whose sexual drive far exceeds its intrinsic fear of death attempts mating and therefore procreates. Its fearful counterparts though live longer but in longer run vanish. Similarly, in case of species where offspring need more care and protection genes, which have more tendencies to emotionally, attach and take care stands better chance.

Such findings however do not put in perspective the philosophical and religious concepts of altruism. One that holds in esteem sacrifice of individuals for the society defines selfless love and other altruistic conceptions. These behavior trends that are found human society has its root origin in another phenomenon called social conditioning. Human mind is subjected to rhetoric conditioning by the society. Cognitive development of personality of individuals have so much bearing on the environment that he has been brought up that you can make a man most willingly carry out suicide bombing. Similarly, men can be conditioned to pity and piety, altruistic behavior patterns like sacrificing oneself for nation, for ones religion, for ones society, family and so and so forth. William MacDougall, one of the founders of social psychology had pointed out how our growth of self consciousness and self regarding sentiments is influenced by the approval and disapproval by fellow men

Almost all that animals are capable in some degree of learning to modify their instinctive behaviour in the light of experience, under the influence of pain and pleasure, and in young child, also this kind of learning leads to first step beyond pure instinctive behavior.

In this way, the child’s idea of his self early comes to be an idea, not merely of his body and of certain bodily and mental capabilities, but also of system of relation between his self and other selves. Now the attitude of other person is presented towards him are more or less freely expressed by them in praise, reproof, gratitude, reproach, anger, pleasure or displeasure and so forth.

The child’s self consciousness is, then, nourished and molded by the reflection of himself that he finds in minds of his fellows

The strength of the regard men pay to the public opinion, the strength of their desire to secure approval and avoid disapproval of the fellow men goes beyond all rational grounds.

Idea that I am trying to bring forth here is that behavior trends that we tend to hold in high esteem as self less and altruistic is nothing more than a learned behavior that confirms with the self regarding sentiments that he has over the time molded to confirm. Behavior of certain nature gives his ego a boost, confirms with his image in the society and reaffirms the image that he has in his mind, the so called man in the mirror. You may even find criminal tendencies originating from such self regarding sentiment where in the criminal finds losing touch with his self if he does not continue committing crime.

Other classical examples are study on changing attitudes of children towards Negroes (study during apartheid era). The child who initially is very comfortable and loving with his coloured nanny, with time starts distancing and even abusing the same lady. In Indian context, there are instances where child of upper caste reared on the milk of lower caste women, grows up to regard her as untouchable. Social conditioning can thus explain a plethora of behavior trends that does not confirm with instinctual human behaviour.

Coming to Ayn Rand and her philosophy of objectivism, she was a lady born and brought up in Soviet Russia. She had seen the extents to which men can be exploited on the name of community and society. She had seen in her life men getting sacrificed both willingly and unwillingly to this irrational order. Her endeavour in her work was to free the man to whatever extent possible from the clutches of society. His protagonist were therefore always highly individualistic and to an extent antisocial beings.

Without dwelling into the whole epistemology of her philosophical derivations, if her philosophy were to be summarized, it would be thus. Objectivism holds reality to be absolute and objective in nature. That is A is A and 2+2 = 4, she allows no scope of relativity or perceptual bias in this regard. Secondly, she holds reason as the sole tool to make sense of the world around us, and what we derive using this tool has no biases or mystic vision. One thus need not depend on mosses or Jesus, Muhammad or Krishna or for that matter Ayn Rand to make sense of reality. No commandments or religious dictum need to be followed. What needs to be followed is purely your rational judgement. What man can perceive objectively is his self and his judgment are therefore with his context, his actions as value he derives out of it.

What we derive from here is our argument of selfishness. Well consider this scenario, you have a piece of cake in your hand and you are feeling a bit hungry, a very hungry visibly distressed kid comes in front of you and starts begging for it. What do you do? Your action can be turning away from there and having your piece of cake, or giving it to the kid. If the gleam on the face of that kid when he gets the cake is more valuable to you that satisfaction that you would have by consuming it, you can go ahead and give it to the kid. Now if you friends are standing next to you and you want to impress them, well that is again your choice, and your valuation of the action. There is no selfless in the act, it is yourself only that is deriving the pleasure and satisfaction from the action. It is but by no means correct that your friends force you to give away your cake when you wanted to have it. In such scenario in heart of heart you are not happy with what you did, or rather were made to do. In similar manner, a soldier fighting for his nation must exercise the same volition and rational judgment, and if his action suits his self, he is justified in his actions. It may be deemed as altruistic by fellow countrymen but by no logic self less. It is indeed if it was self less you have taken from the soldier the very pleasure and purpose of his life.

It is this simple fact that is not understood by many and they go about making heroes and villains out of people without judging the rationality of their actions. The society tends to push its agenda and perception bit too harshly on the individuals. It is this coercive nature of collectivism where in actions by individuals are labelled as good or bad without respecting the individuals volition and choice is what she most vehemently objected and fought. She held the state, society and the collectivist mentality that it these institutions endorse as the root cause of most vices. She rallied with the word selfishness, instead of some benign alternative perhaps because it suited her fiction writer mannerism of invoking controversy. If we do not shy to attribute her credit, she has in a single word challenged the very foundation of social moral codes. It is amazing how a single word can have such massive impact on our collective consciousness. How by declaring a classical vice having its root in holiest of books of our civilization as the new age’s virtue she altered the very perception of millions across the globe.

We the educated elites of India, no not those who can read and write, not even those who have a degree to flaunt and qualifications that can fetch them good salaries in a job market. It is a severe misnomer that most carry about the term education, it being some structured syllabus taught only in schools. In Indian context one may add ‘Government recognized schools’. Thereafter the individual must pass certain examinations and should hold relevant certificates to as a proof of that. If the above mentioned conditions are met, a person is supposedly educated so to say. I beg to disagree though on this account.

I would like to draw a distinction firstly between literacy and education. A person who can read and write is literate. Literacy however by no means can be equated with education, and neither is literacy a precursor or a mandatory requirement for actually judging a person educated. The ability to read and write is nothing but just a tool, it gives us access to plethora of written material. We can use that tool to widen our sphere of knowledge, interact through books and other written media with people of our age and those who are no more amidst us but their thoughts, brilliance of ages that has percolated through books. This tool can be used effectively so to say in our process of educating ourselves. It is however wrong to claim that without it we could not achieve this feat.

Secondly I would like to bring out the difference between qualification and education.
I address the term educated to people who simply have two attributes. Firstly they have a mental faculty so trained and developed to apply it with reason and logic to any situation presented to them. Secondly some life skill they have mastered so as to perform certain useful role in society. One may ask is an illiterate farmer in some village educated, as per me he well may be. If he has trained his mind well enough to judge rationally and react aptly to his environment, which includes people whom he is dealing with. Along with that he is good at his chosen profession he is by all means educated. He may not be aware about Indo-American nuclear deal, but is aware of which crop to sow when, knows how to judge soil and skies, so as to be successful in his endeavors of agriculture, he is definitely educated.

One may ask that such a person however is unequipped and unaware of various new schemes that government is bringing in for farmers. He may also be duped by some conman to take loans that he cannot repay, so and so forth. Will all that not construe as lack of education. My argument on the issue is simple, we the so called educated people, are we aware of all the policies that government brings forth. Are we not equally susceptible to falling in debt traps? We all have a sphere of knowledge around us which we endeavor to expand to a level of reasonable comfort. At this level of knowledge we are able to perform almost every day to day activity without wondering as to how or being lost. This level however varies from person to person, and that makes our individual knowledge about various issues different. If the farmer feels uncomfortable with his level of knowledge he would by all means try and expand it. He will ask people whom he trusts. If nothing satisfies he would learn how to read and write and thereafter through written media increase his knowledge to this level of comfort. Everyone does that when we go to a new office first day of work, a bride when she goes to her new house. Education however comes into play as to how fast we become aware of the changing environment and gear up to tackle it and of course how we actually go about tackling it.
A farmer of Vidharbha and a techie of Bangalore who commits suicide at the same time lack education in same life skill, which make them, take such harsh and self defeating decision at the time of peril. Many may ask farmer may have been lured and duped by some conniving man on the pretext of him being illiterate and uneducated, well then what about the techie who was duped almost in similar manner by some bank or credit card firm or stock market?

A degree simply does not make any one educated. It’s simply a qualification that may be highly lucrative in a job market. Job market simply works on the principle of demand and supply, as long as supply is limited demand is high and there is value for a particular product. Suppose we manage to give everyone a particular degree, whatever it may be, it won’t fetch the money it does on today’s date.

With such an elaborate introduction as to what is education and what is not, I would like to once again raise question on the wisdom of Indian government declaring education as fundamental right and trying to ensure compulsory education (so called) to all children. Frankly it would be foolhardy to believe that a syllabus consisting a bit of maths bit of science, arts and literature is a foolproof way to educate whole of India. Indian education system was borrowed from the English, who had in turn developed this system not as some universal education scheme but more or less for aristocracy and office bearers I won’t include scientist and inventors because most of them during those days were school dropouts. I am not challenging the efficacy of the scheme, a fair blend of all subjects till the pupil is reaches a stage of maturity to understand what is really his liking and thereafter specialization in those specified subject is absolutely an excellent concept. It is however not universal, it caters only for certain specific job requirements and it definitely does not impart any specific lesson in the other vital life skills that I elaborated above. Most people do learn it, but education system cannot take credit for it.

The second requirement of education that I mentioned that is ‘qualification’ is a market based requirement. Society is a fabric, a well oiled machine; for it to run well free market principles need to be adhered to. Simply put, where ever there is demand you need to supply it with replacement. Now if we look at our society we would notice that it essentially does not consists of people with graduation certificates and various university degrees in hand. There are various kinds of jobs equally important that needs to be addressed so that we have this machinery up and running. Individual may choose for himself what task he likes to perform, but cannot relieve himself of the responsibility of performing one. If he does not then he is a dead weight on the rest. Now the jobs with degree and qualification appear lucrative and better, that is simply because there is high demand for these and we still don’t have enough of them. It does not however imply that this demand has no limits or saturation. They on reaching saturation will become less lucrative and excess products’ (graduates) will be rejected by the market (society) and we will have unemployment.

In democracy however government tends to get motivated by policies of mass appeasement. In our society such white collared jobs are held at very high esteem everyone wants that for their kids. In such scenario it seems like exceptionally people friendly policy to go about declaring education a fundamental right and spending billions on it. All short term goals work in incumbent governments favor, building schools, creating employment (as in teachers and staff), providing meals and economic incentive, all seems such a philanthropic act that the government can boast about. Results are visible in five years makes it even more attractive, what people fail to see and governments simply do not want to see is that they are simply destroying the social fabric of a period 20 years from now. Luckily our government is so inefficient they would never be able to achieve any task they set forth ;we may not fact this problem in such acute a way.

Unemployment in white collared job sector will however be tremendously high in the times to come because of this non adherence to market principles. Other philanthropic argument which I need to counter is that governments actions ensure equality in society, even poor kids get an opportunity to study, well according to me had we had a non interfering government we would have had simply enough private schools coming up to meet the market demands. For sure no private school would give reverse incentive to teach children or force it down anybodies neck but definitely a competitive low price schooling market would have flourished in India. One which for sure would have been better than the present government schools for sure.
Lot of statistics are available on net freely for anyone to go through on net which depicts how government is mindlessly wasting billions of tax payers money on such self defeating philanthropic missions. Government however cannot be blamed for these in a democracy but we the people who somehow are led to believe that these actions would help in building a better nation. We overtly get philanthropic and emotional without understanding the true implication of such government steps. We are led to believe that only those who have entered the portals of schools are educated and more so with all these process we will build more prosperous and stable nation. It’s time we do a reality check on these stupid claims and refute it, not everyone perhaps but at least we the so called educated elites of India.

Update: I am adding this excerpt that happen to come across today….in brief words it echoes what I was trying to point out throughout my article. How a policy that seems excellent in short run especially in regards to a particular community is failing us in long run. Read it and try and evaluate the present education policy on Indian government in this perspective

In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.
Yet when we enter the field of public economics, these elementary truths are ignored. There are men regarded today as brilliant economists, who deprecate saving and recommend squandering on a national scale as the way of economic salvation; and when anyone points to what the consequences of these policies will be in the long run, they reply flippantly, as might the prodigal son of a warning father: “In the long run we are all dead.” And such shallow wisecracks pass as devastating epigrams and the ripest wisdom.- Henry Hazlitt ~ Economic in One Lesson

The distinction may seem obvious. The precaution of looking for all the consequences of a given policy to everyone may seem elementary. Doesn’t everybody know, in his personal life, that there are all sorts of indulgences delightful at the moment but disastrous in the end? Doesn’t every little boy know that if he eats enough candy he will get sick? Doesn’t the fellow who gets drunk know that he will wake up next morning with a ghastly stomach and a horrible head? Doesn’t the dipsomaniac know that he is ruining his liver and shortening his life? Doesn’t the Don Juan know that he is letting himself in for every sort of risk, from blackmail to disease? Finally, to bring it to the economic though still personal realm, do not the idler and the spendthrift know, even in the midst of their glorious fling, that they are heading for a future of debt and poverty?

In this lies the whole difference between good economics and bad. The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.

Ever wondered how states, societies and so to say civilization came into being. The story behind the marvel in which we live every day, I call it a story deliberately. Story because I don’t have evidences to ratify it as history. History too although is a story, mostly written in hindsight with wisdom of the present almost inevitably modifying the past. Many critiques hold the book ‘Rise and fall of the Third Reich’ as one of the best account of the Second World War era. The reason being, that the book is an excerpt of a war journalist diary, his daily accounting of war. Its unique in many ways because the author himself was equally clueless about what going to happen next, while he was writing his journal. The book has been modified now at many instances to suit the taste and contemporary beliefs also to marry perhaps with the account of history most of us know.
I am however here with a story, the way I believe we would have journeyed this far. None of us have been through this journey; it starts much before authentic history ever came into being. I begin my story with the very basic elements. Man and woman, ones who created it and ones for whom it was created, and the ones who are sadly forgotten at times when we talk of big things like society, civilization and state. Nevertheless without whom there is no story at all, so to say.

In the beginning when men were obviously not organized and were more or less by themselves, hunting and moving around in search of food. The diversity at this stage between men would have been limited, for all had to almost same kind of work to survive. Civilization however was amidst humans were quite some time now. So long as to have its effects percolated into our genes. First distinct role differentiation would have occurred between men and women. Men were traditionally hunters and women were collectors or gatherers. Everyone would agree that women are instinctively better at searching a key or a purse that is lost in a room; they have an amazing knack of finding a needle in a hay stack. As for men they were as I said hunters, and that gifted them with a better sense of direction. You would find that men are better at finding their way back home if lost. More noticeably in no other specie would you find such high variation in characteristics especially body strength. It is perhaps because no one hunts for lioness but herself, while in case of humans the ingress of civility allowed these role diversification.

It is also so in case among men, society has allowed varied kind of genes to survive, because there were very many diversified options to survive in a society. This being the better part, it has allowed parasitism too, men feeding on goods produced by others. To start with it must not have been so; men would have come together form a symbiotic association in which they helped each other to hunt and fend. This initial anarchic form would not have survived for very long, for natural variation between men would have led to emergence of alpha males amongst them. Ones those were natural leaders, ones who were followed most willingly by rest of men. It was natural and for the good part of it being the leader was not exempted from the process of hunting for food and other vital activities that ensured survival. I would call these stages miniarchic in nature, for leaders did not dictate their terms in every walk of life but those were collective efforts were required to ensure safety and improvised hunting techniques.

With advent of agriculture and men settling down at one place, and production of food per say becoming a low key and systematic affair, men ventured into more diverse activities and some took on loot and plunder as their means of survival, almost simultaneously some took providing security as theirs. Both faces of same coin, men however chose to be fed by one vulture than be ransacked by many, thus giving rise to monarchic and feudalistic systems one master or to say one predator who is the king all powerful and to one whom all show their allegiance by paying a part of what they produce. The concept of taxation thus came into picture for ensuring safety and security against external aggressors, who too were mostly funded in almost similar manner.

With time it gave rise to really powerful empires which waged wars on those expenses and afforded really lavish life styles. It had its good influences too on the civilization. Those were the time when productions were limited to very few products such as food articles, utensils clothing etc. Since there was no concept of mass production or industrialization, no individual could have amassed wealth as emperors did by their coercive techniques, it is thus these emperors who financed and supported different fine arts and architecture of medieval ages. Poetry and scholastic endeavors which otherwise could not have become a full time profession in those ages. Men would have at the best practiced these things as hobbies, but would have had to work in fields to earn their living. Yes indeed the age of Monarchy did change the face of the earth, gave us beautiful monuments recorded history, wealth to undertake expedition and exploration and so to name a few.

One thing that almost simultaneously came into being was organized religion. I call it organized because God as a concept must not have been new to humanity. Men would have worshiped from time immemorial, forces and phenomenon’s that they don’t understand. Human consciousness awareness of time, a chain of memories and thought that makes possible for it to remember their past and differentiate their present, also interpolate from thereof the concept of future. Future which they are not aware in its nature but definitely aware in its being, this unknown future again pushes humanity towards need of supernatural, one that will ensure well being for them in the times to come. Though a very harmless concept, a soothing pill for the worrisome mind, it is however this concept that was extensively used in weaving religious institutions in human society. Mostly in conjunction with the existing monarchies either supported or propagated by the kings, in return they gave kings divine rights to rule (read exploit) mankind.

The era kings stretched all through the face of earth without very many exception, popular rule of Greece and Roman empire where masses did have some say in the state of affair for brief periods. What brought down these empires were not masses as popularly assumed. The age of industrialization had opened very many diverse options of enterprise, more so it had allowed possibilities of mass production and generation of wealth and resources as it had not been possible by any one individual in the past. Power does not essentially flow through though the barrel of a gun; there are forms in which power manifest, chiefly military economic and intellectual. With enterprise there rose a lot of people among the masses who were generating money equivalent to what state generated by taxation, and this rising economic power along with the power of intellectuals came together to bring down the rule of monarchies.
Kingdoms were however simultaneously replaced by idea of nationality. It existed as natural barriers and language identity at places others it was simply a transition from colonial rule to nations. It takes not much to build nations, few fiery speeches, and a flag and of course strong military might to crush all elements which are anti nationalistic, we have what we call as nations. It was perhaps the need of the hour, dissolving states was far from an option that existed then and perhaps even now. To replace kings who by now have had got bestowed on them both natural and divine rights to rule, they went ahead with populist rule, it brought in what we call democracy, it had its own fallacy too termed at times as the tyranny of Masses. Majority deciding the fate of things irrespective of their qualification or ability to do so, it however definitely a better option than monarchies and dictatorships so to count.

On the economic front two systems that came forth were capitalism and socialism. Capitalism was a natural outcome of the new era. The way men would have naturally gone ahead to take on the agriculture and other activities like wise in the yester years, men ventured into various kinds of enterprise which opened up its way with industrialization. The major difference being man power which was quintessential in any kind of activity in earlier days was not reduced to simply a very vital resource.

This one phenomenon was not very well understood and thus came about the ideology of socialism, one that deliberated upon equitable distribution of the product all enterprise activities among the people involved. The theory neglected importance of capital and idea of enterprise itself. When it was applied in states, states automatically assumed responsibility of all enterprise. This kind of system still works with variable amount of success in different part of the world, most places it has led to either dictatorial or military leadership taking over to maintain the state led mechanisms.

Capitalism too did not get implemented in its natural laissez faire form, democratic systems too being as mentioned earlier being run by masses with no real clue of what is right and wrong opted for induction of certain socialistic principles into the system that supposedly benefited them. What it actually did again was consolidation and empowering state to interfere in matter that should have been left to individuals.

We today live in this era, and this story is story in making, where we move on from here is yet to be decided. I have a faith that what is just and what is right would prevail. As only that can survive the test of time. I believe an era would come when boundaries will dissolve and states slowly become nonexistent. The way euro has united the whole of Europe in many a ways, economies will merge world into one big society or rather one big market. Where men would be free to indulge in enterprise of their choice, and trade or exchange their products as they desire. But at this moment it is still an uncertain future…a happily ever after presumably.

To define and to perhaps bring about Equality among humans has been one of the underlying principles of almost all the major philosophies of our times. It appears as the mystical mistress, so eagerly sought, yet so elusive to be easily defined or attainable in societies so diversified in its ability and social standing. One factor that led many a philosophies so haywire, that they went about creating societies so artificial in its standings that either they perished with the course of time or simply got corrupted to more tangible forms that could survive the test of time. The very fact that philosophy like Marxism never got enacted in totality ever is for this very reason, it’s in viability to define human nature and action. This bottom up approach to fit man into an economic model has invariably failed or got modified with time.

Of the many philosophies that tried to justify equality among humans, one that I believe had at least the right inclination was perhaps the one of Immanuel Kant, He in his one line ‘men are not mere means but an end in themselves’ gave us the first workable philosophical base over which we can built on models that can encompass this basic dictum and thereby work successfully in human society.

If man need to be an end in himself he needs to own himself, and also his actions. This gives rise to the supposed start point of all arguments of self ownership and property rights. Self ownership protects our ability to pursue our own goals, our conception of ourselves. To own oneself and ones actions, one needs to be the master of not only himself, his talents but also the elements on which he would manifest his action. It is foolish to say that man would cultivate an un-owned field and its fruit will be reaped by anyone who comes that way. How will he then quantify his action, if he is not eligible to reap the result of his action?

Human action is so very responsible for his sustenance and there after his self conception and cognitive development that we have to take this provision as one of the most fundamental needs of man. A child needs to cry for itself when it needs milk or feels uncomfortable otherwise. Once grown and he forsakes this dependence on others he needs to by his action alone find means for his sustenance. What society really provides to humanity is that it allows men to indulge in an action that goes beyond needs of sustenance. Not all of us need to produce food and make shelter for ourselves.
Society allows men to diversify actions, indulge in activity that goes beyond sustenance, to higher echelons of the Maslow’s triangle. What one chooses to do would depend on one’s ability and invariably would bring in differences in social status. These differences however do not undermine the equality that is fundamentally guaranteed to each individual, to be master of himself, his action and therefore his fate.

Any system that tries to re appropriate fruits of one persons actions among others by taxation or by simply debarring one from ownership of one’s talent or environment/material required to manifest coercively, therefore are the ones which fundamentally default towards creating a society that is truly equal. An economy truly must only acts as a medium for appropriation of true value to various human endeavours, actions and enterprise, so that they can be traded or exchanged. Allowing men to diversify their efforts, indulge in activities that suit their talent and also the one that gives them maximum results. While re-appropriative or regulatory economic model simply acts as a regulator that offsets the true trade value of various actions. While certain actions are deprived from reaping its complete benefits by means of taxation, certain non-productive and self defeating actions by individuals are sustained on the name of benevolence towards the deprived/ disadvantaged.

“It leads also to a baffling sort of double standard or double perspective in their way of viewing men and events: if they observe a shoemaker, they find no difficulty in concluding that he is working in order to make a living; but as political economists, on the tribal premise, they declare that his purpose (and duty) is to provide society with shoes” – Ayn Rand

There is no denying that people are born into natural advantages and disadvantages. Some are born with silver spoon while others are dumped into garbage the moment they are born. Irrespective, if we keep the values of our society intact, let give the man full right of himself and his action we would in effect create a stable society. Forbes list of world’s riches people has it on record that there are very few families who have sustained their wealth for generation and it are replete with cases of both rags to riches and vice versa. The ones who are really capable would work hard and make way for himself and one, who is not, will rot even if all ways are kept clear for him. We as a society need not really try and account and adjust for this fundamental advantage or deficiencies among humans. Provide man with rights of self ownership, right over his actions and its fruits there with we would be surely in our way toward a rich and prosperous society.

To end with I would leave you again with Ayn Rand -

‘Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind. A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it dot not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its veil of the truth, to anyone’s opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or “welfare.” Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument.

It is from the work and the inviolate integrity of such minds from the intransigent innovators—that all of mankind’s knowledge and achievements have come. It is to such minds that mankind owes it survival.

The same principle applies to all men, on every level of ability and ambition. To the extent that a man is guided by his rational judgment, he acts in accordance with the requirements of his nature and, to that extent succeeds in achieving, a human form of survival and well-being; to the extent that he acts irrationally, he acts as his own destroyer.

“Freedom is the most-used word of our time. What it is seems obvious to all…Yet there is nothing more obscure, more ambiguous, more abused.”- Karl Jaspers (1883 – 1969) Future of Mankind

If we were to call for a society, which ensures absolute freedom to each member of the society, it would for sure bring about a lot of excitement, but almost instantaneously an anxiety as to how would we ensure our safety from our fellow men? If we were ever to dream to bring about a society where in our individual freedom are set at tangible limits, one that we can afford to offered to be each of our citizens then we have to first define to start with, what do we mean by these terms, to start with what do we mean by freedom?
Absolute freedom or what is philosophically termed as freedom of will, is, when an individual has no restriction at all to put into action anything that his/her will desires. Of course, this freedom is bound to have natural limits, that is, one may desire to have wings to fly but one possibly cannot. However what concerns us really is that such freedom has no restriction in regards to ones actions those are coercive in nature. That is it is within the purview of absolute freedom of an individual to rape murder or plunder.
It boils down from the dictum of single pointed Objectivism. One that acknowledges only one actor at a time, rest everything is presumed to be dead or acted upon. In such a scenario, every action will have results that are good or bad for the actor and he may judge based on what is good for him and what is bad. All that brings good is virtuous and all that does not is vice. There are no clear cut laws or ethics laid down to stop an individual from coercive or even self defeating actions except that it lays a lot of trust on rationality of human mind and its ability to reason its way through such potential dilemmas.
Such a philosophy of freedom of course very individualistic in its approach, even though we all trust our rational judgment, we distrust others on the same just as much. More so, history of mankind sadly is not very inspirational in this matter. It is replete with every kind of crime that we can possible think about. So what is the prudent limit of freedom that we can offer to each member of our society?
In social context, the term freedom gets modification into what is popularly known as ‘liberty’. Liberty can be defined as the legitimized or sanctioned freedom that a society or state offers to its members. Domains where he can follow his will and domains where there are laws to prevent him from doing so.
Maximum liberty is all manners are offered in a peer group (friend circle) or anarchic society. Here each individual willfully forsakes certain freedom for a mutually advantageous company. It works on the simple laws of symbiosis. Societies however tends to get hierarchical, it is so all across the living world. Be it a bee hive or lions pride, hierarchy does set in eventually. No matter how much we try to deny this inherent nature of living claiming that all men are equal, I guess all we go about doing is give rise to another idealistic philosophy based on social equality and in the process curtail individual liberty to cater for this embosomed ideal.

To state an example, when we travel in a lift and all are peers you would find that all the individuals share space in the lift equally. However as you go along suppose your boss steps in, you find that people cuddle in to provide bit extra space for the boss. Second situation is that of the classical board room, you would have for the chairperson’s mike a priority switch, which allows him to speak at his will overruling anybody in the room. Well in the first situation is something that we must try and get rid of in a liberal society, while the second one must be accepted as an organization necessity. Bottom-line; try to achieve an anarchic peer-peer society in all spheres of life where we can possibly afford while retaining organization hierarchy in spheres where they are necessary for its functioning. A set up that ensures maximum liberty and freedom to individuals without affecting the day to day functioning of the society and its progress so to say.
Anarchy has come across or rather projected to us in a very dangerous and dubious way. The joker in the movie Batman returns is presumably trying to bring down the state and bring about anarchy in Gordon city. It seems as if humanity has no future without policing and law enforcing, without every action of our regulated and monitored. It is true that we as a society is not yet mature to trust each other’s rational sense of good and bad so to say, which makes law and law enforcement unavoidable menace. So a call to do away with policing and law enforcement at this juncture is too far fetched. We however need to progressively make endeavor to reduce the need and utility of these elements in our lives. These things may take generations to come by but we need to make an endeavor in this direction if we ever dream to have a truly liberal society.
Among the liberties, economic liberty is one that needs special mention here, one that perhaps is spoken about the most, one that is perhaps behind many upheavals and revolutions overtly or covertly. Economic liberty in its vast purview has rights of self ownership and right on, ones work and talent, property rights, right to indulge in enterprise of choice and so and so forth. These however I would leave for another day and another time.