The skyrocketing prices of common commodities is becoming the main political issue around which, the BJP is trying to make their case against Congress lead government. It is true that government is responsible to the price rise, but can government control the prices or the price rise?
It is a common myth that producers, hoarders, speculators and dealers control the prices and tries to bring the prices as high as possible to make maximum profits at the expense of poor consumers who have no choice but to be exploited by such corrupt speculators, hoarders and dealers. It is certainly an irrational myth because to make maximum profits in a competitive market, the speculators, hoarders and dealers need to adjust selling their commodities at the minimum possible prices.
Who Decides the Prices? Continue reading

We have seen how the state planning for alleviating famine and food shortage fails miserably in a planned economy. Often in a mixed economy, government seeks proper control over the agriculture and food sector and that becomes the reason of corruption and further suffering at the times of need, scarcity and famine.
On the other hand, in a free market, the profit motive acts efficiently to assuage worst kind of shortage and famines and hence actually save the populace from extreme starvation.
In a free market, there is a tendency of price of wheat, rice or crude oil (or any other commodity that can be stored), to be equal to its expected prices say after 6 months or a year, that is, free market naturally depresses the unexpected price rise Continue reading

In absence of central planning and governmental interventions, the production remains in the hands of independent, self-interested, profit-seeking individuals.
In absence of forced laws and regulations, the independent self-interested producers follow the natural laws of market that brings the uniformity and systematically accelerated progress in the free society where the wastage of resources reaches to minimum and overall production tends to reach to maximum and hence the common ills of collectivism such as extreme poverty, unemployment, class differences etc gets the proper remedies in the individualistic, free-society systems.
Whenever government intervenes in such a society by means of central planning and interventionism, the chain of progress breaks and the retardation takes place that brings the common ills of collectivism back to the frame. Continue reading

Mixed economy, also known as “Planned” or “Regulated” economy is the middle vice between freedom and totalitarian slavery. The mainstream economists supporting Interventionism often exhorts that they do not intend to enforce totalitarian slavery against freedom; rather they are regulating the freedom. However, it is not the intentions but the end results, which decide the success or failure of an organized system.
In an economic system as long as only certain means of productions are controlled by the government or municipalities, the nature of market economy determining economic activities remains unchanged. Continue reading

People get enmeshed into a trap when they try thinking about the value of money. That is, why is a paper bill worth so many(tens, hundreds etc.) rupees, dollars or any other monetary unit. How exactly does the mint get about printing these numbers?



Was paper so acceptable?

To start off, lets ask ourselves some questions. Why did the vendor accept a 50 rupees note from me, in exchange for a kilo of sugar? The obvious answer many people give is, money(paper money to be precise) is a commonly accepted medium of exchange in today’s economies. Continue reading

We, by nature are not equal, we are not similar, we, each of us individuals, represents a distinct personality. We not only differ in shapes, sizes, looks and other physical aspects, we also differ in the abilities. Not everyone is equally talented, ambitious, hardworking or prudent and so on. Obviously, the more intelligent and prudent person with higher ambitions, better talent “if is free” to work as hard, honest and devotedly as he can, will surely gain more success in producing, earning and accumulating more wealth than a person with lesser intelligence, ambition and will to do honest hard work. Continue reading

In a free-society with individuals having complete self-ownership, (Capitalist society) the production of wealth vitally depends on division of labor, a system of production in which all the labor required is broken down into separate, distinct occupations. Obviously, each individual is free and self-responsible enough to decide at his own to what occupation suits him well and serves his self-interests in most proficient way. A society of free self-governing individuals essentially depends on each individual’s self-interest and his ability to exploit his own talent and efforts for fulfilling his needs, desires and self-interests and that makes rational-selfishness as the virtue of the free individual. Continue reading

I have dealt with this question already in one of my previous posts. But judging by the comments I got for that particular article, I found myself guilty of being too complicated. So, I decided to write a detailed article which can explain profits and losses to the layman. A few basic economic concepts to start with. Continue reading

One of the most important theories to make the rounds in 20th century world politics was the ‘exploitation theory’ proposed by the German Political theorist Karl Marx. Leftists all over the world have found it to their political convenience to blindly accept this theory, and to convince themselves of the morality of the workers’ hours of toil. Continue reading

It has been a long accusation of the feminists that women are paid less compared to men for doing the same job because of sexism. Most of the men out there know it for a fact that we don’t have a secret pact amongst us men to pay women less wages, nor we actively discriminate against women in that regard. Yet statistically speaking women are paid less than men in many aspects. What is the reason behind it? Continue reading