Shanbaug , a 61 year old woman¹ , who suffered a brutal rape 36 years ago and has been lying in a vegetative state since last 36 years wants to culminate her pain and misery, her life. Her “Next Friend² ” describes her as

Her bones are brittle. Her skin is like ‘papier mache’ stretched over a skeleton. Her wrists are twisted inwards; her fingers are bent and fisted towards her palms, resulting in growing nails tearing into the flesh very often. Her teeth are decayed and giving her pain. Food is mashed and given to her in semi-solid form. She is in a persistent vegetative state.

She has a right to live, should she be punished for that right? How human is it to force her to suffer all the pain regularly? Does the “right to live” include the “right to die”?

The right to Live

In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly declared in article three:
“Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”
One must understand that “right to life” just like any other right, is not an inalienable, rather it is a subjected of the liability of the right holder.
It is not only an axiom underpinning the concept of freedom, but rather the necessary means to fulfill man’s ethical requirement to achieve a life in accordance with his nature. That ethical requirement derives first of all from the fact that we are living entities facing, like all living entities, the fundamental alternative of existence or non-existence, life or death. By our nature, our specific capacity to deal with that alternative is reason volitionally applied to action. If one chooses to pursue the alternative of death, questions of first principles are moot. If one chooses life, then life becomes one’s goal and the standard of all values.
The complex and spontaneous nature of our lives requires us to identify those values we must seek in the service of our life and order them into a code of values to guide our choices – i.e. an ethics. The primary precondition is the freedom to exercise autonomy over the application of reason and action in the service of our life. Thus, the right to life and our need for freedom is based on what we are – on the fundamental nature of man.
The moral right to one’s life is not a social/political right. It is that which in principle is right for any individual in the context of his own life. When and if an individual chooses to live among other men and interact with them over the long run, he needs to preserve his ability to live by his moral rights. Nothing can prevent him from doing that except physical force or the threat of force, so, above all, his primary social need is the absence of coercion so he may apply reason and action to production and voluntary trade. Yet, what if a person does not want to be with others, he does not want to live anymore? Is he the soul owner of his life, is he the only decision maker for his own life? Yes, he is free, he is no one’s slave. That is why, human dignity and his self-ownership, his sovereignty is considered even above the right to his life.
A man surely possesses an inherent right to a dignified life and by virtue of this right; he certainly is the sole decision maker of what to do with his life. Society, as a cumulative function of many free individuals is a positive human structure to help the man to attain and enjoy the right to his dignified life, the society cannot dictate the terms of dignity or life to any person and it is his decision to be made, free of any social, political or legal coercion.
Thus, in a case of an individuals like Shanbaug, if she prefers to end her miserable and painful life, it is her decision to be made. She is the sole owner of her life and she inherently owns the right to end her life too.

Current norms of Right to Life

India is considered as a free nation, a land of free individuals.
Freedom is so little understood in this “land of the free” that it is often confused with its opposite. The current example of Shanbaug is evidence to that prevailing confusion. The Apex court of India that negated the pleas of termination of pregnancy of mentally retarded girl resulting from a rape at Nari Niketan in Chandigarh and a similar plea from a Mumbai couple for terminating a diseased fetus³ , raised questions against the plea of Shanbaug to terminate her own life. The objection was obsolete and rhetoric. ‘‘Do you mean right to life includes right to die?’’
In no way a man’s right to dignified life can be alienated from his proper right to die. If the society or legal codes of society rule over the individual moral code of life, than it means that the individual is not free and certainly have no sovereignty, rather the individual is mere a subject of legal socio-political norms of collective society.
The Apex Court of India now has accepted the plea of Shanbaug to be debated at Supreme Court. The question is why should the Apex Court be considered as more powerful than the individual’s own right to self-sovereignty and Freedom?
Most probably, Apex-court may dictate a directive to discuss the provision of certain amendment in IPC to include the provision of Physician Assisted Suicide; they may subject it to a public constitutional debate. The Supreme Court may totally reject the plea to voluntary suicide too. Yet, if Apex Court accepts Shanbaug’s plea, as doctors have told her there is no chance of any improvement in her state, will it be any positive step towards Individual Freedom? Will the Supreme Court of Free India ever realize that Indians are not a subject of rule of Supreme Court or national government rather they are entitled to individual sovereignty and a dignified life?
To keep a will of a person to end his life under the decision of Supreme Court or under the will of physicians to decide whether to let a man die or not is a direct breach of “right to live with Dignity” confirmed by the Article 21 of Indian Constitution. By force-feeding Shanbaug and treating her, as a vegetative entity for the purpose of medical tests and experiments is not only unjust, it is highly inhuman. She is not a mouse or cat dependent on the will of physicians.
In case, if Apex Court agrees to let Shanbaug end her life “if Doctors permits her to perform Euthanasia”, than again it would be a breach of individual freedom of Shanbaug and her right to her life. She is certainly not a slave to those doctors whom Supreme Court may consider as the decision maker of who should live or who should be allowed to die.
Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) is a mendacious issue; it confirms that the physician is principle and not the assistant, that it is the physician who will make the decision whether the person should be allowed to die. An assistant generally means the sub-ordinate that helps one in achieving his decision, but in case of PAS, the physician himself becomes the decision maker, the person superior to the patient. PAS simply empowers Doctors and not the individual to make a free decision for their own life. As a matter of fact, PAS is breach of right to life.

Economical Aspects of Euthanasia

Since last 36 years, government hospital is “force-feeding” Shanbaug, keeping her alive with permanent care, which technology has made an option in an overwhelming number of hospitalized cases. It is not the only case and it requires resources that someone must relinquish in order to make it possible. That is, Government is forcing a person to keep living miserably with no dignity against her will like a slave, while the same government is exceptionally unable to provide any proper medical treatment or help to millions of other Indians who often suffers health hazards and deaths because of lack of medical facilities. How proper it is to waste resources and money on simply forcing and enslaving a person who by her own will want to die, at the expense of misery and poverty of millions of other person who may need the welfare health resources desperately?
No matter how much Indian government spent on people like Shanbaug, they will remain vegetative and unwilling to live, they will keep suffering and feeling like encaged, enslaved, undignified things for governmental medical experiments, no better than rats and dogs. Obviously, we the tax-payers are being robbed for such inhuman acts.
In absence of government control over health care, the decision of life or death of Shanbaug would have been in her own hands. Had government not been paying for her hospital care, perhaps interested individuals would have been willing to contribute to her care. As long as private individuals were voluntarily giving of their funds to keep her alive, it would have been much more difficult for a court to order her feeding tube disconnected. However, because the state is paying for it, ultimately, life and death decisions is to come from a high arbitrary government power. Neither Shanbaug nor her close relatives have any say in that, they may keep pleading like miserable beggars for mercy and humanity to the Supreme Court.

Conclusion:

Right to a dignified life is a fundamental moral right that confirms the right to die itself. If right to life is left not as Individual freedom but as a subject of governmental legal whims of lawyers, magistrates and physicians, than it simply means that Individual is not free even to decide for his life, it would certainly be a breach of his right to life. Moreover, by means of coercive tax-collection and universal health-care, Government again breaches the individual’s fundamental right to dignified life at one hand; on the other hand, it is huge wastage of very limited and scarce medical resources.

1. SC admits sexual assault victim’s plea to end her life, Times of India [↩]
2. Next Friend— a legal term used for a person speaking on behalf of someone who is incapacitated [↩]
3. The Issue of twisted Abortions, Reason for Liberty [↩]

Talisman of Mahatma Gandhi – Radical Egalitarianism

“I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.”
- One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi in 1948, expressing his deepest social thought.¹

We all have seen and read it at the very first pages of any of our school text books. We have been taught of that amulet so deeply as some Vedic Mantra, Ayat of Quran, Gospel of Bible or words from Guru Granth Sahib. It has been our religion, our mantra, the Mahatma Gandhi’s Talisman.
Have we ever realized its essence? Or have we been indoctrinated of the Gandhi’s talisman through our school text books, obviously authorized by the government boards of education?
Since our school days, Gandhi Ji inspires us all to think before we act, to check our words before we speak them, to control our senses before we see anything. We have been taught, not to see bad, not to say bad nor to do bad. Yet, we have never been allowed to decide what is good or what is bad, for Gandhi ji and most of the enlightened ideal leaders never accepted us to be intelligent enough to decide for our own self whether something is good enough to say, or do or see. We are obviously not entitled to decide for our own self, whether something is good enough to do, we are not enlightened and free enough to realize the narrow difference between good and bad. Hence, we need help to conjecture what is good to do and what should not be done, and Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman obviously is the key to our help.
Gandhi ji says that some act or something is good or aesthetically beautiful only if it is beautiful enough for all.² If whatever you do is good for you only, but it is not good for others, or all, it can not be said good. Majority cannot decide good or bad. The idea of good or bad, is essentially relative. Something can be good for one, but bad for others, and if the majority is authorized to decide what is good, than obviously, the minority is forced to accept it as good, without any option to oppose that. Hence, Gandhi certainly was not exclusively supportive of the Majority rule; obviously, he was not a supporter of enslavement of minority against the majority rule. He was proponent of the freedom and savior of minority against the majority. That is why he supported the idea of organized anarchy

“The State represents violence in a concentrated and organised form. The individual has a soul but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned away from violence to which it owes its very existence”. — Mahatma Gandhi³

Yet, was Mahatma Gandhi supporting the idea of freedom of the individual, the smallest minority, to decide for his self and his pursuit of good and happiness?
Was Mahatma Gandhi an existentialist, individualist, supporter of Individual rights and ability to be free and independent to rule and decide for his own life? Was Mahatma Gandhi a Libertarian? No, he was not, his idea of “organized anarchy” constitute a meaningful government and bureaucracy.
Based on Indian ethos and values, Gandhi added some powerful features for containing consumption and promoting social justice and equity. These are:
1) Village governments in which the village assembly controls resources and decision-making;
2) Decentralised production systems to curb distress migration to urban centres;
3) Self-sustaining local economies providing resilience to regional and global economic turbulence;
4) A low expense clean election system;
5) National governments accountable to local governance as a check against arrogance of the state;
6) Industry as trusteeship of the people, reinvesting in production of goods and services and not indulging in ostentatious consumption; and
7) Religions integrated as a positive force at the grassroots level.⁴
Gandhi was not a Libertarian; rather he was a socialist, a deep rooted supporter of the philosophy of Kant, the very basis of Marxism and Socialism. He was not an Individualist, nor he was supporter of Lockean law of homestead and property rights, he was not capitalist. Yet, he did not want the majority to rule over government and dictate for what is good or what is bad. In a sense, Gandhi was Minarchist, yet was he an Objectivist?
Who if not the majority elected government be the dictator for the individual to learn and act for what is good or beautiful for all?
According to Gandhi ji, materialism was corrupt and despicable thus, he was against the theory of capitalism, which gains its roots from the Lockean principles of Property rights. Gandhi ji also supported Marxism and defined class competition as the evil of society, he was a radical egalitarian and hence he considered the theory of Division of Labour as a poison to society.
According to Gandhi ji, one should not be self-righteous, self-dependent and self-interested while performing any action, rather, before acting, one must consider whether his act would be of any good for the poorest, weakest person one knows. That is, no one should be free to decide for his own pursuit of happiness, rather he should consider and chase the happiness of the poorest and weakest person one knows. Gandhi ji dreamed of the rule of weaklings and deprived, where the stronger and better workers, producers, creators are willfully subjected to serve the weakest, most depraved person one knows. Obviously, Ahimsa was his second most important mantra, as he knew that stronger could not be enforced to serve the weaker by means of violence, rather it could be done only by means of democratically renouncing self-interest, self-reliance, selfishness. Gandhi ji was the saint of selflessness. He wanted every one to devote his life willfully and peacefully with utmost devotion, for the improvement and goodness of the weakest of the person by means of Trusteeship⁵ .
Argumentatively, if every one becomes as spiritual as Gandhi was and determines to be selfless, always willing and acting only to serve the good of the Most poor and weak person he knows, it would be very easy to make the dream of Egalitarianism to be true. If every strong and better person were working willfully to fulfill the good of not his self, but of the poorest person, the materialistic, capitalistic, or individualistic difference between the stronger or weaker would be nil. For this, he proposed the idea of Trusteeship⁶ .
Gandhi ji’s Talisman, which we Indians have been indoctrinated throughout our student life, is actually the mystical potion of spiritual socialism that tends everyone to willfully and peacefully accept his duty to serve the poorest person one knows. Gandhi ji simply declined the importance of Individual life, and his right to pursue his happiness, his good, rather he inspired everyone to willfully accept the servitude of the weakest person one knows and to devote his actions for the goodwill of the poorest person.
Here comes the undeniable hypocrisy and psychological illness. How can one be selfless? How can one devote himself to think before acting, not his good, his profit, but the good of the other, the poorest? Gandhi ji’s talisman becomes a psychological poison for an individual because he naturally is selfish and tends to serve his own good. Gandhi ji’s talisman enforces him philosophically to consider himself a wrong-doer.
Conclusion: Gandhi was a Radical Egalitarian⁷ , his philosophical idea was socialism, yet he was a supporter of anarchism and opposed majority rule of state government. He was proponent of Non violence, yet, he wanted to destroy class differences and hence Division of Labour and capitalism but peacefully through spiritual indoctrinations. If capitalism and Individual freedom can be sacrificed for the cause of socialism, than one may call Gandhi a libertarian, otherwise he was not a Libertarian.

I am inviting those people who consider themselves as owners today to act as trustees, i.e., owners, not in their own right, but owners in the right of those whom they have exploited.
Supposing I have come by a fair amount of wealth—either by way of legacy, or by means of trade and industry—I must know that all that wealth does not belong to me; what belongs to me is the right to an honourable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community. Mahatma Gandhi⁸

1. Gandhi’s talisman [↩]
2. A tribute to an unlimited legacy, Gandhi’s concern for individual welfare lead him to distinguish between man’s basic needs and human acquisitiveness. As a result of his democratic temper, Gandhi argued that a thing could be considered beautiful only if it could in principle be made available to all. Tested against that principle, the Mont Blanc pen is a moral and aesthetic failure. Why Mont Blanc Pen is a moral and aesthetic failure? because not “ALL” can afford it. [↩]
3. Realizing Gandhian Democracy, People First India [↩]
4. Realizing Gandhian Democracy, People First India [↩]
5. Gandhi ji on Capitalism, Socialism and Communism, Applied Gandhi [↩]
6. Gandhi ji on Capitalism, Socialism and Communism, Applied Gandhi [↩]
7. Freedom Versus Egalitarianism, Reason for Liberty [↩]
8. Gandhi ji on Capitalism, Socialism and Communism, Applied Gandhi [↩]

Meaning of Life

What is the difference between a dead or unconscious body and a living man?
One may say, it is the conscious, and that would mean that consciousness is life.
To be conscious means to be aware, so awareness or consciousness of what makes a man living? Consciousness of his needs to maintain and further his life and the consciousness to find out the ways to fulfil his needs actually makes a man living. That is, life is consciousness of needs, or desires.
Now the needs of a man or his desires are infinite. Man desires this, that, and something else again, also life is such a weave that to attain a desire and save it, he has to sacrifice some other of his desire. You can not eat your cake and have it too. If you desire for a house, you will have to pay the price for it, your desire to have a plenty of floatable cash will be sacrificed. You can eat a cake after paying say Rs10 for it; you sacrifice the desire to keep those Rs10 in your pocket.

Intellect

So what is that, which helps a man to decide which of his desires is to be sacrificed and which desire he should fulfil? One may say his intellect helps him decide which desire is more important, so does the intellect of a man masters his life.
Intellect of a man is his tool to estimate and understand the relative importance of various desires of his present and the future. As intellect is his only tool, it cannot be his master, rather it is his slave on whose loyalty, the success of his life resides. How his intellect does helps him find which desire is more urgent and needs his attention more and which desire he may sacrifice?
He uses his intellect to be aware or conscious of the varying degrees of urgencies of his desires. If a man does not have desires, he cannot have intellect too, because he will not have any need or purpose of intellect, even if he has some intellect he will never improve it nor will use it. He thinks to solve problems he faces in fulfilling his desires, if he has no desire, he has no problem and hence he does not need to think.

Throughout his life, he remains enmeshed between the struggles of various desires, and he tilts towards that desire which is most necessary. Like, a child may desire to play cricket today, while he has to face his mid-term exams next morning, as he wishes to gain good marks in exam, he may decide to abort the plan of playing cricket this evening. An elderly man wishes to buy a luxury car, so he decide to sacrifice some of his spending on some other of his desires to save money to acquire a car, a son wishes to buy a house, but he sacrifices his desire to own a house to save money for the desire to provide cure to his sick mother and so on. Ultimately, consciousness of desires is life, intellect is the tool of life and Desires themselves are the actual master of the man’s life.

“I“

Now one may say, desires are not the master; rather he himself is the master, or the master is I or me, or myself. How can one define “I”? What is “I”?
“I” actually represents totality; it represents a person’s body, intellect, mind, memory, imaginations and his desires in total at a given moment as a single unit. Without his body, he cannot define “I” he cannot remove his mind while defining “I” too and so on. When one say, “I” am running, he mean that his legs are running, carrying the rest of his body, his brain, intellect and memory with them, when he says, “I” am thinking, he means his intellect is thinking, his eyes are not thinking, his ears doesn’t think and so on. Similarly, when one say, “I” decide to do this now, what he means to say is, the urgency of that desire to be fulfilled is maximum at that moment relating to other of his desires. He decided that by experiencing the varying intensities of the desires he is aware of, his desires rules his decision, he uses his intellect as a tool to understand the order of the desires and then he acts in accordance with his desires to fulfil them. So, saying “I” rule myself is equivalent to saying his desires masters him.
Desires can be good, can be bad, a man can have desire to help others, a man can have desire for welfare of his family, or his locality, or his city, his country or whole mankind, he can have desire for love, prestige and self-respect, in all cases, it is his own desire to achieve which, he uses his intellect, thinks and acts, and hence in any case, he depends on his self, his desires, he remains selfish, his own desire becomes his motivating force.

Will and Will Power

Sometimes, people create a mystical illusion of spirituality by stating that to overcome your desires is the way for emancipation, or freedom. They further suggest that one may overcome his desires by the virtue of his “will” or “will-power”.
So what is will or will-power?
Actually, “will” is the synonym of the desires itself. What people ignore is the fact that to overcome one’s desires itself is a basic desire of his and that is his will.
What is the difference between an animal and a rational being? All animals follow their impulses, so do the rational being, yet there is a difference. An animal does not have the rational ability to be conscious of the varying degrees of his desires, he lacks the tool to signify the various desires and dignify the most important or rational one. On the other hand, a rational being have that tool to perfect his sense or conscious of the varying degrees of his impulses or desires. A savage is slave to his immediate impulses, he will not save for old age, and he will not think for better life (or improved conscious of desires and varying degrees), he has no tool to do so. While a rational being has that tool, so he thinks and relates, he experiences which desire is most important, or rational, and properly makes a plan to achieve it.
What happens when the intellect of a man fails to signify the rational degrees of his desires? In such situations, he often commits mistakes of varying degrees, and is vulnerable to undesired complications, because he has to pay the price of each of his desire. His life becomes a chaos.
Nearly all of his desires follows the same trend, he has to pay for a desire by sacrificing some of his other desires. For his desire of emancipation, heaven, spiritual pleasure, knowing the omnipotent etc, he sacrifices his other materialistic desires. That is, will, or will power indicates the exact desire, which that particular man has decided to be strongest for himself at a given moment with the help of his intellect, hence, will is synonymous of desire, and will-power is synonymous of the power of the desire, which masters the man at that moment.

Freedom

So if the desires inevitably master a man, what is the freedom¹ ?
Freedom (self-governance) signifies no restriction on the man to use his tool, his intellect to decide what desires he need to fulfil. Freedom is his natural right and necessity to lead a better life. His freedom is to be lead by his desires with the help of his own conscious (intellect) freely. It is his natural right because naturally, he has to pay for every of his desire to fulfil. Therefore, if he commits a wrong or irrational, he certainly pays for it, if instead of saving his desire of peace, security and honour, he let the irrational desire to rule him, he commits the crime and he pays for it, by loosing the social security, his rights, his freedom and so on. Without freedom, he cannot use his intellect properly, and that would restrict his progress, and reduce his thinking capability, his evolution and hence, freedom is his most urgent desire.
Conclusion: Man is essentially a set of desires, his life is his consciousness of the varying degrees of his desires, his intellect is the only tool he possess, to distinguish the rationality of varying desires and chose the appropriate action, his will, or will-power is the exact desire he feels to be fulfilled at any particular moment, and his freedom is his most urgent desire. Overall, its nothing, but only desires, and no one can be free of desires, as to be free of desires itself is a desire. On the other hand, a dead or unconscious body certainly have no desire or consciousness of desires. More complicated the sets of desires a man feels, more improved he becomes, his conscious evolves, his intellect sharpens and this is evolution² of desires.

1. Meaning of Freedom, ReasonForLiberty [↩]
2. Moral Degradation of Modern Society or Moral Evolution, ReasonForLiberty [↩]

The term Human Resources gains its roots from the fact that human labour is the most necessary pre-condition for the production of Wealth. All such goods, which, man needs to produce for his well-being, prosperity and progress and as a thinking being he expend his rational faculty and physical labour or effort to produce them, are economic goods and all economic goods are wealth.
Naturally occurring goods such as air, sunlight, rainfall and wind are also material goods coming to us automatically, they do not need human labour or his thinking capacity to occur hence such material goods are known as free goods.
The land and natural resources are also wealth insofar as man has made them accessible and useable. An unowned barren piece of land is obviously not wealth until a person possesses it, work on it and transform it from barren land to a fertile, productive useable land. Obviously, it needs human labour and his intellect to turn that barren piece of land to a productive piece of wealth.
Wealth and Money
Wealth is not money, nor is it synonymous of monetary value. Money is the means of exchange of wealth and services. More wealth created in the form of commodities like sugar food-stuffs, clothing, automobiles etc without any increase in the supply of money is essentially more wealth, but no increase in the total monetary value, thus it results in lower prices or deflation¹. Similarly, more money can exist without increase in wealth that happens almost everyday in the system of fiat currency, where the supply of money is decided by the wishes of government, the result of such fraudulent acts is increase in commodity prices an hence inflation². Fiat currency is fraud, as the common individual never gets equilibrium between the total wealth produced and total monetary value present. Further frauds are the terms like GDP, or National Income etc as they indicates the amount of money and has no connection with the wealth accumulated or goods produced. Fraud is essentially a form of initiation of physical force; any such government controlled fiat currency is essentially depriving the common person of the freedom he deserves. Yet, money is an essential commodity of a free-society as it helps in provision of free exchange and mutual dealings between individuals, to apply impartiality and better co-relation between wealth and money, 100% gold standardized currency³ should be used and monopoly of government on supply of currency and gold should be eliminated.
Self-ownership and Wealth
A free society providing sovereignty to every individual is essentially based on the principle of non-initiation of violence, as Ayn Rand said,

“So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate — do you hear me? No man may start — the use of physical force against others.”

Freedom is based on Non-Initiation of Aggression axiom that no man or group of men may aggress against a person or the property of any person. A human body is the natural border of the individual thus; using the body of another without his or her consent is aggression against him and hence is impermissible. This definitely confirms the idea of property rights in one’s body, that is, each person is the owner of his body; he has the right to control his body, to decide whether or not he consumes alcohol or narcotics, use his body for prostitution⁴, joins an army, becomes a farmer, decide to be a mother or to abort a child and so on. One should understand that wealth is not necessarily property possessing market value, for example, various legal rights and licenses provided by government, like liquor license, patents, stocks, bonds, copyrights etc⁵, do possess market value and are property, but they are not wealth, rather they restricts the production of wealth. Similarly, in a society allowing human slavery, the number of slaves does indicate property, but slaves are not wealth. Such property, which is not wealth, indeed destroys the wealth; slavery in any form thus, destroys the wealth, as it provides no incentive for production.
Thus, human are property but they are not wealth; also, human labour is the most essential requirement for production of wealth. Hence, for unrestricted production of wealth and hence prosperity, it is a necessary condition that all individuals remain free owning themselves, because only than they will gain the full incentives of their expenditure of intellect and labour in the production of wealth and material prosperity.
The societies that do not consider man free enough to have complete property rights on his body restricts his freedom to use and decide for his body by means of partial slavery. Such societies do maintain that each person has some “limited rights” to his own body, yet not complete rights. Society or government acting as such society’s agent- has some right in a citizen’s body too, in other words, the government owns the citizen in some way and the citizen is partially a slave to the government. This partial slavery is implicit in government laws prohibiting individual freedoms like censors and bans, state prohibitions or illegalization and state actions like taxation, conscription, fines, interest rates and price control etc confirms the nature of partial slavery imposed by the government on common citizens.
A libertarian believes in complete self-ownership, hence complete self-governance and thus self-responsibility, on the other hand, non-libertarians aka statists, socialists, communists and collectivists of all streams supports and advocate partial or complete slavery.
As it is incontestable that slavery in any form (complete or partial) definitely restricts the production of wealth, hence imposes scarcity, poverty and suffering on human, it is quite clear that the more a society is free, the more it is prosperous, progressive, peaceful and secured. Thus, to be prosperous and progressive, a society essentially needs to provide the citizens full freedom and that is possible only by means of asserting complete self-ownership to the individual.
Self-ownership and consistency with freedom
Since human labor, natural resources and wealth all are scarce, it is extremely essential for any political system to assign ownership rights on humans and external resources. Socialism and other collective systems assign limited ownership rights on individuals while they assign whole property rights to the state and government. As in India, individuals are partial slaves to the government and there are no specific property rights for the individuals.
A libertarian society on the other hand, strictly favours self-ownership to the individual completely. In order to avoid conflicts, property rights should be assigned to that seeker amongst others who provides the objective of ownership and a definite link between the owner and the subject owned. In case of human body, it is direct link between the body and the person, the objective of self-ownership is definitely freedom to pursue self-interest and happiness, thus the principle of self-ownership is thoroughly rational. No outsider (not even government) can deny this specific link between the individual and his body as the outsider itself expects the same right of sovereignty for itself. Thus self-ownership essentially avoids any conflict and hence it provides the best and most proficient way to attain justice, peace, prosperity and hence civilization. The principle of self-ownership hence, is essentially consistent with freedom as no one except the individual himself can have right over his body and hence he is thoroughly responsible for his body and all his acts, if he initiates aggression against the free domain of other individual by means of initiation of violence such as assault, sexual attack, fraud, killing etc, he becomes the criminal and is a subject of appropriate punishment.

1. Falling Prices is the cure of Deflation [↩]
2. Cause of Inflation: Story of Money and what causes Inflation [↩]
3. Fiat Money Versus Gold Standard, Privatization of Currency! [↩]
4. Prostitution: Legal or Illegal [↩]
5. Copyrights: Legal or Illegal [↩]

Decades ago, our forefathers fought for their and our freedom against the odds of kingdoms, feudalism and the foreign rulers. They fought on the premise of the rights of man as they said, “Self-governance is an individual’s birthright” and expressed the concept of self-governance as the inalienable right of an individual to his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. In those days people knew the essence of liberty and self-governance, not only those who expressed them but also those who heard, appreciated, accepted and subscribed to the words of liberty and self-governance knew what those words meant. They knew the essence of freedom is “life free and secure from coercion and tyranny, in which all individuals would have the liberty to pursue happiness”.
They were clear about the word “pursue”, they did not mean just to trail happiness but to work for it and earn it, they knew that happiness is not just pleasure and idleness but it is peace, dignity, independence and self-respect. They knew that if self-governance is a birthright, then self-dependence is the responsibility, they knew the importance of self and thus the fight for freedom was the most virtuous, holy, selfish and clear concept for them. They understood that individual’s inalienable right is the peace and freedom in which, by his own efforts and hard-work, he could gain dignity and self-dependence owing nothing to any person and hence be liable for self-governance.
Freedom means the absence of the initiation of physical force or absence of any form of coercion. Physical force means damaging, injuring or otherwise physically doing something to or with the person or the property of the person against his will, or a threat of doing any of these things.
When one has freedom, it means that he is free of or free from the initiation of physical force by other people in any form including the form of majority rule or government, as for example, an individual is free when he is free from threat of being murdered, robbed, beaten, assaulted, kidnapped, imprisoned or defrauded. Fraud essentially represents a kind of theft because it means taking away property against the owners will. As for example, if a realty dealer sells you a piece of land, which someone else owns without his will and takes money for it, he is guilty of force, as he took money from you for something he does not own and hence cannot give or sell you.
The idea of freedom is based upon the shear fact that independent people living on the principles of rational self-interest (i.e. selfishness) leads to a harmonious progressive system where one man’s gain is definitely not the other man’s loss, rather it is the basis of the gain of other men. The free society represents a system not as an entity over and above the individual, to which he “must” sacrifice his self-interest, but an indispensable means within which an individual can fulfill the ultimate ends of his own life and happiness. The concept is based on the principle of “man is an end in himself”, that the individual and his freedom is the superior entity than the system itself. Individual rights, the right of an individual to his life and property to pursue his happiness represents his freedom. Individual rights guarantees that an individual won’t be restricted by any physical means to pursue his living and happiness, that he is free to work and earn and use his full earnings in whatever way he likes and that he owes nothing to anybody and nobody owes anything to him. Such a system favors the mutual agreement for various dealings worthy for better living providing maximum possible space for pursuing self-interest and happiness for which the individual work, toils, innovates, and enterprises.

The system of such society, where the man is free to govern himself cannot interfere in the life and realms of neither an individual’s life nor it can dictate the rule and terms for the possible mutual agreements and dealings. Such a system represents a free market society where each and every man is free to govern himself and is free to use all his potential and talent to live, work hard and earn and pursue his happiness.
It should be clear that freedom strictly means economic freedom along with political and religious freedom, because without economic freedom, freedom neither can be defined nor it can be explained. Thus, in a free society that provides sovereignty for every individual and a harmonious atmosphere for having mutually beneficial contracts, any individual or a group of individuals representing the government will not have any sort of interference in the economic sector, that is, the government will not interfere in education, agriculture, health-care, public services, industries and other productive activities, the government will not control the money supply and create the business cycles of booms and busts. Government would not enforce quotas and reservations, provide taxes and subsidies, rather it would be left free for the market ruled by the individuals and their mutually beneficial agreements because that is their right, right to govern themselves and decide for themselves freely.

In true sense, in a society that promises complete sovereignty for the individuals to self-govern, there would hardly be any need of government, as the individuals would be governing themselves, they would be free and responsible enough to look for their individual and mutual self-interests.
The right to self-govern, the right to be free doesn’t mean that there would be a superior entity in form of government providing free education, free health-care, free food for everyone, that would not be freedom, rather it would be slavery.
The right to self-govern strictly means the right to be responsible, responsible for one’s own life, progress and happiness, owing nothing for anybody else.
A free man cannot demand quotas and reservations or subsidies; a free man would not pay any price too for his living and pursuing his honest life. A free man on the other hand would be vigilant, honest and hardworking enough to earn his own rightful living, his own health-care plans, he will decide what to learn and how, what to grow and produce and he will have the right to decide to sell his products or services to others and get the mutually agreed prices. He will have full freedom to work and make his fortunes for which he would not need any license. In a free society, all individuals will have equal freedom to use their talent, mental caliber, physical capacities to make wealth, but the results of their endeavors will depend on their caliber and standard of their efforts. A free society cannot be the society of equals; rather it would be rationally based on the division of labor, that is, the system in which the individuals lives by producing, or helping to produce, just one thing or at the most a very few things, and is supplied by the labor of others for the far greater part of his needs for which he pays rightfully. The prices of the goods he produce and the goods he needs to fulfill his needs will depend on the marginal utility of the goods.

Such a society would be free from the “irrational self-interest” as it would be thoroughly dependent on the rational sense of self-interest with complete freedom for all individuals to pursue their “rational self-interests” freely that is their won’t be any governmental interference in the market to provide special privileges, quotas, reservations based on religion, caste or sex, there won’t be any government subsidies, price supports, tariffs, licensing laws, exclusive government franchises, labor-union privileges, immigration quotas and the like.
Freedom is a natural right, as the responsibility to be self-dependent is natural. Self-dependence means one will not be demanding anything from anyone else or even the government, rather he would be working to earn for it and as he would earn it, it would be his right to enjoy his earning.

Licensing system, state governed education system, state governed currency system and state backed paper-currency, reservation and quota policies, health-care policies, subsidies, price-control, tariffs and like all comes as the physical force against the individual as all such acts are strictly the acts of fraud. In a free system, an individual would have complete security from such governmental frauds.
In the current system, the representatives of the majority decides for the individual, and individual remains a slave for the majority law, paying for it and obeying it, this is not freedom.
We, the children of our ancestors who fought for the independence considering the right to self-govern as every individual’s birthright, actually have forgotten the real sense of freedom that is why we consider ourselves free and accepts the current form of government to rule over us. We never got that right to rule ourselves to decide for our own hard-work and its consequences, rather our ruler and the system of ruling changed and we remained under the slavery of government, interfering in the market and our lives as it wished. We did get the right to choose our ruler to govern us as in form of democracy and political freedom, but we never got the right to govern ourselves, that is, we never got the freedom for which our ancestors were fighting.
It is the time for us to be responsible, to assert that we as individuals are capable of responsibility and freedom, of fidelity and endurance and courage, that we not only can distinguish good and evil but we can individually choose good from evil as it would necessarily be in our interest, that we strictly do not need government to rule us, to tell us what we are capable of and what we are not. It is the time for us to resist the control of government over the individual and call for the sovereignty of the individual and his inalienable natural right to govern himself to pursue his self-interest and happiness.

If you are a loyal reader of this blog you know that two of the major contributor of this blog greatly disagree with each other over the issue of legitimacy of Intellectual property rights.¹² I for one am against intellectual property rights, and I have tried my share to convince my co-author towards my viewpoint. I believe that upto some extent I have managed to convince her, except for I guess patent laws for innovation in Pharmaceutical industry³. But this article is not about whether copyrights are justified or not, in this article I want to convince the readers to utilize the innovation supporting framework of Creative Commons licensing which exists within copyright framework, and release their works under this licensing.

Copyrights Model

Under the copyrights model you release a work of your labor under the Copyright license as defined by your government. Most of the copyrights licenses over the world are similar to each other, and they grant the author/creator exclusive rights to use and sell that work. If a non-copyright holder wants to utilize the the copyrighted work, for commercial or personal uses then he must take the permission from the copyright holder to use that product. For personal usage, this permission is usually granted through the sale of the individual copies of the work. For example when you buy a book you are given the right of reading that book for personal use by the author. If you want to print that book and sell it, then you will need special permissions from the author. If you want to translate that book into another language, if you want to create a movie on that book, if you want to use the characters of that book, you will need special permissions from the author.

Creative Commons Model

In the Creative Commons licensing model, you first acquire the copyright of your work(as I mentioned earlier, its a framework within a framework), and then you let go of some rights on your work. For example you could allow people to use your work as long as they attribute it to you, use it for non-commercial purposes, and release the derivative work under a similar license, or you could release a work under Attribution license which means the user must attribute the usage back to you(otherwise he could do whatever he or she wants with it). A list of these rights which can be released on their own or in a combination with others are:

• Attribution (by) – Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these.
• Noncommercial or NonCommercial (nc): Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works or NoDerivs (nd): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it.
• ShareAlike (sa): Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

For a detailed explanation please refer to the Wikipedia entry on Creative Common licenses⁴

Choose Creative Commons over Copyright

If you are a content creator, that is you write for a living, you are an architect, you are a rising or an established music artist, then all your creations are automatically covered under copyright. As a copyright holder only you can release your creation under a CC license. I am going to cover these cases of each individual content creators as examples and their reasonings on choosing CC over Copyright mode.

1. Architect: If you are an architect, then releasing your architectural designs under CC licenses benefits you more than anything. There are a very little things which change for you. Your work can be freely copied and distributed among students and other architects, and they all will bear your name underneath it. Even if you allow commercial usage of your designs, there is little in there for another architect to benefit from your design, at max he can modify your works and charge only the derivation fees from a client. Customers can freely build based on your designs, but then who really wants to create another Sears Tower in the same city, if a customer really likes your design, and wants to build his building exactly like that, chances are he will do it in a far enough city, from the original constuction and it will only spread your name, as the building will bear “Designed by: <your name>”.
   Even if you allow the least restrictive licensing of CC(that is as long as you are attributed all the usages are allowed, including commercial and derivates), no matter who uses that design to build their own, they will need to put your name over it as “Original Design: <your name>”. If you think this will enable someone from using your design and not attributing you, well then it does not prevent anyone from using your design under a copyright license either. You are free to form any commercial deals with any individual as long as you don’t grant them exclusive rights of your design.
   Warning: If you release a design under Creative Commons license, you cannot revoke it, that designs is now a part of the public domain. If you rely on selling same design to many many individuals, then don’t expect some profits which you usually would expect in a copyright model, although if you are the only Creative Commons architect in the city, then expect the city to be mapped out only in your designs. If you have never resold a design to more than one client, then this is ok.
2. Writer: If you are a budding writer, then releasing your works under Creative Commons allows the wider audience to be able to read your works. Consider this, you are not famous, but you release your work under Creative Commons license under which the general public is able to read your works. If someone decides to use your short story for their story collection(presuming you allowed commercial use of your work) then it gives you the fame, and more people are now going to know you. If someone wants to put your novel on their website they are free to do so as long as they are not selling it(if you chose it that way),this way more and more readers will come to know about your works.
   If you are already an established writer, then releasing your next major work under Creative Commons license(providing you don’t already have an agreement which prevents you from doing so), helps you reach more and more readers. I cannot comment on the amount of money you will make by releasing it under CC license, but you will be more famous than ever.
   Warning: If you release a book under Creative Commons license, you cannot revoke it, that book is now a part of the ever increasing public domain. If you are a writer to make money, then Creative Commons has nothing much to offer, but i
   f you are a writer because you love writing, then there is no better way to show your love for your readers than to release it under a CC license. There is no way of actually telling whether you will be making more money or less, but then be the first one to experiment.
3. Musician: If you are a music artist, then considering the massive monopoly a few artists have over the music industry you have a little chance of achieving any real success. If you get signed by a major recording label, you can become famous, otherwise there is little chance for you to achieve any major success. If you belong to a less famous genre(for example Goth-Metal, Reggaeton, or say Metal in India), then even a major recording labels will not come near you considering the small market for such music. If you release your music under a Creative Commons license you allow your music to be freely shared over the internet, used by podcastes, posted on the blogs, etc etc. Your chances of being heard by more and more people greatly increases. There is a great website for musicians who want to release their music under Creative Commons licences and that is Jamendo(http://www.jamendo.com/). Whether you are a music artist, or just a music lover, there is a great amount of music on that website which is freely available for download. If you would like to use any of those music for your production, there is a very easy and fast licensing process on Jamendo PRO! If you are going to create a youtube video and need a track go to Jamendo and freely download any track you like and use it freely in your personal non-commercial production.
   Nine Inch Nails(NIN) is the most famous band ever to experiment with Creative Commons licensing.⁵ They have managed to reach way more audience by their CC licensed music than they would have had they released the albums under the restrictions of Copyright.
   Warning: If you release a music piece under Creative Commons, you cannot revoke it, that music is now a part of the public domain. Other than that, if you are reading this blog post, chances are you aren’t really as famous as Metallica or Michael Jackson. If you want to stick with the Copyright model and want to be as rich as a Rock Star, go ahead, but let me warn you, the copyright model is failing miserably in the Music industry. People still go and buy paper novels because they like to hold the book in their hands, but the copyright model in music industry is on a demise. Release your music under Creative Commons on Jamendo, and post your link on the commens, and we will guarantee a few loyal listeners to you if not much.

I have tried to create a utilitarian argument for individuals to release their work under a lesser restrictive licensing scheme. But to be honest, the biggest reason why I support avoiding the use of Copyright is because I believe that copyright is only possible through government coercion. A free market will never prevent an individual from using his property in any manner shape or form by creating and respecting artificial property rights. If you are a liberty loving individual, then none of the above listed pros and cons should matter to you, just go ahead and pick up the least restrictive CC license for your next work and share ideas with the whole world. One of the biggest reason why in India we had an IT revolution is because of the lack of copyright enforcement in software industry, we learned to work on the most costliest software and ideas flew freely. Our whole IT industry is a service based industry, and there is little development of commercial software in India. We will not see software development of commercial products for a long time(well as long as American government keeps on creating artificial innovation in America through the artificial monopoly of IP rights).

We have released all contents on this blog under Creative Commons license, our reason is simple, if you like the content, and want to post it somewhere else, do it, but make sure to attribute it back to our site. The more people read about rationality and liberty, the better it is for us. If you would like to print our articles and distribute them for free among other people, please feel free to do so. If you would like to work on our articles and create a better version or your own version of those articles, feel free to do it as long as you link it back to us. Personally speaking I find nothing more smug than petty bloggers putting heavy handed copyright notices in their blog posts, or worse putting “DO NOT COPY” notices on their blogs.

1. Legal or Illegal : Copyright Violations [↩]
2. Violation of Copyrights is illegal [↩]
3. Patent laws:Beneficial or Bane [↩]
4. Creative Commons Licenses, Wikipedia [↩]
5. Nine Inch Nails Ghost I-IV [↩]

The government is all set to stage a platform for the debate over gay rights in the Indian parliament.¹
Often people complains that the homosexuals and the activists supporting them are corrupting India with “evil western culture”, and their complaints get some strength because of the fact that US is also going through similar sort of debates over gay rights in US with the president Obama in a mood to support the homosexuals strongly.
It can be true that the gay right movement in US inspired the Indian activists, but can we say that it is the western culture, which is corrupting India?
Jessica Thompson answers it well in her blog at Times of India. ²
Obviously, it is not about corrupting India, it is about amending a wrong.
The article 377 simply makes homosexuality an unnatural act and thus illegal and that is wrong.³
Removing the article 377 will let many homosexuals live freely without any fear of blackmailing. Yet the real issue is not just to decriminalize homosexuality, but it is to recognize the individual’s right to be homosexual if he wants to.
The disturbing thing is the fact that gays do consider government’s approval to marry as necessary. According to the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, any marriage between two Hindus performed as per the common customs of that community of one of the two partners is legally valid. No license is required to marry, and most heterosexual Hindu marriages in India today takes place by religious rites alone, without a marriage license and most of them are unregistered.
Most couples do not seek state recognition because it confers few or no benefits. Most couples seek the validation of family and community.
So basically, it is not the government, which need to recognize the homosexual behaviour, but it is the common society. On government’s ground, only the scrapping of section 377 of IPC is enough.
It is not as if Indian society does not recognize gay rights at all, there are several female couples in rural areas and small towns have received this validation. Yet, homosexuality is not widely accepted. Furthermore, even though Hindu community is not as vehement opponent of Gay rights and homosexuality, Muslim community, Christians, totally oppose any trend of homosexuality, and even now, when government is going to debate over article 377, concerns have been voiced by some Christian and Muslim religious groups against the step.
So the question arises, should Indian government interfere in the matter of gays anymore than the scrapping of section 377 totally?
I do not recognize government or any other authority giving license for couples, be heterosexual or homosexual to marry, I do not recognize any essentiality for a governmental marriage certificate. Rather an enforceable contract will do better job than any marriage certificate provided by government.⁴
Therefore, here are some points for which I denounce any governmental interference in gay matter other than to repeal article 377:
The call to remove article 377 means to decriminalize homosexuality, it is reasonable and essential, but what do gay rights mean? Gays doesn’t need government to allot them any right or license to marry, even heterosexuals doesn’t seek one, further it doesn’t help by any means, gays and lesbians need validation of their families and friends rather than the government. Even if the families do not support their marriage, they do not need to seek governmental license, as many heterosexual couples also marry against their families wishes, not all of them are arranged, some girls marry after eloping too. Yet that is not the major issue, the problem lies behind these lines. As I explained that gay rights activists are more or less influenced by the US gay movement, we can expect them to follow the same suit. Once you involve government with gay rights, it no longer remains a socio-cultural issue; rather it becomes a socio-economic-political issue.
It would not be hard for the gay rights activists and the government to recognize that gays are oppressed minority and hence they need specific protections and that will cause larger economic consequences. Will it be punishable to discriminate against gays?
We should realize that gays do not represent any different community, rather they are amongst us with specific sexual nature, homosexuality is individual behavior and not group behaviour, and hence we cannot treat homosexuals as minority.
Some enjoys smoking; it is behavior, some other do like neither smoking nor smokers. What if government announces smokers as minority?
Since homosexuality is behavior, it is not readily apparent. If a lesbian goes for a job interview, the interviewer has no way to recognize her as a lesbian. Homosexuality is often kept a secret for varied reason as it is matter of personal sexual life, even heterosexuals keep their sexual life a secret, and hence homosexuals cannot be discriminated. Yet, if government intervenes and tries to help out gays by not only removing section 377, but also, by making some anti-discriminatory law against gays, it will cause situations of real discrimination. To experience true “discrimination,” a gay job applicant would have to go the job interview and proclaim his homosexuality: “I’m gay; any problems?” If government intervenes, not to hire this person would be an actionable offense. Now that is not necessary, is it?
Furthermore, it is not government’s job to decide on what accord a person can appoint an employee and on what account he can deny giving him a job.
As for example, if a Hindu does not want to keep a Muslim house cleaner, it is his choice.
Also, if government is ready to be the agent of gay liberation movement, why will not it announce some sort of quota for gays?
In first place, government has no moral authority to announce any quota or special treatment for any group based on religion, caste, or sexual preferences as governmental reservation never helps. Rather employers should have the freedom to discriminate in favour of gays with favoured treatment, quotas, or by installing an all-gay work force if they so desire. Similarly, employers should be free to impose a no-gays-allowed policy.
Some insurance company may decide giving special helping policies for gay couples making specific pools of insurance for them, while some other insurance company may decide pricing higher on insurance for gays or may deny spousal health insurance to gay couples.
Furthermore, if government intervenes and supports gay rights considering them as minority or second citizens, things may go awry. How will such gay rights be regulated? One would need to count the number of known-homosexuals in a given company/agency to make sure they are proportionally representing, otherwise some Mandal commission will further increase the % quota for gays and will monetarily penalize the company. May be employers will have to give bonuses to employees who announces themselves gay. May be next time, there will be specific seats for gay students in IIT and IIM entrance examinations.
One should realize that government interventions in socio-cultural trends seldom helps, rather it creates skewed situations.
Conclusion: One should support the removal of article 377 as it is against Individual liberty, homophobic and irrational, no government can decide what is natural and what is unnatural.
Yet Homosexuals cannot be treated as secondary citizens or minority inviting government to intervene and confirm gay rights, it would be a mistake causing further governmental oppression on Individuals, it will be further against free market.

1. Parliamentary Debate over Gay Rights, Times of India [↩]
2. Gay rights not a Western Idea, Jessica Thompson [↩]
3. Artificial Vs Natural, Reason for Liberty [↩]
4. Dowry-The other facet, Reason for Liberty [↩]