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Global warming or climate change is a worldwide disquiet that needs to be addressed in a proper way. Scientific studies have regularly provided enough evidences regarding the regarding the human activities that harms the natural balance of our planet by producing large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs), most notably Carbon Di Oxide (CO2) by burning fuels. Now when it is established that global warming is a real concern, why is it that the world’s leading power, the United States is not able to legislate enough stern laws to check the pollution, emission of greenhouse gases, human activities that are causing global warming and to provide better greener ways to lead the world. The United States is the biggest contributor of green house gases, specifically the Carbon Di Oxide emission from coal based power plants, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of U.S reports that the United States’ Greenhouse Gas emission grew by 12% between 1990 and 2001. The global warming has already raised the average global sea level by four to eight inches during the last 100 years. Scientists believe that the increasing levels of GHGs may cause acute climatic and health impacts on humanity. Despite of all these known facts, the government of United States under the leadership of President George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and refused to sign the agreement that required United States to reduce its GHGs emission rate to 5% to 8% below their average level of 1990 by 2008 to 2012. On the other hand, Bush supported the idea of voluntary research and efforts at enhancing energy efficiency. In 2002 at Climate Action Report to the United Nations, Bush administration accepted the risks from global warming and informed that the GHGs emission of United States will increase by almost 43 per cent between 2002 and 2020 if the US government does not take stern actions to reduce GHGs emission¹ In July 2004, Bush administration again accepted in their report to Congress on U.S. Climate Change Science Program that that the most probable explanation for global warming since 1950 is the increasing levels of carbon dioxide from human activities. However, Bush administration maintained their position to not to opt for any compulsory policies to reduce the emission of GHGs until more conclusive evidences about global warming are not produced. Global warming is affecting everybody on the earth and it is the cause of serious damages to all. Yet, no country initiates to take stern steps to reduce their reduction of GHGs. In his journal regarding Global Warming and its affect, Bradford Mank raises the question “Is Injury to All Injury to None?”² The idea is simple, since global warming is definitely hurting everybody, yet, the prevention requires immediate actions that may prove to be commercially unviable, hence the governments throughout the world and specially the US government hesitate to bring about any concrete change in their policies to reduce emission of GHGs. Maybe, the injury to all is nobody’s concern.
On January 20th, 2009, when Barack Obama took charge as the 44th president of US, everybody hoped for better involvement of United States government and Congress in the bid to reduce the emission of GHGs worldwide³
Yet, apart from some policy changes, the new administration of US also failed to take any concrete and defining step to face the dangers of global warming and to resolve to reduce the emission of GHGs significantly.

Federal/National Climate Policy

The Copenhagen Climate Summit failed⁴ to impress anybody and despite all the hopes attached with Obama, no significant change was visible. Obviously, Obama administration had a great deal of immediate problems to tackle with including the recession period of 2009, the huge stimulus and highly increasing national debt along with the socialistic burdensome programs like healthcare reforms. However, a change was visible in the attitude of administration and on January 26, 2009, the House of Representatives of US Energy Independence and Climate Legislation, the Congress also passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, both the legislations were meant to encourage renewable energy usage and increase energy efficiency. The Cash for Clunker program suggested the US administration’s initiative towards the greener options, the Cap Carbon Trade plan showed positive approach towards greener US, and US government also started trying to encourage innovators and entrepreneurs to create greener jobs.⁵ . The Clean Energy Job and American Power Act provided many programs that will raise funds from government to invest in the inventions and development of greener options for electricity requirements and will provide huge opportunity of green jobs.⁶ Yet, on bigger plan, there is no strict path towards achieving and implementing some policies that would lead US to reduce the emission of GHGs to about 5% to 8% below the level of 1990′s.
Not only that, all these positive steps towards clean air, green surroundings, clear atmosphere and cooler globe faced opposition within the senate in the form of The Dirty Air Act. The Dirty Air Act attacks the Clean Air Act directly. Many big oil companies and some senators along with their lobbyists claimed that Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) statement about the dangers of carbon pollution does not show any major threat to public health or welfare. If the Dirty Air Act passes, the US consumption of foreign and domestic oil will increase further and that will undo all the positive steps taken towards greener USA.⁷

Business Partnerships

One of the main reason behind the inability of the Congress of US is the powerful US corporate that funds in electoral campaigns. The business partnerships of US provide a space of such political forum where the motives of big enterprises cannot be ignored. Obviously, the big conglomerate like BP America, DuPont, and General Electric etc cannot afford to let Congress restrict their source of profits. Furthermore, no government would like to hurt the economy of the nation by almost destroying the leading industries of the country. The big oil companies deny accepting Clean Air Act, or any other proposal to reduce the carbon consumption.
William R. Cline in his book The Economics of Global Warming explained the expected economic damages that may be caused by global warming. He suggested that if the damages caused by global warming are smaller than the costs of reduction of emissions from fossil fuels, deforestation and other sources, than the attempt to discourage usage of carbon or fossil fuels is irrational.⁸
Self-interest is the main motive of any person that drives him to take rational decisions and implement them properly. Thus, if it is shown that the economic losses due to global warming are much more than the losses one will face by reducing carbon consumption, than naturally, the person will opt to reduce carbon consumption because that will be lesser loss for him or her and it will be healthier option too. Thus, it is easier for individuals to opt for greener options while it is difficult for the government or Congress to resolve and adopt policies to control carbon footprints. The reason being, as a collective, Congress or US government cannot think for individual losses, they will only think for the better profits of maintaining relations with big conglomerates, big oil companies and industries like GE, DuPont etc. The evil nexus of government and corporate will never let the greener options establish themselves in the market because the government will keep stimulating the conglomerates. Yet, an individual by himself can opt for greener, hybrid cars, which will consumer lesser fuel, the individual as a consumer may rift the market towards the greener options available in the market. The key to the trouble of global warming is consumerism. Consumerism is the principle of Free Market, which states, “free choice of consumer should rule the market, or, the consumer decides the economic structure of the society”.⁹
As it is clear that the public realizes the dangers of global warming much better than the Congress or US government, the citizens should opt for the free market principle rather than waiting for government to take proper actions. If the consumers prefers and demand green alternatives, clearer energy resources, fuel efficient cars, energy efficient appliances, renewable energy resources and other appliances to reduce their individual carbon fingerprints, than the producer, manufacturers and providers will be forced to provide environmental friendly alternatives for the society. Consumerism is the boon for human development (Reason for Liberty, 2010), and hence, if the individuals, the consumers consider that global warming is greater loss and hence they should opt for greener options, than the entrepreneurs, innovators and manufacturers will themselves be heralded towards providing greener options because that will be the more profitable execution for them. Once the big conglomerate start producing greener alternatives, the government will also feel no objection to provide greener policies, also, when consumers themselves will demand green market, green goods, green services and lesser carbon fingerprints, then the role of government will be minimal in case of improving the conditions of global temperatures.

Performance of States on global warming platform

Stephen Lacey reports that some of the states are moving faster towards green renewable energy options than the federal government or Congress. California, New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Ohio are not only proving to be great market for renewable energy resources like solar energy and wind energy, the state governments are also promoting the renewable energy options to far extent. Recently, Texas got rid of its eight coal power plants.¹⁰ Texas not only opted for nuclear alternative, but the Texas government approved plans to supply 35 per cent of power needs through renewable energy resources.
Stephen Lacey further reveal that the interference of state government in market through the SREC program is benefitting few large companies at the expense of many small companies.¹¹ The picture clarifies the reason why the state governments are running faster towards greener US with lesser carbon footprints. The federal government deals with higher degree of market interference and hence, the Congress remains in effect of big business to create corrupt nexus that cannot decide for better greener options. State governments on the other hand have lesser power to interfere with the market, hence they are a little faster, yet, if somehow the government is decentralized and restricted from interfering the market, that is, if the market is left free, then the market will force the entrepreneurs, manufacturers, producers and business conglomerates to provide better, greener options to reduce the GHGs emission and ease the acute global warming conditions, the reason being, consumers demand “green” solutions to the global warming crisis. The demand of green alternatives by consumers will prompt the free market to create green jobs and will incentivize the entrepreneurs and energy industries to innovate better energy efficient renewable energy resources extraction.

Conclusion: The Actual Way to Improve Climate

It is quite clear that the US congress and federal government is lacking will and strong leadership to bring about any significant change in the policies to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases emission. The nexus between politicians, big business conglomerates and oil companies seems to be evil enough to thwart any possible change in the attitude of Congress towards the acute need of reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emission. It is evident that if nothing would be done to prevent or slow down global warming, there can be disastrous consequences on whole world. US federal government and Congress find it self unable to deal with the situation because the Congress cannot afford the economic turmoil if it breaks relations with the big business conglomerates and oil companies. Instead of taking firm and stern actions to compel the big industries to reduce their carbon footprints, Congress tries to cajole them to agree with a cap on carbon. Pete DuPont stated clearly that “global warming looks like neither the alarmists’ serious threat, nor an immediate crisis that requires governmental control of America’s economy to reduce it”, He suggested that Congress should consider the costs before passing policies on Global Warming.¹² In such a scenario, it is difficult to believe that the big conglomerates like BP America, DuPont, and General Electric etc will accept the necessity of time so easily. Yet, there is a hope to save the earth against the ill-human activities. The individual citizens of U.S and whole round the world can force the conglomerates, politicians and governments too by denying their interference and monopoly in market and by demanding better, greener and feasible energy options.
Once the consumers themselves decide to reduce their own carbon footprints, the big companies will be forced to follow the suit. Congress, federal government and state government meanwhile should stop interfering with the market and let the new players, competitors, entrepreneurs and innovators provide better and efficient energy solutions so that the big conglomerate of US may also feel compelled to work towards a greener future. The key for a better, greener and safer world against the glooming danger of global warming is in the hands of consumer and in the policies of free market. The nexus between government, politicians and big business need to relieve the market to create greener world.

1. Climate Action Report, 2002, Ratification of Kyoto Aside: How International Law and Market Uncertainty Obviate the Current U.S. Approach to Climate Change Emissions
2. Bradford Mank, 2005, Standing and Global Warming; Environmental Law, Vol. 35
3. Oliver A. Houck, 2009, Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility
4. BBC News, 2009, Why Did Copenhagen fail to deliver a climate deal? BBC News, 22nd December, 2009
5. Legislation, Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee of US, 2010
6. Clean Energy Job and American Power Act, 2009
7. Dirty Air Act round up, 2010
8. William R. Cline, 1992, The Economics of Global Warming, Institute for International Economics Washington DC
9. Reason for Liberty, 2010, Consumerism is a Boon for Human Development, Reason for Liberty, April 19th,2010
10. Stephen Lacey, 2008, U.S State Solar Debate: Will SRECs Create Unhealthy Market Concentration? New Hampshire, United States
11. Stephen Lacey, 2008, U.S State Solar Debate: Will SRECs Create Unhealthy Market Concentration? New Hampshire, United States
12. Pete DuPont, 2009, Time for Inaction on Global Warming, Congress should consider the costs before passing “cap and trade” The Wall Street Journal

It is probably an often thought question, but rarely answered correctly by most of the people. What makes a country like India poorer than a country like say America? I have tried to answer this question since I was a kid, then as an adult.
Lets see, most people might answer to that question as “India is poor because it lacks so and so “, the effect being something India does not have because its poor, and US has because its richer, and not a cause of Indian poverty. For example, some people might answer
“India is poor because it lacks infrastructure western countries have”, or
“India is poor because of lack of education among people”, or
“India is poor because its very corrupt, and it has politicians who manipulate people etc etc”.
The problem here is simple, almost all these answers are effects, India does not have the infrastructure of western countries because India is poor, it doesn’t need that infrastrucutre, you cannot spend Rs 500 million per year on a road which brings per user cost is Rs 5,000 per month, and the average salary of people using that road is Rs 10,000 per month. Why not? Because if you did build a luxury road like that for people this poor, you are wasting resources more than you are creating them. When India becomes richer better infrastructure will follow, even if govt is the only entity building it, they will have more money to spend on infrastructure. You cannot create prosperity by creating one effect and hoping other effect will follow.
Similarly, the stuff about Indian people being educated, well if you are going to work on a construction site for all your life(someone has to work there), there is no point in spending so much money on your education which could have gone towards creating more job opportunities for you. By trying to create this effect, by educating 100,000 workers who will be working on manufacturing all their lives, and then ending up with having jobs for only 60% of them isn’t really a better outcome.
A bit matured people who understand how things worked, they will come to the conclusion that India is poor because it has less money than America, therefore India is poor and America is richer. But then that was incorrect too when you will find out that Indian govt has the power to print any amount of money possible. Why can’t Indian govt print more money, give some to everyone and make everybody richer. Apparently its not that easy as it may sound, when money supply is increased, prices of commodities rise soon thereafter. So even if poor people are given a lot of money, that will just raise the prices of the various commodities they might buy thereby bringing them back to same level of poverty as before(more or less).
I know a lot of people who know the correct answer to the question stated in the title. India is poorer than US because it has less capital than latter, and capital isn’t the same thing as money.

What is Capital

So the question comes, what is ‘capital’ and how is it different from money? To understand it we must understand first what is money. Money is nothing but a medium of exchange, we don’t really intend to consume money, we only keep money because everybody else accepts it and then we can acquired the final resource which we really intend to consume.
Capital is essentially any commodity or goods, or even service, which is used to hold value across time. In simple words, if you do not consume a good or a commodity, but only keep it for later consumption then that good serves as capital. Because in most of the cases we keep money for the future consumption therefore money is the most common form of capital, but if you bought a car which you intended to start using only 2 years later then that car is your capital(although I don’t see any reason why you would want to do that, but that’s beside the point).
When I say India has less capital than US, what does that really mean? Does that mean Americans can defer their present consumption more than Indians can? If we look at savings rate of both the countries, Indians can definitely beat Americans savings rate hands down, so shouldn’t that mean Indians must have more capital than Americans? The truth is, America has a lot more capital buildup than India, therefore despite of not deferring a lot of their present consumption for the future one, they can still manage to create more ‘future resources’ than India.
For example an American family may only save 10% of their savings for future or invest 10% of their income for future, but because the total amount of capital they have is much more than an average Indian family which might save about 40% of their income, their capital results in more consumer goods than what an Indian family’s capital results in.
Simply put, in order to be as rich as America, India will have to accumulate as much capital as America has. Artificially achieving the same literacy rate as US by govt spending will not make India as rich as US, because people won’t have as many jobs to do. Building an infrastructure through government spending will also not make India as rich as US as it won’t be worth spending so much on infrastructure when there isn’t enough capital to put that infrastructure to proper use.
This may be a very simple thing to say, because its like saying ‘in order to be rich you need to acquire a lot of bank balance’, which sounds like common sense, but in this case its like most people seem to think that if you take thousands of dollars of loan for education, you will automatically become rich, or if you buy a bigger house, you will become automatically rich.

How do we build up more capital?

Lets first take an example of Robinson Crusoe who got stranded on an island. He catches fishes everyday from 8AM to 5PM and eats them. Since he just landed on the island, he catches these fishes by hand and he is able to catch 25 fishes everyday. Since Crusoe came from a modern society he realizes that he can build a net, and that will enable him to catch a lot more fishes. Unfortunately, he also realizes that he cannot just blink and wish a fishing net, he must build it, and making a fishing net requires 5 days of his work. The problem in front of Crusoe is that if he starts to work for 5 full days to build that net, then he won’t be able to catch any fish therefore he will starve to death.
Crusoe in this scenario faces the problem of lack of capital. He needs capital to sustain himself until he extends the structure of production(that is from using only hands to catch fish, he uses hands to build a fishing net, which he uses to catch fishes. He realizes that by building that fishin net he will be able to catch 300 fishes everyday.
So Crusoe has 2 options, he can either:
a) Consume only 20 fishes everyday, and store the 5 unconsumed fishes; Keep on doing this for 20 days, which will accumulate him 100 fishes, which are good enough for him to sustain himself for five days he won’t be able to work.
b) Catch only 20 fishes each day and spend that extra time in building the net, so he will be spreading his 5 days of work, over 20 days.
In either of the two cases Crusoe has deferred his present consumption of 5 fishes everyday so that after he builds the net he is now able to produce and consume a LOT more fishes everyday. He can either catch 300 fishes and maybe consume them all, or make more dishes out of them, etc etc, or he could continue to catch only 25 fishes everday, work less and have more leisure time, and spending the remaining time in working on art, literature, maybe music etc.
India is exactly like Crusoe without the fishing net, and America is exactly like Crusoe with a fishing net. Because its easier for America to produce a lot without giving up a lot of present goods, America has a lot of time to spend on art, literature, music, etc. This is the exact reason why American atheletes and sportsmen win so many medals in Olympics, they have the disposable income and time to train themselves for sports, whereas in India we still spend most of our time catching fishes by hand.
In order to build more capital, you require two things:
a) People should be willing to put a lot of present goods for later consumption
b) When they put their present goods for later consumption, nothing should reduce or steal away their capital from them
The first task isn’t really that difficult for India, since we already have high savings rate. The second task is actually the most difficult task in India. You may ask, why? The answer is simple because the way we understand reality, we don’t think people should be allowed to accumulate capital.
Let me elaborate what I meant by nothing should reduce or steal away the capital from people who are deferring their present consumption for future. In the above example of Crusoe, lets say Crusoe’s fishes got rotten because they weren’t stored properly, so his capital has been destroyed, now to achieve the same earlier result he will have to build his savings again.
Take another scenario, lets say Man Friday, is another cast away, who drifted to the other part of the Island, he also catches fishes by hand, but he is able to catch only 10 fishes because he is not that good with catching fishes. When Crusoe was saving 5 fishes everyday, Man Friday decried that Crusoe was being unfair and hoarding fishes, also Crusoe being more dexterous with fishing, must feed Man Friday some of his fishes. So everyday Man Friday raids Crusoe’s extra fishes and consumes them in the name of making the society more equal. In this case again Crusoe’s capital has been depleted, and he will never be able to build that fishing net, and although Man Friday and Crusoe will be a bit more equal, they will remain poor. In fact soon Crusoe will realize that he has no incentive to really starve himself by 5 fishes, so he will either consume all 25 fishes or will catch only 5 fishes each day.
So how does capital get depleted, or stolen away, or reduced from the person who is building it? The answer is simple, because the way most Indians think, and always thought, was that we cannot allow one man to have all the wealth of the society, even if he built it all. So we like Man Friday in the above example, continously rob Crusoes of the Indian society, through taxation, which ‘we’ consider perfectly ‘justified’, or through a fiat currency and fractional reserve banking system, about which most of us don’t even care, its left for economics students who were educated by the western economists who don’t even understand how capital works.
What ends up happening is that we never grow rich. It was only until 1991, when Indian economy was liberalized and a lot more capital accumulation was allowed, and since then we have seen a LOT of economic progress, but still most people do not see or understand the function of capital, for them, capital means something to do with capitalism(which is technically correct, capitalism is a system where capital reigns means of production), and under capitalism ‘rich grow richer and poor go poorer’.

A society with more capital takes care of its poor better

Lets look back at the previous example of Crusoe, had Man Friday allowed Crusoe to build his net, Crusoe would have been able to produce a lot more fishes everyday, and then Man Friday could then provide Crusoe with some other services, in exchange for his fishes. Lets just say all Man Friday is good at is dancing, and creating stories and telling them passionately, since they both are stranded on an island, Crusoe might value this entertainment service a lot, so Crusoe works all day catching 300 fishes, and gives 100 fishes to Man Friday in exchange of Man Friday’s entertainment services.
Had Man Friday stressed on equality, all the way along, Crusoe’s net wouldn’t have been built, and Crusoe would have remained relatively rich(because he caught 25 fishes everyday and consumed 20), and Man Friday would have remained poor(because he caught only 10 fishes everyday and was able to consume only 15). Please note that in the society with more capital(ie, when Crusoe built a net), Crusoe was consuming 200 fishes everday, which is almost double of what Man Friday was consuming(100 fishes), and socialists decry that rich has gotten richer in capitalism and poor poorer, but Man Friday in the society with more capital is much more well fed and richer than Man Friday in society with less capital. This is exactly what we see in America and in India, a poor in America is still richer than even the average guy of India. All this is only facilitated if we stop believing in the redistribution of wealth and start allowing building up of capital.

What is Prostitution?

Prostitution involves buying and selling of sexual services, it is simple act of mutual benefits between two consenting individuals without any compulsion.
Having sex is not a crime; exchange of money is also not a crime because there is nothing wrong or illegal in exchange of money between two individuals. So, why is it illegal?

Most of the critics against the legalization of prostitution usually claim that if prostitution is allowed freely, the strong evil men may force women to involve in prostitution.
Forcing anyone to do anything is an obvious crime, force or compulsion is simply against the individual rights of any civilized society, but prostitution does not involve any force or compulsion on anybody, it is simple exchange of money for the service provided with mutual agreement.¹

Sex as a Trade

People say that sex should be allowed only in marital limits and hence prostitution should be illegal. What people do not realize is marriage or a consensual love relation is nothing but transaction of love. If a man provides his girlfriend some precious gifts and in return she favours him with sexual affection, then it is no different than prostitution, similarly, a married woman providing sexual benefits for her husband in exchange of love and security of married life is nothing but trade of sex, transaction of love. What makes prostitution different from such love relations is the polygamous nature of prostitution. Thus, people opposing the demand of legalizing prostitution are not against the exchange of money for sexual services, rather they are against the polygamous nature of prostitution. Recent scientific researches show that it is quite natural for both males and females on biological levels to have a polygamous attitude and a desire to be in intimate relationships with many partners² and animals of other species also get involved in activities like prostitution.³

Prohibition never helps

The Constitution of United States stands firm on individual liberty stressing on freedom of speech, religion and trade. Thus, illegalization of prostitution, which violates the premise of inalienable right of Individual, is simply against the Constitution that confirms full freedom for consenting adults for having mutually beneficial agreements, relations and transactions.
Prohibition never helps though it causes wastage and corruption. Alcohol consumption was prohibited from 1920 to 1933 through Volstead Act, which made Bootlegging as an underground industry, home producers created whiskey and gin. The prices of alcohol skyrocketed in black market sales of alcohol because of heavy demand and corrupt governmental officers who surreptitiously helped the black-market⁴ . Government lost a huge amount of tax from bootleg alcohol and it became impossible to check the quality of alcohol thus produced. The unsafe alcohol caused many accidents. Government spending to prohibit alcohol consumption increased $4.4 million to $13.4 million annually. Coast Guard spent at an average $13 million per year to check the prohibition during 1920′s. Government thought that prohibition would solve many social issues but the result was just opposite. The criminal activities increased as a result of prohibition. The homicide rates increased up to 66% during prohibition.⁵
History teaches us that prohibition never helps, rather they increase wastage of useful resources and causes increase in crime rates. Prohibiting prostitution also leads to similar results.

Legalization reduces crime rate

Prohibitionists suggest that legalizing prostitution may increase crime, but the facts say opposite. Serious crimes, such as rapes, homicides, robbery, kidnapping are noticed to be increasing because of prohibition. Countries that allow prostitution as legal activity do not suffer from high frequency of violent crimes. Canada, France, Israel, Singapore, United Kingdom all allows prostitution and all have lower crime rates than the crime rates in US.⁶
After being charged with a sex-crime, a woman faces the social stigma and she becomes unemployable and hence forced to get involved with further criminal acts. Once she is jailed, it becomes impossible for her to gain any other means of living and that enforces her to work as prostitute for longer than they otherwise would. The experience of jail further makes women prone to get involved in other serious crimes.
When police bans brothels, motels or other places where prostitution might generally be practiced, prostitutes find themselves forced to work in neighbouring streets and hence spoiling the neighbourhood. The dangers for prostitutes also increase many folds and they find themselves unable to care for health and safety precautions. Such prostitutes can easily be soft target for serial killers and sociopaths.
Better way is to legalize prostitution in certain areas of cities where the prostitutes and their clients may work in safe environment.
Other criminals who consider prostitutes and their customers as easy target to rob, blackmail, or rape also remains unchecked. Many a times, even the corrupt police also engage in corrupt exploitation of prostitutes. Thus, the criminals realize that prostitutes or their customers are most unlikely to report to police and that provides them an incentive to commit crimes against such people.
If prostitution is legalized, such people would not flinch from reporting any criminal activity against them and that will reduce crime rate.

Legalization promotes health care

Prohibition causes health hazards. Because of laws against prostitution, most of the prostitutes often find themselves forced to involve in unsafe sexual activities. They cannot go for medical help too because of the fear of police. Prohibition on prostitution thus increases the probability of unsafe sex and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, gonorrhoea, Chlamydia and herpes. If prostitution is legalized, the prostitution can be monitored and medical facilities can be provided to them and that will control the spread of such diseases.
A public health review of World Health Organization⁷ states:

“In Kenya, where the importance of chancroid in HIV transmission was first described in the late 1980s, interventions targeting sex workers and STD patients were implemented. Reported condom use by sex workers has since increased to over 80% in project areas and the incidence of genital ulcers has declined. Chancroid, once the most common ulcer etiology, now accounts for fewer than 10% of genital ulcers seen in clinics in Nairobi, Kenya.
In Senegal, HIV prevalence among pregnant women has been below 1% for more than a decade. A strong multisectoral response, an effective STD control programme and early legalization of prostitution have been credited for this low level. Special clinical services, for example, offer regular examination and treatment for registered sex workers. Not only has there been a significant decline in STD rates among sex workers and pregnant women between 1991 and 1996, but genital ulcers are also no longer common and chancroid is reportedly rare.”

It is very reasonable to legalize and regulate prostitution and medically monitoring the sex-workers and hence providing a safe environment to their client. Legalizing prostitution will also encourage the sex-workers to learn more about health issues, and ways of prevention. Canada, France, Denmark, Israel, Singapore and many other countries that have legalized prostitution have much less number of people living with HIV AIDS and the number of deaths due to HIV when compared with the records of US.

Legalization of Prostitution and Social Condition

The societies that have allowed prostitution as a legal activity are providing much better social environment for the individuals. Countries like Canada, France, Denmark, Israel etc are spending much more of the percentage of their GDP on education and health-care than what US government spends. The suicide rates in such countries is also lesser.
Legalization of prostitution promotes individual liberty and privacy; it also provides a way for the poor to alleviate their situation. In a free society, it makes no sense for the government to dictate people, specially the poor one that they cannot take money in exchange of the service they are willing to provide freely. Legalizing prostitution will also promote the privacy of individuals about their intimate relations and it will reduce the stigma the sex-workers suffer.
Prohibition on prostitution causes a lot of wastage of resources. The law-enforcement bodies that devote a lot to monitor the prohibition on a harmless activity in between consenting adults can be used for better works and prevention of serious crimes. That will certainly help the society to reduce the crime rate and establish peace. Legalization will also reduce the police corruption and dangers of underground industry and provide safety for the sex-workers against organized crimes.

Conclusion: Prostitution is such an activity that harms nobody. Legalizing prostitution will serve the society in better way because that will tend the police to direct their efforts towards preventing and solving actual crimes which involves clear exploiter and victims and that will help the cause of justice. Legalizing prostitution will also help in improving the health care and social condition of United States.

http://couplewriters.blogspot.com/

1. Reason for Liberty, Discussion on the issue of Prostitution on Objectivistic perspective
2. Dr. James J. Hughes, Monogamy as a Prisoners Dilemma: Non-Monogamy as a Collective Action Problem
3. A New York Times report, on a recent scientific research signifying that even monkeys get involve in money transaction for sex, that is Prostitution.
4. Nancy Nixon, Nancy Nixon discusses over the effects of Prohibition on Alcohol during 1920 to 1933
5. Mark Thorton analyzes the policy of prohibition on alcohol consumption during 1920′s, stating that Alcohol Prohibition was Failure, Mark Thorton
6. Crime Statistics in Canada, 2006, Canada Government
7. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Bull World Health Organ vol.79 no.9 Genebra 2001, Richard Steen

How the Private coinage will work?

The private coinage will work just like any other commodity (say mobile phones, or jewellery or wrist watches). Minters will produce coins of different shapes, sizes and weight according to the desires and demand of his customers. The free competition of the market will set the price of the coins of the minter. Second issue is about the trouble that the coins may create when weighed or evaluated at every deal or bargain. It is true that it would be difficult to evaluate the purity of gold coins every time a transaction would be made. To solve that issue, the minters will stamp the coins and guaranty the weight and purity of the coin. Private minters can guarantee the coins just like the government do. The profit will be, when government mints, there is no competition for government to be truthful, alert and honest, it is monopoly of government over minting coins, but when the private minters will guarantee their coins, their guarantee will weigh more because if the private minter will cheat, he will loose his market and consumers to other honest minter. Just like a government paper currency or coin holds the governmental promise to pay the bearer of that note an amount equal to the price of that paper currency or coin, the coin of private minters will also hold the promise from the minter that he would pay an amount of gold equal to be mentioned on the gold coin of his brand.
People against the idea of private currency will say that it would increase the chances of frauds. Same people never object to the miserable record of the governmental frauds, swindles and mismanagement. Every time the government issues stimulus to a particular industry, or forgives the loans of some conglomerate by explaining that it is working for social profits, the government actually is committing a fraud against the general public. Every time a person faces the devaluation of his savings in governmental currency because of extreme price rise and inflation, it is the example of regular fraudulent and untrustworthy behavior of the government regarding paper currency issuance and minting coinage. In case of private minters of gold coins, the chances of inflation and abrupt price hikes will lessen to minimum. More over, the free market competition for consumer satisfaction, the various minters will compete to be more honest and better customer service providers. The more a particular private coinage minting agency will be honest and better product and service provider, the more will be its consumer base and profits. Thus, in free market private coinage system, the competition for profits would be competition for honesty and consumer satisfaction. In addition, the problem of fake currency will also be eliminated because each private coinage agency would try to defend their brands by their own and the government also will be able to devote all its energy to safeguard the private minters against duplication and fake currency. In case of private coinage, one can trust that the government will prevent and punish frauds. The integrity of private open market operators cannot be discarded in favor of government monopoly, because in case of monopoly, there is no need for the government to be honest, but in case of private free market operators, to be honest is prerequisite for gaining any profit and healthy share of consumers.³
Furthermore, whole market works on guarantee of standards. A medicine store sells a tablet of aspirin of mentioned weight and dosage, a butter seller sells packed butter slices of mentioned grams of butter. The buyer trusts these guarantees, and they prove to be true. In a case when a person buys a product with a certain warranty and guarantee and somehow the product fails to prove the standard mentioned, than in most cases, he gets a replacement for the ill-manufactured product. That is, even if by mistake a product of a company fails to fulfill the standards demanded by the customer and provided by the manufacturer, then either it pays back the money of the customer or replaces the product with new and better one. Market of mobile sets, or laptops or packed meat, butter or cheese, or other things does not fail even though government does not hold a monopoly on any of the products. Thus, we can trust that the customers of a private minter will be safe against any possible fraud because of the presence of other competitors of the minter in market. The minter’s customers themselves will be keenly alert about the weight and fineness of the coins just as they remain while buying and using other commodities.

The problem of wear and tear of currency

The current government regulated currency, paper notes and coins holds no worth in themselves apart from the governor’s pledge to pay the bearer of the note or coin, a definite amount of money. The value of money obviously keeps going low and lower because of inflation and price rise. Along with this, the paper currency issued by government often suffers wear and tear causing further loss of money. Most of the governmental coins are eroded or torn out and government keeps forcing the usage of same old notes and coins. The old rag-tagged coins and paper notes are to be considered of the same value as of a fresh note or coin. By doing so, the government actually forces a certain type of price control over the old paper notes and coins and provide them the equal price as that of newer notes and coins. Because of this, the older coins and notes are overvalued, while the new notes and coins suffer undervaluation. All this amounts to nothing but mal-investment. Everybody loves to circulate the older worn out coins and paper currency while they have a tendency to keep newer notes and coins safe.
Consider the case of free market where minting of coins is not a monopoly of government. Assume that there are gold coins of 10grams well circulated in market. After a few years of constant usage, the coins may suffer wear and tear and lets say that they weigh only 9 grams of gold after 10 years (assume). In a free market, a coin that has been reduced from 10 grams of gold to 9 grams will not be overvalued and it will gain only the price of 9 grams. Obviously, nobody would like to use the 9 grams coins at the price of 10 grams of gold, hence the worn out coins will be driven out of the market, or they may be used at reduced price. Thus, nobody would be deceived by the forced insistence of overvaluation to the older coins. This will avoid malinvestment. To solve out the problem of wear-tear of the coins, the private coin minters can either set a time limit on their stamped guarantees of weight or agree to provide a new coin in exchange of every old coin with reduced weight. Thus, there will not be any compulsory standardization of currency, which is a feature of monopoly of government.
Conclusion:
Since long governments have tried to control the currency circulation in market so that they can restrict and control the progress and prosperity of citizens. Yet, from time to time, private bankers have issued their own minted coins (Know more about Private Coinage and Good Money)) . The gold standard with privatization of issuing currency and minting coins will not only end the monopoly of government over currency, which is the major reason of acute price rise and inflation, but also it will avoid any chance of fraud as the free market will tend the virtue of more honest and better services for gaining more consumer base and high profits. In addition, if coin minting is privatized, the government can also try to serve the public by ensuring security against any sort of fraud. In any case, privatization of currency would be a much better option than the monopoly of government over currency.
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1. Warren Hastings (1841), an essay by Thomas Babington Macaulay.” Columbia University in the City of New York
2. The Fall of Rupee, CRN India
3. Know more about the evils of Monopoly of government in Market and currency read What Has Government Done To Our Money by Murray Rothbard, One may listen the whole book and save the audio link here

What about the drop-out rates?

There is a governmental school within the range of 2-5 KM near almost every village or slum of India, that is, lack of governmental schools is clearly not a big issue.
The problem is not about the children who never attend school. Such students are separate and very fast diminishing category. About 50% of children who join up in Class I drop out by Class VIII and that can be suggested as the major problem.
Despite all the mid-day meals and similar programs, governmental schools fail to keep the children intact with their governmental education. Now no matter whether government declares it a fundamental right or necessity, if the parents and their children simply do not prefer the idea of investing their time in such governmental schools, than this idea of education as a fundamental right will remain only a paper exercise that will never be a reality, although the governmental robbers will keep robbing the middle class of India and will burden them with more and more taxes to facilitate the education for all those who does not want that education and are certainly not interested in it.
According to the National University for Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) total enrolment in primary classes (Class I to V) was 134.4 million in 2008-09. In Classes VI to VIII, the total enrolment had dramatically dropped to 53.4 million. Now, if government considers that education is literacy, than it is acceptable that primary classes will provide the required education as a fundamental right, but what if more than half of the total students decide not to study any further the primary classes? Will government force them to continue their “governmental schooling” until all do not clear out the VIII class?
The problem is not that parents do not have money to educate their children properly; the problem is the poor quality of governmental education. Governmental education actually provides nothing to an upcoming citizen rather it burdens them with heavy books and senseless exercises that will never help him by any means throughout his life. Even if every Indian becomes a well educated graduate, not everyone can become an IAS officer, some may prefer to be a barber, or a shopkeeper, or a gardener, farmer, or may be taxi-driver. As some prefer to be a doctors and engineers, some other may prefer to be peons and beetle shop owners, or snacks vendors or simply “chai-wala”. Now no school provides any fundamental knowledge about how to be a better “chai-wala” or a better “paan-wala” or a better barber, or a better street-sweeper. There are so many jobs that people may prefer to do rather than going and wasting their time in the schools to clear out the VIIIth class exam. Can Government Issue a law that no person can be allowed to work and earn if he is not VIII class pass? That is, one cannot work as a laundryman, or a barber, or home-helper, or a “bawarchi” or chai-wala or any similar minion works if he is not VIIIth pass.
The Right to Education Act covers children in the 6 to 14 years age group, precisely for the classes from VI to VIII. So may be the idea behind the right to “governmental education” is meant to abolish child labour.
However, that will be a fraud against the children who prefer to go for all those minion works that are never touched by school education. Why should a child work so hard and waste all his time in learning the maths, science and languages of VI to VIIIth classes when he knows that it will never help him to be a good barber or taxi driver? For him, better education would be to attend a barbers shop and learn how to cut hairs with ease and provide consumer satisfaction for the consumers. If a child is looking for maintaining a shop owned by his father, he will certainly learn educate himself much more in his father’s shop under the tutelage of his father rather than in a governmental school. For such children, if government forces them to attend schools up to VIII or Xth class, than it will actually be forced child labour for those children and they will not earn even a penny for that unwanted labour.

Market is the Best Educator

A doctor practicing medicines in market since last 5 years is obviously much more apt than a freshly graduated medical student is. The market actually teaches the medical student how to treat the consumers, how to fight the diseases and save the patients. School and college education provides the base, and market furnishes the education.
In case of a barber though, no college, no school provides any base for becoming a successful barber. One needs to go to a barbers shop and practice there. For a forthcoming doctor, if he attends school and than college, education helps in strengthening his base, but for a forthcoming barber, only the market, that barbers shop can provide the necessary education and practice. Forcing him to go to school to get “governmental education” will be similar to burdening him with child labour and disallowing him the “necessary education”.
Conclusion: right to education may prove to be a good vote gainer for the ruling parties in upcoming elections, it will certainly increase the vast canvas of governmental corruption and swindles and will burden the Indians with extra taxes, yet it will remain only a paper exercise meant to fool the public and that is why education was announced as “fundamental right” right on fools day. It is inappropriate and unnecessary to expect every child of age group 6 to 14 years to go to school because for many such children, governmental school education itself proves to be child labour, while the market provides them the proper necessary education they require and search for. Thus, if government does not make it compulsory for every citizen to be at least VIIIth pass if he wants to work and earn an honest living, it is impossible to expect the RTE to work any better than a paper exercise. But if government makes it compulsory, than education will not remain a right, it will become a torturous duty imposed by dictatorial despotic altruistic politicians, because than, the certificate of VIII class pass will become the necessary license even to work and earn an honest living freely. Most of the times, these politicians displays slavery in the colours of freedom and compels the citizens to buy their enslavement at the expense of freedom.

Doctrine of Double Effect

Again, government supporters claim that US forces did not aim to murder those innocents rather those innocents were unavoidably in the region of attack hence they were killed. This is known as Doctrine of Double Effect. It states that, if the injury to the innocent is controllable and proportionate, than only one can attack the culprit without considering the harm to the innocent. One cannot bombard a cricket stadium full of thirty to forty thousand audiences just because one of those audiences is a supposedly high profile terrorist. That is, just in order to encounter one terrorist or tyrant, one cannot jeopardize the life of whole audience of the cricket stadium. At most, one may try to shoot the terrorist with his gun without fearing that his missed shot may kill an innocent. Yet, in case of Iraq invasion or Drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the killing of innocents is obviously wayward and absurd. Many more innocents were killed without any proper success of actually killing or punishing the terrorists.
Obviously, all such humanitarian grounds in support of US forces invasion on Iraq or Afghanistan and Pakistan are futile. So, was the issue of nuclear warheads with Iraq a proper reason to invade Iraq, or can it be a proper ground to Invade Iran?
We now know that the intelligence reports that suggested that Saddam’s regime had nuke powers were fake and false, yet the Iran is beyond any doubt a Nuke power. Yet, Iran with Nuclear arms is a very minute matter.
USSR had tens of thousands of nuclear warheads and sophisticated delivery vehicles that were always kept in constant readiness. Yet USSR never threatened or ‘Blackmailed’ USA. How can a minute and much weak nuke Iran be of any threatening consideration to USA? Or How could have been Iraq any threat to USA even if Saddam had nuclear power?
US army also claims that Pakistani warheads are under threat and Al-Qaida may try to control them, hence they say that it is necessary to attack and end the Taliban and Al-Qaida outfits involved in Pakistan. The thing is, it is sincerely not wrong to try to kill the Taliban or Al-Qaida members, but US government has no authority or right to endanger and actually murder the innocents while trying to notch the terrorists.
Furthermore, can government justify the extremely large military budgets for which the common people are being confiscated of their wealth by means of taxation?

Attacks on our own citizens

It is not that a government can only kill the innocents in other countries. Many a times, government does not even flinch away from the possibility of killing its own citizens and that too for their own welfare.
During the Indira Gandhi regime in 1984, when a handful of terrorists lead by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale occupied the Golden Temple, Indian government ordered attack and firing on the Golden Temple. That act was named as Operation Blue Star that killed Thousands of Innocent people along with Bhindranwale’s supporters. Those innocent people were simple religious people and Indian government actually was supposed to safeguard them. Similarly, many innocents were killed during the formation of Bangladesh by the Pakistani government.
The programmed massacre of Muslims in Gujarat against Narendra Modi’s state Gujarat government after the Godhra attack is yet to be forgotten. The list of fake encounter cases of central and state government police and special task forces keep on increasing month by month and it is all done under the mask of protecting and providing a secure welfare state for the same innocent citizens who are being butchered.
Conclusion: Just like other social welfare policies of government, the war and conflict safety policy of government also fails absurdly and instead of being a welfare state, a government lead state often turns out to be a warfare state, while wars brings no good for any one ever.

“I worry that in resolving this financial crisis perhaps we are sowing the seeds of the next crisis…next crisis could be a currency or a fiscal crisis,” Subbarao said.³

India is no new to the threat of extreme debt and bankruptcy. India faced the similar situation in 1990 when Indian government was forced to accept liberalization. Obviously, nobody would like to have a repeat of 1990 fiscal crisis. Yet, it is a possibility. To reduce that risk, Indian government strictly needs to control its expenditure and reduce the burden of welfare state, that is, government need to disinvest further.

The Fiscal Crisis of Euro Zone

The evidential repercussions of governmental expenditures and debt burden on the Euro zone countries are a matter of thought for financial world. The crisis began in Greece and is expanding to Spain and Portugal. It would be foolhardy to believe that the crisis will constrain itself to the weaker economies of Europe alone.
In 2008, when Pakistan faced bankruptcy due to its fiscal debt, economist warned that Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Argentina could also slide into a downward spiral towards bankruptcy, and to that list, now we have added Greece, Spain and Portugal. Ex-IMF chief economist Simon Johnson openly stated that the UK should also be considered in the category of nations at the verge of bankruptcy because of huge governmental fiscal deficits.⁴ There is no reason to doubt the ex-Chief economist of IMF because of the fact that the euro-zone governments are predominantly welfare states with extreme high fiscal deficits year by year. The budget situation in all European countries is extremely weak with no hope for a manageable budget any soon. The government obviously provides huge welfare benefits for the citizens in shapes of free-education, Universal Health Care systems and other socialistic patterns that obviously increase huge collective wastage of resources produced by citizens.
Simon Jones said, “They seem to show no awareness at all that much of Europe is facing a serious crisis and it’s not limited to Spain, Greece and Portugal, it’s also going to include Ireland. I think Italy is also very much in the line of fire. There’s a very serious crisis inside the Euro zone.”
The only way for these economies to avoid the situation of bankruptcy is to reduce their fiscal deficit to minimal and that is possible only by reducing the governmental expenditures, i.e. by restricting government to very limited or no power to interfere with market.
During the Global Meltdown, when the government of major countries were announcing “economic stimulus” for the market, socialists were claiming how the Market is unable to be free and needs governmental help. I mentioned how the Economical Stimulus are not a Cure it is Venom⁵ . The current situation throughout the world is evidential proof for that opinion.
The world is still to learn a simple fact that there is no such thing as a Keynesian free lunch, that government does not produce anything, and whenever it robs individuals of their wealth for the purpose of welfare of society or nation, such crisis evolves to brutalize every individual.

US, the most powerful Borrower

Larry Summer once asked in US Congress “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?”⁶
The question signified its strength when Moody’s Investors Service cautioned that the triple A credit rating of the US could not be taken for granted.
For its grandeur position as a citizen friendly government providing them free gifts, entitlements, subsidies, stimulus, educational helps, Medicare, Medicaid and other social service programs, US government keeps borrowing money from Fed by issuing T-bonds. President Obama has also dreams of Universal Health-care and Free Education for US citizens. Further government need funds to keep its worthless and terrorizing schemes of War on Terror. The unaware citizens feel good and strong at such governmental gestures and politicians keep on playing with the future of citizens, burdening them with further huge debts, announcing further social programs like Universal Health care and free education. The current national debt on US is around 13 trillion. President Barrack Obama signed ceiling of $14.3 trillion public debt on February 12, 2010. The yearly Public debt chart shows that US debt never decreased and it will always keep on increasing.⁷
Renowned economist, editor of Financial Times and author of “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of World” Professor Ferguson stressed that

The long-run projections of the Congressional Budget Office suggest that the US will never again run a balanced budget. That’s right, never.⁸

Such huge national debt increases the fears of default and currency depreciation, and an immediate hyperinflation that push up real interest rates. The higher interest rates drag down the growth further while the private sector also suffers the burden of debt. In addition, to pay back and avoid bankruptcy, government tries to increase revenues by confiscating private property, increasing taxes that in turn dilapidate the private sector completely causing extreme unemployment, poverty, food crisis, riots and complete chaos.
According to International Monetary Fund, the developed countries need to manage their fiscal deficit within a decade in order to avoid defaults. Worst condition of nations under debt is of Japan and UK, than Ireland, Spain, Greece and at sixth place, is US.
Conclusion: The economic stimulus proved out to be venom; the western countries are now in a deep fiscal crisis while India and China are facing the huge inflation problems. The collective welfare statist ideology is wrong at its base and the world need to understand that the only cure for the Market is Freedom from any sort of Governmental interference.
With such huge debt burdens, the governments now need to heed the libertarian urge for free market. Governments need to restrict their welfare programs. There should be no government interference in market. Governments now need to work for reduction of expenditures and reduction of debts.

1. India Apr-Dec fiscal deficit at $66.9 bln – govt, Reuter India
2. ‘High fiscal deficit, biggest risk to India’ Anjalika Bardalai, senior editor/economist, Economist Intelligence Unit.
3. Next crisis could be related to currency or fiscal: RBI, D Subbarao, Governor of RBI
4. The UK should be seen in the same category of countries as Greece and Spain, who are facing severe debt problems, a leading economist has said, Ex-Chief Economist of IFA
5. Economic Stimulus is not Cure, it is Venom, RFL
6. Larry Summers’ killing Question on US Fiscal Deficit, NYTimes
7. United States public debt, Wikipedia
8. Professor Ferguson,
   A Greek crisis is coming to America, Financial Times

“All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.¹ “

The law is supposed to be enforced uniformly, and without any discrimination against the guilty based on their economic and social background.
Yet recently, the Indian Apex Court decided to go against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
On Monday, the Supreme Court said that the courts should consider the economic status of a murderer before sentencing him to death penalty of life sentence even in cases of crimes falling in the category of “rare of rarest”.
The Bench comprising of Justice P.Sathshivam and H.L Dattu said that poor background of the accused should — along with old age and years spent behind bars while awaiting death sentence — be considered as mitigating factors when courts ponder whether life sentence should be used in an otherwise fit case for death penalty.²
It would be fascinating to know why Supreme Court judges are seeking for the populist issues, is the Supreme legal body of India the Apex Court trying to be the champion of socialism?

Significance of the Supreme Court Statement

Reservation for the Poor in Crime
The Supreme Court believes that socio-economic factors might not dilute guilt, but they may amount to mitigating circumstances. That is, if a girl walking on road is raped and murdered by a rich tycoon, than he is surely guilty and must be punished in the harshest manner, but if the rapist murderer belongs to middle class, than the punishment should not be that harsh, furthermore, if the rapist belongs to lower-middle class, than the punishment must be further “mitigated” and if the rapist is a poor (there is no definite definition of poor), than the punishment can only be for the name-sake. After all, he is poor, he should have reservation to be morally depraved, and he should be having freedom to rape or murder, steal, or rob.
The idea behind this is a morally strong, talented, intelligent person is obviously a criminal to some degrees, on the other hand, a lazy, stupid person, who obviously is poor, is certainly innocent to some degrees. Alternatively, the idea can be, to be rich, hardworking and intelligent is a crime in itself.
Obviously, it is akin to show a green flag for all who consider them poor, to be casual about the moral standards and feel free to commit crimes. It is just like showing the shortcut for the poor to be criminals and make money through mean ways.
Apparently, this trend will increase further crime in cities as now; the poor will get a certain “mitigating” security while committing a crime. The police and law bodies are supposed to deal with “poor criminals” with ease.

Consequences of Such Ridiculous Ruling

As now poor have reservation in committing the crime, they can easily innovate and employ themselves in various crimes. Not only they will feel free to commit robbery, theft, rapes or murders for their benefits, they may be employed by the other “richer” criminals to pursue their benefits. Furthermore, any criminal, if he is rich, can easily deal with some poor and pay him a chunk of money to take the responsibility of the crime. The poor will also feel no harm in taking the responsibility of the crime as that will provide him high money and the Supreme Court has already provided him an assurance that his punishment will be much “mitigated”.
Results will be an obvious increase in crimes, further increase in jail maintenance and police expenses, terrorizing environment for middle class individuals and exploitative situations for the poor individuals. The mafia of government, police, politicians and oligarchic corporatists will enjoy the foolery of Indian public that will appreciate the socialistic thought of Supreme Court and Indian government to give priorities for the poor in committing crime, Nonetheless, the Apex Court ruling have provided an easy money making job for the poor. The poor now doesn’t need to be hardworking, morally strong, intelligent and talented for making his life better, he just need to be morally depraved and ready to commit a crime, or to take the responsibility of any already committed crime.

Trailing the Law further

Indian politicians always remain hungry for any such populism so that they may divide the society in various fragments; cause them to struggle within and than rule over them. Yet this time, the Apex Court of India has taken the route of populism. No politician could have thought such a new sector to be divided in various sects of society. SC has already announced the reservation for the poor eventually the High Court of various states may announce a similar quota for Muslims in crime too and then being a Muslim will also be a mitigating factor for punishment for a crime. Well, terrorism is also a crime, so if a terrorist is poor, SC suggests that he should not be punished severely, if High Court of West Bengal announces similar mitigating quota for Muslims, then if a terrorist is a Muslim, he will also not be punished severely.
Quota for crime based on economical state has been announced, sooner or later politicians will again install some committee’s recommendation, suggesting that Muslims should also get reservation in crime, after all Muslims are predominantly minority, no less than poor. After that, politicians may further divide the criminals among their various castes as SC criminals, ST criminals or OBC criminals, with various “mitigating” degrees that would certainly be prescribed by the Supreme Court bench of judges. Ultimately, government and law authority have started encouraging the crime and producing the criminals.
Conclusion:: Socialism, or the idea altruism, that is, the obligatory immorality of having “pity” on the poor ultimately leads to the destruction of not only the poor but also of the whole social set-up. Whenever the government or central collective law authority takes such altruistic step, irrespective of their good intentions, the results come out to be devastatingly opposite. The recent statement of Supreme Court to discriminate the criminals based on economical class will certainly increase the crime in society and will further cause deterioration. The best way a society can assert uniform justice is by providing free or privatized legal services.³

1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
2. Poverty could mitigate crime, even murder: SC, Times of India
3. Prospects of Private Judicial System in India, RFL

The Ministry of Home affairs, Government of India, is on the way to amend the Arms and ammunitions policy. The document issued by MHA says “Proliferation of arms and ammunition in the country disrupt the social order and development.” How true is it? As in many other issues, the conventional wisdom could be wrong. India has very strict gun control laws. In India, people were prevented from bearing arms by the British under Lord Lytton as Viceroy through the Arms act of 1878 after the mutiny of 1857. Though the Arms act, 1858 was repealed in 1959, Arms Act, 1959 was put in place, supplemented by the Arms Rules, 1962. As a result, there was improvement in several development indicators, after Independence, but crime rates in India have gone up several times, mostly in urban areas.

With all these gun control laws, we were not able to prevent the terrorist attacks in 2008, Mumbai. A reporter in the location was caught saying he wished he had a gun instead of a camera. Only people loyal to the British were allowed to possess arms. Many freedom fighters were opposed to this rule. Even Mahatma Gandhi opined in his Autobiography:”Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of its arms as the blackest. “I do believe that when there is only a choice between cowardice and violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless victim to her own dishonor.”

Proponents of gun control usually argue that gun rights will lead to high crime rates. Firstly, a criminal is a person who violates the law. Is it logical to assume that such a violator will obey gun control laws? A criminal planning to attempt a murder won’t think “Oh, I am sorry. I don’t have a gun. So, I am not going to do this!” In one way or the other, he will get hold of a gun or some other powerful weapon. Vikram Kona writes: “There are around 40 million illegal small arms in circulation in India. Most of them are either illegally smuggled in or manufactured in the illegal cottage industries. Criminals never apply for licenses, nor do they spend a fortune to buy illegal guns. They get them cheaply and easily on the black market, and use them against law abiding citizens with impunity.” Gun control would only disarm innocent, law abiding citizens. Secondly, there is no empirical evidence to prove that gun rights lead to severe crimes. Quite the contrary, in fact! Nations with the highest crime rates are the ones with the strictest gun control laws. The low crime rate of Switzerland is illuminating. Violent crime skyrocketed after gun measures were prohibited in Australia in the last 90’s. When Washington D.C. enacted a ban on handguns, homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%. Often, it is argued that Gun controls are the reason for the low crime rate in UK. There are two points to be noted here. Crime rates were extremely low in UK, even before the hand gun ban. Crime rate rocketed after the ban. As it is said, “Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York.” A study by the US Department of Justice found that there were 40 percent more muggings in England, and burglary rates were almost 100 percent higher than in the United States.

It follows from the philosophy of self-ownership and the right to own property that people have the right to defend their lives and property- If necessary, by force. If so, people should have the right to bear arms. It goes without saying that people should be held accountable for their actions too. But, it makes no sense to punish a person before the criminal act is performed. It is absurd to prevent some people from being armed simply because there are people who use guns for wrong purposes. Why should ones rights be determined by the actions of others? Should a person be prevented from driving an automobile as others drive recklessly? (People killed by their own guns are an extremely rare minority) Charles Reese perceptively noted: “To believe that guns cause crime is as stupid as believing that hammers and saws cause houses. Cars and doctors kill a lot more people than firearms, but nobody wants to ban them.” There is even an NRA slogan: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

Not for a single moment am I saying that gun rights will prevent crimes. But, people will have a more chance of protecting themselves if they are free to defend themselves. Murderers, thieves and terrorists would think twice before attacking their victims if there is a chance that they are armed. Women and physically weak people could be made strong only through gun rights. It’s ridiculous to expect policemen to be omnipresent. Defending oneself is a skill which anyone can acquire.

It should also be said that a ban of guns won’t eliminate guns from the society. There will always be people who get hold of guns, just like people have access to drugs despite of strict penalty. Such laws can only be enforced selectively. Almost always, people who are not in good terms with the authorities will be punished. The real intention of the people in power is to increase their power through disarming people. Gun control is the greatest threat to individual liberty.

What is a Right!

The term “Rights” is a moral political term, Right is defined as a definite course of behavior of Individuals in a society that is sanctioned, proper, allowed, a privilege to be respected by all others and if anybody violates any individual “Right”, he is wrong, immoral, unsanctioned, evil, a criminal.
Now, if education is a right, then anybody arguing that Education cannot be free, education cannot be a privilege, education cannot be a right is obviously a criminal, an evil-doer, and that creates a certain anomaly, a serious contradiction with the term Right. As per the viewpoint of Individual sovereignty and free citizenship in a society, our only rights are the rights to life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. That is, we are not born with a right to a trip to visit Taj Mahal, or a dinner at Hotel Taj or a cosmetic surgery or a degree in aeronautical engineering. Why cannot we have such rights? We cannot have such rights because the Individual Rights in a free society does not impose any obligation on other people except that of a negative obligation to leave the individual alone, to not to interfere with his life, to not to exploit his Rights. The Individual Rights guarantees you the freedom and chance to work and put efforts for what you want, rights are not to be given to you without any effort by somebody else. That is, you do not have a right to be fed, to be clothed, or to have a house, a car, an AC etc. Although, you have proper right to work and earn your living but you also have complete freedom to use your earning according to your wishes, you have a right to pursue your happiness. More clearly saying, one has the right to act and to keep the fruits of his actions, to produce and to keep his products or to trade them to others if he prefers. However, he has no right over the actions and products of others, except on the terms of which they voluntarily agree. That is, we all have a right to have a mutually beneficial deal voluntarily. Similarly, the right to the pursuit of happiness guarantees you the freedom and right to act to pursue your happiness and to be happy, to keep the results of your actions. It does not guarantee that other people will make you happy or will try to make you happy. If one’s desire for something imposes a duty on others to satisfy his desire, then the others have no choice in their life. They are merely slaves. One’s right to happiness at the expense of others means that the others become rightless slaves. Your right for anything at other’s expense means that the others become your rightless slaves.

The Immorality of Current Politicians

Just in order to gain a vote bank, politicians distorts the meaning of right. They say that you are entitled for something because it exists and you want it. You do not need to work for it or earn it; government should provide it to you. The question arises, from where will the government get it? What will the government do to the free individuals and their individual rights to make it possible to shower free gifts, free lunch, free education, free health-care etc on you?
Let us assume that tomorrow, government and politicians assert that you are born with a moral right to hair-care and that government will benevolently provide free hair-care services for all those who want it. Haircuts and shaving would be free. Some people will show up everyday for a new hair-style, eye-brow setting, beard and mustache setting, government will keep showering the governmental hair-saloons with more and more governmental funds collected by taxing middle class citizens. Every bald man would love to come to the governmental hair-saloon to have a hair seeding and implantation. Nobody would be bald and there will be as many hair styles as there are citizens in India. Government will govern the profession of barbers and they will make huge incomes, every second person would like to be a barber, there would be competitive examinations for Indian Barbers Services (IBS). The government will pay for all expenses. Obviously, there will be government schools and colleges providing specific training, certificates and degrees for professional barbers. Government will install a huge administration for the maintenance of the hair-cut sector. The dishonest barbers will make huge profits and so, will the honest one. They will work and spend like mad, trying to satisfy every second person’s desire regarding his hairs, which certainly can be a millions worth specific hair care and services. The budget will start going out of control, government will suffer the pressure to provide enough budgets to maintain the proper services for hair-care. Corruption will rise , soon government will start providing directives regarding hair cuts to control the budget, government will limit the number of barbers, the time spent for one hair-cut, government will start licensing an permitting only certain type of hair cuts, taking away the individual’s liberty regarding his own hairs. Government will start limiting the number of hairs a barber can split, the number of razors a barber can buy. There will be inspectors to check the corruption in governmental barber shops, there will be a new department just to keep records of barbers in a definite constituency and the profession of barbers will be thoroughly red-taped.
It is the case of education. Government controls the education sector and tries to establish education as a right. Obviously, government fails to provide any sort of education to the masses and whatever education it provides always remains way below the required standards. Also, government doesn’t produce the required resources for the provision of free lunch and free education, so who will pay for all that?
The rich people are very few in India and even if government snatches away all the property of the top 100 richest families of India, it cannot sustain the expenditures required for free education. So, who will pay for that? It is us, we poor and middle class people who pay as slave for the government’s immoral desire to provide free education through the taxation system. By stressing free education as a right, government makes all Indians as the slaves who are obligated to pay for the governmental education program without questioning anything about it. By befooling us by the term free education as an individual’s right, government robs us of our very basic right to earn and to hold the fruits and results of our work and efforts. Government taxes us and takes away our hard earned money an in return; we get nothing but a highly imperfect education system. There are no free lunches, but there are lunches being paid for by somebody else.
Conclusion: Rights does not confirm anything freely available for anybody at the expense of others. By terming education, or health-care, or free lunch as individual’s right, politicians try to enslave the public and rob them of their very basic individual right of life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness. In a free society there can be only the right to live freely, to work and earn freely, to enjoy the produced an earned property freely and to pursue one’s happiness by furthering his efforts and results of his efforts freely. Other than the man’s free will, he has to earn everything honestly in a free society, no other one, not even government is obligated to feed, or cloth or educate him freely.

Inflation

In order to hide the evil result of government interventions, it becomes necessary for the government to play with its own issued “Fiat Currency” to manipulate the illusionary GDP figures. As a result, poor people become further poor while government keep emphasizing on the increased GDP rates. When a common man asks, how is that possible that with increase in GDP, poverty is also increasing? He gets the answer that although GDP is increasing at a fixed positive rate (Indian GDP is supposed to be 7%); the prices are increasing at much higher rate. Government than stress that although Gross Domestic Product is appreciable, but inflation is the cause of concern. When government decides the prices and inflationary rate, why is it increasing? Terms like Gross Domestic Product or National Domestic Product has no meaningful relation with productivity of market. When government introduces new currency either by printing currency, purchasing bonds, manipulating interest rates, or by announcing bailouts and help packages, those who use the money at first (obviously, the rich), may get benefits, but the same money becomes the reason of Inflation (Price Rise) and Poverty. No government takes responsibility of Poverty though.

Minimum Wages¹

Minimum wage law is commonly known as the saviour of poor and unskilled minority workers. What are its real effects? Minimum wage law forces employer to pay workers no less than Rs80/- per day. At a higher wage, more workers seek employment, but the employer suffers loss of income and hence desires fewer workers to employ. It is simple, if price of sugar will increase, one will use lesser sugar, if price of labour will increase, one will wish to employ lesser workers. In addition, when one can employ a better and skilled worker at say Rs100, why will he employ an unskilled workers at Rs 80/-? That is, the chances of employment for the poor become further less and he is forced to absurd poverty. On the other hand, because of general decrease in will to employ people, even the skilled labour suffers unemployment. Without employment, unskilled worker never gets a chance to work and improve his skills. Thus, he remains without work with any chance to gain any skills. He may choose to beg or be a robber. Obviously, unemployment increases crime rate too, further causing problems to poor.
Thusly, Minimum wage law is compulsory unemployment, reduction in production and it is an incentive to crimes in society.
Furthermore, employers, knowing demand for employment is more, can afford to discriminate between workers. They may employ only the workers of their own caste or religion, as they will have to give Rs80/- to whosoever they employ. Thus, minimum wage law creates caste and religious tensions, hence further crime in society.

Government Health Care²

Government health care system is another such propaganda that is meant to help the poor. First of all, government controls the medical fraternity and education board of India and does not allow free market to produce medical practitioners in enough quantity to serve the ever increasing number of patients. Than, government makes the medical education so clumsy, time consuming, tough and costly that seldom youth want to be a medical practitioner. Again, government forces those “so less in number” produced medical practitioners (doctors, nurses, medical assistants) to work “involuntarily” in villages at least salaries for first few years, and hence makes the medical sector unattractive. With so less number of medical practitioners, the cost of health care reaches enormous heights. In addition, doctors employed at government hospitals suffer the pressure of extreme work-load and to reduce that, they start discriminating and ignoring the patients. Obviously, the poor suffers. Government try to help poor by subsidizing some common medicines. Thus, the profit of medicine production reduces and hence investment also reduces resulting in scarcity of not only doctors and equipments, but scarcity of most common drugs and medicines too.
Government hospitals cannot be maintained properly because of lack of incentive of profits and the natural competition to provide cheapest, best and trustworthy services to the patients. Hence, although poor may go to government hospitals, they seldom get any proper services and treatment. On the other hand, the richer government officials often enjoys the benefits of government hospitals while the common middle class men prefers to go to private clinics.
Overall, only the people of the poorest section that suffers lack of medical services because of Government intervention.

Higher Education

As explained above, Government has a unique fetish to control the Higher education sector. Universities and higher colleges get massive government funding via tax-payers. Seldom has a poor kid gone to higher education. On the other hand, among the rich, it is customary to graduate, no matter they many of them never learns anything and even if they learn, they never uses it ever. While the poor, because of government intervention in education sector, suffers even a scarcity of good and cheap primary education.

Denial to earn an honest living

Government surely causes poverty through its interventions in market, yet government let the poor to earn a proper living, Government is not stopping any poor person to work hard and make fortunes, is it? Yes, government strictly denies the poor to earn honest living by enforcing various barring laws like permits, licenses, regulations, bureaucratic hurdles, zoning laws etc. A rich person can simply bribe the government official and start making money through his business, a poor man even cannot get enough land to open his tea stall nearby a main road. He will have to bribe the police constable, the municipality officials and many more. Thus, by stamping out potential competition from small business, government serves the big business of rich people. On the other hand, the poor again suffers unemployment, as they can not pertain to self-employment. Thus, they find only two possible ways for them, either to be a beggar, or to be some sort of criminal.

Way to Oligarchy

Government control over market is the reason of all types of corruption. In a free market, if a person want to accomplish a project, he need to pay the exact price that the project will cost, not more, nor less. Under government, the person can simply bribe the politicians and bureaucrats to favour him by employing certain policies to reduce the cost of his project. Thus, government control over market always turns out to be oligarchic in nature where some politicians and rich businessmen makes a cartel to maintain the monopoly and control the poor public.

Conclusion:

As one can see, not only the aforementioned government interventions but any form of government intervention in market destroys the natural order and ability of the free market to reduce poverty and create peace and prosperity. By means of cost control³ , government actually increases the prices of necessary commodities while production and supply reduces vastly, hence further causing poverty.
Whenever in whatever way government intervenes with market, it creates chaos resulting in wastage of scarce resources, unemployment, and reduced productivity. As a matter of fact, although politicians propagandize their political motives as to help and serve the public and poor society, the government actually is the worst enemy of poor and whatever way it intervenes with Market, it does so just to hurt and inflict poor further.
Hence, in order to really help the poor and let India progress, government needs to leave the Market Free. As free market will reduce the employment rate to zero, (human labour is scarce resource) productivity will increase and poverty will reduce.
No person able to produce and earn a good honest living will choose to be a criminal or beggar.
That will surely reduce the extremes of poverty and hence will reduce the crime rate too.

1. Inhumanity of Minimum Wage law, ReasonforLiberty
2. Abolition of Cost is Cause of Corruption, A discussion about socialized medicines, Reason for Liberty
3. Reason of price Rise and effects of Cost Control, Reason for Liberty

Law: The rule of conduct and the mechanism for applying those rules

The topic of private arbitration has been covered on Reason For Liberty before¹², but the question is what sort of incentives does socialization of justice and security provide to a peoples? How is this different from those of custom law and privatized defense?

Private Law

There is much historical precedence for law without the state. Anglo-Saxon customs law was used up until the invasions of the Normans and other Germanic people. The laws being based on customs and individual consent, first off, they were not violated very often to begin with. If they were, why was it that if the defendant were convicted, he would submit to the judgment? Social ostracism, yes. But more importantly, the law was based on reciprocity of defense and individual and property rights. Crimes were considered not “crimes again humanity”,  “the nation,” “the king,” or “the People” but only as one individual committing a crime against another. Generally, there was some sort of economic restitution paid as opposed to capital punishment and the like. William C Wooldridge mentions one medieval example in Uncle Sam the Monopoly Man³:

Merchants made their courts work simply by agreeing to abide by the results. The merchant who broke the understanding would not be sent to jail, to be sure, but neither would he long continue to be a merchant, for the compliance exacted by his fellows, and their power over his goods, proved if anything more effective than physical coercion. Take John of Homing, who made his living marketing wholesale quantities of fish. When John sold a lot of herring on the representation that it conformed to a three-barrel sample, but which, his fellow merchants found, was actually mixed with “sticklebacks and putrid herring,” he made good the deficiency on pain of economic ostracism.

If you are interested in Bollywood movies then I suggest Bulandi starring Rajanikant, where he plays the role of the village judge, and he punishes a rapist to be out of the village for 18 years and marry the girl he raped(which is a horrible Indian mentality that the solution of a rape is marrying the victim to her rapist), and that osctracization was a worthy punishment.⁴

Why did these “barbarians” not resort to killing often? Because they had more to gain from the mutual defense that person would provide after they had suffered their punishment then from any imagined idea of something being brought to “Justice” by taking a criminals life. If the defendant did not meet his obligation, the plaintiff had the right to kill him. So, each person submitted to the law not only because they were generally accepted social mores, but because if you did not submit, you were kept outside of the protection of the fellows in your group. Should someone harm you in any way, you alone will have to defend yourself(and your opinion alone, as a criminal, has no credence).

The Law Merchant, established in the 11th century, was also a stateless judicial system. They were extremely speedy because as most people were traveling merchants, they needed the courts to decide immediately so as not to incur extra economic hardships. This was based on economic transfers, all parties had entered into direct and voluntary contracts which established a moral and legal duty, and both parties roles were reversible: buyers become sellers and vice-versa. If the accused party does not heed the rulings and compensate the aggrieved, they would no longer be traded with, which also meant, if he was traded with, there would be nothing stopping any one from harming them in a transaction.

Again, we see a mutual benefit. People responded to the economic and security incentives by not committing the crime, and if they did, obeying the judgments because it would harm them economically; leave them defenseless against attacks both by people inside a certain legal system and outside; and general social ostracism since it was all based customs and commerce. From the actual judicial perspective, you would

1. lose your position as an arbiter if you were not just and
2. then be brought to trial for your tort against whomever you were unjust.

Another interesting fact is, in the administration of justice in historically private law, there is either the absence of a fee or a nominal one. Other examples of private law societies include the Kapaku of Papau New Guinea, many Native American tribes, Medieval Iceland and Ireland.

Public Law

From Common Law in England, we eventually got to what we have today–the civil and criminal law system. Each step that was taken in our travel from common law to authoritarian law was taken to consolidate power and money to the king and politically strong interest groups. Eventually, as now happens, criminal law became a matter of the “King’s Peace”. When once, if a crime was committed, the defendant paid the plaintiff and the settled the disputes locally, eventually the king started sending out representatives to make sure every group administered justice properly, and collected a fee when disputes were settled and a fee if the courts allowed a dispute to be settled outside of the court; if the defendant one, he paid a fee and if the accuser won, he paid a fee for wasting the king’s time. Being in the justice system is now a for-profit system based on politics.

As opposed to customs law where everybody agrees on the rules because they are customs, the State legal system is a law that comes from the top and works it way down. That means that there is less and less consensus among the people, more things become crimes due to special interest lobbying, and the cost of enforcement is higher because it is not agreed upon by the majority of people that it should be a crime.

Lets look at what sort of incentives this system has given us.

For all of the victimless crimes out there, we have a massive amount of lawyers prosecuting people for harming their own bodies–through drug and prostitution laws. Lawyers and defense attorneys have an incentive to prosecute as much as possible because it will further their career. Johnny gets a hooker. Who is hurt? Nobody. If the state finds out about it, we have to pay minimally for the

1. The district attorney
2. A grand jury of 23 people to indict and
3. A defense lawyer for the defendant and
4. A trial jury to find them guilty or innocent.

Should the trial jury find them guilty we pay for housing, food, rehabilitation programs, a GED program, and maybe job training through the correctional system.
This gives a huge incentive for those in the state system, defense attorneys, police, correctional officers, as well as those with special interests who want their morality impressed upon people a huge incentive to lobby for these victimless crime laws. After pressuring congress to pass them, they no longer have to deal with the burden of the costs incurred by enforcing such laws. As usual, the third-party paying system gives us an over-abundance of laws and criminals. Lawyers, since they get paid by the hour, have a very good reason to drag cases out as long as possible.

What about the courts themselves? They are free to everybody. We have back logs of cases that go for miles because people bring things to court more than they otherwise would because, again, people do not incur the costs. How do we divide the time? First come, first serve–so, I get caught smoking pot and a week later, your daughter is killed. If this were a private system, you would probably have the ability to get your case brought to the forefront through monetary compensation. But not in the public system.

Your daughter is killed and it takes months to present the case because we have a backlog of petty and/or victimless crimes. What happens? The criminal gets a plea-bargain, also stated as, you get less than you otherwise would have because all of our tax money goes into prosecuting pot-smokers. How about immunity? If a criminal agrees to give testimony against another criminal, they cannot have charges pressed against them about anything that they talk about. This says, it is okay to be a criminal if you also are not loyal.

The overuse of police is the most obvious. Again, because it is done on a first come, first serve basis, and the people using the police do not incur the costs of their call, it is totally abused. First off, people will call the police because of “noise pollution”. You have a party at your house and the cop comes, but really you weren’t that loud and anyhow, whose business is that? While the cop is on this call, there are real crimes happening that they now cannot attend to because your neighbor likes to eat his meal quietly. The police also work for the same people that the courts do. What happens when a police officer commits a crime? If he even gets brought to trial, and he probably won’t, he more than likely will not be convicted and if he is, it will be a much less harsh sentence than it otherwise would be. This creates a group of people who do not have to abide by the law.

And for the plaintiff? Well, whatever crime has been done to you, first you have to hire a lawyer, then you have to wait months and months for it to go to trial. Let’s say the criminal doesn’t have much money, so then your taxes are going to provide defense for him. They try to get a plea bargain to keep it out of court. You don’t want to accept that so you bring him to court. The process goes on for months and months and keep in mind, on top of your own legal fees and through taxes part of the criminals, your taxes are also going to running the entire court system. Then, he goes to jail and you have to help pay for the rest of his life but that is all. You get nothing in return for your effort, no justice is served unless paying for his room and board is the prize that you should be considered awarded.

Why capital punishment?

Rarely, because the State took over the legal system, were people killed because of crimes. Why was this? Criminals had to pay restitution with their own money or their own work if they didn’t have it, meaning the injustice was rectified. When it got to the point where that did not happen in criminal cases as now happens—when the court system gets paid, the lawyers gets paid, the police get paid–but the person who the crime was committed against gets nothing in the way of compensation, they want something to happen. Although we do it less and less often, the system that arose was taking the criminals life.

Conclusion

Instead of creating a system where law and justice prevail and the needs of people are met to their highest possible consensus, the State becoming the legal system has de-harmonized the organization of society, created perverse incentives for criminals and those that are part of the system, and created disincentives for those harmed to actually pursue justice because of the negative cost-benefit.

1. The Prospects of Private Judicial System, Reason For Liberty, Author: Unpretentious Diva
2. Third Party Arbitration in India, Reason For Liberty, Author: Renegade Division
3. See William C Wooldridge, Uncle Sam the Monopoly Man (New Rochelle, N Y Arlington House, 1970), pp 111ff.
4. Third Party Arbitration in India, Reason For Liberty, Author: Renegade Division

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” -Milton Friedman

One may wonder what the great economist Milton Friedman was thinking while he uttered those words. May be he was thinking of the ill-effects of price controls and how does price control¹ causes shortage and hence excruciating conditions for the most poor men of society. He might be thinking of the ill-effects of socialized medicines², or may be he was thinking about the irrationality of minimum wage law and the manner that the very intention of improving the living conditions of poor workers actually condemns many to acute poverty and unemployment.
Minimum Wage Law in India
In 1920, Mr. K.G.R Chaudhary took the initiative by setting up boards in different industries to determine the minimum wages³ . It must be recognized that in those days, the British government held total control over all of the Indian industries and law bodies and Mr. Chaudhary was an agent of British Government. The idea clearly was not at all to improve the living conditions of Indian workers whom the British government considered as slave; rather it was to pacify any possible insurgencies. It was a British government’s vicious trap to divide and rule the Indian youth and workers for their own profits. At one hand, they were luring the industrial workers by the assumingly better living conditions they were promising to provide; on the other hand, they were simply crushing out any chance by native businessmen and entrepreneurs of British India to be a successful. That initiative also created a rift between those Indians who were engaged in the British government controlled industries as they were being lured for a better life and the other portion of youth that was not working for the benefits of British government. This political step obviously divided the Indian youth and workers and hence decreased strength for struggle of freedom.
After Independence, the new democratic government of India set-up a “Committee for Fair Wage” in 1948 to provide guidelines for wage structure through out the country, it was the beginning of Minimum wage law in India. Were Indian leaders, who are assumed to be the fathers of Independent India such fools that they failed to realize the vicious trap of British Government and hence established the poisonous minimum wage law, or were they simply following the steps of British government (being the new rulers of India) to keep the policy of Divide and Rule?
Consequences of Minimum Wage Law
The rate of unemployment is directly proportional to the overload of labour cost over productivity. Minimum wage law that forcefully raises the costs of unskilled and inexperienced labour and thereby increases the labour cost, while decreasing the productivity, certainly raises unemployment, also as no one can employ a worker at a wage below the minimum wage forced by the law, the unemployed youth fails to get any chance for employment (as it would be illegal) and hence suffers extreme poverty. Often economists ignore the fact that minimum wage law actually causes unemployment and poverty because of the shear fear of politicians and rulers, who just for making their vote bank keep exploiting the poor lot.
Consider a case of a private primary school engaged in providing elementary education to the poor kids of a society. The owner of the school is obviously not a rich person, he is managing the school to earn a living and in return, he is providing job for teachers he employs and a well-managed system of education to the kids of the society at affordable student’s fees. He cannot increase the student fees to that level at which parents would find it difficult to send their children to his school. Initially, he engages 10 teachers, 2 clerks and 4 menial workers at an average salary of Rs 1000-Rs 1500 per month. In September 2007, the national minimum floor wage was increased to Rs 80 per day (that is Rs 2400 per month) for all scheduled employments from Rs66 in 2004, to Rs 45 in 1999, Rs40 in 1998 and Rs 35 in 1996⁴ .
That is, the school owner is actually doing an illegal act by giving lesser salary to the ten teachers he has employed than the salary, which government has admonished to be given to the teachers (workers). Obviously, the teachers would be happy if their salary were increased from Rs1000-Rs1500 to Rs2400 per month, it would almost be double. If government forces the school owner to give the dictated salary to all his employees, he will certainly find himself unable to give that amount to his employees and hence he will be forced to trim the number of teachers, clerks and helpers to half. That is, if government forces the minimal wage law on the school owner, he will simply remove 5 of his teachers, 1 of the clerk and 2 of the menial workers.
That would increase the salary of remaining 8 employees but will certainly throw the unfortunate other 8 people in poverty and unemployment. They will hardly find any other job because all other employers will also suffer the similar inhuman conditions of lack of money to employ the job-seekers.
In case of teachers, the school manager has option to choose the best of the teachers and remove the average or below average teachers. In case of the clerk and the menial workers, he simply does not have such a choice because almost each of his employees is similarly skilled and efficient in those works. So how would he decide whom to remove and whom to keep as his employee? He may choose to employ those, who agrees to sign at the pay slim as admonished by the government, while taking lesser salary in turn of his favour to keep them at job, that is, he would be tempted to promote corruption. Otherwise, he may keep the workers of his caste or religion while removing the workers of other caste or religion. That is, the minimal wage law will force the employer to cause hatred based on religion or caste.
On the other hand, because of lesser teachers, the burden on each to teach the students appropriately will be increased, their working hours may increase. Government can certainly admonish another law to restrict the maximum working hours for employees. In that case, either the teachers will start ignoring the students, or the school owner will have to remove some of the students to balance the workload of teachers. The owner of the school will also suffer losses because he simply cannot increase student’s fees (government can admonish against that) because if he does so, the parents by themselves will feel to remove their children from school and hence stopping their education. At any further increase of minimum wage of the workers, the poor section will suffer further. Thus, the final sufferers of the inhumanity of minimum wage law are always the poor, the workers, the consumers and the producer.
Conclusion
Minimum wage law not only increases unemployment and extreme poverty but also, it increases tensions anger in between the various sects of the society based on religion and castes or race. It promotes racism, poverty and shortage.
It would be wrong even to think that the founders of India were fool enough to miss the true nature of minimum wage law, yet they kept following the British policy of divide and rule just to keep their political vote bank strong enough while the poor public is bound to suffer. Such inhuman policies are necessities of government to exist, hence government and politicians often lure the poor public by misguiding them and pretending that the politicians are with good intentions and want to help the poor, the reality is, government exists on the principle of violence, exploitation and robbery and enslavement of poor citizens.

1. Consequences of Price Control, Reason for Liberty
2. Abolition of Cost is cause of Corruption, Reason for Liberty
3. Minimum Wages Act India, Government of India
4. Minimum Wages Act India, Government of India

1. Education For All, Reason For Liberty
2. Reason of Price Rise and Consequences of Price Control, Reason For Liberty

The Socialized Medicines

The idea behind socialized medicines is the forced economic equality³ of citizens, i.e. no matter you have earned money, you cannot have any better medical treatment than the lazy person who never thought of earning and saving for his medical security. Thus, the socialization of medicines is not only the abolition of causality of individual efforts and his earnings; it is abolition of the cost in spending of income.
As visits to doctor are free to individuals while the taxpayers collectively pays for them in socialized system, each individual realizes the benefit of his visit to the doctor, while millions of taxpayers pays for the visit. Obviously it is an insignificant amount, thus every individual is encouraged to take advantage of the system without considering the wastage. As a result, the number of visits to doctor increases abruptly. The absence of cost to the individual patient results in an enormous increase in the medical tests, hospitalization and surgeries performed, most of which remains unnecessary and that adds to the cost of system furthermore, also the system requires a huge bureaucracy to administer it and that further increases corruption and the cost to the collective. The result of the system is simply to raise the fees of doctors and medical facilities and to create scarcity of hospital beds and doctor’s time. The redundant medical tests and surgeries performed often delays the meeting of genuine needs of the patients and many a times, it becomes impossible for the patient to actually get the required treatment.
To solve out these problems, government thoroughly bureaucratize the medical field by controlling the doctors’ wages and price control of medicines, government also restricts doctors from practicing freely. Ultimately, the profession of doctor and medicines becomes unattractive and unprofitable and the talented individuals prefer not to opt for it. That further creates scarcity of efficient doctors. As government has no rational way to determine the necessary treatment in any individual case, the doctors starts denying the necessary treatment for the people, thus increases corruption.

Socialized System against Advancement of Technology

As the total cost of the medical care for the collective populace becomes unbearable and beyond the budget of government and scarcity of doctors, researchers and practitioners also increases the problems, government eventually starts opposing the advancement in medical technology. Any new technology, such as implantation of artificial heart proves to be major threat to the government’s budget. The free market incentives that work to reduce the cost of such new technologies before it may become available to the common mass are absent under socialized system. As government in no way can afford providing such technology to the masses freely, it actually starts opposing and restricting in advancement of new medical technology.
Furthermore, government deliberately excludes many categories of medical procedures ranging from cosmetic surgeries to bypass surgeries in order to contain the collective price of the Universal Medical Care System. Thus, people who could have afforded such medical procedures for their own help by their own money in free market are denied to have such facilities in socialized system.

Increase in Bureaucratic Corruption

As the Free Health Care System results in enormously increased demand of services and scarcity of doctors, medical facilities, hospital beds and resources, the medical sector becomes the free zone for political and bureaucratic corruption. As politicians and government official realizes that government cannot satisfy the demand of citizens, they start taking advantages of the situation through bribery, frauds and corruption. In order to contain the spending on collective medical care of whole populace and to increase the profits of the corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and government officials’ including doctors, government begins denying and prohibiting necessary medical procedures too to the common person. Not only the medical advancement is reduced and opposed by government, it also starts denying medical services to those citizens whom the government considers as only marginally valuable to the nation, such as infants or aged. As aged and infants does not pay any additional tax to the government budget, while their necessary demands of medical are high, they suffer neglect. On the other hand, government keep increasing taxes on the taxpayer citizens on the name of trying to provide necessary treatments for the poor, old and infants. Thus, the same socialized medical system that begins with an aim to provide funds for medical care of poor, infants and aged, turns out to be a sacrificial citadel for them.⁴
To believe that there can be something like “free lunch” is a great mistake. If government promises for free lunch, no one should be surprised to find out that it increases malnutrition and starvation. He may find himself on short rations of government in order to have fund for those whom the government considers more valuable than him on social and political priority. Thus, such socialized free-health care, or free-education for all, or free-lunch, food, water for the poor and underprivileged often proves to be phoney, corrupt and inefficient. Yet, government keep propagandizing such issues and programs just in order to keep its hold on political power and vote bank of the masses. Ultimately, all this increases extreme corruption in the system, and poverty and scarcity of resources and services for the masses. In order to reduce and ultimately remove the problem of corruption in India, Indians need to realize the irrationality of collectivism and to abolish it instead of abolishing the causation and cost of individual earning and living.
Huge number of such socialized programs including Universal Medical Care, Education for All, food for all, minimum wage rates and employment for all run by government in India are the actual cause of extreme corruption that we Indian suffers.
The POTUS Barack Obama and his Democrat comrades are also trying to push such forced economic equality on US citizens by means of luring the citizens and propagandizing such socialized programmes of Universal Health Care, Public education for all and many other such programmes. Obviously, their motive is to gain political mileage and promising vote bank to maintain their ruling power. Yet, the American citizens should realize the irrationality of such collective systems and prefer not to be the victim.

1. A discussion on Indian Health Care Problems, Indian Health Care–an Overview
2. The Myth of Complete Education, Education for All
3. Egalitarianism creates Forced Economic Inequality amongst the citizens that proves to be more drastic than the natural inequality of free system, Freedom Versus Egalitarianism
4. Socialized system turns to Common Minimum Program, The story of Socialism, Public Welfare and Brain Drain

Uniformity of Profit

Naturally, every body works to gain profits, everybody lives to sustain and comfort his life, profit is the only motive for a free individual to put up his endeavours in production and prosperity. Yet, the laws of natural anarchy also ride profits and that is the Uniformity of Profit principle. The principle suggests the natural tendency of a free-society towards establishing a uniform rate of profit on capital invested in all the different branches of production, be it steel production, grains production, oil industry, the shoe business or whatever. Profit, obviously is the difference between the sales revenues and cost of production.

The reason for such tendency of natural uniformity is the profit seeking nature of the free-individual. Investors prefer to earn higher rates of profits on their investment rather than the lower rates. That is natural, rational behaviour of man to seek maximum possible profits. Thus, other things being equal, wherever the rates of profits are higher, investors tends to invest their additional wealth, and wherever the profits are lower, they tend to withdraw their previously invested capital from those production sectors. The additional investment that thus reaches to any high profits providing production sector tends to reduce the rate of profits in that sector.
This happens because the additional investment increases the production and hence supply and availability of the products and that brings down the selling prices of the product. As selling prices reaches closer to cost of production, profit rates comes down. On the other hand, the production sector that initially was providing lower profit rates suffers lack of investment and hence lack of production and supply, which throws the prices of the products of that sector higher. As the selling prices increases, the profit rates of that sector also increases and hence, that production sector again becomes the higher profit providing sector. This rolling up and down of investments in various production sectors tends to bring equilibrium where the rates of profit in various production sectors tends to be uniform.

Benefits of Natural Anarchy

In a free-society, as the profit rates tend to be uniform, every sector gains enough investors. As every investor is driven by his profit seeking nature, he remains alert about consumers demand and that reduces the chances of malinvestment and hence over-production or under-production. The natural anarchy thus provides a balance between the production of all the essential products for our life and progress. Anarchy not only prevents but also remedies the mistakes of over-production or under-production if committed. If at the threshold of a high profit-rates providing sector, investors commits mistake of over-investment, it tends to over-production that decreases the rates of profit and hence further investment reduces resulting in lesser production and hence providing the necessary cure to the mistake.
Because of individual freedom and uniformity of rates of profit, each sector not only gains enough investors, it also gains enough human resources in form of workers, specialists, managers, entrepreneurs and inventors and that leads to over-all increase in rate of production leading to reduce poverty and scarcity at all fronts.
As natural anarchy tends to bring the uniform rates of profit for investors, it tends to bring uniform rates of earnings, wages and increments to the producers, workers and innovators involved in various sectors of production and services and hence establish a developed division of labour. Since, the free-society tends to bring uniformity of profits and earnings, the ills of economic inequality tends to reduce to minimal¹
because of which, class clashes, casteism, racism, and other sorts of irrational discriminations are reduced and that brings the environment of natural freedom for each individual being free to use his talents and endeavour to pursue happiness by earning it honestly and freely. Thus in a free-society, natural anarchy tends to bring happiness and progressive increase in production of each individual.

Ills of Interventionism and Central Planning

The government by means of central planning or interventionism often dislocates the harmony of free-market and hence breaks the chain of progress bringing chaos to the society. In presence of government interventions in forms of subsidies, taxation, prohibitions, licensing etc, the profit motive looses its essence, and instead of learning and leading the way of natural profit seeking tendency, investors are forced to invest based on government’s dictatorial interventions. This dependence reduces the investors’ incentive to invest and hence causes lack of investment. In absence of profit motive, neither the government, nor the investors by themselves get any chance to check the threshold of investment and production and that causes loss by means of malinvestment resulting in over-production in some sectors and under-production in different. Also, by means of subsidies, stimulus packages and forced production, government creates bubbles of boom that tends to burst ultimately causing malinvestment that results in loss of production, lack of investment, depression, scarcity, wastage of resources, corruption and unemployment. As the government interventions destroy the division of labour, society suffers lack of freedom, extreme differences between classes, casteism, discriminations and overall underproduction that bring in problems of poverty.
Conclusion: In a free-society, market follows the laws of natural anarchy and that provides freedom, progress, prosperity and increase in the productivity and profits of the free-individuals tending to solve out the social ills if present along with preventing and curing the economical mistakes by means of profit motive that works as a thermostat or the invisible hand to guide the society towards cumulative production and provide the individuals means to pursue their happiness honestly and freely. Government interventions prove to be fatal, destroying the profit motive that is the only possible means of checking the malinvestment, over-production and under-production. This results in economic chaos, making the birth bed for various social-ills by destroying the division of labour.²

1. Economic inequality based on freedom of individuals to exploit their own intelligence and talent is significantly less visible than the economic inequality that results because of forced planning or government coercion. The fact is greater freedom results in greater prosperity of whole society and less extreme width of economic inequalities, Freedom Versus Egalitarianism
2. Division of labour is the essential aspect of a free, prosperous and ever improving progressive society, Division of Labour

Burden on Consumers

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. The Government owned sectors and ventures must fit into the market mechanism of market economics while buying raw material, equipments, labour, and as sellers of goods and services. They are subject to laws of market, as they need to attempt for profits, at least to avoid losses.¹ When government intervenes to eliminate this dependence on market by covering the losses of such enterprises with subsidies or bailouts out of public funds the losses shifts to somewhere else and subsidies are raised by collecting confiscatory taxes. However, the burden of the taxes affects the citizens, not the government collecting the tax.
In a free market, where the market laws either purges out the failed enterprises incurring losses and replace them with other enterprisers to provide better products and services, or force those enterprises to improve their working, production and management, the problem solves out by itself as the malinvestment in enterprises incurring losses gets a reality check. Yet, because of government interventions in mixed economy, such check is impossible as the government keeps promoting the failure by punishing the citizens, burdening them with superfluous taxes and wasting thus collected wealth in failed or meant to be failed enterprises and services in the form of bailouts and subsidies.² In absence of check, these enterprises, instead of improving and curing themselves, keep fomenting further and causes further burden. The government interventions at one hand, supports malinvestment in the failed or mismanaged enterprises, on the other hand, government punishes the profitable private enterprises by further cutting out their profits by means of corporate taxes. As the profits of private enterprises reduces, their rate of progress and production also decreases, causing retardation in progress of citizens.

Poverty and Unemployment

It is a fact that the only way to reduce poverty is to increase the productivity of individuals.³ However, the interventionists’ suggests that government can raise the standard of living of the common man partly at the expense of entrepreneurs and capitalist, and partly at expense of common citizens. They suggests restrictions on profits and equalization of incomes and fortunes by reservations,⁴ confiscatory taxations,⁵ lowering of interest rates by fiat money policy and credit expansion and raising the standards of living of workers by the enforcement of minimum wage rates.
As subsidies and taxation decreases the productivity of workers and the system, the results of interventions comes out exactly opposite to what government intends to achieve so. Fiat currency brings upon cycles of inflation and the arbitrary lowering of interest rates, credit expansion results in depression, and the random minimum wage rates restrictions than creates mass unemployment.
In a free market system, the wage rates are fixed by the interaction of demand and supply, at a level at which all those willing to work can finally find a job, and thus the unemployment remains temporary only as there remains a continuous tendency of the free market to remove the unemployment. However, with government interventions in form of fixed minimum wage rates, things changes. When the government fixes wage rates above the normal rate that could have been fixed by the free market, the potential of market to provide employment decreases that causes unemployment. Furthermore, as the wage rates are fixed in general, those, who looses their job because of fixed minimum wage rates, fails to find another job and their unemployment is prolonged. Thus at one hand, government intervention may increase the income of some workers, at other hand, it forces some other workers to suffer unemployment and hence no income. Also, because of minimum wage rate laws and thus produced unemployment, productivity of enterprises reduces to great extent causing further poverty and unemployment.

Price Control and decrease in productivity

Interventionists further support lavish spending on behalf of government; they support arbitrary low prices for consumers’ goods and high prices for agricultural products. The lavish public spending by government further excruciates the situations. If the government provides funds required by taxing the citizens or by borrowing from the public, it abolishes on one hand as many jobs as it creates on the other, most of the times such jobs created prove to be unproductive and hence are similar to malinvestment and wastage of resources. If commercial banks finance the government spending, it means credit expansion and inflation, further causing grounds to depression, loss of productivity, malinvestment, unemployment and poverty.
Price control is another asset of interventionists through which they actually intend to help the common man but ends in hurting the common man to much extent. Government believes that the price of certain consumer commodity (say wheat) is too high; it wants all poor consumers to be able to have more wheat. Thus, it resorts to price fixing and fixes the price of wheat at a lower rate than that prevailing in the free market. As a result, the marginal producers and dealers of wheat, now incurs loss. As no individual farmer, producer or businessperson can keep producing at a loss, these marginal producers stop producing wheat, the dealers and sellers stop selling wheat in the market. They start using their resources to produce commodities not controlled by arbitrary price fixing (say soya been, or onion). As a result, the quantity of available wheat in market reduces significantly, and hence now, not only poor but also everyone suffers the lack of supply of wheat. The government thus is forced to borrow money from public to buy wheat from other producing countries. On the other hand, the extra supply of other commodities reduces demand and causes further resource mismanagement and wastage. If, in order to keep price of wheat fixed, yet not let the producers to suffer losses, government decides to control the prices of commodities necessary in production of wheat, the same story repeats itself, and ultimately, the end result of price fixing comes out to be deficiency of all productive units, producers, wastage of resources and means of production and overall deficiency of products causing poverty and starvation.

The Only Possible Solution

Irrespective of their supposedly good intentions, interventionists through their planning of mixed economy results in chaos and exact opposite results to their interventions. The middle path between the good (capitalism) and bad (socialism) proves to be an ugly vice (mixed economy).⁶ There is no alternative to totalitarianism than liberty, there is no possible profitable planning for freedom and common welfare than to let the market system work freely, There is no other means to attain full employment, rising real wage rates and an always improving standard of living of the common man than private initiative and free market.⁷

1. Refference::Planned Chaos, Ludwig Von Mises
2. Burden of debt and loss, Reason for Liberty
3. Population, Poverty and production, Reason for Liberty
4. Such Interventions creates Forced Economic Inequalities, Economic inequality based on freedom of individuals to exploit their own intelligence and talent is significantly less visible than the economic inequality that results because of forced planning or government coercion, Freedom Versus Egalitarianism
5. What really are Taxes, Reason for Liberty
6. Laissez-Fairre Free market capitalism is right, communism, socialism, collectivism is wrong, and the Mixed Economy system is Evil., The Middle Vice!
7. Refference::Planned Chaos, Ludwig Von Mises

He came to my house very early in the morning and said, “Madam, “koi Jugaad lagaao“; help me in finding a way out. I asked, for what?

He said, Madam, I wish to work at famine relief programme, do something and transfer me for that job, I will be extremely thankful for you, you know how difficult it is to lead a good life with this clerical job, we middle class people keep struggling for every materialistic opportunity, if I get a chance to work at famine relief programme, I will also grab some rubies from the treasure.

I said, but Mr. Viththal, you have no record of any sort of missionary work and social services, if anyhow I try to get you employed at famine relief programme, even than what good you will do there? We need actual good workers there in the famine hit areas, people are suffering extreme scarcity of water, food and fodder, children are starving to death and cattle are at the verge of end, there should be a proper way and efficient workers to provide them all possible sort of relief.

Mr Viththal said, “Madam, you are wrong about my abilities, I have already worked for many self-service-associations. I know how extreme famine situations are and I know what I can do for the people suffering out there. You are possibly not aware of the fact that all those who are employed at famine relief programme are already making gold out of sand, and in my case, you are asking for a character and capability certificate. Please tell me clearly, what help I may get from you regarding my job transfer to famine relief programme.

I said, it is not very difficult, I have direct connection with famine relief ministry and famine relief minister is my good pal. Whenever I will refer you, you will get a transfer letter to famine relief programme. However, are you ready to share the famine?

He said, “Ohh madam, why are you making it complicated, I won’t be the only one to enjoy the butter. Even ants will get the remnants of cheese and you will surely get your lioness share, but how could you manage this double standard? Just moments ago, you were sceptical about my character and capabilities and now you are asking for your share?

I said, Mr. Viththal, honesty does not suit in such situations; famine is to be taken as defence deals. People are starving in huge numbers, no matter how much you provide them, it will not be sufficient and they will suffer. Its similar to the work of a coal broker, no matter you do nothing, your hands will be stained black, people will complain and blame you for their sufferings and it has no solution, no one can satisfy their demands. That is why Mr. Minister is employing only those workers for the famine relief programme who are efficient in making best use of the situations, make fortunes of the swindle, that is why the workers already employed in relief programme are gathering riches, and are providing the asked share for Mr. Minister. As for me, why should I loose my chance of making a share when I know it’s a huge scam which will never be questioned.

Mr. Viththal said, yes madam, you are right, I agree for everything, I will provide you your share and will serve Mr. Minister too, but please transfer me to work at famine relief programme. It is high time, if anyhow it rained, then both of us will suffer, as the issue of famine will loose its shine. So let us pray for staying the famine so that we can keep distributing reliefs in famine.

I said, Ok Mr. Viththal, come to my house again at evening and then we will visit Mr. Minister’s Bungalow together, you should be employed at famine relief programme as soon as possible so that the relief distribution may be properly channelized and we can gather the possible benefits.

After intensive talks with Mr. Viththal about the famine relief programme, I started planning for the evening to take Viththal Bhai to Mr. Minister’s house. I knew it would be hugely beneficial for all three of us.

Above was a fiction explaining the governmental systems and their working. Such is the nature of collective approach to solve the common issues of society. Instead of solving the problem and distributing the relief, the collective government officials and politicians often tend to distribute the problem itself, as they know, the more the problem will remain, the more chance they will get to make fortunes for their own self. Collective systems naturally inculcate dishonesty, corruption and wastage, and it is unquestionable, as government systems based on compulsory taxation is a form of extreme collective approach, all such system suffers corruption, frauds, swindles, bribery and dishonesty.

In the book Time Will Run Back,¹ Henry Hazlitt explained this fundamental problem of collective systems properly through a discussion between the protagonist and his ally, here is an excerpt–

“What you are saying, Adams, is that we are all more generous collectively than we are individually. Or rather, that we are all willing to be more generous with other people’s money than we are with our own. Or still rather, that our vicarious generosity, our pseudo-generosity, is greater than our real generosity; and that therefore we should force somebody else to contribute to the support of the needy through taxes, confiscation, or what not. What you are saying, and what Marx was saying, is that those who have not created the wealth should seize it from those who have created it.”

 I suggest every one to read the book Time Will Run Back at least once, as it helps one in understanding the fundamental philosophical and economical issues in best possible way.

1. Time Will Run Back, Henry Hazlitt

Most Indians are unsatisfied with the state of things. They long for a radical change. Some of them are conceited enough to think that they can change things for good if they rise to positions of power. Though some are slightly aware of the inherent systemic problem, their understanding is not deep enough. They fail to realize the complex level of understanding of social sciences it takes to bring about a change.They step into action instead of trying to bring about a radical change in the mindset of people through intellectual means.Recently I came across the manifesto of such a political party, Jago¹ . What makes this political party different is that it pays lip service to the free market economy. They vaguely understand the importance of a high level of economic freedom, but are unable to understand the inherent contradictions in their views. Let us analyze their political positions in some detail.

1. People would be granted individual freedom over and above a social minimum-which means: basic survival needs such as food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare and security needs will be met by the Government.
   None of these basic services grow in the nature, or are absorbed from the atmosphere. They are produced by individuals. If some people are to be provided with these facilities, who is to produce them? What if people who produce them are not willing to share their produce? Will they be purged? Inflating the rights of man can’t be done without an outright infringement of their fundamental rights. Often people talk of the right to a free education or health care, for instance, without giving a moments thought to its cost. When some sane person opposes their Utopian dreams, he is casted off as a person who doesn’t care for the poor. It should be noted here that these services are demanded as people should have the freedom to pursue their self interest. Nothing is said of the self interest of their innocent victims. The fact that it is not in ones rational self interest to gain the unearned too, is evaded. So much for their belief that the free market economy is ethically superior. The “basic minimum” can’t be provided without mulcting the tax payer, and hampering capital accumulation. It is capital accumulation which makes high wages and a high living standard possible. The welfare state is totally incompatible with the free market economy. One can’t choose both. Both are mutually exclusive possibilities. They have made their choice. There is no other.

2. Soviet Russia made impressive initial progress.
   This is a distortion of facts. It concedes too much. The majority of people were starving themselves to death even in the initial phase. If even enemies of collectivism are duped by such propaganda, we can’t blame the communists for spreading them.

3. A Government is necessary for maintenance of law & order, enforcement of contracts, justice, defense, currency.
   All these services could be provided by the market, and in a much efficient manner. Apart from the inherent immorality of taxing people and monopolizing these sectors, it should be said that  Government is an  inefficient organization. As law, defense , police and currency are presently provided by the Government, most people have problems imagining how this could be done by the market. However our living standards shouldn’t be dragged down to the level of imagination of such retards. It is an elementary fact of economics that monopolies are bad for the consumer. It applies to defense , law and police too. Government control of money and credit , as we all know, had led to continuous debasement of money. Arbitrary credit expansion in not possible under a free, full reserve banking system based on Gold Standard.

4. Reservations would be replaced with free and mandatory school education.
   One interesting thing about most opponents of reservations is that they propose quality primary education as the solution. They are too dull to realize that free primary education is as, or more harmful than reservations. Both infringes personal freedom. There should be no such free gifts. Mandatory school education is abduction. Children of parents willing to homeschool their children, shouldn’t be dragged to Schools which are similar to prisons. Subsidization of education would only prevent most children from acquiring the education they would have acquired, if left alone.²

5. There would be only one syllabus for all schools and only one all India level examination conducted by only one board at class 12.
   Potential dictators want to decide what is good for the society, and ram it down their throats. The education scene can’t be improved by forcing everyone into the same mold. There is great variation in the skills and interests of various children. A common syllabus decreed by the Government does injustice to all sorts of children. They should be free to pursue their interests. Only competition among various modes of education for Objective truth would improve the state of education.

6. All infiltrators coming from Bangladesh and other countries are to be identified & punished.
   No one with the slightest understanding of the concept of liberty would support this. Government doesn’t rightfully own all the land of a country, hence and shouldn’t have the right to have a say in these issues.

7. Capital punishment for major crimes.
   Capital punishment is barbaric. One can’t be absolutely certain that a person has committed a crime in many cases. So, it makes little sense to take their lives off. Moroever, history proves that such severe punishment doesn’t prevent the likelihood of crimes.

8. All voters will get Rs. 800/- per month
   No comment is necessary on such stupid schemes.

9. Low tax rate would mean better compliance, more revenue and less corruption.
   It seems this conclusion is based on the fallacious “Laffer curve”. 1) It is not at all evident why Government revenues should be maximised. 2) There is no guarantee that a reduction in the tax rate would increase the revenue. It depends on the scale of reduction and several other factors.

10. The function of the government would be to see that no deforestation takes place.
    As long as there is demand for wood, people will grow trees. It is a profitable business. If a particular owner stops producing them, there is an opportunity to make profits and others will. Every good that is in demand will be provided by the market. If no one produces wood, someone can easily make profits by producing it. There will always be people willing to wait for years if it is necessary. There is no shortage of people to engage in such activities. Who is more likely to preserve a land and grow trees-A bureaucrat who has no incentive to preserve a land, and has to exploit the land as much as possible during his time, or a private owner who has every incentive to preserve the land, and grow trees as his revenues from the land depends on the preservation of that land?
    People are more likely to preserve trees when it is profitable to do so. In Europe, where private ownership of forests is far more common (Unlike in the US) less people complain of destruction of timber resources.

11. Population growth should be controlled.
    Population doesn’t impede development. New York City is highly populated. But a lot of wealth is being generated there. Japan is thickly populated. It is a very rich country.Holland, Monaco, Britain and Liechtenstein are thickly populated.Europe is a thickly populated continent, next only to asia, whereas African countries are heavily underpopulated. Hong Kong has a higher density of population, yet it is much wealthier than India and China.  Most people point out the large population of India and China, for instance, as a cause of underdevelopment.That’s plain nonsense. It is the lack of economic freedom, not population which makes countries poor.

12. Ban on child-labor will be strictly enforced.
    Banning child labor would only throw some many children and poor families into poverty and starvation. Children join the labor force only when it is an economic necessity. A ban on child labor doesn’t change the fact that these children badly need those jobs. Such children , in the words of Ludwig Von Mises, would “infest the country as vagabonds, beggars, tramps, robbers and prostitutes.”

By now, it should be evident that the goals of Jago party has nothing to do with Individual freedom. Libertarians should think twice before supporting such inconsistent defenders of Individual freedom. It would only harm our cause of pure liberty.

1. Jago Party website
2. Read more at Hypocrisy of Anti-reservation activists

Why Participation of Indian citizens in elections is reducing?

In a democracy¹ if a majority of voting population ranging from several hundreds to several hundred millions (depending on level of election –Municipal, state, or national) vote against an existing policy, the policy will likely be changed, replaced or aborted. That does not mean that electorate controls government. As far as an individual citizen is concerned, he has no control over the democratic majority government. For example, in the government controlled retirement savings account and pension policies, if an individual wishes to use his earned savings to pay for the home he want to buy, he must wait until tens of millions of other citizens agrees to join with him to bring about a change in policy to make it possible. He would have to wait for very basic decisions to be made, if a set of parents in a village decide to have a school in their village where their children may get elementary education instead of going to another village 10 miles away, they may be forced to wait until whole majority voters of the city municipality under which the village comes, may decide to make an elementary school in that village. An Individual cannot decide to speculate and accumulate stocks of commodities to ascertain future profits, he cannot decide what prices he can demand from the consumers for his own products, he cannot decide to free a certain sector of production of varied levies and taxes (and subsidies) until he may not gain the approval of big chunk of voters.
If a set of intelligent voters want to restrict government monopoly over printing of fiat currency² , they will have to wait until whole populace of the country realizes the basic flaw in fiat currency. An individual by his own cannot decide what wages he may give to a worker, he cannot decide whom he should consider poor or whom he should provide voluntary charity or benevolent help as all relief funds are controlled by the majority rule government and so on. Since an individual electorate have no significant control over government bribery, corruption and frauds are common illnesses of democracies.
As people are realizing the fact that government control under democracy means collectivization of power and hence is a violation of Individual liberty and freedom of choice, that majority government robs the citizens of their power of self-governance and self-responsibility, they voluntarily become uninterested in political elections as they know that their mere voting is in no way capable of bringing about any progressive change.

Destruction of Individual Causal Role in Democracy

Democracy destroys the causal role of an individual. Instead of being the cause of his own success, well-being, and development, he becomes dependent on the majority rule, as until the majority will not agree with him, he cannot act upon his decisions and choices. The destruction of Individual causal role in his life signifies the violation of Individual freedom.
Individual freedom and his right of self-governance are the basic requirement for a definite progressive and developed system of division of labour³ . Thus, democracy robs and reduces the power of an individual to be the cause of varied economic achievements, success or failure.

Incompatibility of Democracy with Division of Labour causing Poverty

It is an established fact that the prosperity and productivity of a society hugely depends on the progressive division of labour. Collectivism in any form (feudalism, communism, dictatorship, democracy, socialism, theocracy etc) is incompatible with “division of labour” as such systems do not recognize importance of freedom⁴ , self-ownership and property rights. It destroys the individual causation and creates “forced economic inequalities”. Collectivism demands that everyone think and act as a unit and provides no space for the vast differentiation and individuation of the knowledge on which the division of labour resides and hence any collectivist society suffers lack of production, retarded process of development, poverty and wastage of human labour, it kills hard-work, honesty, genius and talent.
In a socialist bureaucratic system (like that of former USSR or China) the specialized dictators represented by “central planners” controls all the resources and means of production, as irrespective of their specialization, they lacks knowledge in compared to the knowledge pool provided by free society under division of labour, they never achieves enough rate of progress and suffers impoverishment, poverty, injustice and unhealthy conditions for the common man. In a democratic socialist system (like that of India), situations are even adverse as the specific set of specialized dictators is replaced by the ignorant, unspecialized masses representing majority rule. When such system tries to provide a systematically regulated division of labour, it results in contradicting partial planning under the head of different ministries trying to control different sets of productions and that further provides economic chaos, corruption, bribery and further partial slavery of individuals making them to suffer poverty and extreme scarcity of wealth.

Cure of the Problem

Since the fall of Soviet Union, India is gradually turning from collectivism towards principles of self-ownership, individualism and division of labour, and hence the standards of living is improving, of Indian society are also improving. As the Indian government is adopting disinvestment procedure and providing freedom for market and individuals, the proficiency of labour is increasing. The progress itself is a validating example of the fact that government interventions in market cause poverty, reduction in production and impoverishment of citizens while individual freedom, and property rights of means of production brings progress, prosperity and bettering living standards of citizens. Thus, the cure is definitely freedom of citizens establishing a free society in India, that is Limited government system, where the only purpose of government remains to safeguard individual freedom, property rights, restrict initiation of force and to provide justice, and peace by providing a democratic system controlling police and law bodies, strictly maintaining the principles of non-initiation of aggression, self-ownership and property rights, and all means of production including roads, railways, natural resources etc be privatized.
Private security and arbitrary third party justice system would further reduce the role of government only to provide security against external dangers in form of national defence, it would be further move towards anarchocapitalism⁵ establishing individual right of self governance and self-responsibility.
It is a basic fact that government monopoly in any form including limited government system represents partial slavery to some order and incurs poverty⁶ and destruction of wealth and means of production, for progress and betterment of citizens, freedom lovers advocates Anarchocapitalism⁷ rather than government limiting individual freedom.

1. The Impasse of Democracy, voting is not a solution, it is a killer
2. Fiat currency Versus Gold Standard, Privatization of Money
3. Division of Labour, Productivity and Prosperity of Labour
4. Freedom, meaning and importance
5. Defending Anarchy, Reason For Liberty
6. Population, Production and Poverty, Cure of Poverty
7. Defending Anarchy, Reason For Liberty