A panel of “experts” appointed by the Government has recommended raising fuel prices.  The panel, headed by Kirit Parikh,  recommended a hike in domestic LPG by Rs 100 a cylinder and PDS Kerosene by Rs 6 a litre. It is not certain that what the panel called for will be implemented. Rangarajan Committee and the Chaturvedi Committee reports in the past went unimplemented.  Many newspapers reported that the panel is for deregulating fuel prices. It is not at all evident that a Government orchestrated hike in prices would be a genuine deregulation. If these goods are underpriced, certainly, the hike would be a welcome move. A hike in prices will certainly reduce fuel subsidy burden.

The findings of the panel, it is said, will be unpalatable to the government battling inflation. An increase in fuel prices, however, can’t cause a general rise in prices. Only an increase in money supply would lead to “price inflation”. If fuel prices rise, people will cut down consumption of fuel or other goods. There will not be an increase in aggregate demand. There will be no “cascading effect on food prices”. When subsidies to maintain low fuel prices are removed, the prices of other goods might come down. It will also reduce the fiscal deficit. (A subsidy of over Rs 71,000 crores was given in 2008-2009, at the expense of the innocent, long-suffering tax payer.) Price controls, needless to mention, are not a solution to price rise. Government enforced price controls to deal with price rise, as several economists have noted, is like “trying to hold down expanding pressure in a boiler by manipulating the needle in the boiler’s pressure gauge”.

Unfortunately, in India, the prices of fuels and fertilizers are administered by the Government. It should be obvious that no bureaucrat has the necessary information to set the prices of these goods. Lacking profit-loss signals, the prices set by the government would only be arbitrary. It is true that sometimes the market sets the price higher or lower than necessary to clear the market, but no one has the wisdom to correct these discrepancies. The market, left to itself will set this right. If fuel prices are higher than justified, it will send out the signal that it is profitable to produce fuel. More people will enter the market. The supply of fuel will rise. This will bring down the prices. If fuel is priced lower, producers will get the signal that it is not profitable to produce it. Some producers will leave the market. Soon prices will move towards a level which will clear the market. The market is self regulating.

It is important to recognize how the profit mechanism coordinates the market if we are to understand the harmful effects of price controls. Usually, price controls are thought of as a way to curb excess profits. But, in the market there is a tendency towards equalization of profits in all sectors. No sector can be more profitable than any other in the long run. If a sector is more profitable, there will be excess investment in two forms. One, more people will invest I the sector. At the same time, people already involved in the sector will plough back the “excessive” profits.

Government price fixing has harmful, unintended consequences. If the government sets the prices below the market level, there will be chronic shortage. Such a policy fails to take in account why prices are higher. Prices can be high only when there is an increase in money supply or a decrease in supply of goods. Price controls do nothing to cure inflation, which is purely a monetary phenomenon. When prices are set low, less people will produce the goods and the shortage becomes more problematic. The product disappears from the market, and there will be immense pressure on the Government to raise prices, if it is to cure the shortage. If the Government sets the price above the market level, it would lead to unsaleable surplus.

It is true that if the Government gets out of the price fixing business, there would be a sudden rise in prices. It might be painful to most people. But such short term pain is much better than the chaos price controls create. Shortages and unsaleable surpluses are just two such consequence of price fixing. There are several other consequences. Price controls create black markets. Customers become a menace to sellers. The quality of service comes down tremendously. People will have to resort to means of production which are expensive. There will be hoarding and delays in production. People will waste time standing in queues and searching for products. Price controls lead to further controls, and may ultimately lead to socialism, which will entirely wreck the economy. In short, Government price fixing creates chaos.

Read more on it “Reason of Price Rise and Consequences of Price Control“

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

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

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

The right to Live

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

Current norms of Right to Life

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

Economical Aspects of Euthanasia

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

Conclusion:

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

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

Every political leader, a representative of “the people” realizes that nobody in “the people” like to face poverty. Yet, poverty is wide spread. Every government aims its political and ruling program at reducing scarcity and helping the poor. Often the statist argues that government is necessary because if there will not be a government, who will care for the poor, the depraved ones. Politicians often use this “altruistic” propaganda to lure the voters.
The only practical solution to the problem of poverty in masses is to increase the productivity of individuals. In absence of government interventions, for the rational profit motive, free market provides an explainable way to make most efficient way for the usage of resources and to minimize the wastage, thus free market naturally is the solution to poverty. Yet, by means of interventions, government induces irrationality in the market and hence, reduces the productivity while increasing the wastage of resources. Obviously, with reduced productivity and enhanced wastage of resources, the government itself becomes the cause of mass poverty and scarcity.
At the failure of all their agenda to reduce poverty, they further come up with same propaganda of “helping the poor”. Well, the end results of government interventions just come out to be opposite. Does government really want to help poor?

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 [↩]

Talisman of Mahatma Gandhi – Radical Egalitarianism

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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 [↩]

Often the politicians assume that it is their responsibility to provide certain services like health care or education for the needy on behalf of the compulsory tax collected from the common citizen. Thus, they propose the single payer socialized Universal Health Care System¹ or Universal Education System² with the theme of Education for All, where everybody is free to take free advantages of the medical care or education system, while government pays for the cost of it. The general intention of such politicians who exhort such an idea is to gain the public vote; it is nothing different than bribing the voters monetarily in order to get their votes to make a government. Yet, the politicians are clever clowns, they never let the voters to realize their real intentions, rather they propagandize about the socialized system and suggest that it benefits the poor of the nation. The results obviously turn out to be opposite.

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 [↩]

The theme of a democratic government unalterably remains as Government of people, by the people and for the people. Democracy provides a government that is subject to the will of people, yet the fact is it submerges the power of an individual to decide for his life in the colossal mass of the voters. The Individual citizen becomes insignificant with no authority to govern his life, and no say in the policies decided by government. Thus, the assertion of socialists supporting the interventions and regulation of government in market, that “the government is still controlled by us” becomes a mockery.

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 [↩]