Dec
10
Since last three days, we are trying to scrutinize the philosophical and political aspects of Mahatma Gandhi.
It does not matter whether Gandhi ji were Libertarian or not, it is a basic truth that his experiment with non-violence, to assert the fundamental idea of liberty were a success, and they can be used further to explain essentials of libertarianism to much greater degrees in masses. That is all true, yet we must understand that we cannot afford those ideas of Gandhi, which obviously tampers the individual freedom.
It is true that Gandhi never supported idea of property rights, he considered aspiration and acquisition of wealth and profits as evil, he consider an individual’s strive for his personal well-being and pursuit of pleasure as sinful.
Not every Siddhartha will give away his inherited pleasures for the search of truth and become a Gautama Buddha.
Swaraj-Liberty
That is, anyone who tries to talk of economic liberty is violent.
Gandhi’s idea of decentralized government (Panchayat Raj) is also faulty because it does not provide individual liberty and obviously put forth the Central Government as the caretaker of all local governments (Panchayats) and the citizens. Citizen as his own is not supposed to get any sovereignty even under Gandhian centralized system, although, his choices will certainly increase. That is, irrespective of his support to civil liberty, Gandhi was uncertain about economic liberty and he was vehemently against judicial liberty. Criticism of Udham Singh[1] and Bhagat Singh[2]for by Gandhi is evident of this fact.
In addition, Gandhi was supporter of Free education and health care as fundamental right. Under Gandhian “Organized Anarchy”, he proposed something similar to that of Ayn Rand’s idea of “Voluntary Taxation” and he termed it as “Trusteeship”.
Yet, there was a difference between Ayn Rand’s Miniarchy and Gandhian “Ordered Anarchy”, Ayn Rand stressed on Individual liberty and economic freedom along with civil liberty, Gandhi feverishly supported civil liberty, he was not sure of economic liberty and philosophically, he was economic socialist, a believer of collectivism and social welfare.
Nobody is perfect, so Gandhi had his share of faults, he was obviously wrong at his economic proposition of Trusteeship and Egalitarianism. One may say that if G.D Birla, the founder of Indian National Congress was a conservative libertarian, Gandhi was moderate libertarian. Yet, who won the race?
Nehru, the socialist won the race. If Gandhi was a moderate libertarian, was he not fighting with two different enemies? One of his enemy was obviously the British imperialists, the enslavers, the other enemy of Gandhi was internal, his closest mate, socialist Nehru. The political tussles between Indian Socialists like Nehru, Vinoba Bhave, Charan Singh and others and the Indian Libertarians like G.D Birla, Jamshedji Tata, Sardar Patel, Lokmanya Tilak and others is well known.
If Gandhi ever was a Libertarian, why did he give up his libertarian stand when it was most required? Why he supported Nehru[3] with all his socialist ideas against better choices? Gandhi fought against all Congress to make Nehru as the first leader, and that changed all.
System cannot be changed so easily, first it is necessary to change the attitude of masses; first, it is necessary to establish an environment of Individualism, where an Individual is not considered as a sacrificial entity for the welfare of community. Where a Gandhi is not desired to sacrifice his life for the benefits of others, where some Nathuram Godse would not kill a Gandhi.
Not all can be non-violent.
One must understand that an individual naturally lives for his own well-being, and while doing so, welfare of society as a whole becomes a reality. If one is lead with an idea to sacrifice him for the greater good of society, than no matters the sacrifice is forced, or is being subjected by means of philosophical compulsions “non-violently” it will become a bane. The reason being, not all can be Gandhi. Although Gandhi never supported physical force against anybody, but if property rights are ignored, and collective welfare is considered as incumbent on the individual citizens, if self-interest is hated and criticized, than there is no way to establish Individual liberty. One must understand that property rights are the only possible way through which the natural individual rights are expressed physically. One cannot deny and ignore property rights yet stress that he supports individual liberty.
If the established philosophy of the society is of selflessness where the individual has to sacrifice himself for the greater good of society, it will certainly become a poison for the individual. In such a scenario, anyone living a better life than your own becomes an exploiter, because he did not voluntarily share his earned wealth with others. Now, some Gandhi may criticize that “exploiter” non-violently as Kant did. Will all others remain non-violent? What is the guarantee that another Marx will not take birth from the ashes of Gandhi? Kant was a supporter of Non-violence, non-aggression, yet his philosophy of individual sacrifice for the good of society became the mother of Marxism. Why will not the Gandhian philosophy be enough fuel for the making of new stories of Robin Hood?
Not every Siddhartha will give away his inherited pleasures for the search of truth and become a Gautama Buddha.
In order to regain the strength of Libertarian project in India, we need to discard the wrong aspects of Gandhian philosophy, we need to establish the joyful right of Individual to pursue his happiness, and we need to establish individual freedom based on property rights. Obviously, we will have to use the same non-violent ways to achieve our goals. We may call it “Satyagrah” or “Non-cooperation” or “Civil disobedience”. One may call that as Gandhian way or “Gandhigiri”, I would rather call it Libertarian approach, because being a Libertarian, being a believer of non-violence, I have no other way. If Gandhi had not discovered the peaceful ways of civil disobedience, someone else might have, but without the understanding of “Rational Selfishness” and Property Rights, all peaceful demonstration will go in vain just like we lost all the strives of “Swaraj” by Indian libertarians and yielded to Indian socialists. I cannot afford myself to remain on same Gandhian path that already had been lost against Nehru’s socialism.
One more thing that I would like to mention, I could not disregard Bhagat Singh’s right to kill the murderer of Lala Lajpat Rai, whom he considered as his mentor, I could not disregard Udham Singh’s right to kill General Dyer who killed hundreds of unarmed helpless Indians at Jalian Wala Bagh. I consider those actions by Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh as their libertarian right to Justice.
Gandhi was an economic socialist, he was judicial socialist too but a civil libertarian. Bhagat Singh[5] and Udham Singh[1] on the other hand, were economic socialists, yet they were civil and judicial libertarians, and I am a supporter of Liberty in full sense, Civil liberty, Economic liberty and Judicial liberty. Footnotes:
- Udham Singh, best Known for the assassination of Michael O’Dwyer for avenging the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre, Wikipedia [↩] [↩]
- Bhagat Singh, Indian Anarchist, best known avenging the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, Wikipedia [↩]
- Breaking free of Nehru, Reason for Liberty [↩]
- Indira Gandhi’s legacy, Operation Blue Star, Emergency law in India [↩]
- Indian Anarchist,From May to September, 1928, Bhagat Singh serially published several articles on anarchism in Punjabi periodical Kirti. He expressed concern over misunderstanding of the concept of anarchism among the public. Singh tried to eradicate the misconception among people about anarchism. He wrote, “The people are scared of the word anarchism. The word anarchism has been abused so much that even in India revolutionaries have been called anarchist to make them unpopular.” As anarchism means absence of ruler and abolition of state, not absence of rule, Singh explained, “I think in India the idea of universal brotherhood, the Sanskrit sentence vasudhaiva kutumbakam etc., have the same meaning.” He wrote about the growth of anarchism, the “first man to explicitly propagate the theory of Anarchism was Proudhon and that is why he is called the founder of Anarchism. After him a Russian, Bakunin worked hard to spread the doctrine. He was followed by Prince Kropotkin etc, Wikipedia [↩]
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230 views25 Responses to “Gandhigiri and Libertarianism”
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August Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 6:55 amWhen I see his principle of non-violence, I find them pretty violent, violent against oneself. I once read his book “Autobiography or My Experiment with truth”, gradually as you move along the pages, he become more and more obsessed self suffering. He considered self suffering as nothing, rather he termed it as purification of soul. He became a body less ghost. Now how can you torture a ghost. He has endless ability of tolerance, he feels nothing. And the same he taught to his followers, so that is what they became, a community of ghost only containing souls and no body. All they had in their lives to care for others, since they had nothing to care about themselves. He taught the masses to endure all the tortures that the british gave them and not to retaliate at all.
I consider his this act as his sin. First he was a sinner then he made a bundle of more sinners. Anyway I don’t care about those bundle of sinners, they wanted a greater reason to live, just to escape from what they were and he gave them. First the bundle were insects and later on they became ghosts.
This is the principle of non-violence that you want to use for the benefits of libertarian. The only right way to get freedom was Bhagat Singh’s way, even if you had achieved it after 10 years, 20 years or still struggling to get freedom.
First time ever, I am finding you like a diplomat. Doing greater good for masses…Take this principle to solve that problem… Libertarians have enough principles, they don’t need Gandhi’s non violence principle. Infact libertarans non-violence and Gandhian non-violence have different meaning. Libertarians non-violence mean violence against no one, Gandhian non-violence means, you can be quite violent against yourself, after all it is purification process of soul.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 7:53 amWell that is true, anybody who have read his autobiography would suggest that, but that doesn’t make him bad, it was his personal nature, he was masochist, many of us are masochist, its human nature, and he never said everybody should be masochist, he said everybody should be free.
About non-violence, it is not about gandhi’s masochist nature, it is about individual right, any individual has a proper right to live free of threats of violence against him in any manner (Violence means physical violence against his body and private possessions, and fraud as fraud is direct violence against his private possession/property).
Non-Violence-Principle has been suported by almost all libertarians right from Aristotle to Mises, from Adam Smith to Ayn Rand, from Henry Hazzlitt to Murray Rothbard.
Non-Violence principle was presumably proposed by Ayn Rand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
It is the backbone of Libertarian movement.
Ganhi’s experiment with non-violence principle is the only live experiment, because all other known proponent of Non-Violence Principle actually were not under direct situations to experiment with it, but you see, all of them were supporters of Non-Violence, or Non-Aggression principle.
The difference between Gandhi’s notion of Non-Violence is, he never considered property rights.
Well, I am not trying to be diplomat, I am just expressing my heartily truth.
August Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 8:00 amI know that non violence was not Gandhi’s invention, it had already been there from long. What I meant is his notion of non violence is actually violence against yourself. If someone slaps you, show him your other cheek just because you are non violent.
He killed the concept of self. From libertarians point of view, I believe he simply should be left out.
The truth is he was honest and he had conscience, but he had corrupt principles. He felt guilt when he saw poor and he taught to feel continuous guilt to others. He considered this guilt as the token of goodness.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 8:04 amAccepted, and that is what we need to take care of. He was very close to philosophy of Kant, and that is why it is possible that although he himself was extreme non-violent, he may give rise to some new stories of Robin Hood, some new Marx, some new Mao. And that has to be taken care of. Goodness cannot bloom on the grounds of irrational guilt.
Renegade Division Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 12:05 pm@August said:
Yepp good job understand Gandhism. Except you don’t understand Gandhism at all.
You cannot achieve liberty against an aggressor as long as he can make you suffer, by devoiding you of your lifestyle and your possessions. I don’t know how much you know about the actual liberty activism at any place on this earth, especially about New Hampshire, but generally the way it works is the judge sentences these guys for ‘performing illegal puppet shows’, ‘illegal gardening’, ‘taking photographs in a court room’, etc etc and throws them in prison. Irrespective of how much these activists wish for, its really hard to not bend down, they have their lives, family, pets, houses etc. The longest an activists has managed to go to prison was 58 days(and he did come out as a winner, because the state bend down in this case).
Who is Sam Dodson?
What happens when you throw a liberty activist in prison, someone who wants to fight against the state’s violence? You start to discover Gandhian method on your own. He started did do fasts in the prison. He started to meditate.(omg he was such a suffering-loving masochist torturing himself, but what do you understand about achieving Liberty, August). And trust me none of these things were inspired by Gandhi(or his masochism or howsoever you see it).
He was in prison because the state wanted to try him for using video camera in a court room, but he refused to give them his name(as in they knew his name but they needed it from him). He was let go at the end without any charges or trial because he was becoming an embarrassment for the legal system of New Hampshire. And that’s what they achieved.
But do not mistake that tomorrow the judge is going to man up and start throwing much stricter sentences or other methods to punish them. It will be hard for Sam to face all those sentences, but when you consider this problem you will realize that Gandhi found a solution for all these.
He followed the way he did(what you mock as ‘masochism’) because by devoiding himself of everything the state could devoid him, he managed to make it obvious that the State hasn’t really managed to punish him. Yeah the state could throw him in a solitary prison, but you already spend hour every week meditating, days every month fasting. How is that any punishment? When you come in front of the judge again for breaking another law, what is he going to punish you?
The state cannot really achieve anything in that case and they know it.
I know Unpretentious has been calling him a masochist since the day I wrote that article, what she doesn’t understand is why did he seem like such a masochist. She doesn’t understand, you don’t understand. You are just observing(and maybe accurately) that he is punishing himself. But you fail to put his actions in perspective. Why he did that? He did that because now British government cannot really do much harm to him. Sure you may think that he is harming himself instead, but then he chose to do it, and he rendered British government’s tools of coercion useless.
August Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 1:26 pm@Renegade Division
How can I understand something which is illogical?… By understanding if you mean first I should
inculcate and practice Gandhi’s principle then I give a verdict,then in the process I would be dead before I fight for liberty. I only understand that his teachings were morally and logically incorrect and only this much I understand about Gandhism.
Are you a libertarian?… you look like a politician to me. There is nothing wrong with bending down for your family, spouse, pet, house, property if you love them enough.
And yes I don’t know all the liberty activism that have happened in the world except in my own country through television, text books, schools etc… Why is it neccessary to know these activisms?…
And even leave it, are you trying to say liberty activism is some kind of business project which contains its specific rules and only following those rules you could successfully execute the project?..
The fact is any kind of tyranny, autocracy or control over a single person or masses is completely irrational. And there are no definite rules for handling irrationality, you got to finish it off by any means. And for that Bhagat Singh, Chadra Shekhar Azad.. were always right.
What are you trying to say?… If end is well everything is well. And trust me I have no problem for him being a masochist, I simply don’t care, he could do whatever he wanted to himself.British government couldn’t harm him because he became a ghost, I already accepted that.
Another thing is I won’t be able to argue with you, you use reason only when it is neccessary for you and trust me you don’t have the capability to be a gandhian. You are just an opportunist, if this gives output take this, if that gives output take that. At least Gandhi always used reason for acting on anything.
You know what politicians are good at, they get their aim accomplished by any means. But beware of this fact, you solve one problem in this way and you give birth to another.
Renegade Division Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 1:39 pm@August said:
Well good then, thanks for your conclusion, then stop wasting my time. I am sorry but good job figuring out and what’s logical and illogical by not at all understanding them. While you are at it, do you think Einstein’s explanation of perihelion advance of Mercury is illogical? I mean you don’t really have to understand it to conclude whether its logical or not, you are the uber-rational person, you have discovered that to determine the truth objectively, you first form a subjective opinion about things without understanding them, now if you think it looks rational or not only then you need to go understand it.
August Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 3:12 pmFirst I am not wasting your time, this is a ridiculus comment.
I did not form any subjective opinion about Gandhi, I tried to understand his principles and when I found them immoral, I stopped there. Where did I make any subjective opinion here?….
If I found KCN is poison, do I have to taste it too, to finally understand KCN is poisonous.
First I don’t know what it is (Einstein’s explanation of perihelion advance of Mercury), you might have taken a simpler example. But what I guess is, as the context is, he gave an explanation that came out to be incorrect, and what you think according to me, his explanation is illogical. I don’t know what you found so parallel in it with what I said about Gandhi’s principles. Ofcourse, either einstein’s assuptions on the basis of which he would have started to explain would be wrong or somewhere in between he would have done logical error.
Anyway, I don’t form any subjective opinion about anything before understanding them objectively. In fact, if have not understood something, I don’t form any opinion about it.
My complete statement was:
How can I understand something which is illogical?… By understanding if you mean first I should inculcate and practice Gandhi’s principle then I give a verdict,then in the process I would be dead before I fight for liberty.
Renegade Division Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 11:06 pm@August said:
Because when I said that you didn’t understand them, instead of listening to me you declared “I don’t need to understand them because they are irrational”. Tell me O great Rational spirit, how do you know whether you understand Gandhi’s teaching completely when you refuse to understand them any more than what you already do.
Imagine if you saw Sun disappearing in the Sea every night and rising up from the other side and concluded that Sun of the last day died and now new sun is born. Someone tells you that your understanding of Universe is incomplete, you tell them “I don’t need to understand the Universe, I took a look at it and I found it really irrational that the Sun dies everyday, so I don’t wanna understand it”.(The example isn’t really good on the fact that you might find it irrational or rational that sun dies, the point is something else, but judging by your demand of me using a simpler example(when the example was clearly not about your ability to understand Einstein’s explanation for perihelion advance of Mercury but mocking your attitude of declaring things subjective or objective without even bothering to understand them fully), but its about the fact that the people who claim to be so Rational and Objective all the time are so afraid of turning out wrong. I mean honestly that’s worse than most Religious people, if their bible says Earth is round, and it is proven that Earth is round, they at least are afraid of becoming wrong, but the so-called Objective rational thinkers are worse then them in this regards.
Anyways since in your world there is no possibility of not knowing everything, I am pretty sure you have found out everything you need to know about Gandhian method of using non-violence to achieve non-violent states.
But just to answer your question on how or what you need to understand Gandhian philosophy is, you need to put the whole thing in the right perspective. How do you sell slimming tablets to people? Whatever may be the right way to sell the tablets, yourself being 400 lbs in weight and then trying to sell it to others is definitely not the way to do it. Why would people buy your slimming tablets when you yourself are very fat? The same concept goes behind Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. How can you achieve a peaceful society when you yourself are committing violence. So you work towards a society of more liberty, without any institutionalized aggression and more peace by demonstrating these values.
Second most important thing about Gandhian method is that you make State look what it really is. For a long time I did not understand why Gandhi avoids the term ‘Civil Disobedience’, and prefers the term ‘Satyagraha’, I mean what is the thing about Satya(Truth) in it, eventually I came around understanding it. Lemme see do you understand why its called Satyagraha?
Gandhi writes something about it:
Explaining further:
The problem with this fight against the state is, that it is not the same thing as fighting a common criminal who is committing aggression against you. Responding a thief, murderer, rapist requires no special consideration, according to Libertarianism you can use violence to respond to them. BUT, the state is very different. The state thinks it is moral and correct. People think state is correct. If a state’s employee(like I-T commissioner) takes your money in the name of state its completely justified in front of people(and to himself). You and I think Taxation is theft, but does the I-T department or the police officers who acompany these I-T dept employees on a raid to your home think that taxation is theft? NO! Not many people think that you are justified in keeping your money with yourself. You may fail to understand the problem, but the Gandhi understood it. He understood that you cannot change the people who think they are correct by using violence on them. Sure you can win over them, you can defeat them, but you won’t be able to change them.
If we want to achieve long-term sustainable liberty we need to change people, otherwise they will reform the government in some or the other manner. We can use all our guns to kill all the state employees but then new government will be formed.
This is what you do not understand about Gandhian philosophy, Unpretentious Diva must have written at least 3,000 words in response to my article, but they all are nothing but ad-hominem attacks on Gandhi, I challenged her to write something talking about her idea of achieving liberty in our life times, but all she comes up with more anti-gandhi hatred, and another article against it. And yeah the best way to make a point is to put a picture of Gandhi and Che Guevara side by side and make people think as if Gandhi endorsed Che Guevara or something.
I am sorry dude but if you really wanna make a point(EVER) then try not starting it as ‘I dont need to understand something which is illogical according to my understanding’, its called circular logic. Also if you wanna call something logical or illogical, better write the illogical part in that sentence itself or don’t use the words at all. For example, instead of writing ‘Religion is illogical’, try writing ‘the belief that there is something unseen, unproven omniscent and omnipresent controls each and every move of our body and mind is illogical’. Why? Because nobody gives a damn to your classification of rational/irrational, or logical/illogical, but if you put the core part you disagree with in the same sentence then that gives people an opportunity to judge it for themselves rather than fearing the usage of the word ‘ILLOGICAL’ or ‘IRRATIONAL’(I have seen the effect of those words among ‘Objectivists’, its almost as bad as ‘blasphemy’ or ‘heresy’ among Christians).
August Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 1:09 am@Renegade Division
Gandhi tried to be god for common and poor people, who is denying that?…He wanted to raise their standard, he wanted them to have self respect and desire to have freedom. He made every individuals freedom his own battle. He did not differentiate between two humans on the basis of color and caste, if he found even a british suppressed, he would try to vindicate him.
I don’t have any problem with his battle but the means he chose. Even I don’t have any problem with the people who followed them, it was their choice. But during this fight, because of the means he chose (Non-Violence or Non-Resistance against violence, both were same for him.), he actually became an angel of death.
If someone uses force against you, it is completely right to use force to defend yourself.
Actually, by non-resistance, Gandhi wanted to wake up The British’s conscience, this was always his motive. One of the parallel statement to this I found on wikipedia:
“Hitler,” Gandhi said, “killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
See here also, Gandhi wnated to wake up the conscience of Germans, so they could self realise that what they were doing was wrong.
But how did he choose to wake up conscience of a tyrant, by killing up his own conscience, by doing violence against himself. He said I would tolerate every torture you give to me and some day you will feel guilt of what you did to me and your conscience would wake up. But in doing this , did he care about his own conscience, his own soul. He butchered himself, and taught every follower of his to do the same. This is what I call his sin. This is why I called his principle immoral. This is why I stopped understanding him anymore.
If you are not able to understand this simple fact then I would not be able to give anymore better argument to convince you.
What would you do of a freedom if you lost the meaning of being free, you already butchered your conscience, you stopped to understand what happiness is. To make others good, you made yourself worst possible.
I don’t doubt that his methods brought result, but that does not make him right.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 1:16 amI know just for your sake of superiority you will keep ranting about teachings of Gandhi no matter how ridiculous they were. It doesn’t bring any good, yet it will certainly produce some Marx sooner or later. You may not be that Marx, I am not sure.
Renegade Division Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 1:20 am@August Said:
Ok good to know that. Now do you have a method or a solution or a way on how to get liberty? Real liberty, and not just phony easy credit, phony deregulation mantra liberty.(And yeah I still don’t think you understand Gandhian principles, but then this time you at least made an effort, its just that now you can’t see the point which I can see, so why not you tell me how to achieve more liberty, when everyday all what happens is we keep on losing more and more liberties everyday).
@Unpretentious Diva
Sure the guy who ran the largest world’s largest tax protest movement will lead you to Marxism, damn right!
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 1:38 amYou miss the point Renegade and you miss it from greater lengths.
Ok tell me, if you start a movement say “Abolish Taxes” and you sit on a Dharna and a fast till death (just like Sundar Lal Bahuguna did for saving some trees) and you spread the words, you teach all your rationals about tax being a violent means of government tactics, you suggest people that Taxes are wrong, and brings further poverty wastage or whatever that would be…
What makes it Gandhian? Just because you held a peaceful march with say 100 of your friends makes you Gandhian?
You see, you do not get the point, no matter you may project all such peaceful movements like peaceful marches, announced “fast till deaths” presenting yourself to be jailed for some cause, it doesn’t make you Gandhian. It is all libertarian process, libertarian processes of Non-violent use of your freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of action.
you won’t be bombing some government building, you are libertarian, you won’t be killing someone/attacking some one/abusing someone, you are a libertarian, you will make most peaceful presentation of your libertarian ideas, you are libertarian, that won’t make you Gandhi.
You may choose to go to the most poor colony of Indians (say Dharavi?) and start working for their cause, you may donate all your earnings to them just to show that you without government can provide much help to poor and hence every person who want to help poor must avoid government and start taking live actions like you, he should leave his government services and should be a social servant to help the poor, to teach them or whatever.
But that do not make you a Gandhian.
For you to be a Gandhian, you should start deleting your articles which presumably support property rights, and right of a Man to be Happy, no matter his neighbor is not feeling happy.
By the way, if you really start some “Dharna” some peaceful march towards statue of liberty and than declare fast till death, presenting yourself to government Hospital where the government will serve you with the best medical equipments and the most beautiful nurse to serve you while you enjoy your fast with glucose in your veins, I won’t call you a Gandhi, rather I will say that Irwin Schiff was better.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 1:49 amBaby you miss the point again.
Why people followed Gandhi in his march against Salt Taxes?
Why?
Because they considered that the Taxes are been taken by a Foreign government and they are being concerned as slaves on their own soil. They could not see that British government will do anything good for them, they knew their taxes will be used to enrich British accounts.
So they with the essence of Love for their Motherland, followed Gandhi’s march.
Why did Irwin Schiff failed to gather even a dozen of his supporters in his non-violent method of Tax-protest?
Because people were not ready to accept that US government will waste their money, that it is looting them. For US personals, Obama is their right choice, US people are willingly giving their money as taxes to Obama. No matter they feel compulsed for it or not, if you ask some US common man whether he would like to avoid taxes, he would say taxes are sure evil but they are necessary, government do this and that, government is necessary for our protection, how will it sustain without taxes?
Now try to gather Indian case, if you had asked any indian during the time of salt tax-opposition, no one would have said that British government is good and serving safety of Indian people.
For them British government was looter. How can Gandhi make it possible to let Indians feel that Indian own democratic government is robber?
Gandhi even failed to make it a case that Nehru was actually trying to be the next dictator, and he let Nehru to be because he couldn’t stop him.
Nehru was a socialist/marxist, was not he?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 1:55 amOne last thing for the great Mr. Irrational renegade division.
Let us suppose Gandhi takes rebirth, and he come to know that the industries and mills of the capitalists are causing huge burn outs and pollution. and he starts protesting Non-Violently. he stages Dharna, he demand people to be poor but nature savvy, he demand people to be in dark at nights, but to reduce electricity production, reduce coal consumption, Gandhi says that industrialists should not think for profits and should start closing down their industries or try to find some ways like sun energy, wind energy to have electricity.
How many Industrialist do you think will start reducing production?
I don’t think any would. Gandhian ways won’t work, although his philosophy will make him do all that.
So you see, Gandhian ways were not wrong, his philosophy was wrong which was his means of movements.
Now I don’t say don’t follow Gandhian ways, do follow them, but I know it won’t bring any much success.
GauravGagaGaurav Says:
December 13th, 2009 at 1:56 amIt is true that Gandhi never supported idea of property rights, he considered aspiration and acquisition of wealth and profits as evil, he consider an individual’s strive for his personal well-being and pursuit of pleasure as sinful.
Not every Siddhartha will give away his inherited pleasures for the search of truth and become a Gautama Buddha.
I am not quite sure about whether gandhian was libertarian or pacifist or socilaist or whatever , But then few things I am sure about is being Libertarian you can support anything but u can’t coerce people to follow them ,Siddartha leaving royal blessings was being libertarian just because He acted by his own lebertarian reasons , I really think the meaning of property is lost out the moment someone else becomes responsible o decide its ownership .
Moivng ahead , Indian national Independence movement quite Ironically or surprisingly or whatever was never fought of on the grounds of economic liberty , The masses were stil defunct from economic liberalization , the whole independence movement was fought on social liberalization. And then , once we became independent we were flushed down to think about Economic liberty which is quite obvious.
The greattest advantage with socilaism is it sounds so beautiful in words that you can fool generations and hence we are living in India OF NEHRUVIAN and INDIRA dreams.
Gopi Krishnan Says:
December 13th, 2009 at 3:37 am“I could not disregard Bhagat Singh’s right to kill the murderer of Lala Lajpat Rai, whom he considered as his mentor, I could not disregard Udham Singh’s right to kill General Dyer who killed hundreds of unarmed helpless Indians at Jalian Wala Bagh. I consider those actions by Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh as their libertarian right to Justice.”
So, I can kill the murderer of my father’s brother’s wife’s uncle’s son-in-law’s friend; and still call myself a libertarian?? In fact, according to your statement, I have the right to kill any murderer… or have I misunderstood you? I thought libertarians were against killing, unless it’s for personal defence. Or is it that libertarians can kill whoever tries to kill another person?
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 13th, 2009 at 10:37 pmAs a matter of Fact, that is the Libertarian principle.
if you kill a person and after killing, prove in a third arbitrary court beyond any doubt, that the person was liable to Capital Punishment/death penalty, than you cannot be termed as criminal, rather you will be an aid to Justice.
Remember, in a free society, everybody is free to provide services. A third party court or a jail institution doesn’t have a monopoly on legal affairs.
The only thing is, you CAN kill only a murderer.
Yes, you have 100% right to kill a murderer.
Lol yes why? What will one do if some one is abusing his wife, beating her and is just about to penetrate her ****** with his hard-on? Won’t he save her? How? By attacking the abuser/rapist? Or will he keep juggling with his mobile phone to call for some government police or private security guard? That would be funny.
You must Watch the movie “Jane Tu Ya Jane Naa!” The movie has depicted the moral dilemma of a supposed Gandhian in such a situation, at last, he comes to realize that much before being a Gandhian, he is a man, a Free Man. I consider that movie as the second best Libertarian movie by Bollywood! First being Lagaan.
It is your liberty to safeguard your friends, sisters, mothers, brothers, fathers, or any human being in general against a rouge/abuser/attacker. And it is your right to revenge for your/your family’s/your friend’s or any common man’s honor/life. It is your moral right to maintain Justice. In a free society No police or security agency or Private guards agency can have monopoly on the profession of providing security against Violence.\
In case of Bhagat Singh, a very demure, very Moral, very straightly Non-Violent Old Person Lala Lajpt Rai, who was no less respectful and important than Gandhi himself was attacked like he was an animal.
Bhagat Singh himself was a direct evdence of that crime, he had liberty to provide justice to the Indians, supporter of Lala Lajpat Rai.
In case of Udham Singh, Udham Singh killed a man who was not only guilty of killing hundreds of women and children, but also felt proud of doing so. The British court and government had simply ignored his crime and infact had given accolades to him for his crime. He deserved death. Udham Singh provided it.
Shanu Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 1:47 amGopi,
Under a libertarian society, punishment will be based on restitution, and not retribution. The problem you posed is a bit complicated. If X murders Y, X would have to compensate the family members(or the person who homesteads his estate) of Y. What if someone murders X? He would have to compensate the family members of X. In the above case, both the payments seem to cancel out each other. Under libertarianism, an act won’t be punished under the notion that the act is intrinsically wrong. So, a murderer won’t be punished simply because murder is immoral-Only if the profit loss calculations of Private defense agencies warrant that punishment. So, a PDA may or may not have incentives to not collect compensation from a murderer’s murderer.
Gopi Krishnan Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 3:25 amok.. i just thought i heard one of the writers in this site argue against capital punishment (i think it was shanu)long back. that’s y i wanted to clarify it.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 7:49 amNo one can argue against Capital punishment on the moral or legal objective point of view, yet it is always a personal choice/decision to be made.
That is, if X kills Y, and he accepts his punishment, or is caught, than it is always the choice and freedom of the victim’s family to decide whether to take monetary punishment (in accordance with Insurance agency norms) or Not to ask for any monetary punishment but to insist for Capital punishment of the killer.
We have discussed a similar issue in case of rape. it is not necessary that a victim of rape will demand monetary punishment, she may ask for physical punishment/imprisonment for the criminal, even she may decide to marry him (some girls prefer to do so).
Renegade Division Says:
December 14th, 2009 at 7:44 pm@Unpretentious Diva said:
Just the Gandhian method of non-violence does not make it Satyagraha, sure you are not aggressing against anyone, but Gandhian method of non-violence is not about not being violent, but more about the truth. IF you are protesting for a lie, as in you by protesting want to convince an aggressor to commit aggression against someone(like protesting peacefully to make laws against drugs), then that’s not Satyagraha, that’s Duragraha. Although if you are protesting against the drug use, as in you are protesting peacefully trying to convince drug users to stop using drugs, that is still Gandhian. IF we all voluntarily become Socialist, is that unlibertarian? NO. Is that un-Gandhian, NO.
You must have the truth part correct if you wanna do Satyagraha. In terms of Randian language, can you achieve Objectivity by using Subjective means? Can you know the color of a White Car by looking through Red colored glasses(it will look red to you). Can you find Objective truth by using Subjective tools? That’s what it all comes down to.
Who the eff cares, whether that makes you Gandhi/Gandhian or not? Why is it that its all about whether its Gandhian or not to you(I mean to you its more about whehter something is Gandhian or not and not about whether you objectively find the idea appealing or not). I am going to say it again, your disdain of Gandhi is blinding your objectivity here. The sheer statement like this: you will make most peaceful presentation of your libertarian ideas, you are libertarian, that won’t make you Gandhi. tells me that you don’t care the effectiveness of Gandhian principles but (if they work then) more about whether you can call it Gandhian principles or not.
How is Irwin Schiff not Gandhian? Jesus! I am not replying another of your arguments if you are going to use the word ‘Gandhi or Gandhian’, use the term ‘Satyagraha’ if you wanna talk about Gandhian process.
Look this discussion is NOT about Udham Singh avenging the death of people in Jalianwala Bagh massacre by killing General O’Dwyer. This discussion isn’t whether its justified to aggress against someone who has killed another individual or not.
OF COURSE its justified. If I were a Libertarian court judge then I will acquit Udham Singh and execute Bhagat Singh for committing aggression against Saunders.
I wrote this thing in BOLD emphasis in my article Was Gandhi a Libertarian?:
If the aggressor’s right and wrong are twisted around, his polarities are reversed, if what you consider right is wrong for them, and what you consider is wrong is right for them, then there is no way you could win against them by responding to their aggression with more aggression.
Read that again, I wrote a whole article just to explain that principle, its the essence of it in one line.
If you really wanna make that point then answer this question:
Is the libertarian approach of punishment/restitution more effective when trying to stop an enemy who has his morality reversed, or is the Gandhian approach of Satyagraha more effective. The conclusion I came up to was, that its the latter approach more effective against an enemy such as State.
All the people you have found to support your viewpoint till now, none of them have anything productive to talk about,except ‘yeah you are right, Gandhi sucked ***’, ‘yeah he was a masochist’, ‘yeah you are right he did not like private property’. My reply? “who the eff cares”.
You know what’s happening right now in America? Two books about Ayn Rand have been released. One book is praising her life and work, the other book talking about her sex life. Guess which book has gotten a bigger coverage from media and in public, especially from New York Times? You guessed it right, its the latter book. Why? Nobody cares what her philosophy was, people have already formed their opinion based on the individual. The popular opinion is, that they hate the people who support Ayn Rand, so by association they dislike Rand. All sorts of stupid arguments are being given against her, but the fact of the matter is, what has her sex life or any other thing to do with the idea about seeing truth objectively for what it is?
I cannot tell you about the parallels in your argument against Gandhi and what people generally say against Rand, ‘Oh Alan Greenspan apologized for being wrong in believing in Rand, you SEE!’. The possible demographic who might be interested in reading her are the Conservative crowd, so lets write a book about Ayn Rand’s sex life because nothing freaks out conservatives more than an ideal with anti-culture values. Rand’s philosophy must be bad because she was associated with so and so actions.
Same goes with your viewpoints against Gandhi, honestly speaking GP makes better argument on average than your brute force arguments against Gandhi. Gandhian philosophy must be bad because he did/did not do so and so thing.
Why is it that if your arguments are so objective then they reek of your disdain for Gandhi? You haven’t given ONE fair shot to the idea of achieving Liberty through Satyagraha/civil disobedience/passive resistance.
I read its story on Wikipedia, the most crackpot story Bollywood every created. Again its a kind of story someone would write who does not understand Gandhian philosophy. Gandhian philosophy of non-violence is not for cowards(Gandhi himself said it many many times), and the guy Jai Singh Rathore ‘Rats’ is a coward. The reason why he is so non-violent because he is trying to take a cover to hide his cowardice under the mask of non-violence.
When you are Gandhian you derive your power from Truth, and that’s a very important part. If you are taking a bullet for your rapist brother, then that’s not Gandhianism(although your appeal could be for a fair trial which could be a matter of truth and you will get strength from it).
Lemme give you a practical example of Gandhian non-violence and just non-Gandhian non-violence.
If your friend is about to get arrested for murder, and he tells you that he did not kill anyone and asks you to save him from the police who is at the doors to arrest him. You stand at the door to stop the Police from entering in. The police threatens to shoot you if you don’t comply. You are trying take a non-violent stand there, but you are scared from inside about the bullet. Most importantly the thought which is in your mind is ‘What if he really murdered someone?’ There is no truth here, so there is no power from truth here. The only reason why you are taking the stand there because you know you can’t win a gun fight with police.
Now take another example, your friend is about to get arrested for writing hateful material against a particular sect. The police comes to his house to arrest him, and he asks you to stand for him. You objectively know that he did commit those actions and there was nothing wrong or an act of aggression in his action. So this time when you take the stand against the Police, you stand tall. The police threatens to shoot you, you ask them to go ahead. The police hesitates because they know FROM INSIDE that they cannot really shoot someone over a piece of literature.
That’s the power of truth, when combined with non-violent methods forms ‘Satya-agraha=>Satyagraha’. The non-violent methods used with lies form ‘Duragraha’. In the first situation, you by not allowing due process of law over your friend were committing Duragraha(albeit using non-violent means), and the cops would have shot you because they knew they were correct.
In the second situation you knew it from inside that you are correct, you had the power of truth with you, so you were a Satyagrahi in that situation, but the Police Chief who was just trying to talk you down(again using non-violent means) was a Duragrahi.
When so called Gandhian protesters rally for more environmental laws and regulations they are actually Duragrahi, there is nothing Gandhian about them.
You can call a person who stands for truth non-violently as a masochist, but then why is a person who uses violence while standing for anything any different from a sadist. Its obvious you don’t know anything about the term ‘sadism’ and ‘masochism’, they are just cool terms for you to use. But they are not imaginary terms they are for a real purpose.
Sadism means when you ENJOY inflicting pain to someone else. If you are dropping hot wax on a person’s body and you are enjoying it, getting aroused by it then you are sadist. If you are dropping wax on another person’s body to get rid of bee stings or something like that you aren’t being a sadist(Despite of doing the same action).
Similarly, Masochism means when you ENJOY inflicting pain on yourself. The pain gives you pleasure. If your hand is rotting up and it needs to be cut off then allowing it to be cut off is not masochism. Getting vaccines is not masochism, unless you derive gratification out of it.
When a Gandhian is standing in front of a British soldiers ready to take a hit from his Lathi, he is not being a masochist, he doesn’t derive a pleasure from it. He wants it to end as much as any other person. He wants to achieve a goal, and the goal isn’t gratification. The goal is to achieve freedom. You are accepting pain so that you derive something better when the pain ends. If you enjoy the process of receiving pain then that’s a different thing.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 15th, 2009 at 4:26 amThere is a problem in that. The problem is, I can say that Irwin Schiff was a Satyrgrahi, but I know that Gandhi was just Gandhian, he was not a Satyagrahi.
Or may be his definition of Truth was abruptly wrong.
You see my contentions are pretty valid against his sense of truth.
he says, one should not be violent, so that is why he criticizes Bhagat Singh or Udham Singh (on my principles, those of their act for which Gandhi criticizes them were appropriately valid on standards of truth), but than, he himself supports British force morally and physically to apply violence on armless people, he had did so, He voluntary admitted himself for the help of British army against Zulu protestors in South Asia. Now that is double standards for the truth of non-violence. He simply could have remain neutral against vilolence. He was not, he was “Subjective”, if the same violence was used by Britishers against protesters of British Empire, than Gandhi was supporting them morally, physically. if protesters were opposing British expolitation violently, than according to gandhi it was critically wrong.
On the other hand, Irwin Schiff is Satyagrahi/Objectivis, he is not Gandhian/Subjectivist. For him, Taxes are wrong, irrespective of who is being subjected to the taxes.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 15th, 2009 at 4:36 amTo be a Gandhian, a person need to have double standards, subjective moralities, and politically motivated ideals.
A Satyagrahi, or an Objectivist, for whom the rational principles are objective and doesn’t change with the subject of the principle, cannot be a Gandhian, Gandhi was not Satyagrahi, he was Gandhian.
You see renegade division, I do get your point. You Want to say that in 1922 Gandhi took back his non-cooperation motion because of some violent streaks in some villages of UP. One may agree with you. But than, you will fail to explain the subjectivity of Gandhi during 1945, when again he declared Non-cooperation and Quit India movement, and openly stated that “This time, he will not take his Noncooperation movement even if some Inians gets violent against Britishers.
In 1945, he didn’t remain that much stern against violence. he knew that in 1922, British were not so week to Not to be able to difuse any of his non-cooperation movement, but in 1945, Britishers were exceptionally week, Plus, they needed Indian youth to help them in their fight against Germans. Gandhi used his great and respectable political astute, I apreciate him for that. But then, it again makes him not a Satyagrahi, but a Gandhian, an astute politician with little or nothing to do with truth or Satya.
Again, you will always fail to explain the idea of Subjective Non-cooperation. Gandhi called for non-cooperation in 1920’s, And same Gandhi called for Indian youth to take part in WW1 for the respect and glory of British Empire and India. You see, War is violence, and Gandhi wanted Indian youth to fight and kill FOR Britishers, yet he didn’t wanted any Indian to kill any British atrocious dictator. For him, non-violence was subjective idea.
Not only that, his idea of Non-Cooperation was also subjective., he was willing to exhort Inian youth to help British army and strengthen it and “co-operate” with British empire. On the other hand, he was calling for non-cooperation. An objective Non-cooperation would have meant no cooperation to British government be it military or economical. But Gandhi wasn’t objective, nor he was Satyagrahi.
If irwin schiff says that, he won’t give compulsory taxes for anything else, but he may agree to give compulsory taxes for US military, than yes, even Irwin Schiff would be a mere Gandhian but not an Objectivist, not a Satyagrahi!
You see? No where and no time Gandhi was Objectivist or Satyagrahi.
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