We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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India: that is democracy Free market people should not be depressed by the result of the Indian general election. The BJP government borrowed money hand over fist (India has a large government deficit) and spent the money on government road building projects and other such.
Of course the new Congress Party government (plus its socialist allies) is not going to be any better – but that is democracy.
If anyone knows of any government (democratic or undemocratic) that is cutting government spending I would be pleased to hear of it.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
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Is this for real?
a href =”http://www.hillsdale.edu/newimprimis/2004/april/”>Rolling Back Government: Lessons from New Zealand
I didn’t think it ever happened anywhere — this guy says it did in “En Zed”
Aaargh! That link, one more time: Rolling Back Government: Lessons from New Zealand
Paul – India needs those roads desperately. Anyone who has seen Indian roads will testify to their sheer inadequacy and poor quality. Its not like Japan where LDP linked construction firms have overbuilt roads and bridges to nowhere.
Well I guess I can cross India off of my very short list of places to flee to if they ever DO start rounding up dissidents here in the US (Please please please you crazy 9 folks in black robes, get the Jose Padilla case right!)
Although regardless of who’s in office, I suppose smoking hash with Shivites is always an option 🙂
Berlusconi is proposing a Thatcherite program for Italy, tax AND spending cuts. Whether that will turn into cuts in absolute numbers remains to be seen.
As for India, my guess is they’ll stick with the reform program. The Indian stock-market crashed at the prospect of the return of Socialism, the privatisations provide central government with much needed revenue, I think thats attractive even to the Congress party.
The BJP might have been better on the economy, but it did have a scary Hindu nationalist element, at least the Congress party is secular.
David Mercer – People who have Shiva as their personal god don’t smoke hashish, for heaven’s sake! You have been listening tales of ancient hippies.
I hate the Gandhi family. Hate them, hate them, hate them! They set India back by over 50 years. The country could have been in the first world long since without their iron-clad, pursed-lip disapproval of capitalism. Indians are by nature capitalistic as a duck by nature swims. And they’re not just clever and energetic, but they have the will to move things forward.
(Of course, as is so often the case, Rajiv was in favour of very large profits for himself as he, an ex-Indian Airlines pilot, was in the pocket of the major aircraft manufacturers.)
No wonder the stock market crashed! What on earth has this Sonia done in her entire life besides get married? One billion people and they couldn’t find a professional politician who is economically literate? I assure you beyond a shadow of a doubt, Sonia will go for the admiration of the rural workers, who will worship her because her surname is Gandhi and she can be their little mother, and wreck the economy. She will pose about as a champion of the poor, not understanding that, as our beloved PJ says, “When the water rises, all our boats go up.” It is such a tragedy — just as India was beginning to look like a contendah! And everyone was happy to welcome India into the circle of successful countries.
Mark my words, Sonia Gandhi will wreck the economy. All the smart Indians, whose name is legion, will, seeing no hope at home, bugger off to enrich themselves and the West in other countries.
Sonia Gandhi is as stupid and smug and self-righteous and self-regarding as the rest of the Gandhi family. Why else would one of them have married her?
It’s amazing what was achieved in New Zealand. By a Labout government to boot!
And thank God there’s a least one liberal counterpart to Pinochet’s horrible regime. I take comfort in the fact that whilst New Zealand’s reforms were success, the changes General Ugarte oversaw were arguably a disaster. Maybe Greg Palast is wrong and political and economic freedoms really do go together after all?
Verity –
Of course Sonia Gandhi is no good, and of course her family were corrupt: so are the majority of Congress politicians; so are the majority of BJP politicians. However, she’s not in a position to make any significant change to the economic deregulation that’s going on (nor would the BJP be in any significant position to accelerate it, and nor would they wish to) – reimposing Nehruite socialism just isn’t an option.
The Congress and the BJP’s two primary activities are taking large bribes and starting race riots. Congress are a particularly keener on the former, and also take an interest in the latter; the BJP tip the balance the other way. Both activities clearly deter businesspeople from investing and operating in India.
My marginal preference is for the former than the latter, so I’m mildly pleased by the election result. But while disagreement on which is preferable is perfectly legitimate, your doom-laden predictions are simply nonsense.
john b – I agree with your assessment of the parties, but the Congress Party is the one that believes it and it alone knows all the answers to, well, everything really. They are preachy and communist in their souls.
Sonia will go around being worshipped by the agrarian illiterates and posing as their saviour, unaware that their saviour is the success of India in the international marketplace. With any luck, she will screw up pretty quickly and there will be another election called within six months, before she can do too much damage.
john b – I can assure you that no one will say her nay, such is the mystique of the Gandhi family. You say she can’t wreck the economy. Well, her name certainly was sudden death on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The people with the money do not trust her – and with good reason.
BTW, I don’t believe Nehru was on the take and nor was Indira. Let’s face it, if she was taking money, she’d have had a car with a top speed of more than the Ambassador’s 45 mph. Rajiv was the first one to take to corruption like a duck to water.
john b
Are you arguing that all politicians are the same ? That no bunch can do more harm to the economy and liberty, that the other ?
This is wrong. Some do more harm than others.
Judging from the Nehru-Ghandi tradition, seems the fears of many (including the stock market) are plausible.
Breaking news: (Link)
If the link doesn’t work, go to telegraph.co.uk and it’s on the front page. Sonia has stepped down as leader, saying she doesn’t want to be prime minister. I think she got scared by the power of the international negativity and suddenly realised she couldn’t handle it.
Her party is presenting it as a fear of assassination, but had she feared assassination, she wouldn’t have worked so hard to become leader. I think the fact that her name closed down the Bombay Stock Exchange must have brought home to her that she was way, way, way out of her depth. Also brought home, I think, that the international capital markets have absolutely no interest in her name – just the effect she is having.
Good!
And here is how the impartial Quisling Broadcasting Corporation reported the resignation of communist Sonia: Stock markets have been volatile since the defeat of the governing BJP, which has criticised her suitability for the post because of her Italian origins.
Note that it is not the world or even the international capital markets that criticised her suitability. It was only the defeated governing party (which believes in stock markets and investment) speaking in bitterness, so doesn’t count. And, of course, she was deemed inadequate because of something that wasn’t her fault: her birth. She was a victim of prejudice! Trevor Phillips is even now winging out to advise her of her rights and report the BJP to the Metropolitan Police.
It all depends on your levels of cynicism I guess (I know yours are very high, mine aren’t low…).
The fact that the BJP have stirred up hatred against Sonya for being foreign-born does make it more likely that some saffron nutcase will try and blow her head off, so it does lend credibility to her stated story.
BTW, the main reason the BSE crashed was because the thing investors hate most is instability. Surprise election results => stock market crashes, almost irrespective of the candidates. Fear that the communists would bugger everything up is also there, but to a much lesser degree.
Given that the likely candidate for PM now is Manmohan Singh, who invented economic liberalisation (well obviously not, but who was the first politician to do any of it in India), the overall outcome seems to be far more positive than a BJP win – a defeat for tribalism, and a win for (still painfully slow, this being India) liberalisation.
john b – Okay, okay.
But if she didn’t want her head blown off by a saffron nutcase, why did she put herself forward? Especially as, let us not forget, it was Sonia who drove the assassinated Indira, bleeding from bullet wounds, to the hospital through New Delhi traffic in the aforementioned Ambassador, which didn’t need to screech to a halt in front of the emergency entrance because an Ambassador’s entire progress is a sort of slow-moving halt.
You’re probably partly right about the BSE, but I also think the markets were frightened of Sonia because she has no qualification to lead a schoolboard, never mind a heaving country of 1bn, many of them exceptionally bright and feverishly ambitious.
And I just hate the entire stupid dependence on the Gandhis in India and I hate the way the Gandhis have set themselves up as a dynasty. They could certainly teach the Kennedys a thing or two. And I trace it all back to Mohanandas Gandhi (no relation, for anyone reading this far who doesn’t know). It was his priggishness and small-mindedness about India that he somehow managed to pass to Nehru, who looks as though he could have been quite good fun (certainly Edwina Mountbatten thought so) if he hadn’t been taken up by Gandhi. Gandhi didn’t see the world changing and he therefore didn’t really envision a place for India in it.
With a normal, capitalist government, those poor agrarian workers could probably all at least be in homes with running water by now, and maybe most of them with a scooter. But no. They had to suffer for Gandhi’s miniscule view of the future.
India missed the boat, and it’s due to that dynasty. Now they’re just getting a toehold in the modern world and the idea of another Gandhi in there just made my blood boil. And then there’s that Pritikaya coming up fast.
Gandhi? Pacifist fool. I think most informed people share this view. Good intentions and all, but his ideas have wrecked India.
As for governments cutting spending… well, my country’s government is obsessed with maintaining a budget surplus while keeping tax rates as low as possible. But even it is spending more this year. They promise a surplus in 2005, but I don’t think it’s too likely unless the economy picks up and the governemnt cuts spending on education and transport.
TWG
Pacifist fool, yes. But don’t forget the all-important words “self-righteous”. He was another one who had been favoured with unique insights he was going to force on everyone else whether they agreed or not.
On roads – if India (or anywhere else) needs them then private companies or associations will provide them.
And before anyone talks of “poor helpless India” – Britain of the late 18th and early 19th century (the Britain of the Turn Pike Trusts) was as least as poor as India.
Government does not create resources. It just removes them from civil society – if the civil society of India needs roads it (if allowed to) would create them.
On cutting government spending: Whatever may have occured in New Zealand in the past it is not cutting government spending now (and has not done so recently).
Nor do I believe that Italy is – although (yes) Mr B. is much less bad than his foes (such as Mr Prodi from the E.U.).
On the G. family.
Well Nehru and Mrs I.G. were indeed terrible – although it is worth noting that they were taught their collectivist ideas in Britain (not India). However, the last G. family Prime Minister (although not good) was not nearly as bad as them.
Paul Marks – Yes, Nehru and Indira both went to university – I can’t remember which one, but I think Oxford. Tens of thousands of people went to Oxford an Cambridge and not all of them turned into communist loons. Nehru I can almost forgive because he was so much under the sway of Gandhi, a rigid, self-regarding, judgemental personality. He had such a vast following, the young, inexperienced Nehru probably thought he must be doing something right. Despite lefty Richard Attenborough’s movie, Gandhi was a vast, hungry ego.
Indira, there was absolutely no excuse for. She took to authoritarianism and meddling like a duck to water, just as her son Rajiv took to corruption like a duck to water. But yes, at least Rajiv saw to it that car-buying Indians no longer had to buy those clunking Ambassadors and got the Maruti started. But he had that Gandhi simpler that makes one want to throw a pie in their face.
Three generations of one family becoming prime minister is just too absurd in a country calling itself a democracy. And they were ready to put Sonia in next! My god! Have they no pride?
Uhm, would it be aggravating if I mentioned my country, supposedly also a democracy, will have two generations of one family becoming Prime Minister?
Of course, the son of LKY in this case is probably of an entirely different caliber compared to Sonia. She wants to be Prime Minister, the market crashes. LHL got diagnosed with cancer a few years back, almost spoiling his prospects of being Prime Minister, the market crashed.
As an interesting aside, Lee graduated from Cambridge with a 1st class hon in math. What did Indira study?
TWG
Wobbly – There is absolutely no comparison. 1) Nehru. 2) His daughter Indira. 3) Her son Rajiv. 4) Rajiv’s widow. I think NOT.
You cannot deny that BG Lee is brilliant (and very handsome; counts with the ladies). In my opinion, he would win on his own account. He has the brains and the charisma. Yes, wheels within wheels, but it was ever thus in politics. Al Gore is third generation bigtime political family, after all. He didn’t rise to presidential contender on his own account. John Kennedy appointed his brother Robert to the powerful post of Attorney General.
Actually, after Goh Chok Tong, I think Singapore will be ready for a little Lee charisma and quick wit. (Nothing against the worthy GCT, but boy is he DULL.)
Wobbly – There is absolutely no comparison. 1) Nehru. 2) His daughter Indira. 3) Her son Rajiv. 4) Rajiv’s widow. I think NOT.
You cannot deny that BG Lee is brilliant (and very handsome; counts with the ladies). In my opinion, he would win on his own account. He has the brains and the charisma. Yes, wheels within wheels, but it was ever thus in politics. Al Gore is third generation bigtime political family, after all. He didn’t rise to presidential contender on his own account. John Kennedy appointed his brother Robert to the powerful post of Attorney General and his annointed successor.
Actually, after Goh Chok Tong, I think Singapore will be ready for a little Lee charisma and quick wit. (Nothing against the worthy GCT, but boy is he DULL.)
Don’t know how that happened. It told me I’d failed because of the wrong security code and to tap in the new one. Sorry.
Nehru may well have been “under the influence of Gandhi” however the “permit Raj” stuff did not come from Gandhi – it is Fabian stuff.
As for authoritarianism – well if you want to have a statist economy that is what you have (in the end) to have.
After all (as Hayek pointed out) “welfare state” and “police state” ideas have a common root.
Although, I accept, that Indira was the sort of person who would not be that upset by authoritarianism
Mark my words, Sonia Gandhi will wreck the economy. All the smart Indians, whose name is legion, will, seeing no hope at home, bugger off to enrich themselves and the West in other countries.
But while disagreement on which is preferable is perfectly legitimate, your doom-laden predictions are simply nonsense.
The fact that the BJP have stirred up hatred against Sonya for being foreign-born does make it more likely that some saffron nutcase will try and blow her head off, so it does lend credibility to her stated story.
I think the fact that her name closed down the Bombay Stock Exchange must have brought home to her that she was way, way, way out of her depth. Also brought home, I think, that the international capital markets have absolutely no interest in her name – just the effect she is having.
Government does not create resources. It just removes them from civil society – if the civil society of India needs roads it (if allowed to) would create them.
On cutting government spending: Whatever may have occured in New Zealand in the past it is not cutting government spending now (and has not done so recently).
Of course, the son of LKY in this case is probably of an entirely different caliber compared to Sonia. She wants to be Prime Minister, the market crashes. LHL got diagnosed with cancer a few years back, almost spoiling his prospects of being Prime Minister, the market crashed.
On cutting government spending: Whatever may have occured in New Zealand in the past it is not cutting government spending now (and has not done so recently).
I am a non-hippy Indian non-white Shivite and I used to smoke a lot of hash to Lord Shiva (I don’t anymore). Victorian India adopted many of the then British norms and taboos, and the smoking of hash for Shiva became stigmatised and so declined from an almost universal practice to something that’s now quite rare. Literate India is now picking up from where its development was interrupted by unwelcome foreign pirates and is busy redefining its self-image in a pre-British context. Anyway, suffice to say that there is plenty of documentary evidence in support of the smoking of hash for Shiva by devotees.
But the government has experienced lot of changes with the elections. More over the upcoming state assembly election results(Link) will bring a huge turnover in the government.