A Red Herring and a Leash

"That government is best which governs the least"- Thoreau

I have always felt that a more astute observation about governance has not been made. At a time when the national ego seems to have been bruised by the Maoist onslaught, the Indian identity challenged, it is important to question if justifying state violence to appease a collective consciousness is a sign of Indian mentality degenerating into rabid nationalism.

Very few public personalities in India have been lambasted more in recent memory than Arundhati Roy. She's been labelled an intellectual bitch, commie, and has been accused of romanticizing violence. But having read a lot of her work off late, I'm pretty convinced that she's the voice India needs to listen to right now, not the least because in this intellectually bracketed warfare (either you're a Maoist or State) and for this complex problem, of Corporates implicit in dispossessing the tribals and of caste politics, she's one of the few voices bringing out the aspect of the human suffering of tribals. Let's face it, what has been happening here is systematic oppression of the tribals for the mineral rich land and the are just striking back. The maoist just happen to be taking advantage of the mess.

The only place I differ with her are on her deep biases against free markets. What's happening here is not capitalism gone mad, but the merger of the State and the Corporate interests - the original definition of fascism. In free markets (ideally) the power to decide lies with the local communities as a result of private property. Unfortunately, because of poor land reform in India, people living for thousands of years in the land are being evicted for the sake of corporate interests.

For some years now, there have been dangerous trends emerging in the behavior of Indian state. The UID is one of them. Purportedly, to root out corruption and improve delivery of government schemes, every individual in India will be given a Unique Identification card, forcibly if required. At an estimated spend of $35 B, this program looks like a totalitarian's dream come true. Not only is it a gross violation of civil liberties that the state is poking around in your life too much, but its a potential tool for mass control (and transfer of wealth from people to the governments IT stooges). Oh no, don't you think this is paranoia; in UK public concern recently made government cancel such a program. In other countries, such a move would be met with mass protests, but we Indians trust our government a tad too much. This can happen only when technocrats like ManMohan Singh and Nandan Nilekani think that the solution to a social problem is rooted in technology, and not in social changes.

What is needed is more liberty, land reforms, lesser power to babus and decentralisation. I always thought that the Indian state was somewhere between active benevolence and passive malevolence. Not so sure about that anymore. But one thing I'm certain of; changing an age old way of life forcibly in the name of development is not progress, regardless of what GDP says.

P.S. I would direct anyone who is interested in knowing about how central planning is detrimental to personal liberty to read F.A.Hayek's seminal piece 'The Road to Serfdom'

Ad Finem

"You hear that Mr. Anderson?... That is the sound of inevitability"

In another perspective, if Neo were to signify the "great" US, then Agent Smith would be the agent of karma, propounding but the obvious, if "slightly" unpleasant truth to the country: Its time your karma catches up with you.

US continues to be an oft analysed and written about topic of my blogposts, but its only because its truly one of the most interesting places and at a cusp in its history, not really an inflection point as it has long gone past but definitely in an accelerated slide. As history would like us to remember, in vain, that the fall of an empire is because of its hubris, irrespective of what political, economic or cultural foundation it has. No empire, without exceptions has been able to sustain the path of excess as Rome, Britain and the Soviet would testify.

The Economic Fall: A lot has been written about it, i wrote a blog myself. But as i have read more and more about what American capitalism has truly come to stand for, the major culprit has been excluded from almost all anlysis of the current crisis: the government, state or the system, The Party if you must. America is really a nation of one party; the elites that control most of the political power. The Fed, or the central bank's loose monetary policy is what caused the housing bubble and debt problems in the first place. By keeping interest rates artifically low at almost 1% for a long time, it encouraged reckless borrowing. This caused both the sub prime crisis and the debt crisis as the easy credit encouraged people to borrow money they never really could repay.

The role of any central bank is to reduce the impact of business cycles of recession and boom and to keep inflation low. Earlier, when money used to be tied to gold, i.e. the gold standard, the money supply in the economy was pegged to something tangible i.e. the gold, which was directly related to how productive your economy was (goods produced, no. of workers, amount of trade etc.). This kept a check on misuse of monetary policy. However, once the gold standard was repealed, the Fed has been endlessly used for political motives, like wars by creating artificial or fiat money, out of thin air! What this loose monetry policy does is cause inflation which erodes savings and devalues the currency. Thus the central bank has been dangerously manipulated to achieve political goals and at the same time to discourage people to save and promote endless consumption as a result of inflation.

The status quo thus far was that American Dollar was the most trusted currency because of the belief in the nation, but now the Fed has created trillions of dollars of debt, out of thin air, and given it all to the bankers. This is the biggest, illegetimate transfer of wealth in history of mankind and shows the compliance of politicians with the bankers. And just as the Japanese lost decade would indicate, this policy is not going to work. The major difference is that the Japenese were big savers.

Thus the dollar has been debased, the wealth has been transferred to the very people who were partly reponsible for the debacle and the unemployment keeps rising and they have more debt than ever, in the history of civilsation. America sits at the edge of economic disaster of hyperinflationary depression

The Political decline: One of the common characteristics of Empires is their intention of imposing their ideologies on other countries, by the means of wars and force. The two disastrous wars America is fighting is an example. Not only are they responsible for so many deaths, but they don't have any real reason to fight the wars in the first place. Just like the Afghanistan war expedited the fall of Soviet Union, so will these wars. Needless to say, wars are expensive, damaging to a country's reputation and start a vicious spiral of violence and animosity.

And their political system is in shambles. A system of politicians brought to power by the corporate elite through their money has resulted in America becoming a Corporate Entity, with all the political decisions favoring the big corporates. Be it the gun industry, the finance industry, the big pharma, everyones part of the faceless 'system' resulting in a concentration of wealth and power in a few hands.

The Societal decline: A significant proportion of the population is on anti-depressants, a large number have no health care, young students fall into huge debt burdens because of enormous college fee, millions losing their homes, one-fourth of the incarcerated people on earth are in US prisons, gun violence is increasing, wealth is concentrated into a few hands and is increasingly getting concentrated. The list is long and scary and shows the extent to which the American society is damaged. The financilisation of every aspect of life has resulted in a society alienated and largely dependent on the 'Corporate Gods' for every aspect of their survival. And a media which is again controlled by the Coporates has facilitated this fall, instead of being the saviour of truth and liberty.

The Soviet analogy: The Soviet had a lot in common with the US , as an empire. External wars, huge debts and a society suppressed by the state. And all these resulted in the collapse of the mighty Soviet empire. And its not just communism or totalitarianism which resulted in its fall, but the hubris and the excess pride and the military misadventures and overreach. Soviet had a relatively soft landing as whatever was there (housing, transportation) was created by state and came to be owned by people directly. And they were net exporters of oil. And lets face it, the Russians have seen some shit in their lives so they know how to handle it. The US on the other hand imports 65% of its oil, has little house ownership at a national scale and depends woefully on cars. Its a recipe for disaster.

An American would be indignated at a random guy forming judgments on his 'great' nation, and he has a right to do so. But if history were to tell us anything, the fall of the might US is inevitable, much as like Agent Smith proclaims. In the movie Neo turns out to be the 'one'. In the real life however, you have to answer your karma. The paths of excess are just not sustainable. Much as even the wonders of capitalism would want to, they cannot defy the second law of thermodynamics and endlessly expand seeking profit in every which way without facing the consequences.

In the meantime, if i were American, i'd buy gold, start community farming and drink beer. Oh wait, i can still drink the beer.

Burp!

Mumbai: 26/11

The only thing i have been doing over the past two days is to follow the events in Mumbai, either over T.V or the internet, the rescue operations and stories of courage in this terrible tragedy. The sheer audacity, barbarism and magnitude of these attacks was overwhelming. This was not just an attack on life, property but on the collective confidence of a nation, a psychological warfare so to say. The image of those terrorists; with their AK-47s, of the fire at the Taj, and the Oberoi and NSG commandos carrying out their operations flashing across T.V. channels is going to dominate our collective conscious for a while now. The sheer shock value of these attacks was a bit overwhelming.

The stories of courage shown by people, not just elite commandos, but the hotel staff who risked their lives for the guests showed us what true heroism is. And even as we mourn, we must ask, where does India go from here? This is not just some attack happening to someone else. It happened in India's backyard, and it can happen to anyone, anywhere. Do we forget it after a week with the quintessential Indian reponse chalta hai/hota hai? Or do we ask questions and seek answers? This is big.

I don't know what solution this problem entails. But from the face of it, we atleast need better and dedicated disaster management, and a federal body focussing on terror. And have political will to take military action, if necessary. This is India's 9/11. How our country goes from here depends on whether we learn from it this time or not.

Tolkien, the king

Literati have loathed him and consigned his work to the level of juvenile balderdash. Readers, worldwide, have loved him. Surveys have named his book 'The Lord of the rings' as the best work of fiction of the 20th Century. The man in question is JRR Tolkien, the visionary author and (almost) the creator of fantasy genre. Even 50 years after the publication of LOTR, Tolkien's works remain as popular as ever. What do we attribute this to? And why is Tolkien the definitive 20th Century author?

To those people who have read his works (and even to those who have watched the movies, for they were brilliant adaptations) Tolkien appeals to us at different levels. The form of his story telling, romanticizing everything from friendship to valor, his lyrical prose, his settings in lands far removed from our age and times in fantastic settings appeals to the escapist, the adventurer and the romantic in us. We love the stories of friendship, camaraderie, sacrifice, love and valor. We also , somewhere relate to the ultimate underdog spirit of the book, in which Frodo, a small (and therefore weak) Hobbit ultimately triumphs against such a big evil. To some, the descriptive nature of his writing, is his quintessential hallmark. But there is an instinctive appeal in the book, which can not be described as easily.

For this, we have to delve into Tolkien, the man , and try to find our answers. In many ways The Lord of the Rings was Tolkien's reaction to 20th century and the horrors he witnessed in it. Tolkien served in the British Army in the World War 1. The horrors he witnessed then, and later on in the World War 2 had a lasting impact on his works. There are subtle undercurrents of his political inclinations throughout the book. While he describes The Shire as an idyllic society, with no concentration of power and fair amount of de-regulation, Mordor is described as the place having power concentrated in one hand (Sauron) with evil and obsessive focus on industialization (vis-a-vis the fascist powers of Germany and Italy). This is not to say that he was against technology, but owing to its misuse then, definitely suspicious of it. And the ultimate theme of the book is that power corrupts, in the form of the ring. Whoever has ring, gets seduced by its power and ultimately turns to evil. Even strong and good characters like Gandalf and Galadriel, realise this and refuse to bear the ring. Through this Tolkien is telling us that power, even in the hands of good people, ultimately corrupts them. And is this not what human political history is about? Specially the 20th century is full of such examples: Hitler, Stalin, Mao and now Bush. And even though philosophers (like Plato in The Republic) have argued in favour of such a concentration of power, albeit in good hands, if history is anything to go by, the concentration of such power is the biggest perpetrator of human misery.

Thus, at heart Tolkien was a libertarian, who deeply believed that a decentralised, liberal society, without any concentration of power, where humans are left free to pursue happiness, is the only solution of our political problems. And though the book does end in Aragorn being crowned the king, Tolkien's heart is always in The Shire and in peaceful Hobbits. Tolkien, with this book, conveyed his deep understanding of the political problems of 20th Century, in a way that captivates us and speaks to us intuitively, no matter what the literati and the critics have to say. And ultimately we are all suckers for a good vs evil story, specially the one which has an underdog triumphing in the end.

Tolkien is the defintive 20th century author.

P.S. His publisher, fearing that LOTR would never make money, made the contract such a way that profits would be split 50:50. To this date his literature alone has earned over 2 billion pounds, half going to the publisher. This is the difference between foresight and luck; Tolkien had foresight and the publisher luck!

My post is heavily influenced by these articles.

Bad Medicine

News is how News looks. If you got bored of Shilpa Victim Shetty's tryst with "fame" or Anna Nicole Smith's, tragic as it was, death, well then go ahead, read this post.

At the risk of sounding redundant; medicine is one of the oldest industries of mankind. Well not in the contemporary meaning of the word, but something akin to a systematic labor for some useful purpose. But in the modern sense, it truly is an "industrialised" industry, where profits rule the roost.

At the heart of the medicine, or rather, pharmaceutical industry's future is a court case currently being fought in Madras, India over India's patent laws. Now here is what it is all about very briefly: In the 1970's India stopped issuing patents for medicines. This allowed its many drug producers to create generic copies of medicines still patent-protected in other countries - at a fraction of the price charged by Western drug firms. But in 1994 India signed up to the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips), a deal that required all WTO member countries to grant patents on technological products, including pharmaceuticals, by 2005. Drug companies have since been queuing up to patent their brands in India. Up to 9,000 patents await examination. A big pharmaceutical company, Novartis, is now arguing that India's requirement for drugs to be new and innovative is not in line with the TRIPS.

But here's the catch: Owing to its patent laws earlier India became a "pharmacy for the world's poor", providing generic variations of expensive drugs for diseases like AIDS at very cheap prices. A geneva based NGO, MSF (medicines sans frontiers) says generic manufacturers have helped bring the cost of AIDS treatment down from $10,000 per patient per year in 2000, to just $130 now. Now the geo-political spread of AIDS is such that its the worlds poorest living in Africa, India and so on that will be affected most by this case.

Novartis, however, points out that nations are entitled to over-ride patent protection in the case of a national emergency. However, the countries that are trying to issue compulsory licences, which in some instances have been some of the more powerful middle-income countries, come under enormous pressure, and that pressure is noticed. Brazil has threatened compulsory licences three times. The drug companies have jumped up and down, and [the US] Congress has threatened to withdraw Brazil's trade preferences. So much for the humanisation of WTO.

At the face of it, I am not totally against Novartis. After all they have invested millions of dollars in making these medicines and if nothing, they at least deserve the rights over their intellectual property. After all it was someone's hard work.Or is it this simple?. Rather, this is more so a case of twisting some clauses in TRIPS agreement and pseudo-imperialist-capitalism. Like presenting medicines with just slight variations over the older ones as patentable.

And at the heart of it all, is the scary picture of capitalism that has emerged. The one where big companies form bigger lobbies and influence government decisions in their favour at the pretext of pseudo-intellectualism. Where the capital P is profit not people. And where company policies might as well be renamed as double standards.

Don't get me wrong. I am not denying them their intellectual credit or the amount of effort put in by them to make life saving drugs. Neither am i morally defending generic manufacturers. But the world, as we see it has such an intrinsic complexity that sometime arguments which are more irrational and humane are more sense also. Sometimes we should step back from viewing the world with a business, scientific or intellectual perspective and just have humane common sense damn it!

The Big Brother is Watching You

Unforgettable lines from the hauntingly prophetic 1984 by Orwell?
Or reality?

Disclaimer: You are bound to brand as me a cynic. But i'll take the chance.

Look at the world around us. Technology has broadened the horizons. Distances have shrunk, communication has been revolutionised and on the face it seems George Orwell was a bit off the mark in his 1984. Look deeper and you see traces of 1984 materialising everywhere, most observably, in our (so-called) democratic societies.

Read an article recently. Excerpts from it:

Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.

The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'.

Law-abiding shopper Karen Margery, 40, was shocked to hear the speakers spring into action as she walked past them.

Afterwards she said: 'It's quite scary to realise that your every move could be monitored - it really is like Big Brother"

Hehe. Must be funny to take orders from a machine. But thats besides the point.

So this is limited only to UK and what possible effect it can have on you? Sample this. What you search on say, google, can be used to make a profile of you. And in the near future , it will be. So if you, say, search for rockets, grenades or "how to build a nuclear reactor in your backyard" , it can be inferred that you are not exactly the biggest fan of Gandhi, and if you say search for Paris Hilton ,then, well ahem..

And all this without your knowing it. This indeed is true democracy.

The concept of newspeak in '1984' which is basically the use of false information and fear by state to keep the citizens suppressed, has been given a modern dimension by Bush and party with blatant lies and a conniving media ( Fox et al) in the past 5 years to commit crime in the name of war. I dont think i need to elaborate on Bush's dubious record or his Gunatanamo escapades but if you are more interested you can probably check this link out to understand newspeak in modern day context:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs48.html

And with more technology the use of GPS and other satellite technologies for spying on people in the name of security is never too far. Of course all this can be indeed for genuine use. Just like the pre-cogs of Minority report. But History begs to differ. Or to paraphrase it, History shares a linearly increasing relationship with Murphy's Laws.

So am i just another paranoid cynic? Is it too far fetched? Thats the best we can hope for.

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could igve you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face… was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime…" -1984 - Orwell

P.S. I tend to be apolitical but couldnt help myself from this post. Orwell stirs up the cynic in me.