Book of the month -March, 2011

Introducing with this post a new feature of The Liberty Blog and the Liberty News Central -The book of the month. Starting off with the latest in The Politically Incorrect Guide to series-

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism

  

 by National Review
deputy managing editor Kevin D. Williamson 

From the National Review description of the book-

Stalin’s gulag, impoverished North Korea, collapsing Cuba . . . it’s hard to name a dogma that has failed as spectacularly as socialism. And yet leaders around the world continue to subject millions of people to this dysfunctional, violence-prone ideology.

In The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to Socialism, Kevin Williamson (“chancellor” of NRO’s exciting Exchequer blog) reveals the fatal flaw of socialism—that efficient, complex economies simply can’t be centrally planned. But even in America, that hasn’t stopped politicians and bureaucrats from planning, to various extents, the most vital sectors of our economy: public education, energy, and the most arrogant central–planning effort of them all, Obama’s healthcare plan.

In this provocative book, Williamson unfolds the grim history of socialism, showing how the ideology has spawned crushing poverty, devastating famines, and horrific wars. Lumbering from one crisis to the next, leaving a trail of economic devastation and environmental catastrophe, socialism has wreaked more havoc, caused more deaths, and impoverished more people than any other ideology in history—especially when you include the victims of fascism, which Williamson notes is simply a variant of socialism.

Williamson further demonstrates:

Why, contrary to popular belief, socialism in theory is no better than socialism in practice

Why socialism can’t exist without capitalism

How the energy powerhouse of Venezuela, under socialism, has become an economic basket case subject to rationing and blackouts

How socialism, not British colonialism, plunged the bountiful economy of India into stagnation and dysfunction—and how capitalism is rescuing it

Why socialism is inextricably linked to communism

If you thought socialism went into the dustbin of history with the collapse of the Soviet Union, think again. Socialism is alive and kicking, and it’s already spread further than you know.

What’s the central characteristic of socialism?

That’s easy—it’s failure, says Williamson.

Thats worth a repeat in large letters-

What’s the central characteristic of socialism?

That’s easy—it’s failure

Now somebody tell that to our Supreme Court judges.

Difference between private and public-sector unions

James Taranto provides the much needed clarity on the difference between the public and private unions and why the protesting public employees in Wisconsin are neither fighting for the rights of the workers nor for the taxpayers.

There is a fundamental difference between private- and public-sector workers. A private-sector labor dispute is a clear clash of competing interests, with management representing shareholders and unions representing workers. In the public sector, as George Will notes, taxpayers--whose position is analogous to that of shareholders--are usually denied a seat at the table:

Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway - grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members' employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees' salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy "negotiations" with unions.

Collective bargaining in the public sector thus is less a negotiation than a conspiracy to steal money from taxpayers. The notion that this is "in the economic interests of the middle class" for government employees in Wisconsin and elsewhere to get above-market wages and extremely lavish benefits is just laughable. Sure, government employees are "middle class," but so are the vast majority of taxpayers who don't enjoy the special privileges that come from owning the means of coercion.

(emphasis mine)


And neither is Governor Walker Hosni Mubarak or Hitler.
Nor is Bush still the president.

But, hey, these are government teachers.

From the LNC Quote Shop -Shopkeepers vs. Planners

Sauvik Chakraverti-

When we contrast shopkeepers with planners, we see that the two perform very different kinds of "work." The shopkeeper has his eye on physical stocks and their rate of depletion as he sells hundreds of goods to his customers. The planner has no customers. The planner studies government files and government reports. On the basis of the recommendations in these files, the planner decides to allocate "public capital" towards certain projects aimed at improving the lives of the people. All these projects are executed by the bureaucracy. In all these cases, the bureaucracy benefits - not the people, whose needs remain unsatisfied, despite all the complex mathematics and detailed statistics. It is no coincidence that anything planned is in short supply - like roads and electricity. Only entrepreneurs can produce "goods"; governments produce "bads."

(emphasis mine)

WikiLeaks expose Cuban healthcare

Methinks WikiLeaks's leaks are having unintended consequences -unintended for it's champions. The purpose of the leaks was to embarrass the US, 'exposing' the vile conspiracies and plots hatched by the evil military-industrial strength imperialists. What came out was the mostly ho-hum of a generally timid diplomacy. However while nothing egregious was discovered against the hated Americans, the blind rapid fire leaks have hit targets closer to the hearts of WikiLeaks supporters-

WikiLeaks expose Cuban healthcare. Yes, that vaunted product of the socialist system. And they expose, again and as if it needed to, what an ass Michael Moore is-

Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash", according to US diplomats in Havana.

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.

But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so "disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room".

Castro's government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it "knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them."

(emphasis mine)

For long the supposedly 'excellent' and free Castocare has been the justification of his brutal rule. It was always a sham but the intellectuals and media over the world lapped it up. That is not innocent ignorance but a willful one. And very well practiced too. How do these people sleep?

Very well. I'm afraid.

Leftists fail again to turn lead to gold

At last,somebody discovered a government program that actually worked!

That is like fulfilling the supreme quest of alchemy to transmute lead into gold. Deserves at least a dozen Nobel awards all at once. From the fertile brain field of BHO and the Democrats came this wonderful piece of goodness for the economy and the environment -Cash for clunkers. Wise man Joe Biden called the program “an unqualified success”.

 But hold on to those Nobels yet-

Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best "the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day's gasoline use." Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer.

The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. Under the program, auto dealers were required to destroy the car engines of trade-ins with a sodium silicate solution, then smash them and send them to the junk yard. As the journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, "Economics in One Lesson," you can't raise living standards by breaking windows so some people can get jobs repairing them.

In the category of all-time dumb ideas, cash for clunkers rivals the New Deal brainstorm to slaughter pigs to raise pork prices. The people who really belong in the junk yard are the wizards in Washington who peddled this economic malarkey.

Now can anybody name any government program that works?

Earth Hours attack Delhi

Earth Hours, aka power cuts, have been attacking Delhi these last few days. There is something karmic about it –when the weather is at it’s sweltering, humid worst, then as sure as the demon Rahu was killed by the Sudarshana Chakra of Lord Vishnu(who was in the form of a beautiful woman, Mohini), the lights will go out. Often for several hours, just to twist the knife.

The authorities, as usual, are at their accountable best-

Delhi suffers but discoms deny outages

Only in a post-modern, relativistic world can one deny that which is right in front of one’s eyes.

But Sheila Dixit is smiling somewhere in the 24/7 air-conditioned comfort of the wunderland where the lights never dim. She loves Earth Hours, you know –good for our moral uplift.

I have a few ideas for her moral uplift –but they are unprintable.

From the LNC Quote Shop

David Vance-

"social justice" - it's a handy euphemism for taking from the industrious and giving to the spongers

Socialism lays the foundation of capitalism!

This is what Mr. Narayan Madhavan seems to be saying in this article -

But I ask myself a simple question: Had India followed its liberalisation policies in the 1950s instead of the 1990s, what would have happened? I have no easy answers, but it is clear that India would have had to export agricultural commodities in exchange for modern industries and foreign capital, or done something approximating to that. However, there was not much to export from here. Maybe a bit more of garments would have been exported. With foreign capital, India could have stolen some of the Chinese and Taiwanese thunder in electronics or labour-intensive manufacturing. On the other hand, there might have been no IITs (Indian Institute of Technology), no Steel Authority of India Ltd, no Indian Oil Corp. Dozens of public sector undertakings may not have come into being.

What no IIT's? No Indian Oil Corporation? No Steel Authority of India Ltd? And no other public sector companies?

But in their place we might have had the standard of living of Taiwan, with it's per capita income of (purchasing power parity) $27600 (2005 est.) compared to India's $4,031( at PPP) and $885 at nominal (2007 estimate) (even after more than 15 years reforms).

Seems to me to be a pretty good swap. I would prefer that India be 5-6 times richer than to have all those wonderful public sector monsters. If the price of having IIT's is the grinding poverty of the tens of millions, then why have them?

But what makes Mr. Narayan Madhavan think that there would be no institutions comparable to the IIT's if India had turned to capitalism right at the time of independence? Are there no good institutions in the more capitalistic nations of the west? I wonder where do all those IITians migrate to? To the socialist Cuba perhaps.

Now for the next big question: If there were no controls on industries, what would we have liberalised in the first place? Actually, a force has to be created before it is unleashed. The creation of a Nehruvian public sector, and subsequent neo-Nehruvian policies like Indira Gandhi’s nationalisation of banks, laid the ground for an industrial and financial structure. This structure, for all its shortcomings, had the potential to generate both human resources, knowledge base and the domestic economy that eventual liberalisation make use of.

This is so f***ingly crazy that I hate even to fisk it. But what the heck, here goes-
"If there were no controls on industries, what would we have liberalised in the first place?"
The gent actually seems to be saying - for the freedom to have meaning, you have to be enslaved first. Or, for liberalisation to work, a country first has to be shackled for over four decades in a bureaucratic socialist death-grip that has kept our masses in poverty and misery.

----------- Socialism, viewed through the rear-view mirror of liberalisation, appears different. Nehruvian policies also look dismal in many ways, but perhaps it would be fair to say that while many of his policies were flawed, they also laid the groundwork for the forces that gained from liberalisation and free market opportunities.

At least 25 Nasdaq-listed technology companies today owe their origins to people nurtured by Nehru’s policies that subsidized their education at the cost of primary schools or farmers. It is an irony that many of the biggest beneficiaries of Nehruvian largesse are among the most fashionable critics of socialist policies. As we raise a toast to their achievements and 60 years of Independent India, I only wish Nehru had created centres of excellence called Indian Institutes of History (IIHs) the way he had created the IITs. That might have helped us get a better sense of history.

Maybe those "biggest beneficiaries" understand that those Nehruvian policies kept most of the Indians from making a decent living, not just a select or privileged few. Maybe they would have been pleased to see India flower and prosper right from the time of independence, and not stagnate for 45 years under the crushing yoke of the Nehruvian state. Hey, we are humans, we need freedom to thrive. We don't need to be bottled up and stored to mature like wine.

(emphasis mine)

K.K.Paul pats himself on the back so hard that he falls flat.

Outgoing police commissioner of Delhi, K.K.Paul's perception of his force differs radically from that of the public.

"The promises that I made, when I took charge as police commissioner, have been achieved. We worked very hard during this time."

So Delhi now is a safe place, where women can go out late at night, one can travel safely without the fear of getting crushed under the wheels of a monster bus driven by a driver who has just bribed the police and thus thinks that he owns the road,where the elderly are not murdered in their own homes, where ------(oh, one can go on and on)?Somebody's view of reality needs a check- either that of the common person who feels no safer than when Mr.Kaul came to office or that of Mr.Kaul.

"Heinous cases were worked out, there was excellent investigation, the conviction rate improved, we faced numerous challenges but our performance was good," he said.

Jessica Lal?
BMW case?

"The force grew, its now a 64,000-strong unit. A grievance redressal system was put in place and it was ensured action was taken on any complaint by any person from the public. A lot of modernisation work was undertaken. Initially, a system of making complaints through fax was started and soon anyone could send their complaints through e-mail," he said.

All police stations were connected through internet, new police buildings came up, ISO standardisation was given, cyber labs were set-up.The Delhi Police also bought out a book on its history and heritage.

So no more portly, paan chewing, foul-mouthed, heartless bumpkins sitting behind F.I.R registers?
We must live in a fantasy land -or Mr.Kaul does.

But-

The Delhi Police also bought out a book on its history and heritage.

Now, that is a great achievement.


Update -Reality check arrives for Mr.Kaul-

Delhi Police chief wants security for himself, fears for life
New Delhi, July 22
Delhi Police Commissioner K.K. Paul, in-charge of security in the national capital, has sought protection for himself and his family as he is facing a threat -- not from a terrorist or a criminal -- but from one of his own inspectors who is "absconding" for the past eight months.

Full story here.

Update 2 - above link does not exist any more. You may find the same story here.

It's the government's job to dig holes and yours to fall in

He said what?!!!!

From the Hindustan Times (it appears in the Delhi print edition, Live section,Thursday, but does not seem to be there on their main site. However it can be accessed from here, registration required) -

----- an open drain in front of the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Delhi government, in Nandnagri is a death trap for passersby as well as school-going children.

Utter negligence by the authorities is witnessed in front of
the DC office. A 400-m stretch has been covered with only
a few cemented slabs, which are not sufficient as there
are three-four ft gaps in between.


----------------------------

"Our children have no choice. To go to the nearby school, they have to either walk on the main road amid heavy traffic or cross through the manholes. In both the circumstances they run a risk to their life, especially in the rainy season," says Ramvir Singh, a resident.

A makeshift DTC bus stop is also there on the narrow pavement. "If anybody slips and falls into the 10-12 ft drain he/she will not manage to come out of it and it will turn into a death trap for him/her," says Ramanath, a nearby resident.

---------------------------------

"MCD does not have any plan to cover the drain. If people are scared to pass by, they can take their own precautions," said A. K. Singh, Deputy Commissioner of MCD Shahdara (North).

Assuming that the Hindustan Times has quoted him accurately, just re-read what this public servant said-
"MCD does not have any plan to cover the drain. If people are scared to pass by, they can take their own precautions"

Hey, it is the government's job to dig holes, and if anybody falls in, that's his/her fault.


It's as if the minister(s) responsible for water supply said-

"We do not have any plans to provide clean, germ-free, dirt-free water.In fact we do not have any plan to supply water in sufficient quantity at all. If people are thirsty, they can make their own arrangements."

It's as if the police commissioner said-

The police department does not have any plans to provide adequate security to the citizens. If anybody is scared, they can take their own precautions."

It's as if the transport minister said-

I do not have any plans to provide a decent, hassle free system of public transport so that the public could commute in relative comfort without getting fleeced or getting crushed under the wheels of over-speeding monster. If people don't like what we give them they can make do on their own."

It's as if railway secretary said-

"The ministry has no plans to provide a comfortable, harassment-free system of railways where the tickets are easy to buy without long waits and waiting lists or going through the touts, no maram-maari* for the seats and berths, no bribing the TC*, where one doesn't have the fear of goondas* who have no fear of the few railway police guards that might be lazing off somewhere on the same train, where........Oh, for, godsake! Why don't you take a plane!"

It's as if the top civil aviation official said-

"We have no plan to clean up the mess that are our airports, to remove corrupt customs officers or make the staff helpful and polite. If anyone has any complains, he can take the train."

It's as if all the chief ministers and the prime minister said in a chorus-

"We have no plans to provide a government where there are no ministers with criminal backgrounds, where each and every department is honest, where there is no corruption, where the public servants behave as if they are one and not as masters, where police torture is not the norm, where buses, trains and things run smoothly and the sun shines brightly. No, sir, we have no such plans at all. And if people are tired of this system, they can take their precautions -they can emigrate! In fact, we don't care if they go to hell!"

Perhaps, no one has said any these things . But the country is run as if they had. It sure feels that the our government at all levels is full of A.K. Singhs.



*The colorful Indian Language Translator-

maram-maari - the dog-eat-dog, desperate struggle and conflict over something. A very common feature of an average Indian's life.

goonda -Gangster, lout, unsocial element. A species that thrives in the Indian political culture.

TC - Ticket Checker.

Just another day in the life of the compassionate state

Aren't we told that Capitalism is dog-eat-dog, kill the poor to get rich, fat cats getting fatter and everyone else exploited and getting a bad deal for life? That is why, we are told, we need Socialism, a welfare state that would toil for the welfare of the poor, the common people, a state that would be compassionate, kind and just, not like...like...America!

But as we all know, there isn't much compassion in the compassionate state. And if you don't know this(if by some quirky misfortune, you are blind, deaf and have no powers of cognition then it is possible that you don't know), just try getting some legitimate business done in a government office, any government office. I am sure you would be overwhelmed by their compassion.

Here's your welfare state at work-
Seven inmates of Tihar jail die of overcrowding, torture, heat and no water.



According to HT-

"A ward for 40-50 prisoners in Jail No. 3 reportedly has only five to six fans. Many inmates are weakened by police torture and others suffer from a variety of ailments. Medical attention is scarce and when available often rudimentary. This is not surprising considering that there are some 90 doctors for the 13,750 inmates in Tihar — a downward spiral from the 100:7,000 doctor-prisoner ratio in 1995."

(emphasis mine)
It's okay, they were just prisoners, scum of the earth, really.
Don't fret.It's just another day in the life of the compassionate state.