Indian Budget 2008 - An Uncommon Budget

How about the farmer who went to a private money-lender instead of a bank? While the farmer who owes it to the public sector bank can sleep peacefully now, the one who got into the clutches of the usurer will rue his decision not to have approached a PSB.

This was easily the worst budget in living history

a. Waivers of Rs 60000 crores but with no info on where that money is likely to come from? If it does not come from budget, who will pay for this? PSU banks?

b. A raft of programs amounting to about 30-40000 crores without any checks and balances on implementation (example NREGP)

c. Massive Tax discounts to the middle class which are good for all of us but not so good from an inflation perspective

The only positive is the establishment of model schools and increase in education budget. Here again, implementation is critical.


With inflation at 4.83% and higher oil prices, this budget will zip us towards a 7% inflation mark very soon. But the UPA are clever, inflation will touch 7% may be june-july by when elections may have already been announced.

This budget shows congress is only good at lootfaat of taxpayers to build votebanks. Obviously, somebody is going to pay for all these electioneering and it will be hard-working people.

If throwing money at problems can solve them, India would have been a paradise by now. Will debt-weaver solve the problems of farming sector? Why do farmers need to borrow so much money and why can't they pay it back? What is stopping farmers from being dynamic, efficient and profitable? Obviously, there are deeper problems in farming sector but they won't be addressed by handing out cash to farmers. Inability to repay loans is a symptom and not a root-cause and it won't go away. Unfortunately, this government has identified farmer suicides as THE problem and inability to repay loans as THE cause, and thus have come up with a solution that addresses that cause - very typical of congress way of solving a problem without solving a problem!

Educational field needs liberalization, not more governmentalization. But it seems, this government has its priorities backwards. Massive allocation of funds means government and missionaries will remain the only players in educational field, while mismanagement, rationing and lack of quality/innovations will continue in educational field.

Same is true of labor reforms and other pro-development internal liberalizations. This government does not believe in development. It wants to get by bribing people who are left behind due to lack of development, but it has no interest in pursuing pro-development policies. Its motto is to rob peter to pay paul, and that is its idea of development and social justice.

Anytime this government talks of inclusive development or social justice or women-friendly, we know it means just the opposite - divisive agenda, minority appeasement, and votebank engineering. Sadly, it is being done using people's money. Government should send the invoice to congress party and not people of India.

And who would believe that inflation is in single digits? That is the biggest joke. Nobody believes it. The cost of living has risen phenomenally in the last 3 years and it is nowhere reflected in the government statistics - raising a question how credible are these mechanisms of measuring the index of human misery and how out of touch is this government with reality. This budget will spur even more inflation, making lives of aam aadami even more miserable.

It gets F grade for failed economics.

Kerty:

"Sadly, it is being done using people's money."

Pretty sad I agree! They should use God's money...

I strongly feel that government should be part of the social-welfare activity if that has to succeed in the present time.

The concept of social-responsibility that should be shared by the Private players has still not gained momentum in India, so one cannot expect an MNC to operate a primary school in rural India. And thats where the role of the state assumes importance.

The perrenial problem that India's faces is the ineffective implemetaion and execution of good plans. But that doesn't mean that one stops planning (Budget is after all a plan on how to spend the money).

Kerty @ i believe that until and unless you 'throw in' the money you won't see the development and even if a small part of the funds are utilized then also one must not complain, for ours is a relatively new country, still bonded by the old laws, norms etc and it is still evolving.

60000 crore waiver was necessary, it's importance can be better understood if we step into the steps of the farmers that were facing the debt.

regards.

Abhi

abhi,

of course, i was being sarcastic...yes, we do need more social welfare and less of dog-eat-dog individualism...this will be, in the long run, the best for all...

Abhi..

My responsibility for social welfare ends with me and my family. Period. I have no responsibility to pay money out of my pocket to look after welfare of people beyond my family. Other people should look after their own families. If they can not, they should demand economic paradigm that can. If other people do not want to, why should I be penalized by robbing my pocket book? If they need help, they should come to me, not go to politicians or government for fiats and entitlements as if it is their right to rob my pocket book. When you say government has social responsibility - you are essentially saying that me and my money has that responsibility carried out thru taxing me. When you say private players have the responsibility - that also means people like me have to bear that responsibility. Why is government dictating it to me and not those people who do not want to shoulder their own responsibility for their own welfare? Let people create their own private network and support system to look after their welfare. Why is government pre-empting that and forcing a grand collectivist state-sponsored scam out of it? Its called social engineering for statist ideologies. Government is deliberately following policies of producing poverty and than using it to justify its statist agenda that expand welfare dependency.

Who is talking about MNCs to look after education in rural areas. Why can't people in rural areas do it for themselves? People in villages can come together and create their own schools, can't they? People in rural areas tend to be very cohesive, networked, cooperation-minded - with internet and technology, education can reach any corner of India. You don't even need schools or teachers physically be present in rural areas - videos and internet can create virtual schools and virtual teachers and virtual classrooms. If Jodha Akbar can reach to rural areas, so can e-books and video-aided carriculum. State can play the role of creating technological infra-structure and leave the rest to people and let them customize education based on needs at grass root level.

I do not mind money thrown as long as it is not money robbed from pockets of people. Government does not do development. People do. Government can only collect taxes and spend it. When I spend money, I make sure I get 100% out of it. When Government spends money, you want very little out of it. Than why should I let government spend my money? Money is better left in the hands of people who will spend it more productively for developing the economy. Capital market can undertake any development project that government can. I would give my money to capital market for development work rather than sleezy politicians, at least, I will get something in return besides economic development when I give it to capital market. There is no guarantee that government will do anything for me or for economic development. Must government dabble in any development work, I would like it to concentrate only on infra-structure, public works, national defense and R & D projects. Rest is all waste of wealth looted by government from people. Economic development is not possible until government is rid of failed socialist/communist mindset.

Abhi..

Here is why 60000 crore debt-waiver will not do anything.

1) It will cover less than 10% of farmers.

2) Loans from banks is only small % of their overall debt. Thus waiving them will not make them debt-free. Majority of those farmers will continue to suffer.

3) Majority of farmers rely on private lenders because they are the ones who lend money when farmers need it the most and right away. Banks take weeks and months and tons of red tape. Bank is the last resort for seeking loans. Government is now asking farmers not to pay back private lenders - that means huge losses for money lenders and money lenders will become extremely reluctant to lend money to any farmers - that means farmers will be facing even more credit crunch and more farmers will suffer as a result. Unless whole banking sector is overhauled to meet the credit crunch, we will see more farmers going belly up.

4)90% of farmers are able to repay loans. That means they run efficient and profitable farming. Rest of 10% farmers do not run profitable farming and should get out of farming sector. Throwing money at them is not going to change economics of their farming - they will need perpetual debt waivers and subsidies to keep them in farming. Money would have been better spent in rehabiliatating them out of farming rather than keeping them in inefficient farming.

5)It sets a dangerous precedent - there will be all sort of demand to waive debt as people in all walks of life are piling tons of debt they can not repay. Why is it fair not to waive their debt? And why would it be wrong if all debtors stop paying the debt to whoever it is owed to? It will create anarchy in credit industry that will hurt the people's ability to borrow money when they need it the most. It will breed culture of crimes and suicides.

6) It makes a fool out those 90% of farmers who paid their debt. No farmer, and any organized group of debtors for that matter, will be tempted to pay any debt anymore, but instead seek political solutions for their debt and political parties will vie to win them as votebank by offering more sops than their political rivals. That is the most heinous form of politics, thanks to congress.

This is classic example of solving a small problem and unleashing giant set of problems in the process. This is how congress manufactures problems and than tries to solve the problems by creating even more set of problems, and thus endless cycle of multiplying problems begin until they are trapped in a vicious cycle, while still posing as a savior of the needy every step of the way, building captive votebanks along the way, consolidating its power over nation in the process while nation bit by bit goes down the toilet. This is corrupt politics at its worst.

7)

http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/muralidharswaminathan/1668/50436/upas-rs-60000-cr-insurance-for-polls.html

The taxes you pay will fund for the ruling alliance's election campaign.


The UPA Government has insured its political future with a Rs 60,000-crore cheque.


The UPA will not pay for it but you, me and every taxpayer of the country will. If not today, tomorrow or three years down the line we have to pay this. The country's taxpayers will pay to ensure the existing political combine returns to power. In short, the UPA is shamelessly trying to loot the country's precious resources to further its own political ambitions.


Are we going to be mute spectators to this? But for some noises here and there in the media, there may be little opposition to this. That's because there is no political opposition in this country. Anyone raising a voice against this misappropriation of the nation's resources will be branded as 'anti-farmer'.


To quote Mr P Chidambaram from his press conference soon after the budget: "Stand up and be counted whether you are for the farmer or against the farmer. I am for the farmer, my PM is for the farmer and our government is for the farmer."


Will the Opposition stand up and question the government? I don't think any political party will do so and commit a political harakiri.


The poll campaign has already been kicked off. See the full-page ads in Sunday's newspapers issued by the NCP, a key member of the UPA government. NCP leader Sharad Pawar, the chief architect of the Rs 60,000-crore package takes credit for fulfilling his promise to the farmer.


The immediate questioning has centered around the source of funding for this largesse. But this is a secondary question. The primary one being: who has given political parties the right to appropriate funds? Will Parliament approve this mega 'loan' mela? Most likely it will pass the test of the floor for reasons stated above.


Half of I-T collections will fund UPA's poll campaign


Now comes the question of funding. The size of the package is shocking. Rs 60,000 crore is equal to 50 per cent of the Income Tax revenue of Rs 1,18,000 crores (revised estimates for 2007-08). So half of the Income Tax paid goes to fund the election campaign of the UPA government.


The Finance Minister is yet to disclose the funding. It could be in the form of bonds, which is seen as a cashless transaction for now-i.e., instead of giving cash to compensate banks' losses, they will be issued bonds guaranteed by the government. It's a paper transaction, but it will bind future governments. Read: Taxpayers have to pay this amount in future not now. This is an accounting fudge and demolishes the claim of bringing down fiscal deficit.


RBI silent spectator


The next question, is an oft repeated one. A debt relief always leads to a culture of defaults, a loan culture not tolerated by banks in urban areas. Recovery agents (read thugs) are set off against the defaulter in urban area, no excuses, no escape. What is more shocking is that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is a silent spectator. That's because it feels that the banks' interests are taken care off and there will be no losses in their books. Clearly, the central bank is not autonomous enough to challenge the political authority.


So if some of us in the media question this are we anti-farmers? No. In fact, the media first brought to light the plight of the farmers - be it in Vidharba or any other part of the country years ago. This Rs 60,000-crore cheque could have come at that time, but did not! Deserving farmers need relief and support, but this can't be used as a ticket to political fortunes

More analysis and critique of Loan Waiver

http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/India/20080305/900850.html

I wonder how many of the "farmers" in debt whose loans have been written off belong to the ilk of people like Prathibha Patil's family and their "co operative banks". hmmm...

I welcome the present budget. I don't care if the sops to farmers were given to garner more votes - as long as it is directed towards alleviating their problems.

Even if it reaches only 10% of the farmers it is still better than not able to reach any of the farmers.

The tax cuts for the salaried people is also a nice move.

The problem with India is not lack of funds, it is the lack of people and the right set of system to spend those funds. We have too much money. Most of it is unspent.

FM is going around telling the industries not to raise prises with a veiled threat of price-control raj. He increase the excise on cement, and as a result, the prices of cement has gone up already. Like oil, cement is an engine of development. How can it not be inflationary? What was FM thinking when he increased the excise?

Meantime PM is accusing NDA for the plight of farmers. He says his government is forced to deal with farmer loans because of NDA's anti-farmer policies. If that is the case, is it not bit too late for PM to wake up when his term is about to expire and elections are looming large? What was he doing far last 5 years when farmer suicides have reached epidemic proportions under his nose?

Meantime,PM is refusing to come clean on how he intends to pay for loan waivers. He admitted this much that Banks will be reimbursed over next 3-4 years for writing off farm loans. Which means it is the next government that will have to pay the bills for loan waivers while his government passes the buck and claims all the credit for helping the farmers. So congress wants to build its votebanks using taxpayers' money and wants next government pay for it out of its budgets. This is the ugly face of political corruption and sleezy congress politics.

Sujai..

I would like to welcome the budget too. But can you convince us how it is going to alleviate their problems? Bank loans are the tiniest portion of their debt. Plus, banks and money lender are going to be reluctant to lend money to these farmers, so it is going to create credit crunch for needy farmers. I think it is going to aggrevate their problems, even of those farmers who have traditionally repaid loans - because banks and money lenders are not going to be as forthcoming to make loans to them.

The tax cut for salaried people will be chewed up by inflation. So it will be of no help.

If government has more money than it can spend, it means government is collecting more taxes than it needs. Government has no business collecting more taxes than it needs. It should lower taxation.

If you are saying that people have more money than they can spend, thus funds remain unspent with people for lack of system or avenue to spend it - I don't know where you are going with this. You are not suggesting that government take that money away from people so government can spend it, are you? People do not keep their money under their pillow. The money that people have is already in circulation in the economy, thru banks, thru capital markets. So I do not know what unspent funds you are talking about. And even if that maybe the case, those funds belong to specific individuals, it is not "people's" money or government's money.

commonsense
!!!Pretty sad I agree! They should use God's money...!!!!

sorry! i don't want to give my money.

Ravi,

I was being sarcastic. Progressive taxation is essential for the re-distribution of wealth. Of course people would like to hold on to their wealth, wrongly assuming that they made it all by themeselves, ignoring the use they made of the infrastructure (roads, airports, electricity etc. etc.) that they did not create...high taxes for higher income groups helps everyone in the end, even if some of it is wasted by bureaucrats...no society can be run on the assumption of "every individual for himself/herself".

Here is what reports coming out of Maharastra suggests:

-loan waiver of Rs 60,000 crore will benefit only cooperative banks that are mostly managed by NCP and Congress leaders. (Does Pratibha Patil ring bells?)

-Rs 2,312 crore from Prime Minister's package benefited the cooperative banks in Maharstra, which were running in losses.

-Farmers in Vidarbha have agricultural land measuring over 10 acres and they are completely dependent on rain, while the farmers of western Maharashtra have land holding below five acres. So they are more likely to benefit from the loan waiver.

-Government has hardly made any efforts to give loan to the farmers at reduced rates.

-11 farmers have committed suicide in Vidarbha after the announcement of the loan waiver.

Farmer friendly budget or political friendly budget. I will agree with kerty. If waivers are solution to financial problems India will be pardise.

I belong to a farmer family and having watched the system of loans and subsidies on it I know how it works. Reasons for suicides are not one but many.

First reason is corruption. Every farmer pays 10% commission to the banker and other middle man to get a crop loan. If he has to go for subsidised loan he will be paying all the subsidy to the middle man. That is around 25%. You apply for 1 lakh rupees as loan, what you get in hand is 75000. While you will be paying loan for all the 1 lakh.
Most the business houses run on 10% to 20 %. So even if a farmer earns same profit he will be able to lets say earn 15000 rupee and he can not pay 100% loan on time.

Second reason is delay. When the crop of farmer is under threat from pests or weeds he can not wait for a week or so to get his loan passed. Thus he takes pesticides or weedicides from the shopkeeper on loan and on as high as 18% to 25% per annum (1.5% to 2.5% per month). And when he is not able to pay his loan his crop is taken away by the shopkeeper.

Third reason is awareness. Most of the farmers are not aware of the schemes available to them. They are not informed about new schemes.

Fourth is fear. Fear of bankers to generate NPA and thus not giving loans to the farmers as they are always in high risk category.

Fifth lack of crop insurance. Government has launched crop insurance but is it being implements. What percent of crop is under insurance. And then again some who go for insurance do they get compensation.

Sixth mandies become home of middle man and most of them are of politicians. The maximum beneficiary of retail chains will be middle class people and farmers as farmers gets his due cost for the crop and consumers get good quality product as cheap prices but then what will happen to middle man or the politicians and thus refusal of opening up of retail sector. one retails wont effect small retailers but will hit the big showrooms, and lets say even if it hits the retailers who don't constitute more than 20% of population. For the benefit of 20% we should not allow 80% to benefit.

Seventh is irrigation facilities. Even today more today more then 50% land is not covered by any water system. They still depend on rain water.

Eighth is poor quality of research in agriculture and poor mechanization of farms.

So waiver may yes give some short time relief to the farmer but wont solve its problem. So more work is needed to channelise resources properly and sincerely then to waive loans to the farmer. Which this budget has not taken care of.

We need to stop making allocation based budget and need to move to target based budget. We set in allocation but then we never set in targets. Any finance manager can not talk about investments without calculating ROI, while our budge is all silent about it. ROI doesn't have to be always in terms of profits, this can be in terms of benefits and they have to be objective .

With PM and FM being famous economists I hoped preventive budget and not curative budget. Even a kid could have done this curative budgeting.
So I will call it a politician friendly budget.

Ravi..

There is this socialist/communist notion that all wealth belongs to collective entity( the term 'people' and 'government' are used interchangibly in its parlance) no matter who created the wealth at individual level, and thus all money is for the government to spend as it sees fit, perhaps, allowing a small portion of wealth allowed to be kept by the individuals who created the wealth.

Communist government confiscates all wealth and rations it to individuals according to their needs as defined by government. There is no notion of private wealth or ownership of wealth.

Socialist government tolerates people creating personal wealth but demand it to be returned to government for fair and equitable distribution among people - thru progressive taxation.

Where private sector and capital markets are not well-developed developed, government has an imperative to engage in public works projects that benefit people at large - like infra-structure, utilities, defense, R&D, education etc. And taxation is justified on that ground. Nobody would mind paying taxes for that. It is considered good use of money taken from people. However, when communists and socialists hijack the government, they also hijack taxation for their ideological agenda - negation of private sector and capital markets, confiscation of private wealth, harvesting votebanks, redistribution of wealth - robbing peter to pay paul. They are very populist in nature but keep the nation poor and under-developed creating a vicious cycle of poverty that empowers socialist/communist government at the expense of empowerment of wealth creation. Why would Mr A or Miss B mind Mr A and Miss B get to benefit by raiding money that belongs to somebody else? Why would they even care that only tiny portion of intended money would actually end up in their pocket, rest being wasted in scams, after all, it is a freebie. Nobody is going to count teeth of a gift-horse. So it has a populist appeal.

I do not see why government need to use confiscatory taxation for redistribution of wealth. People should be rewarded based on their contribution to creation of wealth(goods and services) and development, period. Everybody should have opportunity and access to participate in development, but one can never have equality of outcome - people will participate in different pursuits of their choice based on their interests, needs and motivation and their rewards will be accordingly diverse. If government is seeking to redistribute wealth - it implies that economic system is inherently defective to meet economic needs of all people as it can not generate enough goods and services for all, in that case, it needs to adopt a better economic system, rather than mask the root problem by redistributive solutions. Isn't that the real role of government - create real solutions rather than mask the problems with populist slight of hand?

kerty is jumping to conclusions, using epithets when the fact of the matter is that there is no country on planet earth that does not tax with the goal of redistributing wealth. this includes the united states, that kerty will agree is anything but communist. the only difference between these countries is the degree of the tax not, tax or not tax. (i do not include the obvious exceptions, the countries that function as tax-shelters)

Kerty:

"There is this socialist/communist notion that all wealth belongs to collective entity( the term 'people' and 'government' are used"

And Kerty gets all wound up when the term "fascist" is used..not when he hurls "socialist/communist"...there is no country without a state, and no real country without taxation...get used to it!

CS #21

unlike terms like fascists, socialists and communists are well defined term, and my own post clearly spells out which each of them deal with money. Nobody is going to disagree that all countries have governments and taxation is used by all governments - It is how they are used, why they are used that define various political ideologies. In USA, multiple ideologies battle it out in defining the size and role of government and taxation - and they keep each other to compromise and hold them back, so no one ideology is able to fully implement its purist agenda. In India, such system of checks and balances and compromises against political ideologies is missing, so it takes people to device their own system of rebelling and subverting of the dictates of government. You got to get used to that too.

CS#16

"no society can be run on the assumption of "every individual for himself/herself"

Why is that a problem, especially when everything else(I won't list them here) in society is supposed to fend for themselves? You don't seem to mind darwinism there.

And are those 'individuals' so insecure that they can't fend for themselves? That also means there is inherent lack of faith in 'Individuals' and their abilities to look after themselves. You want cradle to grave babysitting for them, except that you would like no other institutions of society but government and politicians to be their nannies, and want people like me to pay for it. If people like me refuse to submit, they would be subjected to repression and state violence. That is fascism, isn't it - as Sarkar defines it - 'blatant acts of authoritarian repression or reactionary violence'.

Can you see how Pratibha Patils of Cooperative banks can turn this into a big scam? All they have to do is to produce evidence of fake loans, fake farmers(anybody who has land that is not registered as NA land can claim to be a farmer). Lots of these cooperative banks are family or community owned banks, making loans to their own family relatives and buddies in the communities. It takes very little for them to fake loans. In states where farmer suicide epidemic is going in, most of them are owned or controlled by congress politicians. It is an attempt to pump money into their hands to get them ready for elections.

thanks kerty- that's what I thought. the congress wants to be 'clean" so they are siphoning money "legitamately" into their hands to afford to run for office. It is quite pathetic as sonia ji will not open the purse strings for all.

Abhi: I strongly feel that government should be part of the social-welfare activity if that has to succeed in the present time.

My opinion is that people should take responsibility for themselves. The state owes no responsibility to people who produce unlimited number of children.


However, education and healthcare should continue to have a Govt role as the private sector has largely proven to be incapable of providing low cost but efficient services

Kerty:

""Why is that a problem, especially when everything else(I won't list them here) in society is supposed to fend for themselves? You don't seem to mind darwinism there.""

I may be wrong, but I doubt very much that you went to a school that was built by and paid for by yourself or your family. And the roads you used were built by money from your pocket. And the doctors who attended on you were not subsidised by an educational system etc. etc. You are not an island, nobody is.

As for "darwinism" in social life, you are confusing it with "social darwinism" that owes little to Darwin, but to Spencer and others who misapplied the evolutionary model to social life. A little knowledge is dangerous.

"Social Darwinism" ?????

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7240931.stm

""Like Aasiya of Tarkulwan village. Already a mother of eight when she gave birth to another girl in October, she allegedly sold her off to a childless couple for 200 rupees ($5). "

Gill Sahib, welcome back!! Where were you my friend?? Look forward to unnecessarily locking my horns with you. If Gill is here, can Man Singh Bhai be too far behind??

CS

Stick to the issue. You claimed to be an expert of Social Darwinism. Can you explain the above in its context. Very much interested to know.

(i have been too busy)

not an expert on social darwinism. on darwinism, yes...however, social darwinism was a rush to misapply the "survival of the fittest" paradigm to the social world by a host of nineteenth century thinkers. the phrase "survival of the fittest" as used by Darwin for evolution in the natural world cannot be understood as humans taking on other humans to ensure their survival on a day-to-day basis...if you are not too busy, read any book by the evolutionary biologists Richard Lewontin or Stephen Jay Gould.

Your link doesn't work for me. Even if it did, I don't think i have to comment on it. I claim to be an expert of sorts on ALMOST everything under the sun, but not MOST everything :)

Welcome back anyways!

darwinism = social darwinism = a little learning is dangerous.

OK Gill Sahib, got the link. Not sure what the point is, apart from the fact that the state needs to do more to help these desperate folks. Corruption is not a necessary appendage of the state.

Gill:

from your BBC article:

""In the absence of social security schemes and jobs people have begun to resort to desperate measures."'

precisely my point. this social security cannot be provided thru private measures. perhaps in the past, but not now. the state, despite all the corruption and bossy bureaucrats, is better placed...

CS

People do not mind paying for infrastructure, defence and things that private sector is not prepared to undertake.

Read my comment about your selective darwinism to underscore the following: You would insist religion, culture, traditions, values etc to fend for themselves but want confiscatory taxation and totalitarian government to look after 'individual'.

Your claim that social security can not be provided by private measures or individuals themselves shows your lack of confidence in individuals and their private efforts. Sure if you wreck their social and cultural infra-structure, individuals would need collectivist nannies to look after everything in society. That is called statist engineering.

Corruption is NOT NECCESARY appendage of state? Now that one should fool no one. People in this thread are already arguing that corruption does not matter, benefits not reaching to intended people or in intended amount does not matter. They have already settled for low expectations.

Kerty:

Agree, that I slightly misread your post. However:

"You would insist religion, culture, traditions, values etc"

Still insist that the above should not be supported by the state, as these institutions are voluntary...ie. nobody ever died due to a lack of religion, culture, traditions, values etc. These will always exist, albeit sometimes in forms that you may not agree with. People do die due to lack of health-care, jobs (=education) etc. So, no selective darwinism, just commonsense.

""Your claim that social security can not be provided by private measures or individuals themselves shows your lack of confidence in individuals and their private efforts."

Individuals can do only so much. Most of the time they do not need social security. But sometimes they do. A safety-net, when they do, is essential. Despite rag-to-riches fairytales, most who amass more money they can possibly spend, rely on institutions that they did not create themselves. It is only fair and equitable that they give back some of that money to "society" so others can have a fair shake. Sure, bureaucrats may skim off some of it etc. etc. but private corporations are not devoid of this either. Not just Enron or Haliburton...so this private is better than public or vice-versa is not the issue.

""Corruption is NOT NECCESARY appendage of state? Now that one should fool no one.""

The fact that there is state corruption does not mean that the latter is an umbilical cord of the former. And when there is corruption in the private sector, it is not misrecognized as "business expense", "tax evasion", "just trying to make a buck, humans be damned" etc. Neither the public or private sector is holier than thou. It's all a question of balance really. To have over 50 million Americans that have no health coverage is beyond shame. That's more than the total population of Canada! And yet, the argument goes, the state has no business in interfering with the private sector health insurance robber barons...anytime a comprehensive health-care coverage is mooted, the slogans of "socialism is on the march" is raised by the well-heeled and the insurance industry...

Kerty:

""unlike terms like fascists, socialists and communists are well defined term""

Not quite! Not so fast! Why do you wish to be so categorical?? Would you consider a swami of the Vedanta Society of America, or even Swami Vivekananda to be a socialist? Probably not...yet:

"I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread" Swami Vivekananda

"Every Man and Woman is born a Socialist", Swami Trigunatita, President, Vedanta Society of America

I didnot pull that socialist/communist mindset out of my hat. Here is what our FM said:

Mr. Chidambaram argued that a $1-trillion Indian economy could afford to bear the burden of farm debt waiver"

He thinks that $1 trillion sits in some pot and government dipping from it is a trivial budgetary decision. He think government owns that $1 trillion pot and he can spend it anyway he wishes. What an illiterate moron!

That $1 trillion is sum of goods and services produced by 1 billion individuals and that money is already in the pockets of those 1 billion individuals and that is where it belongs, they earned it by their sweat, by serving the economy. When you rob that money from their pockets for political money laundering scams, those 1 billion individuals lose their valuable money, money which they would have used to feed their own babies, take care of their own loved ones, repay their own personal and business debt. Has he asked those 1billion individuals if they can afford to part with their money? He thinks he has divine mandate to launder their money.

nobody ever died due to a lack of religion, culture, traditions, values.These will always exist, albeit sometimes in forms that you may not agree with.

Does not this qualify as asinine statement of the year?

People have lived peaceful lives not murdered/raped each other, not beaten, cheated and stolen each others property, valuables because of religion,culture, traditions, values. Yes religion, culture, values could not solve all the problems of world to perfection, but then still it did much better job that what Darwinism based Individualism has done to any society.

An effort and sacrifices have to be made to preserve them. They are not some kind of amorphous entities which anybody can create and destroy as per ones personal whims and fancies because every person following them directly benefits from them. They have been created over thousands years. Yes they can be refined to better suit the needs of present, but to shun them is dragging the society back to jungles.

#38, Freedom:

According to me, the following is the asinine statement in the history:

People have lived peaceful lives not murdered/raped each other, not beaten, cheated and stolen each others property, valuables because of religion,culture, traditions, ...

Freedom:

""nobody ever died due to a lack of religion, culture, traditions, values.These will always exist, albeit sometimes in forms that you may not agree with.

Does not this qualify as asinine statement of the year?""

Freedom, you have the freedom to say anything you want, but that does not make it right. You comment may not be the most assinine one of the year, but it comes close. If you read the second part of my assertion slowly, I insist that religion, culture, traditions will exist in some form or the other. People frequently kill each other etc. because they insist that THEIR version of religion, culture, traditions is SUPERIOR and needs to be DEFENDED. Of course, it is only commonsense that people die of traffic accidents and heart-attacks too. Commonsense.

Freedom:

""Yes religion, culture, values could not solve all the problems of world to perfection, but then still it did much better job that what Darwinism based Individualism has done to any society.""

If you don't have the time or capacity to read and digest Darwin, check him out on the wikipedia at least. Individualism is based on Darwinism? Is not. "Social Darwinism" has nothing to do with Darwinism. It is a misapplication of Darwin's metaphor of the "survival of the fittest" by Victorian thinkers to argue for the natural supremacy of Europeans and for the upper classes to which they themselves belonged. Whe Darwin talks of "fitness" he does not mean powerful or dominant. He means, fit in a particular ecological context. So a humble cockroach that has survived for million of years as a species is more "fit" than other mammals that have perished because they could not adapt. This is the meaning of "survival of the fittest"; not that Europe is at the pinnacle of the evolutionary laddder, as are the upper classes, and others should either follow their trajectory or perish. This is the assinine claim of the Social Darwinists, and not Darwin. Darwin, was not a fool. His biggest innovation was that he delivered a death-blow to "teleology" (telos in Greek = end-goal). Evolution has no pre-determined end-goal, ie. there is no question of all lif-forms evolving towards a pre-determined end-point that would be presumably superior. So a cockroach in this evolutionary logic is "superior" than a "cheetah" since the former can adapt to the changing natural conditions, but the cheetah cannot. Quite the opposite of the "social darwinists" who argued that the superior end goal was europe and the ruling classes and all other countries and classes should emulate them. Try to read some Darwin, or at least some pre-digested version of his ideas...

Sujai and Commonsense If you assert that world on the whole would have been peaceful without religion/culture/traditions/values prove it. Without religion and values in place, I can not even convince a single person not to inflict damage to others when his selfish ends are not getting met.


Yes I know you will use Islamic terrorists who bomb innocents, or Hindu nationalists who object and disrupt anti-Hindu sentiments as your examples. You will also quote "crusades" from history. You may also quote church opposition in Renaissance age.

And yes I am aware of casualties in total in all of these incidents. I also know that most if not all casualties in all above cases were committed more by vested interests and by individual centers of power than by the religion itself.

I am sure Any single world war is enough to offset casualties in all of the above.

And now that I want you to do some head scratching and introspection, Do find out how much religion, customs, values and traditions have contributed to happiness, peace and well being of societies. As a clue try to measure the affect of above four within a community/league and try to compare it with havocs it may have created in inter-societal collisions.

If you can not find even 3 good things about religion, values/tradition/customs I do not think i can ever make you understand the importance of each of them, no matter how much I argue and hence in that case I will be happy to close the discussion. And I know, "You can convince a person only when he is willing to be convinced".

Freedom:

""Without religion and values in place, I can not even convince a single person not to inflict damage to others when his selfish ends are not getting met."'

It is pretty sad that one necessarily needs religion to help them distinguish right from wrong. Some folks need it, that's just fine with me. As for me, I try to use my basic commonsense, derived from my so-called brains to distinguish right from wrong, moral from immoral etc. You can use religion if you like. That's just fine with me, as long as you don't violate any laws in the place where you happen to be. And as long as you don't insist that religion influence the framing of laws. Since all societies are necessarily multi-religious, the latter route is a dead-end, morally, socially and every other way. Evolutionary processes have endowed us with rational brains...use it or lose it!

Freedom,

The issue is quite simple and commonsensical too. Believe in any religion you want to, as long as you don't force it on others and do not make it the basis of laws that apply to everyone, religious or non-religious. As for tradition and culture, sure we need them in some measure, but there's no need to make a fetish out of them. Tradition is not always as timeless as it is routinely supposed, and culture is simply an instrument of dealing with present realities, and always transformed as we deal with new realities and existential issues. Why mystify traditon and culture as frozen, ossified, unchangeable entities? Before the computers, there was no cyberculture, now we have it etc. etc. Why put culture on a pedestal to worship it. If you cannot do without religion for distinguishing between right and wrong, please live, eat and drink religion as much as you like. But you cannot insist that I pawn my brains and rationality in order to bow down to ideas that I do not find congenial and sometimes downright irrelevant to my own life. I do not need any religious crutches to guide me along...if you do, that's just fine with me...

CS #43

99.9% of laws are redundant, unnecessary as far as I am concerned - I have never violated them, do not feel the need to violate them, I do not need them. They are useless. I should oppose them, try to get rid of them, right?

Most of these laws are passed by secularists. So they should only be applied to people who believe in secularism. Why should religionists obey them? To each their own.

Most of these laws are passed by politicians lots of people never voted for. They do not represent the will of every Indian. They do not represent every Indian. Their laws should apply only to people who voted for these parties and those politicians. Why should rest of people be subjected to these laws? Same goes for constitution - who the hell were those people, now long dead, deciding the fate of future generations? My generation never gave its consent to create constitution for my generation or for all time to come. How can what was relevant to one generation be relevant for future generations too, right? Each generation should be able to draft their own constitution afresh and it should expire in 20 years. Otherwise, it is a dead document forced upon each successive generations. How can imposing anything on other people be right? Right?

If religion can not influence laws, than why should religion accept the authority of such laws? Why should secularism interfere in the affairs of culture, traditions, faith and religion? And why should writ of secular laws interfere in matter of religion? Than why should religion not interfere in the affairs of state and secularism and laws? Please welcome the birth of Hindutva.

There was a reason why inventors of constitutional government in USA created a compromise to avoid the confrontation with religion - they decided to carve their own respective domains and state agreed to stay strictly within its domain - by explicitly agreeing that state shall make no laws against religion. It did not state that religions will not influence laws. The restriction applied only to state - state than had very limited role and therefore its laws had no encroachment in the affairs of religion which exercised its freedom thru traditions, culture, education. However, all that changed with the advent of leftist ideologies in the last century. Leftists have ballooned the state into ever growing totalitarian state which has hijacked all the spheres that were traditionally under religious domain into state's secular domain. It has turned secularism into a crusade against the domains of dominant religion. That has given birth to counter movements in the form of militant Religious Right in order to respond to secular crusades and reclaim religion's traditional turfs - they both seem to be heading for a head-on confrontation. In USA, the counter movement is focussed on decking the judiciary and supreme court with die-hard literalists and rolling back leftist gains. In India, it has taken the form of openly flouting and rejecting the laws, taking the wind out of intent of laws and making a laughing stock of law enforcement apparatus.

BTW, morality can not be left to mercies and whims of individuals. Morality is a communal project, not an individualized enterprise and only religion can anchor it in a society at society level, individuals can only inherit it from communal levels. Without proper anchoring of morality at society level, no amount of laws and law enforcement can be enough even if you lock up majority of population in jails.

"when arguing with morons, make sure that they are not doing the same"

Anon

commonsense: It is pretty sad that one necessarily needs religion to help them distinguish right from wrong.

Well try it the next time your selfish/vested interests collide with selfish/vested interests of other. No!!! I do "not" denounce selfish/vested forces operating at individual level, because they are the basic building blocks of any and every life on earth. But yes when you operate in an environment where you are supposed to share it with others, such forces need to be reined. I can not see any force other than religion, traditions, culture and values at a non individual level which can rein it. ****

Sorry to say, but the 1% of 1.5 kg of brain (i.e the logical, rational e.t.c brain that we all boast about) is not enough at all. As I see it, In the longer run this part of our brain will only promote flourishing of such destructive forces which weaken the concept of society.

I do not think, people and societies of yester years were foolish not to have come across such cusps (as we see today) in their era. Nor am I am ready to believe that the concepts (which you claim to be a recent innovation), of relegating religion to personal level in order to promote prosperity in society, have never ever been considered by earlier societies.

However, I do agree with rigidity anywhere (be it in religion, society, values, tradition, laws, nations, ideas e.t.c) only results in downfall of it.

So what is the solution?

Continued...

Continued...

The solution therefore should be reformatory but not revolutionary. I have been in software design for close to a decade and I have seen this impulsive, impetuous drive in Software developers to advocate rewrite (and a completely new redesign) as soon as they find couple of flaws here and there. However in the long run, I have seen that this approach rarely works. It leads to wastage of efforts in huge quantities and only after your new design/code is in place do you realize that there were so many good things in the earlier design which you were getting for free(experience, stability and maturity being one)and that there are so many things which your new design fails to cater. You then tend to again go into the same loop over and over again. It is definitely possible that there are few cases where a complete rewrite is advisable, but then those only shows how hastily the previous design was forged or how hastily the previous design looked over its ancestor.

Drawing parallel between software design and social design, something we can be certain about social design is that it was never conceived hastily/ amateurishly and that there were hundreds of iterations before we have reached the state we have found ourselves in.

The correct way to reform anything is therefore to
1) Learn it thoroughly
2) Identify the problem(s).
3) Classify the problems and look for similarity between them so that we can reduce problem set.
4) Discuss and find solutions to the reduced set of problem in close domain(labs if you want to call them so).
5) Build a prototype of solutions and make thus run in isolated and mixed(but controlled environments) repetitively and only of it passes all the tests do we release it for public consumption.
6) To allow every literate person (as do most socialist proponents/intellectuals feel) access to the laboratory conditions is fatal and non productive.
7) Sadly, many people (many of whom are anti -religious, anti-value, anti-tradition, anti-culture) treat societies as open laboratories in which they can conduct the experiment of their choice without being accountable for the results and affects on society at large. They use society as a dump-bin and an easily accessible laboratory. Any bad experiment in there may be a test case failure to them but for others who are least interested in their experiments it turns out to be catastrophic.

Note:

**** A individual a basic unit of society so how a individuals behave has very strong impact on the overall functioning of society.

Freedom:

""The solution therefore should be reformatory but not revolutionary.""

CS: Totally agree! I never talked of revolution!!

Freedom:

""individual a basic unit of society so how a individuals behave has very strong impact on the overall functioning of society.""

CS: Totally disagree! Humans are necessarily social, ie. although they exist physically on their own, they cannot even survive without being connected to other human. Not just because some philosopher said "humans are social animals". We cannot learn language without social interaction, we cannot imbibe and transform culture without social interaction. Among all the other species, humans are the least capable of fending for themeselves when they are born (unlike let's say fish or chicken!). Because we are born "prematurely" so to speak (due to our large head that will get larger if we are not born in nine months, making it harder). Everything we acquire early in life, would not be possible without our connection with other individuals in a social context. All those stories about babies being raised by bears or wolves are not true, not one of them. Even fiction cannot conveive of an isolated human being. Robinson Crusoe soon gets a man Friday; the decade old movie with Tom Hanks, has him attached to a basketball who is treated as another human. The most severe punishment is "solitary confinement" for a reason. We think we achieve things thru our own individual accomplishments, and some of that is true of course, but we forget how much we owe to others. Even in a negative fashion, our self-identity depends on others. You are Freedom, partly because you are not CS, not Deepti, not Aaman, and certainly not Kerty. So your own identity is partly influenced not just by who you are, but who you are not. So, of course we are indviduals, nobody denies that. But we forget how enmeshed and interconnected we are with other humans, without which social life is not possible. We are always born into an ongoing society and culture that we did not create, and we get SOCIALIZED into it, only to change what we found as we strike out on our own. But even when we strike out on our own, we are always connected to other individuals in complex social networks that span from circles of friends to really complex ones, such as this DC forum. To argue that the individual is the basic unit of society is an oxymoron, since we are simply relying on our empiricist sense, without thinking thru what exactly society is all about. But of course, indviduals do play an important role in transforming society...I have no disagreement there. There's an important quote from a very important thinker that you might want to reflect on: "Humans make history, but not always under conditions of their own choosing". So yes, individuals are important, but they can never ever completely unhinge themselves from contexts that they themselves have not directly created on their own. And when they change anything, they always do so in ways that are influenced by many factors that they did not will into existence on the spot. Think about the cup of coffee or tea that you consume everyday. Think of the amazing network of actors and social contexts that makes it possible for your individual enjoyment of this brew that cheers but does not inebriate....

Dear Kerty,

"My responsibility for social welfare ends with me and my family. Period. I have no responsibility to pay money out of my pocket to look after welfare of people beyond my family. Other people should look after their own families."

I don't know about you, but I grew up in a town in Karnataka, went to a govt aided school where my father was a teacher. I then went to a PU college which was again aided by the state government. I studied in an elite engineering college in U.P., which was wholly funded by the central government, I am sure the fee I paid, Rs 1000/year, didn't go very far in paying the salaries of the professors and the staff, not to mention the maintenance of hostels and other infrastructure. With my family's income, I could never have made it this far without a generous contribution from many individuals of India, including, in all probability, one from your family as well. I believe I have a responsibility to give back a little of my good fortune today.

No man is an island, and it takes a village to raise a child. If everyone said to me, by me and myself, we would still living in the caves where we came from.

Regards,

Ravi

Dear Kerty (#7),

"Who is talking about MNCs to look after education in rural areas. Why can't people in rural areas do it for themselves? People in villages can come together and create their own schools, can't they? People in rural areas tend to be very cohesive, networked, cooperation-minded - with internet and technology, education can reach any corner of India."

What do you think a government is? It is not an alien entity suddenly foisted upon a hapless people, though today it appears to be so? Government is the people's will, however corrupt and distorted it is.

We have a societal obligation for educating everyone. This much should be self evident. Well educated citizenry leads to a peaceful and prosperous societies. Lack of it leads to a collapse of the community. No private entity can do this job without hurting those children, our hope for the future, who can't afford the education.

Regards,

Ravi

Ravi..

Your comment is appropriate for another thread from which you quoted me. Post it there for appropriate discussion about your points.

Ravi..

Please disregard my earlier comment. I mistook myself to be in a different thread but your comment is rightfully in correct thread. Sorry about that.

Ravi Kulkarni:

""I believe I have a responsibility to give back a little of my good fortune today."'

Good for you Ravi Kulkarni. If only more selfish, self-centred, folks who will never hesitate to leach off public institutions, but will complain about THEIR money helping others, will understand this simple fact. But of course they won't...but it is enough that people like you intuitively understand that no individual is an island unto himself/herself...

#49 commonsense: Totally disagree

I am not sure which of the two you disagree with

1) A individual is a basic unit of society OR

2)How a individuals behave has very strong impact on the overall functioning of society.

It seems like both. Before I attempt to answer you, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the 4 stars(****) in #48 were in the context with what I was saying in #47 at the point of ****.

That said I am still trying to comprehend how this response of yours, meshes with what I have tried to put together in #47, #48.


As I see one of your main objection is to clause that "individual is a basic unit of society" in non-empirical sense!!. I will mull over it and try to get back when I get some more time at my hands from my otherwise busy schedule. To share something while I create this interlude, my assumption thus far has been that individuals in society are much like nodes in a graph tree/mesh with means like language, tradition, culture, values, religion, beliefs and ideas, knowledge e.t.c acting as connections. That said, allow me time to reckon and get back on it.

Ravi..

Government at no time represents the mandate of more than a tiny minority of people. Out of 60% people who usually elect to vote, it takes mo more than 35% to 40% of votes for any party to take the government for a ride and implement partisan political agenda thru government. That means hardly 30% of Indians ever agree with whatever government is trying to do. Yet government rarely tries to create consensus across political spectrums or among people. It can bamboozle its partisan agenda as a fiat. It does amount to hoisting a political will of a tiny minority over people of India. So please, get this myth out of the way that Government represents the will of ALL people. Government, because it can never represent the will of all people, and hence it must restrict its role to a minimum common programmes on which readily discernable consensus already exists among people at large, and role of political parties and media is to expand that consensus by raising issues, but not to divide it or do whatever they feel like. We do not have such government or political process or political parties. It is a legitimate entity with alien spirit and we are asked to unconditionally worship it as next best thing to God.

There is never a disagreement about importance and role of education in a nation. So get that out of the equation also. The central issue is who should provide that education and who should pay for the education and how.

Nation has an obligation to be educated. It does not mean that onus of education has to vested in Government. Government has an obligation to see to it that people are able to get an education. There are two ways government can discharge such responsibility - government directly getting into the business of providing education thru taxation and government-run delivery system, which is what government has been doing and socilists/communists seems to be insisting. The other method is for people to take the responsibility of educating themselves. So please read my comment that you quoted in that context.

Ultimately, pay as you go system run by private enterprise will be much more dynamic, cost-efficient and quality-conscious than a system run thru taxation and government burocracy. Capital markets and global educational MNCs can finance the educational projects and make them competitive. Market forces has amazing ability to adjust its products to consumer needs and demands. Rural and poor areas where market forces can not reach out can be served by missionaries, charities and government. Government can undertake the role of developing R&D, infra-structure and oversight in the field of education. I think this can be a viable way to deliver education.

I would not mind paying school/college fees out of my pocket for my own kids while they are actually in the school/college and be done with my obligation towards education. That is lot cheaper than asking me to pay fees(in the form of taxes) for education even when I may no longer have any of my kid in any school/college and forcing me to cough up fees year after year to educate somebody else's kids and only way I can stop paying the fees is when I die. That is the most ridiculous way of financing the educational system. Why not let each parent be responsible for educating and paying for education of their own kids? Create a system of scholorship and government subsidy for kids who have poor parents who can't afford to pay fees. That would be a fair and equitable of funding the education. I think this can be a viable way to fund education.

The educational system we have today is outdated, inadequate and expensive - it can not meet the challenges of today or tomorrow. Everybody thinks it is for free. But tax-payers are paying thru their nose and getting nothing in return but ingratitude and arrogance. And leftist politicians have made it their political fiefdom, rationing education to the few and waging politics of reservation for the remaining. There is a way to break out from that choke-hold and rescue education.

kerty:

WHY?

just on this board you have over 15 comments so far. WHY don't you submit articles on DC?

T

Thanks for inviting me to submit articles on DC. But it does not suit my provocative style of writing(I like to think it is thought/critique-provoking but it can also provoke bile in equal measure). I rather like to let other people set the agenda of discussion. My prolific comments on DC shows how much I love be on DC and also how much spare time I have.

Ravi Kulkarni:

while I mostly agree with you saying that one needs to give back(with interest) what has been given to him by society. However I have couple of queries...

When you say that state paid for you while you were single and helpless, is not it that your parents too was paying up taxes(on your behalf) so that state could arrange for a school for you. The state as such has only sum total of resources of all the people who own the state. Unless you claim that state had been cheating and using unfair discriminatory practices to provide resources to only a particular section of society, you should not be saying that state was favoring you by providing you access to subsidized facilities. It was its duty.

Since you have addressed issues mainly around state providing you education, My next question to you is on behalf of those people who have made success in life without aide from education in public institutions. Are they liable to be taxed less, for e.g?


Another view point could be that state was investing in you (given your unique/special potential) so that they could rear back from you when you grow up. In that case it was treating you like a resource object (a bonded laborer if I am allowed to use some harsh words). In either case, Are they not supposed to set terms or conditions of this bondage. It certainly can not be arbitrary and something on the lines of give me fixed percentage share of no matter how much you make from now? Or can it be?

/**************************/

Addendum to my #55 which was in response to #49 from commonsense

The humans whom I consider as nodes are grown up individuals. Only grown up humans are considered as social animals under this assumption. As for human baby being hapless and dependent e.t.c, Well human baby learns and depends mostly on its parents and hence for that part of life they are mostly and primarily answerable to (or allowed to question) their parents, unless we are talking of children reared in state owned orphanages, in which case the equation gets quite complex.

Freedom,

I totally agree with your "node" analogy. We are of course individuals, but as nodes, connected to other nodes in very complex networks of relationships, such that we simply cannot do without those other nodes...even in infancy, as you point out, we depend on other nodes, partents, siblings, close relatives etc. that play an important role in socialization. We are of course indviduals, but always in a social context...(onless we are engaged in sexual self-service ie!). We agree, expressing the same idea differently...

kerty:

you have a provocative style? i did not know:)

a person dancing naked in the chowk can be provocative too..

provocative without making sense is inviting common sense's wrath

and that can be tiresome;)

and un-productive!

unproductive and unprovocative can be intensely and inversely proportional to provocative and senseless

in above common sense will derive temporal's law of provocation

#56 Kerty:

"It(Govt) is a legitimate entity with alien spirit and we are asked to unconditionally worship it as next best thing to God".

Correction!!!, Infact we are asked to unconditionally worship it before(and not after) God. God, Religion and other similar stuff are being pushed to personal/individual levels of belief and faith so that they are forced to have no bearing and consequence on functioning of our social,daily lives.

"Out of 60% people who usually elect to vote, it takes mo more than 35% to 40% of votes for any party to take the government for a ride"

I would wish to correct you here once again ( probably in your favour ;) ). The winner candidate in most constituencies, polls on an average of 30% of votes. Add to it the fact that 30% odd members of parliament are enough to Hijack Govt policies for e.g in case of Indo-US Nuclear deal. So it occasionally boils down to whims and fancies of less than 10% of people.

#62..Oops, I forgot to bring "voting %" factor into account. I think since on an average only about 50% people vote, so that figure comes down to less than 5% of population.

Obviosuly "not voting" is many a times voter's fault(others include improper administration, issuses with voting service availability e.t.c), but 50% is a fact just like less than 5% representation in some cases is a fact. We can debate around the fact but can not ignore/deny the fact.

T

Why would you want to be a final arbiter of what is common sense and what is unproductive and what is tiresome in a debate over hot issues? I know I wouldn't want to be one. I think it requires one to be way too presumptious and condescending, often at at way too personal level.

final

final as in ultimate q.e.d.?

where did you read that in #61?

i also thought he could read...

T

Arbiter being a judge, jury and refree all rolled into one, whatever an arbiter may think, interpret or conclude is final. Now, use of word arbiter in this instance can be construed as being provocative to make a point but if one does not agree with the point, than an unproductive, tiresome and nonsensical rant.

yup agree...this is a rant;)

in #65 i questioned final which you evaded

here i will question arbiter and hopefully predictably you will disappoint again

where or when did i allude to being an arbiter?

Freedom..

Thanks for correction.

I would add one more point in the mix.

The issues that are presented before people to win their consent and mandate are not the same issues that are transacted by government after elections. That means majority of business transacted by government is never presented as issues before people for prior consent or approval during elections. That means, voting is reduced to a mere ritual of signing a blank irrevocable power of attorney to politicians who may exercise that open-ended power in any way they may like and make the most vital decisions concerning your pocket book and your life and you have no say or power to revoke that power of attorney after you have voted. You would not give such blank power of attorney to your own family member. But that is how government earns its mandate and so-called will of people. We know how elections are fought, purely on caste and votebank equations, the issues rarely factor in. If you sum it all up, government's will does not equal to people's will. It represents will of small minority of people. That is why people at large remain so cynical and bitter about government and politicians, and huge % of people never bother to vote. People who decided not to vote can sometimes outnumber the votes received by a ruling party. Therein lies the irony.

2)

T

Thanks for your comment:)

you are welcome k:)

and thank you for being so predictable

Dear Kerty,

I agree with a lot of what you say. Currently there is no system that is perfect, but we have to work with what we have. We can not altogether discard the government, because it is not a true representative of all the people. Instead we have to find ways of making it one. The quality of political discourse depends on the quality of participants. At least two post independence generations of India have shunned politics as being too dirty, too divisive. However there are signs that that is changing. Just look at all the new excitement organizations like Bharat Uday Mission have generated among the youth.

You talk about funding education of your own kids and the poor ones are taken care of by the government and charitable organizations. There is no level playing field. Do you sincerely believe that a kid born to a poor laborer in Bihar will ever have the same chance as my kids or your kids in life? My kids will have a huge leg up over that poor kid simply by the accident of their birth. This system of discrimination will continue in perpetuity unless we do something about it.

Today's education system is ineffective, not just because governments are wasteful and implementation is sloppy. The most important factor in a child's education is his or her parental involvement. We definitely need a paradigm shift in parenting. Until that happens, no amount of money, government or private intervention will help.

As a society we have to take a more collective responsibility for important domains like education and health. These are simply too critical for humanity to be left at the mercy of individual generosity.

Regards,

Ravi

Ravi Kulkarni #72,

Thanks for your eminently rational and thoughtful post, even though it is completely lost on the person you address it to...since he is of the "me, myself and I" provenance...as "social justice? are you a socialist or what??"

Dear CS,

Thanks for your compliments. I would like to talk to people based on issues rather than ideologies. I don't agree with a lot of what Kerty says, but he does make some good points. We are in the process of learning, me more than others, so there is a lot to be gained by engaging in conversations with people of different ideologies. I don't fit into any one ideology; I am a fiscal conservative but socially liberal and belong to neither sides on many topics. If we all agree to set aside ideology and concentrate on issue at hand, I believe lot of conflicts can be resolved.

Regards,

Ravi

Ravi Kulkarni,

Totally agree with you. It was an English economist Joan Robinson who once said: "ideology is like bad breath; we only seem to notice others' ideologies, not our own!" So true!

Dear Freedom,

There are two ways of looking at the individual debt owed by an individual to the society: as a quid pro quo, where every debit and credit is measured in material terms, or in the spirit of one humanity where we recognize a thread of commonality among all peoples. I prefer to choose the second one.

We need to look at our social obligations in broader terms. Socialists and communists say: "from each according to his/her ability and to each according to the need". I realize this almost always leads to a system where there are more needy than able people. It is my belief that communists (and socialists) have made a fundamental error. They have failed to recognize the spiritual nature of human existence; by this I mean the common thread of humanity that unites us all. I know this has religious undertones, but in purely secular terms, one can say that we have grown beyond the Darwinism. Personally I believe that there is something more than what meets the eye and there is a subtle thread (some call it soul, consciousness etc) that unites us all. But strictly speaking that belief is not necessary to recognize the connection.

If we accept that thread then it behooves me to act in ways that benefits not just myself and my family but the entire society. Communists try to achieve the same goals, without admitting the spiritual nature of man. As long as we believe in the rat race there is no reason to expect un-rat-like behavior from people. Communism would have worked in a land full of Buddhas. That points us to the direction we should be heading.

Enough of rambling... There is no reason to believe that anyone is seriously interested in getting to the bottom of our problems and resolving them. Hence the bandaids like taxes and the government largesse.

Regards,

Ravi

Ravi Kulkarni:

""We need to look at our social obligations in broader terms.... If we accept that thread then it behooves me to act in ways that benefits not just myself and my family but the entire society.""

Wow! Wow! If only a third of the world's population thought the way you did Ravi Kulkarni, it would be a much better place than it currently is! Hats off to you. May you never waver from your belief and hopefully others learn from your committment to leaving a place/social context better than you initially found it...Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!

Ravi #72

One should not simply stop by admitting that that it is not a perfect system. It has to be followed up with humility, vigilance over Government, that is sadly lacking among ideologies that vie to rule government. They simply do not want to limit the government's role to common minimum consensus or bother to expand that common minimum consensus among people - in fact their politics center around dividing and fragmenting whatever common ground and consensus that is already present(thru history, traditions, religion etc) among people. Thus, it produces a fractured polity, balkanization of consensus, and than use of government fiats to muscle in one's partisan agenda - thus further eroding the people's faith in legitimacy of government and whatever flows from it - it