Praxeology: My Reflexions on India

In this book review I am going to take a look at a very important book written by French sociologist Professor Jean Baechler, The Origins of Capitalism . What differentiates the Western civilization from the rest of the world is its capitalist spirit, which, sadly, started waning in the last part of the twentieth century. What makes the Western world materially richer and better than other parts of the world in the past two and a half centuries is its economic system of Capitalism. Jean Baechler discusses important questions like what is Capitalism? Where did it come from and when? What are its distinguishing features? Why was it essentially a western phenomenon and now a Western export? This book and its teachings are important for a country like India, which is still reeling in poverty in this twenty first century. If India, or any other country, wants to make economic progress then its people will have to take these teachings to their heart,  understand the forces that are r...

After a thumping victory against Narendra Modi and his nationalist BJP party, the new CM of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, has announced to fulfill one of his many election campaign promises of banning liquor sell and consumption in Bihar beginning from 1st April next year. After this imposition of ban, Bihar will be one among few of states in India, including Gujarat, my home state, were liquor is totally banned since 1960s, where liquor will be banned by the state government. In this short write-up I will analyze the economics of this liquor ban. People must know what will be the consequences of this ban. Will it become successful in achieving its stated goals? So why Nitish wants to ban the sell and consumption of liquor in Bihar. Let's hear the stated goals of this policy from his own mouth: My government is committed to fulfilling promises made to women during the election campaign. There was a surge of complaints from women about male members of the family resorting to drinking...

Last Tuesday the central bank of India, RBI, announced its much awaited last quarter monetary policy. The present governor of RBI Dr. Raghuram Rajan was under tremendous pressure of his Delhi masters to reduce the interest rates. Not disappointing his masters, he reduced the repo rate by a big 50 basis point . Raghuram Rajan has an image of an "inflation warrior"; a "monetary-policy hawk"! He is quite famous for his so-called "anti-inflation stance". People think that he was at loggerheads with his Delhi masters, especially the finance minister Arun Jaitley. Many well-known international investors have praised his stubbornness to reduce the interest rate; many even thought of nominating him for a "Nobel Prize" in economic science (it is a different matter that there is no Nobel Prize in economic science; the present prize is given by the Swedish Central Bank in the memory of Alfred Nobel!). So, is Raghuram Rajan an "inflation warrior...

Since Narendra Modi and his BJP party's Hindu nationalist government has come to power in Delhi last year, there is a relentless onslaught of Sanskrit language education and India's glorious past's propaganda. Modi government's education minister Smriti Irani has, so far, forced Sanskrit language teaching on the Kendriya Vidyalaya schools displacing the learning of German language (see here , and here ) against the wishes of many parents (see here ). BJP's home minister Rajnath Singh said that, Sanskrit is most useful for science, technology! (see here ) In this speech he can be seen disparaging English language. BJP/RSS Hindu nationalist also hijacked the recent 102nd Indian Science Congress (see here ). In a Science Congree, they presented a paper titled ' ‘Ancient Science Through Sanskrit’ with other papers on mythical planes capable of inter-planetary travel and unproven claims of scientific breakthroughs in pre-history! So, is Sanskrit language and ed...

The state of Gujarat again, after a lull of few years, erupted in violence in the form of caste related riots last week. The Patels (Patidars, a mainly land owning caste in Gujarat) are agitating for reservation status under the leadership of a young but confused Mr. Hardik Patel. There are many lessons that we can learn from this past week events. I will discuss them one by one below. Firstly, I above said that Mr. Hardik Patel is confused. I said it because his agitation for reservation status is based on wrong ideas. The real struggle in society is not between Patidars and other OBC caste or SC or ST or Open cateogry caste. The real struggle is not between Hindus or Muslims or Christians etc. The real struggle in not between Rich or Poor. The real struggle is between, the tax paying class of the society and the tax consuming class i.e., The Tax Payers and The Tax Consumers . Nineteenth century American political philosopher John C. Calhoun identified this struggle very ...

Last week the Chinese central bank PBOC (People's Bank of China) devalued their currency Yuan, which created kind of a earthquake in the international markets. Immediately after that the Indian rupee started weakening against Dollar. In my latest economic report I discuss why Chine decided to devalue their currency, and what impact this move will have on the Indian and World economies.

Greece is in a big trouble. Their government lost their sovereignty to foreign creditors after they were bailed out by them for the third time! This is not a fix of this problem, but only kicking the can down the road by politicians. One day, in future, Greece government will have to repay their debt one way or another. The bankruptcy and insolvency of the Greek government is a global phenomenon. Many world governments are heavily indebted and they will get into big troubles in future. In my latest economic report I discuss the Greek problem, its implications and a possible solution.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, the modern nation state societies in which we all are living are not more than 500 or so years old. If we study the human societies around the world then they exhibit different organizational patterns, and the state is only one of these various organizational patterns. People who are living under these nation states might feel as if the condition in which they find themselves today is present since time immemorial. Many a times, during discussion with various people about the future Anarcho-Capitalist society which will be without any nation state, I frequently hear, that the state has always been with us since the beginning of time, and it is never going to go away; we have to live with it, and tolerate its exploitations! These people don't know the human history. The real question for us to understand today is, how the first original states came into being? Whether the nation state is with us since the beginning of time? In this article I will expl...

After the sweeping election win of Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP party last year, there is a barrage of Hindu propaganda coming from Modi and his government about the so-called glorious past of India and the sacred Hindu culture. Hindu fundamentalist forces, under the tutelage of Modi and his government, are busy attacking the Muslim and Christian minorities while BJP's backers, the RSS, wants Modi government to declare India as a Hindu nation ! BJP governments in various states like Maharashtra and Haryana have gone so far as to ban the eating of cow beef totally saying that for Hindus cow is sacred. The myth of India's Holy Cow  perpetuates and gives a (phony) justification to such draconian measures of these state governments. What I want do in this brief article is reveal the reality of the  Hindu Holy Cow . I will present the underlying cause of this old Hindu ban/taboo on eating cow beef. What factors are driving this ban? How and when this ban origin...

A day before yesterday the Indian military commandos, allegedly as said by the Indian government official Rajayavardan Rathod , crossed the border of Myanmar (Burma) to attack and kill some 50+ so-called separatist rebel fighters. This cross-border attack came in the wake of an attack on the Indian military forces in Manipur few days back by these rebel fighters who killed some 20 Jawans of Indian army during that attack. Narendra Modi government's Junior minister for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said the government had taken the bold step to strike at militant camps and he congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for doing so ... He also told ... it was a signal to neighbours that India will not tolerate militant attacks from across its borders. "It is undoubtedly a message to all nations that harbour any intentions - be it the west or the specific country we went into right now. Even if there are groups within countries that harbour terror int...

Narendra Modi government has launched a new scheme of " Gold Monetization " [sic]. We all know that the Indian government, whether of Manmohan or Modi, has waged a war against Gold since long. This scheme is yet another weapon of government in that war. In my latest economic report I analyze this scheme and its realities. I also, briefly, discuss what Gold actually is.

I have recently started reading John Keay's India: A History From the Earliest Civilizations to the Boom of the Twenty First Century published by the Harper Press. What I want to do in this write-up is to do a live review of this book as I go on reading it. This blog will continue to update as I read one chapter after another reviewing them in succession. I will present my own analysis and comments in the following paragraphs as well as reproducing choicest excerpts from the book, especially the ones which are more relevant for today's India and the kind of issues that are discussed in present time e.g., Nationalism under Modi government. When I was reading the first chapter The Harappan World , one thing struck me hard is the fact, which anyone who has studied the Indian history deeply knows well, that this country, which is generally called India, was historically never a one country. The present political form of this country as one geographic territory is a phenome...

Yesterday the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, spoke at a financial inclusion conference organized as part of RBI’s 80th anniversary celebrations. The kind of advise he was giving to the central banker of India, Raghuram Rajan, shows a sign of the kind of troubles that are coming in future for the Indian economy. The height of hubris with politicians is that they always think as if they are knowledgeable about everything; as if they are omniscient. They want to impose their own faulty ideas on the whole country. This is especially true with Narendra Modi. Since coming to power last year, he is constantly pushing the whole nation in a direction which he thinks is right for this country. He is driving everyone crazy to fulfill his personal dreams like Swaccha Bharat or Make in India. He did the very same thing yesterday also in his speech by directing RBI and commercial banks to do bidding for his own personal dreams. I analyze some of his agendas for the banks below. 1. Banks...

In recent budget finance minister Arun Jaitley announced a new monetary policy measure called Inflation Targeting (see here ). This is what the measure in specifics is, "the apex bank adopt the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the measure of the nominal anchor for monetary policy. And that the RBI set the target CPI inflation level at 4 per cent (+/- 2 per cent) to be achieved through its monetary policy tools." So, what is this inflation targeting? Is it good for the Indian public and the economy at large? Or is it just another tool of fleecing off the (sheep) public? I answer these questions in my new economic analysis below.  

The much awaited budget of Modi government came and gone. In my latest economic report, instead of focusing on specifics of this budget,  I analyze the fundamental ideological issues that are driving the actions of the present government in this budget and other policies. Instead of focusing on specifics, it is important to concentrate on these underlying ideologies which is going to affect the future of billions of people in India.

So after a heated pre-election day campaigning and lot of mud slinging by - mainly BJP and its PM Narendra Modi - the political parties, Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won a landslide victory capturing 67 out of total 70 seats. BJP got only 3 seats while Congress got nothing. Many newspapers are calling this as a AAP tsunami sweeping away the "Modi wave"! This landslide victory means many things. Below are my reflections on these new developments in the Indian politics. First, this landslide victory of AAP is a sure indication that Narendra Modi and his BJP's nonsense propaganda of Hindu nationalism , Ghar Wapsi , Hindu women having 4 children , attacks on Christian churches in New Delhi , opposition to festivals like Valentines Day etc., and other such nefarious tactics of dividing people on communal lines - like what Modi was doing in Gujarat since last 15 years - will not work in this country where people are hungry, not having clot hes on thei...