Praxeology: My Reflexions on India

In the zeal of controlling everything that either walks or doesn’t walk, the present Narendra Modi government of India is shooting in its own foot. It is giving one shock after another to the society and economy in the form of mob lynching of innocent people in the name of “cow protection”, beef and myriad of other bans, attacks on minority communities, compulsory use of Aadhar card, demonetization of 86% of total currency supply, GST etc. Why am I terming these policies as government shooting in its own feet? The reason can be understood with the aid of the laws of human action. Any individual needs freedom to achieve his full potential and flourish e.g., if I chain you in one room or throttle you then you cannot act to do something progressive and you will most probably die. The same is true for the body economy and society. Freedom is the precondition of any growth or development process. If people and businesses are strangulated by myriad of controls and regulat...

The on-going stand-off between the armies of the Indian and Chinese nation states on the Sikkim border has created quite a bit of ruckus in the, now very nationalistic, Indian public. People in India are calling for a total boycott of Chinese goods . This demand for boycott of Chinese goods is nothing new. Economics of Boycott The relevant question here is that, what consequences will follow if India’s nationalistic public actually decide to boycott Chinese goods? Without going into the details of numbers of what is the volume of trade between India and China etc., let us carry out a theoretical analysis of the consequences that will necessarily follow this action of boycott. What will happen in India after the boycott? The first thing that will happen in India is that the consumers will be at a loss immediately because they will not be able buy and consume the cheap Chinese goods now. They will have to spend more on acquiring the same product because similar I...

The finance minister of Narendra Modi government Mr. Arun Jaitley recently, in the Institute of Chartered Accountants while celebrating Chartered Accountants  Day (sic), said that India should have a “new normal” with citizens ready to pay the taxes they need to pay and a new mindset to move from a developing nation to a developed one … During the time of demonetisation I have said that India now needs to define the new normal. And the normal is whatever taxes I have to pay, I need to pay” . Is this true? Will paying taxes make India developed as a nation? Not at all. Quite the contrary. It will make India and Indians poor. Let us see why. Any society, at a given time, has a limited amount of resources which it can use to fulfill various unending present and future consumption needs of its citizens. The first stage of any development process requires the fulfillment of basic material needs of people. A nation of hungry people can never develop. Now, a socie...