Democracy and anarchism

Aristotle The Geek has written a partial response to the debate on my previous post. He writes
What is an “unfree” market? Let me ask the question the other way round – what is a “free” market? It is a market in which the State does not interfere (the only “interference” would be of the enforcement of [...]

Deep rooted altruism

Plenty of work coupled with a lack of motivation to spend time on editing has meant that its been quite a while since I last wrote a proper,  thought-out post although I do have plenty of accumulated material to write about. While the lack of motivation hasn’t changed, I thought I should just put this down.
In a short conversation over [...]

Where is the U.S. heading?

This post (via Gus Van Horn) shows how the government operates in the U.S. these days. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between it and a criminal gang. Except that unlike a criminal gang, it has the entire coercive apparatus of the state behind it. Scary.

Is TARP criminal?

Donald Luskin asks “Is TARP a criminal enterprise?” and goes on to describe a number of dubious details such as:
…it was disclosed that “nearly 20 preliminary and full criminal investigations” are underway, including “large corporate and securities fraud matters affecting TARP investments, tax matters, insider trading, public corruption, and mortgage-modification fraud.”
…Perhaps this refers to the [...]

Government and education

A while back I came across this infuriating story (via A Little Lower than The Angels) of a man who did not send his children to a public school against the law of his state and so was shot dead by the agents of the state. Since I have written a bit lately on the moral and political implications [...]

Moral Responsibility

Arguing that government should fund education T.R asks (somewhat rhetorically),
Isn’t it our social and moral responsibility to give equal opportunity to all?
Even if it were, that does not necessarily mean that government should fund education. Note that government funds come from taxation – they are not voluntary. Using the force of law to take my money and spend it without [...]

Vision

In an email exchange (which has already produced two posts), a friend asked “What are the alternatives you suggest to taxing/ law and order maintainance / public healthcare/ public education etc?”  This is what I wrote as a response:
Education and healthcare are certainly not areas where the government needs to enter. Consider the private tuitions / coaching [...]

Externalities

My last post on Social Planning did not address the issue of externalities as well as I would have liked so I decided to write some more on it.
For the first part of the arguement, consider the example of a lighthouse from George Reisman’s book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (pdf version available here. Note: I have not [...]

Advertising, coaching classes and education

In the same edition of the The Times of India that carried the news report on Hafiz Contractor, there was a report on a more interesting case. Titled “Coaching class ad leaves IIT dean red-faced”, the report states:
A newspaper advertisement for an IIT entrance coaching class had the campus in a flutter recently. Reason: The [...]

Laws vs Regulations

Recently Diana Hsieh (of NoodleFood) raised the question ”What is the difference between laws and regulations?” Since I consider myself opposed to all regulations but firmly believe that laws are necessary, this is an important question.
Before I get to law or politics, the first thing to note is that the word regulate derives from the word regular as [...]