The parlour game

I left this as a comment on Shivam’s post on the blog HTOHL. I just thought I’d repeat it here. You need to read that post to get the context.

I think that you folks are misunderstanding the motive for this post. It is not aimed at having any serious debate on reforms. It is here just to play the usual parlour game named “Asking serious questions”.

It goes something like this:

Part I: “We have a right to ask serious questions about the economic reforms process. Don’t we?”

Part II: Offer some anecdote as evidence. In this case for example, he has given an example of the negative consequences of economic growth – and you will notice that neither this negative consequence nor this kind of economic growth is unique to the post reforms period. Coal mines were built, dams were constructed and people were displaced even prior to the reforms era. Any fool can see this point – but this is a trap for fools, as we will later see.

Part III: End the post with some vague negative words about economic reforms.

Part IV: When the fools who have seen the point in Part II ask: “So does this mean that you are opposed to all economic growth or just economic reforms?”
or
When the fools who are bewildered by Part III say: “What the hell does Part II have with Part III?” it means that they’ve fallen into the trap.

Say “Are you saying that no questions can be asked about economic reforms at all?”

Alternatively, say, “Just because I am asking questions about economic reforms, it does not mean that I am opposed to them”

Or say “Just because I am asking serious questions about economic reforms, it does not mean that I am a supporter of the earlier regime. I just want to ask questions about the direction we are going in.”

Gotcha! What was a debate over economic reforms is now a debate over Shivam’s right to dissent. You can’t win this one.

This is an amusing parlour game, but this is not going to advance the debate one bit. For that to happen, this blog will have to move from asking questions to attempting answers. Unfortunately, once you give answers, you will have to think them through and defend them against the same kinds of attacks that are seen here. Nah.. much better to play these parlour games.

Actually, there is a Part V for this parlour game, which we will come to soon.

5 thoughts on “The parlour game”

  1. Pingback: DesiPundit » Reforms - do we need them?

  2. But Ravikiran, you didn’t say anything about this part of my post:

    Why are we ‘reforming’ the economy?

    There should be only one answer to that question, but it turns out there are two.

    The first answer is that Nehruvian socialism failed to deliver the goods: it failed to drastically eradicate poverty, raise the standard of living of the people, remove social inequalities. In other words, India’s much-touted ‘mixed economy’ resulted in a dismal ‘Hindu rate of growth’. Capitalism, even in its regulated form, did the First World much more good: that indeed is the unequivocal conclusion of the Cold War.

    The second answer, I gather, is that the state has no right to to “steal” public money via taxation and set-up public sector units or run public welfare schemes. This argument says that public taxation is ‘theft’, that the state is an evil ‘vampire’, and that use of public money for any ‘welfare’ schemes is not only unworkable (because of corruption) but also undesirable. This argument does not believe that the state could be doing this with ‘permission’ by the people, via democratic elections.

    In your comment, there’s only one point that I think merits an asnwer: “and you will notice that neither this negative consequence nor this kind of economic growth is unique to the post reforms period. Coal mines were built, dams were constructed and people were displaced even prior to the reforms era.” Leaving the tomfoolery apart, the point is that displacement of people and such like are ignored under the glitter of ‘Shining India’.

  3. Pingback: Selective Amnesia » Fear not dear soul. Fear not

  4. Appalling how you can logically talk about games when the emotional issue of the very lives of people is being discussed. If there is a parlour game, it is that of the spider of reforms tempting the poor flies of the Indian populace into its parlour. Hopefully this emotionally manipulative analogy is able to pierce the cloud of logic by which you’re trying to conceal the true emotions of the matter.

    HyperTree shall not take this unemotional libertarian capitalist hegemony of desi blogdom anymore.
    Ravikiran; you’re on notice.

  5. Amazing how I am getting amazing dialogues for the comic strip that Gaurav and I are thinking about? It will be called the Adventures of Fallacyman, who will take on fact-finders, logicians and other super-villains.

    I can picture the fallacyman saying, “Hopefully this emotionally manipulative analogy is able to pierce the cloud of logic by which you’re trying to conceal the true emotions of the matter.” while letting out one blast of emotionally manipulative analogy on unsuspecting logic-lover.

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