Reading this introduction (PDF link) (via Anarcaplib) to the Economic Freedom Report written by Parth Shah brought back a memory to me. In it, he restates the story of how the License Raj causes misery to the cycle-rickshaw pullers of Delhi.
I had read about it some time back, and once I sent a link to the story to a young communist friend of mine (yes, there are still young communists) pointing out that the law causing the misery was a socialist law, written with noble socialist intentions.
He responded with the argument that the law was not really socialist. In fact it was a very good example of the exploitative capitalist system, where the rich are allowed to buy as many cars as they wished, while the poor were restricted from buying more than one cycle-rickshaw.
That was the yardstick he used – anything that hurts the poor is capitalist. Anything that is supposed to benefit the poor is socialist (But if ultimately the “socialist” law ends up hurting the poor, it will be retroactively turned into a capitalist one.)
Unfortunately, he is not alone. One of the things I discussed with JK during my momentous meeting with him was how India’s education system has been so successful in indoctrinating so many of us that we cannot bring ourself to say “Socialism has failed”. Instead we end up saying “We have failed to achieve socialism”. If we capitalists want to take on the socialists, we will have to tackle the mindset head-on.
Socialist brainwashing cannot be overcome by cold reasoning and logic. It has to be overcome by emotion. We’ve to play them at their own game.
Or rather..because of the bad failures of the Indian system so many “otherwise” logical people are turning against Socialism and embracing blind Capitalism, which, in its true form in today’s day and age, no different that a new form of dictatortship.
Perhaps the answer lies somewhere-in-the-middle!
No Zaphod. I have embraced Capitalism with my eyes open.
I used the adjective “blind” for Capitalism, not its proponents! 🙂