{"id":417,"date":"2005-12-16T05:52:50","date_gmt":"2005-12-15T18:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/?p=417"},"modified":"2005-12-18T00:02:23","modified_gmt":"2005-12-17T18:32:23","slug":"dear-shivam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200512\/dear-shivam\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Shivam,"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firstly, you’re welcome<\/a>. I still remember those days when you interviewed a famous personality, but you couldn’t get the trashy newspaper you were working for to carry that interview. From there to a prominent blogger, you’ve come a long way.;) (Note to others: Inside joke. Please ignore)<\/p>\n

Having said that, I must confess that I am utterly baffled by the point you are making. Completely, utterly baffled. Here’s why.
\n
\nThrough the sting operation, Cobrapost has proved how corruption has seeped up to even the topmost layer of government. You have proved that the lawmaking process can be bought for a few thousand rupees. And then, on that basis, you argue that we should have more regulations<\/i>? <\/p>\n

Tell me Shivam, how will more regulations help? The people making the regulations are the same people who are on the take. What makes you think that the regulations made by them will benefit honest people rather than their corrupt paymasters? <\/p>\n

In your comments you keep making the point that it is not just the legislators who are guilty, it is also the private bribe-givers. You make it sound as if your “Cartelian” opponents are actually defending the bribe-givers. But it is beside the point.<\/i> Even if we concede that the entire blame should lie on those who paid the bribe, your argument still does not make sense<\/i>. The fact remains that a bunch of extremely corrupt, evil people have subverted the system that is supposed to regulate them. Tell me again, how is that an argument for more regulation? <\/p>\n

You may protest that when you are asking for regulation, you are not talking of the current, hopelessly corrupt system. You are talking of a future system that will be established when we, the people, finally rise up and overthrow our corrupt rulers and set up a government and representative body that is accountable and responsive to the public. When that<\/i> happens, you probably say, regulation will be better than the market system.<\/p>\n

But Shivam, I must remind you that you criticise our proposed market system because it is too idealistic, too utopian, does not correspond to real life and will take a long time to establish. How can you propose an alternative that is idealistic, utopian, has not occurred in real life and has taken more than 50 years to establish, but is still not in sight? <\/p>\n

I do hope you will answer this Shivam, and I hope that you will do it without launching into yet another attack on the mythical free market that you think we are defending. In fact, for the purposes of this post, I will concede all the faults of the free-market <\/i> and yet I must tell you this: Your argument would still not make sense.<\/i> Why do you think that a hopelessly flawed regulatory system will fix the problems in the hopelessly flawed market system?<\/p>\n

Oh, I haven’t yet told you why there weren’t sting operations in those days. That will come in the next post. I will also defend the market, but not in this post. In this post, the spotlight is entirely on you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Firstly, you’re welcome. I still remember those days when you interviewed a famous personality, but you couldn’t get the trashy newspaper you were working for to carry that interview. From there to a prominent blogger, you’ve come a long way.;) (Note to others: Inside joke. Please ignore) Having said that, I must confess that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}