Wave Particle Theory Of Politics II

(From where we left )


Now it is my contention that failure of Indian state is a result of our inability to resolve the tension between Individual and Citizen. Let's see why is that so.

Of the two roles Individual is naturally predominating. This is because, self interest is more deeply ingrained in human genes. In order to bring the balance between the two, cultural training to suppress selfish instinct and reinforce altruist one is required. I believe that we have simply failed to form a culture which imparts such training.

There are quite a few reasons for this. First around six decades under totalitarian rule of Gandhi-Nehru dynasty have spawned a culture of scarcity, thus ensuring that even any natural altruistic instinct is eradicated, result, at social level, it is everyman for himself.

Second factor is the mechanism whereby cooperation and by extension altruism is strengthened. This mechanism is the affinity that an individual has towards others. Now this affinity is strongest among members from the same gene pool, next to genes, it is dependent of shared culture, religion, language and decreases as the social interaction decreases. The other factor affecting affinity is the power differential among members. All things remaining constant greater the power difference, which is reflected in social status, lesser the affinity. Thus people with same social status have greater affinity among themselves than among unequal status.

This has unhappy implication for Indian democracy. As a consequence of caste system even at local level Indian society is highly stratified and hierarchical, this is why while there is affinity within the caste group, the affinity between two different caste group is much weaker. Add to this caste hierarchy and historical social inequality in form of caste discrimination due to it, and the result is a society is where  there is a high level of distrust and more important resentment and anger among different castes groups situated in the same locality.

This combined with the first factor has two consequences first the more benign one unless the underlying conditions change politically Indians will continue free loading, the more alarming concern however is the struggle for resources between different caste groups is leading to a powder keg situation where all that is required for conflagration is a small provocation, which may make phrase a million mutinies literally true.

The 'M' argument *

Here is a confession. I find the level of political discourse in Indian blogospehre quite underwhelming. The problem is that the interlocutors tend to be tunnel visioned, missing out the big picture in their argument. Consequently the arguments tend to be limited to exercise in logical correct, an examination of X follows Y follows Z. And yet the chain of causation, no matter however long or however convoluted, must end up somewhere. This beginning is the first principle. Now people talk about first principles all the time, but what no one realizes is that first principles by very definition are not established by reasoning. In fact if we strictly adhere to logic, the very notion of first principles seem quite arbitrary, the chain of cause and effect being turtles all the way down. A prime example of such an argument being this post (though someday I intend to rebut it, that day is not today) As it happens though first principles are not arbitrary, anchored as they are in human psyche, his instincts and belief system. To give an example, my first principles, for lack of any better words, are traditionalism and cultural nationalism. Now I didn't  happen to stumble upon these principles by accident, but because identification with tradition and culture is an aspect of human instinct. Same must go for liberals and libertarians. Identifying what motivates the politics is therefore as important as the actual politics. Any investment in such an endeavor will be worth its while for we will be better placed to appreciate why people think the way they do, and why it is futile sometimes to engage in debate.

* Argument from motivation

Where is my change, dude!

Alternatively Titled The Mechanics Of Political Transformations


This is sort of sequel to "paradigm shift" post.

1. What is ownership? Ownership in this case is not like a teenager owning his room, we know how it goes, but is used in a very restricted sense, that is the idea the people take care of what own to maximize their utility.

2. What ownership means for democracy? The reason, Patron-Client model of democracy is so prevalent in the contemporary polities is this model works great for the interest group which are clients, which is why

a. there is competition between groups for place as a client  and b. competition within the grip for slicing the pie favorably. Problem with this is while this is good for specific groups, as a whole it is detrimental to society.

Wherever politics follows this model it can either result in a. tyranny or b. anarchy and disintegration.

On the other hand Ownership model implies that democracy is not as a means to just distribute goodies but to address common issues.

3. How is the ownership model in action ?

In economic there is a concept called tragedy of commons. This is just economicspeak for, "if it belongs to everyone it belongs to no one". In economics most accepted way out of this tragedy is government. In real life however a democratic government itself is a tragedy of commons (because well it belongs to everyone, and no one). Strictly speaking unless there is graft involved governing is not just what it is made out to be. Which is why homo economicus (i.e.rational man) has no way to resolve this dilemma.

Fortunately for humans they are homo sapiens, and due to pressure of nature selection humans have evolved to have means to address this exactly.That means is community. Community at its various level of granularities (from family, to society, to nation, which is an extended community) is responsible for common ownership.

Prevailing social customs are the rules and the protocols which both reinforce the cohesion of community and the means whereby community ensures common ownership. These customs are transferred from generation to generation via tradition and as such are primary component of what we understand by culture.

Which means that in order to promote ownership model, unit of both political authority as well as political mobilization should ideally be community. This could be housing societies or muhallah. Hypothetically it may even be caste, but I am not really fond of it, due to its huge negatives.

4. How to make the shift to Ownership model ? At this point you might be saying, "Well, this is all well and good, but how do we get to the Ownership model you speak of smart ass". Incidentally this is what Amitji asked me. This is, what  can be called dus karod ka prashan.This is, also a very good question. This is, also a question that unfortunately I don't have any answer to at present. Well this is not entirely accurate, I don't have the answer except in broadest, vaguest terms. For that keep watching this space.

Paradigm Shift

Related posts 1,2,3

This is related to the previous post, and something about which I have thought now and then. That governance in India leaves much to be desired is quite an understatement. This reason this happened is accident of history depending about how we define the initial state. However while it is an interesting and relevant discussion, let's restrict our focus to what we can do about it. A short answer to this is in democracy we get the government we deserve (and before people object that it is a cliche, understand that cliches are nothing but truth made tedious by familiarity). A more detailed explanation follows. Our political system as it exists today, can be best understood in terms of  patron - client model with government acting as a patron, dispensing favors to interest groups who are its client  at the expense of others, the ending is similar to that in the parable of the monkey and the cats. If Indians wish to prosper that present arrangement must be superseded by a better one. Now I have not yet arrived at precise details of such an arrangement but broadly speaking it should be an ownership model, where the accepted political culture observes the right of ownership, it means by and large citizens understand that the proper, or dharmic, way for prosperity is by  their own ingenuity and entrepreneurship, and not by extorting wealth from fellow citizens. How to reach from present condition to desirable condition should inform our politics as well as policy decisions.

Why Sarah Palin Is Right*

(Originally A Call For Inaction)


Related Post

For long I get a uncomfortable feeling whenever the topic of discussion turns to global warming (also known as climate change, or Al Gore's lamentation) .  Problem is I don't know about science of climate change, and while arguing from point of ignorance is fun, such a debate doesn't serve any constructive purpose, unfortunately of course for many people entertainment of pissing contests is the point.

Now my ignorance of climate science doesn't surprise me, the things I am ignorant of vary from string theory to cooking vermicelli. However unlike string theory or cooking vermicelli, climate science affects public policy which is why some sort of understanding is required. Now I admit that when I had become skeptic of climate change, it was partly a fatigue to incessant, and one suspects grossly exaggerated, alarm about global warming.

But if global warming is crucial for deciding public policy, some sort of understanding is essential, and yet climate science is too complicated a subject for someone like me to understand in his spare time. This being the case, I was stuck in undecided category.

Then sometime back it struck me I was approaching the problem from wrong angle. The correct approach, since the question involved public policy, was to do a cost-benefit analysis. Again since I don't understand climate science, I can not estimate the cost of global warming. As it turns out, it is much simpler to estimate the cost of global warming mitigation, which I will try to explain in as complicated terms as possible,

For calculation, I am assuming that  Al Gore is right and carbon dioxide indeed causes the global warming**, and global warming is a clear and present danger*** (and by clear and present I mean around fifty years on geological scale). Further it is reasonable to assume that warming on global scale must be lagging indicator of  percentage of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

This implies that effect of a reduction in carbon dioxide will be visible in terms of reduced temperature only after certain period of time, let's say thirty years (considering the geological time scale it errs on the side of caution)

 Now if both the previous assumption statement are correct, one might conclude it is necessary to not just reduce the output but to actually reduce the carbon dioxide present in atmosphere. Which means that the output should be reduced to a amount less than what can be removed by the natural processes.

What does this mean? Again assuming that the amount that can be removed through natural processes has remained constant****, output must be reduced to pre-Industrial revolution level (when presumably the warming started). There is a problem though, carbon dioxide is just a by-product of energy consumption, as there are no significant non carbon dioxide producing energy sourcing  reducing output in effect means reducing energy consumption to pre-Industrial revolution level, in fact as world population has increased manifold it would imply an unimaginable reduction in per capita energy consumption.

Why unimaginable? Well, energy consumption is a good indicator of the living conditions, generally better living conditions imply higher energy consumption. Therefore a decrease in per capita energy consumption to less than pre-Industrial revolution levels essentially implies living conditions of average human will revert to the same era.

And while many people may hold romantic notion of a pristine earth unsullied by machines, in reality this will mean a life plagued by poverty, hunger, want and disease, a life wasted in daily grind for survival.

Economic holocaust in other words.

I am not sure that global warming is worth it.

*Not really, this was just to bait Respected Ma'am

** Though industrial pollution also means more smoke which I believe reflects lights.

*** Though to put things in perspective, earth has been much warmer than predicted for global warming earlier, and contrary to doomsday scenario for global warming, life thrived. Also extinction of large number of species is a natural phenomenon.

**** Though geoengineering may remove atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its feasibility should be studied.

Change of stance

I posted this originally as a comment on Swapan Da's blog, but thought it deserved a more detailed examination. But first the comment.

To continue from where I left, while the idea of catharsis may sound seductive, politically, I believe, it is counter productive. A better strategy will be to focus on the issues.

One such ready-made issue is the attempt by center to insulate bureaucracy from political responsibility. BJP leadership is supporting it for rewarding its favorite babus. It should oppose it.

Now this issue may not fetch anything electorally. Indian voters simply do not care about federalism. However this issue helps in positioning, BJP can claim it stands for Strong center and strong states as opposed to Congress which stands for Strong center and weak states and regional parties which stand for weak center and strong states. This kind of positioning helps in reinventing BJP from a saffron flavored Congress that it is perceived today and what's much more important help in attracting allies.

Now coming to broader point, since the defeat in elections, and in a way even prior to that, the primary concern of BJP supporters has been to search for a leader who can lead BJP to victory.

This, in my view, is a wrong approach. The specific reason is at present none of BJP leaders has the popularity to secure parliamentary majority or even significant electoral advantage. Among a section there was palpable excitement for Narendra Modi as prospective leader. However as the election proved he has hardly any influence outside Gujarat. Now people may argue that this may change, and Modi, or some other leader, may emerge before 2014. This is possible, yet highly unlikely. For I believe the era of charismatic leaders with pan Indian influence has passed.

The reason for this is that Indian polity has changed. Individuals, more precisely members of Nehru - Gandhi dynasty, commanded a pan Indian influence when memory of freedom struggle, more or less a pan Indian phenomenon, was recent. The dynasty was main beneficiary of the romance and promise of the independence. However as the political scene progress through time, and the expectations were belied,  the influence of romance and as a consequence popular appeal of dynasty waned.

Gradually even though the dynasty remained in charge, the political landscape shifted to a. Addressing people's expectations and even more importantly b. Articulating their aspirations. Even then the change was not apparent immediately because the emerging interest groups sought protection under the shadow of behemoth of dynasty at national level. On state level however regional parties emerged ensuing decades of bitter confrontation with Congress. In short term dynasty was able to control the regional parties. However eventually dynasty lost its influence resulting in present equilibrium where national politics resembles a confederacy of regional interests.

Now I believe that in long term this arrangement is against integrity and unity of India, however this arrangement is stable for the time being and hence will persist. Also I don't think reverting to the earlier model of patron-client relation is the solution.

This arrangement raises political challenge for a national party in short term as well as long term. Short term challenge exists because it can not rely on a single leader or a single direct message. This can be resolved by raising issues and proposing policy proposals which address the specific interest substantiavely and exhaustively. Long term challenge is ensuring unity and Integrity of India. This can be addressed at political level by pro-actively supporting a federalist approach, and at cultural level by locating the diverse traditions and aspirations of various regions within broader existence of Indic civilization and its growth.

This implies a shift from messianic emphasis on personalities to emphasis on the issues, and more importantly innovation as well as articulation.

I am back to livemint

This is a horrible horrible article. I request Ritwik to tear it apart, otherwise I will be doing it later

(Ok the post continues below)

You know some time back when I was watching Tashan, that unspeakable crime against anything in this world,which is sensible, I had a nagging feeling. There was something disconcertingly familiar. Suddenly I realized, what the  horror reminded me of. Yes you are right, livemint, or to be more precise a sartorial version of livement in that it sought to cover lack of story with wardrobe much in the same way livemint covers lack of content with out of context economic jargon. The above article is latest transgression against intellectual clarity.

To start with is the rather specious assertion that  stray dogs are public property, benefiting those who feed them but nuisance to general public, in other words an example of negative externalities.

First, I doubt that stray dogs are surviving because they are fed by dog loving people (although to be sure people do feed them), but primarily as as scavengers and secondarily as predators of pest (rats etc). This needs substantiation by data, but I am pretty sure that I am correct.
Second, now economics is hardly my strong point, but surely calling stray dogs public property surely borders on misapplication of  concept of property.*

Then comes the brainwave of auctioning of stray dogs to individuals, which is all well and good, but what happens if no one decides to buy the dogs, what is to be done with the remaining of them. And since this is what going to happen eventually (I mean can you really see people buying stray dogs, for God's sake), in other words, we are back where we started.

But the most egregious serious error (and yet most common in libertarian circles) is the assertion that animal rights is an oxymoron, because only humans can have rights because it flows from right to own self.
Excuse me, where does this right to own come from ? Did it exist from beginning of time, when neither sky nor earth existed ? Or was it brought over from Galt's gunch by Ayn Rand ?
The reality, if these libertarians were honest enough to admit, that rights don't exist prior to society. Society came before and takes precedence over individuals, and any rights, whether accorded to human or animals are matter of social conventions **. Now one can say that for him only humans have rights and not the animals, but it is also one social convention among many and not any natural law which in my opinion is nothing but an exercise in sophistry***.

PS: My view regarding stray dogs is to prefer methods which do not involve any killing, but if it is unavoidable, I will prefer elimination of stray dogs over human suffering. In a way outlined in a previous post.

* I am note sure about this. Surely one can argue, if one wishes to, that the community does own stray dogs, but I believe it is hard to make case that stray dogs can be exchanged, or are a part of economic activity, except perhaps in some rare circumstances.

** I believe what I have said is nothing short of sacrilegious in Indian blog-sphere, but as I have said earlier I find talk of natural rights tedious. This is not to say that I dismiss the idea of rights but a) I arrive at human rights from position of consequentialism and b) I don't buy in the idea that freedom is the necessary and sufficient condition for human progress.

*** I believe Ritwik holds view favoring natural rights interpretation. Though I am not convinced with it, still I will like to hear it from him.

How Democracy Works - Interest groups, free agents, externalities etc.

I have been meaning to comment on this post  (and its follow up) by DataNazi, which ostensibly on Nuclear deal, is actually commentary on Indian democracy. I have somewhat similar take. The chain of reasoning whereby I arrived at it is as following.

1. On the one hand is the behavior of  individual in a society. In individual capacity, humans have a tendency to act in self interest. They can also act in a way which is altruist, but the altruistic behavior is in general much weaker than self interest in context of individual, having  any appreciable effect only if present as a cultural, (and therefore in context of collective) norm.
However the problem with actions solely based on self interest is that it leads to uncontrolled competition leading to conflict, and breakdown of governance.

2. On the other hand is the return to the individual in participatory democracy. I don't have the link, but I think it is well established that effect of individual voting in a particular way is negligible to the result.

These two condition present challenges for democracy to function in any meaningful way. First condition challenges the capability to provide stability, whereas the second condition challenges the ability to deliver the goods.

These two challenges can be resolved by an existing phenomenon in human society, identity groups. Human, given a large, and heterogeneous, sample space, tend to coalesce as identity groups. This process of coalescing takes place along, to coin a phrase similar to phase boundaries, identity boundaries, the specific boundaries being ever fluid, present form depending on the past history as well as immediate power dynamics, when I say I include both social as well as economic perspective.

Therefore, how well a democracy is capable of delivering, is a function of how the power struggle between identity groups is resolved*, in other words the (dynamic) equilibrium state**.

Now here my analysis differs from DataNazi. He classifies the voters as interest groups and free agents, with (according to him) interest groups working for their narrow interest, and free agents for the interest of larger group, further from the reading of the posts, one gets the impression that interest groups are taken to be mainly social, that is based on caste or religion (though he does give example of big farmers as interest group, for some reason he excludes bureaucracy from the definition). I disagree with both the criteria.

First interest groups can be economic as well as social in nature. Caste/language/religion/ethnicity are examples of purely social interest groups, whereas class/occupation are examples of economic. In reality the interest groups are bound to project both into social as well as economic spheres.

Second, his distinction between free agents and interest groups, and recommending more free agents (though there is some confusion, as in follow up he calls pay commission an exercise to mop up free agents, calling in question desirability of free agents). He also introduces concept of rivalrous vs. non rivalrous economic resources, in order to understand the difference between interest groups and free agents. However  I will formulate it differently.

The key to understand is while all groups act according to their respective group interests, the important point to consider is effect of their actions on the whole. If the net effect of action on the whole is positive we call it positive externalities, and in the opposite case, negative. As a general rule the actions with positive effects are co-operative in nature, whereas those with negative ones are coercive or conflictive in nature. From the above we conclude that democratic systems deliver or succeed when the group interaction is set up such that it promotes positive externalities while suppressing  negative externalities, whereas inability to do so results in failure of the state and with it of the community.

Related to above is the fact that very frequently the democratic systems act as a feedback loop, in that systems with net negative promote conflict which strengthens conflict based negative identities***, ultimately causing the system failure, whereas systems with net positive promote cooperation which strengthens positive identities. In general it is possible for a stable system to switch between negative and positive cycles.
Here I will like to note that the feedback effect in both the cases is not same with conflict feedbacks more effective that cooperation feedbacks. ****

Hence the desirable course is

a) Indian democracy at present is configured in such a way that the result in a negative system with feedback. In order to succeed, suitable changes must be effected so that system switches to positive. Easier said than done. (Will try to address this point later)

b) This above is possibly only if we can forge group(s) based on the identity(ies) which promote positive externalities.


* In the previous post I listed following social conditions for meaningful democracy.

a) The various competing groups (based on differing identities) are matching in the power

b) There should exist at minimum tradition of co-operation to not only participate in democratic process, but also for democratic state to govern, this requires consensus on, in other words common assumptions about, certain issues where the whole take precedence, at least politically, over the constituent (and competing) groups.

** Just to be clear the equilibrium state is variant and will change as the competing forces continuously adjust themselves.

*** Here I am identifying conflict with negative, and cooperation with positive this many not be always true.

**** Why the asymmetry ? My best guess is conflict is a more basic response, and hence stronger, to man than cooperation.

A quick 'un (on schools)

Recently Ravikiran wrote a series of short posts on regulation in education which started off as response to some dude called Abi.
Now since I am not terribly interested in policy discussions, I know next to nothing about education policy. Having said that I think that the above posts don't do justice to education, but that is probably because of they are rebuttal to specific points. Further I am not sure that the cases of blogs and schools are similar at all. Anyway, I am sure those interested can find insight from elsewhere, Rohit being foremost. However two comments.

1. Abi writes,

"Our current problem is not that there are no private players, but that they have among them too many crooks, politicians and thugs whose primary motive is demonstrably something other than education. So the real issue is this: What changes do we need in our higher ed regulatory structure so as to attract the 'right' sort of private players -- philanthropists -- in larger numbers? And, how do we keep the undesirable sorts out?"

To which I can only say, whatever this guy is smoking. Here is a news flash, we have crooks and thugs in educator sector precisely because of regulations, which ensure only those who can game the system can enter and block free competitions. Neither is this an exception, the same disheartening story has been repeated in all fields of life since independence, of course reform initiated post 1991 (and let's be honest, under coercive pressure of IMF and world bank) have ensured that considerable portion of economy has been deregulated. Sadly this is yet to happen in education. Talks of more regulations to ensure better output certainly seems surrealistic.


2. The posts written by Ravi reflect his general outlook on regulations. Regulation, which I understand as legal restrictions on entry to market, are never desirable. This outlook is more clearly enunciated in few of his previous posts. I am still mulling it over. Basically the reasons I have doubts with Ravi's position are.

a. Possibly owing to genetics or cultural conditioning, there is a tendency for regulations.

b. I would like to see the premise that regulations are never desirable substantiated by economic analysis. I am still attempting to frame the question in terms of vocabulary of economics.


PS. If anyone wishes, may be he/she can attempt to prove/disprove the premise in the comments. I am most interested.

Well I guess that makes me an elitist

I have to agree with Rohit , this is certainly one of the better articles in recent times. Having said I disagree with him on highlighting what in my opinion is the weakest argument, and for drawing flawed inference.

Before I continue, I admit I have no idea how messed up BRTS really is, however since it is generating so much outrage, I assume that it's not a brilliant idea, for better analysis you don't have to go farther than the linked article.

My problem is that I place a much lower importance on aspirational angle, because emotional arguments are always difficult to factor in policy decision, and therefore unless the cost to ignoring emotions is huge, which is certainly not the case now, it is better to focus on tangible factors.

Similarly for the charge of elitism. Elitism, simply put is when a group carries the discourse in a manner which presumes that it knows what is better for the whole society, of course there is always an element of selfishness is involved in that, but it is more do with self perception that a group has about its capability. In that way whether we accept or not, most of the educated are elitist, the only distinction being how tight we draw the circle.

In contrast when people who already have personal vehicles seek to bar the entry of others, it is because they are being selfish in wanting to maximize their convenience, and as roads are a common resource and not in a sufficient amount, means that their effort to maximize for convenience means discomfort for others. This is understandable. However to frame a policy for a common resource the effort must to maximize the utility function of whole community.

The issue then boils down to how the utility function must be defined for the common resource that is to be be allocated and any policy must address this question.

Now in this particular case the opposing factors are access and convenience. In my opinion the best strategy is to levy a toll tax for entering busy roads and using the revenue generated for public welfare. But there might be variations on this.
For example, some may decide that convenience of residents is more important than access to non residents, or they may decide that everyone should be able to commute to earn their livelihood.

This brings me to another point, the policies reflecting these variations can be best decided and best altered according to the circumstances by local communities themselves. Left to themselves they will arrive at a decision which reflect their preferences.
Which is the one of the main problems with BRTS, in absence of participation by policymakers the decisions were taken by academicians sitting in ivory tower (As pointed by Rohit).

Inexcusable oversight

Recently Ezra Klein (An American blogger) wrote an article (via) on a topic which doesn't get the importance it deserves, and whatever it deserves is in horribly perverted. It is prison rape, to be precise, prison rape for male convicts.

What piqued me was it reminded me of an article I read in Reader's Digest long back which recounted the horror of American penal system. Now while the articles concerns America and I don't have the information pertaining to India, (although it goes without saying that Indian penal system is bound to be far from perfect ) what I find striking is the following two general but somewhat related aspects.

One from my general knowledge, despite this being a very grave violation, and one that can be stopped, no serious efforts by authorities are forthcoming. The reason for this is authorities consider rape as a serious deterrent against crime. Now this may seem to be logical if seen in light of male fear of being raped, I am not sure empirical data will support the premise. But, to me its effectiveness is least of my problem. By allowing this to happen the authorities are allowing the scarring of victim's psyche by trauma of experience, beyond repair. Which means that when the victim prisoner comes out of prison, he can not be rehabilitated in the society, for he has lost the self esteem, and any with that any measure of respect for society at large. Instead what we have is a mistrustful, even a sociopath, who proceeds to destroy himself and takes society along with him. Speaking even broadly, the society which tolerates such an atrocity loses its moral authority, and its member mutual respect, and consideration for fellow men.

Second is how is this a source of humour (example this video). Now it can be argued that humour is derived from the fact that the wicked are getting their rewards, however if retribution was the source then perhaps it would apply in case of females. However, to best of my knowledge, it isn't. I suspect, some kind of psychology has a role here. Perhaps the idea that it is considered humourous has to do is similar to previous point that that actually males have deep psychological fright of the possibility, which is why it is kind of black humour something on lines of gallows humour, or cannibal jokes. Anyhow notwithstanding any humorous aspect, the issue deserves attention according to its importance.

PS. Are there studies on whether sexual molestation is more traumatic for males or for females. I think it should be males, but this is just a conjecture.

PPS. In the analogous case for females, the reaction is changed. Instead of humour, it becomes a subject of fantasy.

Why Save Tiger (Updated)

Update at the end of post

While writing previous post, a question struck me. Why, should we conserve tigers in the first place? Or more precisely, why should government intervene to conserve tiger at all. As I thought over it, I could find no clear reason. So let me present my case, for sake of clarity, I categorize the possible reasons first due to emotional consideration and second after rational analysis, with myself leaning towards emotional.

a. We have a natural empathy towards Tiger (or any animal), which is why animal cruelty is an issue, and in this case survival of species.

b. We are fascinated by Tiger. It is a majestic, graceful animal (albeit with poor oral hygiene), and appeals to our imagination, inner poet so as to say.

c. An attraction for wild. Although it has been quite some time since humans came out of wild, there still is a sense of mystery and magic for our erstwhile habitat, and it is natural to want to preserve it.

As I said earlier I am more open to emotional arguments, for the simple reason that human society is secured by certain emotional preconditions, that collective psyche affects the stability of society, and therefore there is a cost to emotions shared by public, further this cost is not easily calculated or even quantifiable, the best approximation depending upon context.
So yes, I am not averse to the above three arguments provided the economic cost is not too prohibitive. Which is why there are animal cruelty laws or cow slaughter prohibition in the first place.
However I am not sure that conservation of tiger has any significant emotional costs to require state intervention (I will be frank I do not like carnivores or omnivores for that matter, so I really I don't care whether they remain or not).

Now we reach rational consideration. The biggest rational argument is thus, Tiger has a crucial role in ecology as apex predator, therefore its extinction will result in ecological imbalance possibly of a catastrophic scale with a significant economic cost justifying government intervention. I am not sure I agree. Study of ecological balance is very complicated subject requiring a vast amount of data obtained from field surveys and rigorous analysis using robust models. To best of my knowledge this is at best an inexact science, and there are not enough verifiable results to assign a degree of reliability. Therefore, in my opinion, the argument is a dubious one. Further evidence available with us doesn't support the argument. Population of tiger in India decreased from 40,000 in 1900 to less than 2000 at present, while this decrease may or may not have adverse impact, none has been of a scale which can be deemed as catastrophic. Therefore I am more or less that even if tigers were to become totally extinct from present minuscule number the there would be no disaster in the pipeline.

Before I end, I would like to make some general points. One, I know extinction of species is a high profile issue, but extinction of species has been norm throughout history of life, so tigers won't be first to become extinct. Second in the high decibel creed which goes with the name of environmentalism, ecology is always projected as fragile. This is not always true. Ecology varies with location, in some places it is fragile, in other robust, therefore the adjustment to stable equilibrium that ecology makes to human population growth and resulting intervention may vary from place to place. We survived extinction of Mammoth or saber-toothed tiger or American Bison. Third our knowledge of environment, especially knowledge we can act upon, is woefully inadequate, and it may take quite a bit of time and research before we understand the dynamics of environment, considering this, when we intervene to conserve environment we must make sure those actions have connection to the perceived threats. So while conservation of environment is a good thing, we are far from the stage when we can fine tune environment.

In other words, curb your enthusiasm, folks !

Over to you.

PS. This is limited to government intervention, and doesn't rule out any private solution(s).

Update 1: There might be some confusion reading the post. I am not saying government should intervene only if there is some catastrophe, I am essentially arguing that outside of emotional consideration, rational consideration dictates that any such intervention is based upon cost-benefit analysis. Note, this is not straightforward as there is always some human cost involved which may not be easily factored in economic cost.

What I wanted to emphasize was that every environmental concern is not a catastrophe, which is going to endanger the planet.

Update 2: Ok, a related point, just thought it is better to be explicit about it. Diversity is one of the catchphrases of environmentalism. Now diversity is a good thing, but conservation of diversity has a cost, the cost is human progress. I will again emphasize that for any environmental policy to work, it has to consider the costs of development as well as conservation. Most importantly environmental conservation is not the ultimate aim, it is just a means, final goal being the well being of humanity, this is also the true meaning of sustainable development.

Update 3: My bad, In all this discussion, I forgot to state my position, which while may differ in specific cases, is generally in favour of conservation. Primarily because being a vegetarian I abhor killing animals. Also as I emphasized environmental science is an inexact science with predictions hard to come by, now human society is witnessing an exponential rate of growth which is causing tremendous stress on environmental equilibrium. In absence of further information and considering that environment is a complex system, I would like to err on side of caution.

Skeptic Enviromentalist

1. Life on Earth will survive anything by humanity.

2. Humanity will most probably survive itself through prudence/good luck.

3. We are still a long way from micro managing environment. Research, research & research.

4. Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Saving Indian Tiger

Dear minions, I am ashamed to admit that for once I find myself in agreement with insufferable Jerry Rao when he argues that best way to conserve tiger is allowing its commercial exploitation
Sometime last year the fallen one had raised essentially the same point, at that time I vehemently disagreed. Looking back, I can't figure out my reason for doing it, but I kind of feel stupid about it.
On the other hand Ritwik has disagreement with it and makes a convincing case.

No it's not...

only about "reproductive right". In fact it is hardly about any right.

If you must know 22nd of this month was 35th anniversary of Roe vs Wade which legalized abortion in US as a constitutional right. And it stinks.

For instance almost all the arguements which are given for abortion can be given for infanticide. Taking care of infants does constrain mother, it does mean more expenditure, so what next, start killing babies.

"Wait", Someone is going to say, "killing baby and abortion is not the same ". And that is what debate should be about. When does the life start ? This is a subjective matter, and the answer is not clear to me at all.

I don't think that life begins when sperm and egg fuse to form a single zygote, so I am not at all impressed with "Life begins at conception because the book says so" side. However to me even more off putting (even repugnant) is pro-abortion position essentially pretending that life begins at delivery. This is crazy talk !

And this is where Roe Vs. Wade was out of the line, it was an stretch to interpret fourteenth amendment to cover abortion. Abortion should have been a matter of constitutional amendment at federal or state level. As it is due to this decision, abortion laws in Europe a much liberal place are much more strict than US.

Anyhow it is this liberal fetish to stretch sensible arguements to absurd limits in order to achieve some fictitious level of parity between gender, in the process vitiating against common sense and common dense, which is disfiguring liberalism from somewhat flawed ideology to a disturbing and a desensitized fetish of overeducated people.


PS. This whole abortion issue has hardly anything to do with India, but still is one that interests me partly because I am politics addict and partly because I am a card carrying holder of VMCPC to keep womyn in their place.

Related Post.

Megan McArdle has covered this issue in many posts

The sleight of definition

In an earlier post I had wondered whether something like "market can address market failures" made any sense. Ritwik replied here. The gist of his argument (or rather his summary of the libertarian argument), if I understand correctly is, the situations that are deemed to be market failures (owing to not being,I believe the term is, pareto optimal ) are not due to insufficiency of theoretical framework, but either incorrect application of fundamental market concepts (such as the property right*) or the instrument to enforce market don't function as expected. Further, this situation will be resolved once suitable instruments/technologies evolve.

I have two objections to this.

1. The premise that technologies which resolve market failure emerge from market is not historically accurate. Technologies have developed due to war, or where state (or someone other who is not a market agent acting on market impulse) has intervened. Now one can argue that market is the most efficient way for emergence of technology, a line which I am more favorably disposed towards. Nevertheless this argument must be backed by data.

2. The market failure is a concern for policy makers when it effects the public welfare, and therefore the situation must be rectified not at a later date **. To give one example, the pollution is case of externalities, which greatly affects public welfare. Now it is possible that in future new technologies may help resolve this problem, but until that happens it is sensible if state intervenes by creating policies to counter pollution.

* I don't recall specifics, but someone (probably from cartel) argued that water pollution (or something related) can be resolved without state intervention. I am not knowledgeable enough on economics, but I felt that daal mein kuch kaala hai.

** There is a problem that I have observed in libertarian (esp. in cartel) circle among India. This morbid obsession with theory. Now don't get me wrong. Far be from me to dismiss importance of theory, but ultimately market has utility only as long as it addresses the issue. Surely, making a fetish of market is going too far. In fact if it were not for the fact that Jagadguru has copyrighted the term, I would have used free market fundamentalists.

Rehashing old folly

(From this post)

1. Government is incurably evil.

2. People are irredeemably stupid.

Aim of any sound political system is to save people from evil perpetrated by ruler and stupidity perpetrated by themselves, at the same time ensuring progress.
One way a system could succeed is by making both people and rulers believe that they thought of it themselves. It increases their self-esteem.
However too much of self-esteem may be a problem. Therefore a priest class is needed at the top to constantly bring down self-esteem to a manageable level.

My Christmas letter

Dear Santa Claus,

Considering that I have mostly been a nice guy, I hope that you will bring "inner party democracy" in India, and if you are feeling especially generous, please set this chimp's tail on fire.

Your etc.

PS. Well if this, then why not !

Getting it wrong (again)

Once again our benevolent (and clueless) babus have struck. It is a familiar (and depressing) story. Some bureaucrats go to foreign junkets in order to improve standard of Indian education, generally have a good time. When it is time to leave, a report is hastily compiled full of recommendations, the gist of which is to copy the system of visiting country in entirety.

The result is as to be expected, Indian education system remains in mess, hence another junket, another set of recommendation and so on and so forth.

I have no idea where our rulers went this time, but the result is on expected lines. "Too much burden lies on Indian student", the wisdom goes, "so do away with exams".

Now I am not saying that there is no pressure on student in India. There is, and lots of it.
However the powers that be, are looking in the wrong direction and hence the solution they find is also flawed.

The problem with our education system is that it sucks, big time. It is insipid, tedious and uninspiring. The books are abstruse enough to thwart most from reading them and instruction is laboured. Over a period of time a typical Indian school transforms a curious child into ignoramus duly stamped and approved, closed to any further inquiry or instruction. Our educational institutions have become factories churning degrees, with education sporadic and accidental occurrence.

Before he can transform into entirely worthless degree holder, Indian student has to labour for years, learning by the rote a humongous amount of irrelevant and outdated information. So, yes there is undue pressure.

But the solution to this problem is not eliminating exams. If anything it aggravates the problem,
essentially eliminating any possibility that any education will be introduced to student even accidentally. This has certainly been the case when primary promotion to next grade was made mandatory. The result was that student admitted to secondary did not have the required knowledge and it meant all the more toil (mostly fruitless) by secondary teachers.

If the solution is to be found, the syllabus has to be updated as well as trimmed. There is no need to teach a student of grade 6th about what kind of pottery was made in Harappa, or inundate with irrelevant geographical information, or description of all the five year plans since independence.
Instead the efforts should be made to familiarize students with basic concepts behind economics, history and statistics.

One thing must be understood here, pressure on children is a result of competition to get higher education. Now much of present competition is due to the artificial scarcity created by our socialist system. Removing unneccessary barriers will go a long way in easing up this pressure, but as long a society has aspiring and ambitious individuals, competition is inevitable fact of life.
Framing policies under the delusion that pressure can be altogether eliminated is not a good idea, as it will end up setting roadblocks in way of aspirations and mobility.

The purpose of education should be development of informed and thinking person. Failure to do so is denying a child the opportunity to realize his full potential and hence is a disservice to nation.