No Subject

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Charu wrote:

> >The truth, Charu, is that markets are not something apart from you
> >and me. Markets are us, and we are the markets. 
> 
> Maybe, in an ideal world.
> I could make the above statement replacing "market" with "government".

Hey! I'm back, I forgot that a most dramatic statement was made by you
here; why did I miss it? That possibly explains most of the diffused
objections that I have been getting so far from some friends on this
debate. 

What are you saying here. Let us be clear: In an ideal world, "Government
is us and we are the government."

Right?

Did I catch your view perfectly, finally, in one line?

If so, then let me tell you what I believe what my relationship with
government is: 

I and you are the all-supreme animal, man, who owe their existence to
Nature. We were created into this world by forces not related to
government, but related to chance and Nature, or even to God, as most of
us would believe.

I am an individual who lives life, and choses everything that I want. 
Government is my (and yours) chosen tool to survive happily in society.
Government was created by voluntary choice by people like me and you to
serve us, to protect us from each other, both within and outside the
nation state.  The government is therefore subservient to us, and it is
designed to follow my (and your)  orders, collectively given to it by you
and me (through democratic elections). 

Roussueau called the relationship between us and the Government as a
Social Contract. I would generally agree with that view. You seem to think
of it as a Hobbesian Leviathan, existing for some innate, natural purpose,
on its own. No, to me government is something we choose to have, at each
point in time. I am not born as "government." I may choose to compete in
an exam and enter government, or I may choose to compete in elections and
become government. 

In other words, just like I can choose to have a Coke or a Thums Up, to
quench my thirst (apart from H20), I can choose to allow a government a
role in my personal life, or I can choose to throw it out of the Banking
system, for example. It is simply my (and our) choice. It is not a
God-given starting point. Thus, government is a contractual entity, and if
at some point in the future, we jointly decide that we do not want to have
a government at all, then we can simply ask all government employees to
pack up and go home, and live our lives, a la Ram Rajya style. 

However, we have so far been saying that we DO need government. The only
question why we are debating things on this list is to determine precisely
the exact role we want our government in India to play.

On the other hand, I do claim that markets are us and we are markets. In
the case of government only about 50% can make a rule (law), and a very
few people are given the task of imposing those rules. 

In the case of markets, each of us, 100%, and at all times, through EACH
of our decisions, make the markets, and determines the prices. Markets are
the most complete form of democracy ever created.  As a basic theorem
states, "given nice conditions" (and we'll skip that for a moment), the
price of any commodity is a Social Valuation Vector that captures ALL
information in the entire society and in the entire world, at each point
in time. Hayek's paper on this transmission of information is something
that every human being should read and understand. 

Therefore, We am not the government, but We are the market, and government
is not Us, be markets are Us.

Quad erat demonstrandum. [how what that spelled? I'm completely dead on
spellings...]

Sanjeev