Why Pakistan needs a ‘Private Army’?

The services of private contractors are used around the world. P. W. Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry says, “In geographic terms, it operates in over 50 different countries. It’s operated in every single continent but Antarctica.” According to stats, in the 1990s there used to be 50 military personnel for every 1 contractor, and now the strength ratio is 10 to 1.

...... These private military company (PMCs) will actually serve as alternative forms of power application abroad through irregular means, without violating international law, without causing troubles in the domestic or public policy, or too many international repercussions.

According to the US State Department, thousands of private military contractors served and are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, these contractors mostly provide security to high profile personalities or protect sensitive installations such as oil refineries. In Afghanistan, these contractors are quickly replacing US military and are engaged in training the Afghan National Army and police. These contractors are also expected to take a lead role in anti-Taliban/ISIS operations in the war-torn country after the withdrawal of US forces. This has raised fears of increased war crimes since International Humanitarian Law consider private contractors as unlawful combatants since they generally do not respect laws of war and do not carry any military insignia which may help identify their allegiances.

......

We need them

Pakistan has a standing army of almost 560,000 soldiers and officers in addition to almost a 100,000 reserves. The army is stationed across the length and breadth of the country and is involved in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. The army is often called to assist civilian administrations especially during natural calamities or to curb civil unrest.

......

"However, unfortunately, Pakistan’s economic growth has stagnated and declined over the past decade. This has made it practically impossible for the military to be rearmed with the state of the art weaponry which has resulted in a conventional disadvantage viz-a-viz its arch-rival. Pakistan’s deterrence capabilities are enough to neutralize any threat from the east but the emerging hybrid threats within the country has overstretched the army.

For example, the army had to raise an entire new division to protect CPEC from asymmetrical threats in Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan. The army was also tasked with training the police and paramilitary forces and providing backup to them whenever necessary. This strained the military’s resources. But it has a pragmatic solution. Private Military Companies.

Many soldiers and officers retire from the army at a young age. These men are forced to move to the private sector which neither suits them nor are they trained for it. By establishing such companies (the current private companies are sub-standard) having international standards, Pakistan can not only provide job opportunities to thousands of men but also relieve pressure on the over-stretched security apparatus of the country.

These trained men can be employed to protect vital infrastructure, trade routes, high profile personalities, train law enforcement agencies in addition to being a strategic reserve in case of a major war. " ......

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Excerpted from an article written by Zeeshan Munir at https://www.globalvillagespace.com/

Sugar shortages: Why price controls don't work

Originally published as 'Will price controls on sugar work?' on dawn.com on September 07, 2009.

The Lahore High Court ordered the Punjab government Thursday to keep retail sugar price at Rs40 a kilo — Rs7 less than its current level — across the province.

It also directed the government to procure the sweetener from mills at Rs36 a kilo instead of Rs45, the ex-factory price fixed by the federal government for the entire country less than a couple of weeks ago, to ensure that its retail price did not exceed in Punjab beyond the court-fixed level.

The millers refused to accept the order because it meant a loss of Rs9 a kilo to them. They intend to appeal. Stockists and dealers too got worried because they had purchased the product at the federally fixed rate and stood to suffer huge financial losses if the court order was implemented.

The Punjab government pledged to implement the order and deployed on Friday revenue and police officials at the mills to seize stocks and prevent the millers from removing the same. But its food minister told a TV channel that it would take a couple of days to enforce the court order. He seems to be buying some time for the dealers and retailers to exhaust their existing stocks before the court-fixed rate is enforced.

But sugar had already begun disappearing from the retail markets at many places in Punjab by that time as retailers did not want to risk arrests and penalties on charges of flouting the court orders.

In less than two weeks the consumers were once again facing shortages and running from one place to another to purchase the sweetener for their use during Ramazan and on eidul fitr.

Sugar has been at the centre stage of what millers call as politics for almost a month. Initially it was the federal government that asked provinces to take action against stockists and mills for allegedly hoarding the product to make windfall in view of its rising global prices due to worldwide shortages.

The government soon realised its folly as administrative actions caused the sweetener to disappear from the market. After talks with the government,the millers agreed to lower their maximum prices to up to Rs49.50 a kilo inclusive of sales tax. The federal government thought it to be good bargain as imported sugar would cost consumers around Rs65 a kilo.

In the meanwhile, the Punjab government continued its crackdown against the mills to force them reduce their price to Rs45. The millers refused to oblige and the provincial government deployed its officials at their warehouses and seized their stocks. The matter was resolved after the prime minister waived 50 per cent sales tax on sugar and re-fixed the millers' price at Rs45.

The market was functioning quite smoothly and the product was available for Rs47 s kilo in spite of reports that some millers were delaying the release of their stocks when the court decision came in to topple the market upside down once more.

Price controls have always been very popular with governments worldwide including Pakistan because of their mass appeal. The possibility of political fallout of higher prices makes governments to frequently institute controls to regulate prices, particularly in times of soaring price inflation and shortages.

Before 1990s when Pakistan began to pursue free market policies, governments usually tried to control the general level of prices, regulating the prices of a whole range of commodities and products. But the trend changed after the country embarked upon the path of economic deregulation and liberalisation with successive governments selectively imposing price control on specific food and drug items.

Some times producers and suppliers are forced to lower their maximum prices to certain level called price ceiling. On other occasions, governments intervene in the market through state agencies like the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to remove the supply and demand imbalances for keeping prices down, though at a heavy cost. In a few cases governments subsidise the producers' cost of production to prevent prices from rising above the “desired” levels, although not all consumers consider the official determination of that price level as fair to them.

Price controls are meant to prevent prices from exceeding a certain maximum level. The idea is always to protect the segments of population that cannot meet price increases.

But do they work and produce the intended results?

“Price controls never work,” insists Shahid Kardar, a leading economic expert. “It is a supply and demand issue. Do you think that a shopkeeper will sell you a product for Rs10 if another customer is ready to pay Rs12 for it?” he asks.

Experts argue that price controls fail to protect most consumers. At the same time, these hurt others.

The negative implications -- temporary and long-term, direct and indirect -- of institution of price controls far exceed its benefits to the consumers, contends an economist.

“The artificial pricing mechanism never succeeds. It always results in shortages due to sudden increase in demand owing to panic buying as we recently saw in case of sugar and wheat flour in Punjab,” he says.

Official controls also discourage production of quality goods and encourage cuts in output. “Price controls offer incentives for hoarding, blackmarketing, production cuts, etc, forcing many consumers to pay for a product or an item a lot more than what they would have to pay if price controls were not in place,” he argues.

The official controls on drugs have invariably resulted in disappearance of cheap life-saving medicines from the market. The list of negative ramifications of price controls is long.

“It encourages smuggling if the global prices are higher than domestic prices of a product and if your borders are porous,” says a Karachi-based analyst. Price controls could not work effectively in countries like Pakistan unless governments have proper tools to enforce them -- like sealing the borders, he says.

Take the example of wheat which crossed borders into Afghanistan in huge quantities when the government tried to keep down the prices lower than the commodity's global prices a couple of years ago.

“That forced the government to import wheat -- in spite of a good domestic crop which was initially surplus to our consumption requirements -- at a much higher price to cover the shortages created by smuggling,” the analyst says.

More importantly, the prices rise more rapidly once the controls are lifted, triggering high price inflation. “As soon as the official controls are removed the hidden inflation surfaces suddenly. The rapid inflation is always bad for the economy as well as consumers, whom the official price controls intend to protect, than a slower and steady rise in prices,” the economist argues. In addition to the economic costs of price controls, there is also an administrative cost to such an action. We have recently seen almost the entire bureaucracy in Punjab involved in the management of 'sasta' atta (cheap wheat flour) in the province. Yet the administration was unable to ward off long queues of consumers scrambling to purchase an extra bag of cheap atta. Shortages, albeit temporary, also emerged in the normal supply chain and people who did not want to avail of the opportunity to purchase subsidised flour were forced to pay extra amount to get it or do without it for days.

Economic experts, however, acknowledge that price controls do provide some kind of relief, though only temporarily, to the poorer people battered by soaring prices.

“But the economic and administrative cost of this short-term measure is so high that prudent governments would not tread this path,” the analyst says.

The best way to help the poorest of the poor is to directly support their incomes through targeted cash subsidy, argues Kardar.

“It should be left for the recipients of the cash to decide what do they want to do with it. They should be able to decide whether they want to buy flour or sugar or something else,” he contends.

Women lawmakers suggest ‘sterilization of men’ - Karachi

KARACHI: The women lawmakers in Sindh Assembly demanded “sterilization of men” as a measure to control growing population of the country. During the debate on a resolution “to control population and launch of awareness campaign,” all political parties except lawmakers from religious parties, MMA and TLP, supported the resolution in the provincial assembly.

Rana Ansar

Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan MPA Rana Ansar moved a private resolution and said, “There is no proper planning in controlling population in the province. We lack resources and attach great importance in giving birth to more children. It’s a population bomb and we need to devise a comprehensive strategy to deal with it.”

Referring to the significant chunk of population living under poverty line, she said that all countries including China, Iran and Russia were making all-out efforts to control and plan their population, but here people consider women to be a machine to produce more children. “We should include this issue in our syllabus and start mass mobilisation in every nook and cranny of Sindh. Not only women, but male health workers should be appointed to sensitise men,” she said.

Nusrat Seher Abbasi

Nusrat Seher Abbasi of Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) supported the resolution and said that women had suffered more in every field, so it’s high time for men to render sacrifices. “Even in family planning, only women are being sterilised to prevent pregnancy. This causes serious complication to the mother’s health.  Why are women being made the scapegoat and forced to give sacrifice of their lives? There should be a strict law which ensures male sterilization,” she said. The women sitting on treasury and opposition benches welcomed the idea by Abbasi.

Shehla Raza

Minister for women development, Shehla Raza, however, stood up at her seat and congratulated Rana Ansar for moving the resolution. “Women are also human and we should care and protect them. When women give birth to more babies, there is greater risk of mothers dying and giving birth to weak and abnormal children,” she said adding, “It is not possible for a poor man to feed a dozen children and provide education and other facilities. We can only compete in the world when you have mentally and physically healthy people in society.”

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Source: https://tribune.com.pk

Ex-PM Shaukat Aziz: Government and Bussiness should not mix

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz is known as one of the rare politicians to not mix ‘Government and business’ together. During his leadership, Mr. Aziz oversaw the successful privatization plan of Pakistan’s state assets. He led Pakistan when it was in near financial ruin but managed to steer the country towards unprecedented economic growth. He shares his views on the success of Pakistan during his tenure as Prime Minister from 2004 to 2007 with Interview of the Day host, Bilqis Bahari.

Read the full interview here.

"When I came into Government, there was no privatization. There were some – one or two but not in a massive way. I strongly felt that it is not the business of Government to be in business. Government should be the enabler. Government should prepare the ecosystem for the economy to grow. Government should introduce structural reforms to improve and enhance and develop its operating ability of the economy. But they don’t have to manufacture everything. They don’t have to control every market. Let the market forces work. They should be having supervision. They should be having their eye on the ball so that things are under control. Any country which has done structural reforms of the economy in a good way has got the dividend from it. Pakistan is an example. We had for example all the banks in the state sector. We sold every bank except one. One we kept, which we listed. Even if you are not selling, although I prefer everything being sold and then you have a strong regulator whose watching it, but you can have one bank in the public sector, one or two. But they too, list them in the stock market. 50% can be Government, 50% can be private enterprise. The corporate culture must come into the public sector enterprises. The privatization has to be transparent. There should be no restriction. The asset still remains your asset. Your country’s asset. Even if foreigners own it, it doesn’t take away your control. Banking is a very controlled sector. The Central Bank is always looking at them no matter who owns the bank. So we shouldn’t worry. We got independent financial advisors and banks to handle the transaction. No control auctions, public. All the main auctions, we showed live on TV to the whole country. For example, I sold our state telephone company. Again, public open bidding. So I said let’s all this on the TV and everybody has to be prequalified before their bid. Why? Because you’re giving a major state asset to a private party. Local or foreign, we didn’t differentiate. And they have to be prequalified, prejudged by independent advisors. It has to be transparent. That being the case, we got the whole nation watching the sale of the telephone company. There were a lot of criticisms before it happened.  When you privatized, you must have an independent regulatory authority overseeing that activity. We created Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, which was a Government entity, which was overseeing the industry, not operating the company. And then we opened it to private sector, more competition to it. So now we have five or six mobile providers and the connectivity, the increase in subscribers went through the roof because we introduce mobile phones. Private sector came in. They put in new exchanges, new numbers, competition, special packages. It’s a totally different environment. More jobs created for the people. We had one phone company, Pakistan Telecom. Now we have 10 and its been in hindsight a very good experience. But it has to be transparent, the sale of the assets. That’s why we got in the end no criticism. Even the unions were quiet.

...... our telephone auction was on TV. Everybody then said ‘oh, we saw it. It was okay, you know,’ rather than rumors starting and all that. I think there is a way. Each country is different. I’m not saying what we did is the best way to do. There are maybe better ways. But I am a great believer in the value of privatization and I’m a great believer in opening it up. There’s no difference between local and foreign. That is also a myth. Nobody can put a telephone exchange in his briefcase and take it away to a foreign country. You know, it’s a system. It can’t leave. It has to be in the country to be operated. All these taboos will have to be broken and then you do what is in the best interest of the country. This is the way to go in my humble opinion.

What’s Really Keeping Pakistan’s Children Out of School?

The demand for education is already high. Pakistan’s education crisis is a supply-side problem created by Government regulation.

"Less than half of third graders in Pakistan can read a sentence in Urdu or local languages. Thirty-one percent can write a sentence using the word “school” in Urdu, and 11 percent can do it in English.

Children in government schools report that teachers have them clean, cook, massage their feet and buy them desserts. Children are categorized as smart or stupid as soon as they start school. Corporal punishment is severe. Parents will send their kids to a private school if they can afford a few dollars a month, but they do not see government schools as worth it.

Since 2010, Pakistan has more than doubled what it budgets for education, from $3.5 billion to $8.6 billion a year. The budget for education now rivals the official $8.7 billion military budget. The teaching force is as big as the armed forces.

But Pakistan has a learning crisis that afflicts its schoolchildren despite much debate and increase in funding for education because policy interventions by the government and foreign donors misdiagnosed what is keeping children out of school.

Although aid programs of the United States and Britain contribute a mere 2 percent of the education budget, those countries and the local elite, whose own children go to high-end private schools, have emphasized that Pakistanis demand education and that more children should be enrolled in school.

But the demand for education is already high, evidenced by the mushrooming of low-cost private schools that now enroll 40 percent of students in the country and charge as little as $2 a month."

Pakistan’s education crisis is a supply-side problem. Enrollment rates are used as the measure for progress because Pakistan has the second-largest population of out-of-school children in the world. But the proportion of 5- to 9-year-olds in school is the same as it was in 2010: 57 percent. With teachers chronically absent from school at a rate of 20 to 30 percent and most of the education budget going into their above-market salaries ($150 to $1,000 a month), doubling the budget was never the solution to Pakistan’s education crisis.

"The problem is that donors have created too much noise. Convinced by their own solutions and backed by foreign expertise and international consensus, foreign donors have run high-profile advocacy campaigns and monopolized the attention of bureaucrats, party leaders and the version of civil society that Pakistan has developed in response to them."

"But to turn schools into places that provide education will require a local constituency asking the right questions. The hottest issue regarding education in Pakistan right now is limiting the fees that high-end private schools charge. If elites mobilized as effectively around issues that affect the majority of Pakistanis, we would see faster and more meaningful change."

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Excerpted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/opinion/pakistan-education-schools.html

(Emphasis added)

Why Libertarians Fail at Politics

Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center dropped a truth bomb on the beltway in his recent piece for Fox News about the decline of Rand Paul. Taylor notes that the alleged growth of the libertarian movement in the wake of the Ron Paul campaign was largely illusory. The alienated populists and conspiracy theorists that filled out Paul’s numbers in 2012 easily made the transition to the very un-libertarian Donald Trump in 2015, leaving Rand out in the cold.

The lack of a broad-based movement, despite a number of high profile campaigns and events, is a bitter pill for libertarians who believe in electoral politics. Having libertarians in office may help raise the profile of issues like overcriminalization, tech freedom, and the insanity of the drug war. But those who await a libertarian takeover of the GOP misunderstand the fundamentally radical nature of libertarian ideas and how deeply that radicalism conflicts with the perceptions most Americans have about the role of government.

Why don’t we pay taxes?

WHAT’S the most depressing economic statistic that is churned out repetitively in Pakistan? It’s the number of taxpayers. Time and again, the government and donors embarrass us for doing our nation a huge disfavour. In his first address, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi lambasted Pakistanis for not paying taxes.

Yet these are just myths. The fact is, we are one of the most overtaxed nations in the world. Simple arithmetic will do. Let’s start with disproving the most widely quoted number: only 1.21 million citizens pay income tax, ie less than one per cent of the population. But statistics (like the State Bank of Pakistan annual report) suggest that there are more than 57.5m employed people in the country. Since they are employed, they must be earning something and incurring expenditures on goods and services.

There is no good or service in Pakistan that is tax-free. Therefore, around 58m people are paying income tax one way or the other since their expenditures obviously come from their income.

"It is crass anti-intellectualism to repeat this old, tired mantra."

Pakistan must push trade, shun protectionism

Let’s not shun imports; let’s shun protectionism, inefficiency and rent-seeking.

ISLAMABAD: In his talk with businessmen in Faisalabad last month, Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood outlined his vision for economic development in these words: “Industrialisation through import substitution coupled with export growth through diversification.”

To help achieve this vision, Dawood disclosed the intention of the government to announce a comprehensive industrial policy to shun the culture of importing everything and emphasised the need for “Made in Pakistan”. He also criticised the free trade agreements (FTAs) which Pakistan had signed with different countries by citing the rising trade deficit with China, Indonesia and Malaysia. The adviser also reminded his audience that all Asian tigers had relied on government’s support for “self-sufficiency”.

This vision emanates from an old yet common fallacy: mercantilism.

Before analysing Dawood’s statement, let me first explain a few basic points. Trade takes place between individuals and firms and not between countries. The so-called trade deficit is between two countries only notionally. Realistically, the trade deficit, or surplus, is an aggregate of trade transactions between firms in two countries. It is only a construct of macro-economics. Therefore, any discussion on the so-called trade direction should be driven by an analysis of firms.

Consider this example by my favourite professor, Christopher Lingle. In all likelihood, if you have bought any goods from Amazon, you would have paid from the money which you have earned elsewhere. However, it will be quite foolish to say that you are running a trade deficit with Amazon as you will probably never sell anything to Amazon. If it is foolish to worry about this fictional deficit between the two private parties, it is futile to worry about trade deficit between two countries. What should be discussed is the overall trade volume and its direction for a country with the world.

Let’s now think about import substitution. First of all, it is not new. Pakistan has followed this strategy since the 1960s. Import substitution entails local production to shun imports. Can we, for example, shun the import of car engines, fuel and phones and switch to producing car engines, refined fuel and mobile phones ourselves? Do we need to re-invent the wheel?

The government has continued to provide direct support for textiles in the form of concessionary loans, subsidies or tariffs. As a result of this protection, most of the textile firms have not been able to grow. On the other hand, the government has generally failed to fulfil their minimum demand – a reliable and competitive energy infrastructure.

---
Ali Salman
PRIME Institute

(Emphasis added)

Source: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1892970/2-pakistan-must-push-trade-shun-protectionism/

Where are the medicines?

Shahid Mehmood explains the crisis in Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry created by Government regulations

Let me ask you a simple question: how many times has it happened that you go to a chemist and ask for a medicine, and the reply you get is that it is not available? Chances are that you have experienced this quiet a few times. That’s because even ordinary, inexpensive, lifesaving medicines tend to disappear off the shelves. And this happens every year. In other words, Pakistan experiences persistent medicine shortages.

Now here’s the perplexing part: there are more than 700 drug production units all over Pakistan, and more than 70,000 drugs are officially registered for production. Of these, hardly 10,000 are being produced, and even these experience supply shortages. All this, in the end, endangers the lives of those who need medicines for survival. Let us examine the root causes behind this worrying situation.

Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry was once a very vibrant industry. In the 1990s, more than 40 international pharmaceutical firms of repute (multinationals) were operating in Pakistan, producing not only quality medicine but also contributing towards setting standards and providing employment opportunities. These years also saw the tremendous growth of domestic pharma firms. A study by McKinsey concluded that Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry could be a ‘sunshine’ industry, meaning that it had tremendous future potential. By now, all those predictions have bitten dust. There are only a handful of multinationals operating in Pakistan, while others have wound up their businesses and left for greener pastures. Domestic manufacturers are also facing difficulties in their operations.

"The main responsibility for this dismal state of affairs falls upon the government, especially the way it regulates the pharma industry"

Bara tribesmen to move court against tourist centre

LANDI KOTAL: Elders of Shalobar tribe in Bara tehsil rejected the proposed creation of a tourist centre on Besai hilltop and announced that they would move the court if the plan was executed.

They also declared that they would consult elders of all sub-tribes in the area on the matter before deciding about the final course of action. The announcement was made during jirga here on Saturday.

During a visit to Besai hilltop on Jan 16, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman had announced the establishment of a tourist centre at the hilltop and construction of a road to it overlooking Hayatabad Township and parts of Jamrud and Bara areas.

The elders warned that they would move the Peshawar High Court if the government tried to occupy their combined property by force to develop the proposed tourist centre.

They called for a dialogue between local elders and relevant officials on the matter saying promotion of such activities goes against tribal norms and traditions.

The elders said they won’t agree to the establishment of any such facility without consultation.

They demanded the revival of over 100 stone crushing units at the lap of Besai hill saying the closure of such machines has rendered hundreds of local residents unemployed.

Source: https://www.dawn.com

Hans-Hermann Hoppe discusses 'Democracy: The God That Failed'

Han-Hermann Hoppe discusses his book, Democracy: The God That Failed:

Theory and History

On the most abstract level, I want to show how theory is indispensible in correctly interpreting history. History — the sequence of events unfolding in time — is “blind.” It reveals nothing about causes and effects. We may agree, for instance, that feudal Europe was poor, that monarchical Europe was wealthier, and that democratic Europe is wealthier still, or that nineteenth-century America with its low taxes and few regulations was poor, while contemporary America with its high taxes and many regulations is rich. Yet was Europe poor because of feudalism, and did it grow richer because of monarchy and democracy? Or did Europe grow richer in spite of monarchy and democracy? Or are these phenomena unrelated?

Likewise, is contemporary America wealthier because of higher taxes and more regulations or in spite of them? That is, would America be even more prosperous if taxes and regulations had remained at their nineteenth-century levels? Historians qua historians cannot answer such questions, and no amount of statistical data manipulation can change this fact. Every sequence of empirical events is compatible with any of a number of rival, mutually incompatible interpretations.

To make a decision regarding such incompatible interpretations, we need a theory. By theory I mean a proposition whose validity does not depend on further experience but can be established a priori. This is not to say that one can do without experience altogether in establishing a theoretical proposition. However, it is to say that even if experience is necessary, theoretical insights extend and transcend logically beyond a particular historical experience. Theoretical propositions are about necessary facts and relations and, by implication, about impossibilities. Experience may thus illustrate a theory. But historical experience can neither establish a theorem nor refute it.

The Austrian School

Economic and political theory, especially of the Austrian variety, is a treasure trove of such propositions. For instance, a larger quantity of a good is preferred to a smaller amount of the same good; production must precede consumption; what is consumed now cannot be consumed again in the future; prices fixed below market-clearing prices will lead to lasting shortages; without private property in production factors there can be no factor prices, and without factor prices cost-accounting is impossible; an increase in the supply of paper money cannot increase total social wealth but can only redistribute existing wealth; monopoly (the absence of free entry) leads to higher prices and lower product quality than competition; no thing or part of a thing can be owned exclusively by more than one party at a time; democracy (majority rule) and private property are incompatible.

Theory is no substitute for history, of course, yet without a firm grasp of theory serious errors in the interpretation of historical data are unavoidable. For instance, the outstanding historian Carroll Quigley claims that the invention of fractional reserve banking has been a major cause of the unprecedented expansion of wealth associated with the Industrial Revolution, and countless historians have associated the economic plight of Soviet-style socialism with the absence of democracy.

From a theoretical viewpoint, such interpretations must be rejected categorically. An increase in the paper money supply cannot lead to greater prosperity but only to wealth redistribution. The explosion of wealth during the Industrial Revolution took place despite fractional reserve banking. Similarly, the economic plight of socialism cannot be due to the absence of democracy. Instead, it is caused by the absence of private property in factors of production. “Received history” is full of such misinterpretations. Theory allows us to rule out certain historical reports as impossible and incompatible with the nature of things. By the same token, it allows us to uphold certain other things as historical possibilities, even if they have not yet been tried.

The Unlibertarian Legacy of Ronald Reagan

On August 2, 1988, President Ronald Reagan announced that he had changed his mind about the pro-union plant-closing bill. He had vetoed it three months earlier, but now let it become law without his signature after intense pressure from presidential nominee George Bush and former Treasury Secretary James Baker, now Bush's campaign chairman. Reagan claimed that only this action would enable him to sign a Congressional trade bill almost unequaled in its anti-consumer protectionism.

Ronald Reagan's faithful followers claim he has used his skills as the Great Communicator to reverse the growth of Leviathan and inaugurate a new era of liberty and free markets. Reagan himself said, "It is time to check and reverse the growth of government."

Yet after nearly eight years of Reaganism, the clamor for more government intervention in the economy was so formidable that Reagan abandoned the free-market position and acquiesced in further crippling of the economy and our liberties. In fact, the number of free-market achievements by the administration are so few that they can be counted on one hand—with fingers left over.

Let's look at the record:

Cleaning Up "Marxist Trash" is the Best Way for Bolsonaro to Build a Better Brazil

Officially sworn into office at the start of the year, the (Jair) Bolsonaro administration has already captured international attention. Having been portrayed for years by Western media as a sinister threat to Brazilian democracy, in spite of being a successful populist candidate embraced by a diverse electorate, the same outlets have been quick to depict the new government as a hostile threat to minority rights. The real story, however, is Bolsonaro’s apparent commitment to the sort of ideological revolution that is desperately needed for his country to thrive. While history shows we should never trust a politician to deliver on lofty promises of liberty and freedom, the initial days of his presidency have moves deserving of praise.

To start, his inaugural address, Bolsonaro vowed to follow through on his campaign message of dramatically changing a government plagued by corruption and economic crisis:

"I stand humbled by the honor to address you all as President of Brazil, and stand before the whole nation on this day as the day when the people began to liberate themselves from socialism, from the inversion of values, from state gigantism and from political correctness. … Our flag will never be red. It will only be red if we need to bleed over it to keep it green and yellow."

He followed this up with a tweet vowing “to tackle the Marxist garbage in our schools head on.”

What’s encouraging here is that Bolsonaro is identifying that the true enemy of his administration is not simply a political rival or a series of bad policies that must be reformed, but the socialist ideology that has caused so much misery throughout the world and Latin America in particular. Correctly identifying the underlying problem is the best way to go about finding a solution."

This aligns well with Ludwig von Mises’s views about the importance of ideas in society. He wrote extensively about how the ultimate deciding factor to the success or failure of civilization has less to do with the politicians and institutions that have been built, but the underlying ideas that direct them. As he wrote in Economic Policy:

"Everything that happens in the social world in our time is the result of ideas. Good things and bad things. What is needed is to fight bad ideas. We must fight all that we dislike in public life. We must substitute better ideas for wrong ideas. … Ideas and only ideas can light the darkness."

Of course, a true ideological revolution requires more than simply political rhetoric and rousing speeches, the question will be how he is able to follow through with pro-market policies that will actually allow Brazil to succeed.

Read more at: https://mises.org/wire/cleaning-marxist-trash-best-way-bolsonaro-build-better-brazil

What Social Classes Owe Each Other

What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other was first published in 1883, and it asks a crucially important question: does any class or interest group have the duty and burden of fighting the battles of life for any other class or of solving the social problems to the satisfaction of any other class or group?

Private Schools in Pakistan Are Being Suffocated By Red Tape

Over the last decade, private school education has become a way of life for many Pakistani children. Unfortunately, private schools are being continuously “suffocated” by undue state bureaucracy.

Homeschooling Is a Threat to Public Education

But Not for the Reasons You Might Think. 

As the government schools lose their monopoly status, the competition benefits even the families who never consider the alternatives.

Robert Higgs: The State is too Dangerous to Tolerate

Dr. Robert Higgs delivered one of Mises Institute's most popular and most-watched Mises U speeches in 2013, a terrific exposition entitled "The State is too Dangerous to Tolerate". It's an intellectual tour de force from Higgs, where he demolishes many of the popular misconceptions about (and justifications for) the state in one compelling talk. This is Dr. Higgs at his most formidable, and well worth an hour of your time, this weekend. It's the kind of content that you won't hear anywhere else.

Public vs Private Ownership — Case of PIA

PIA has become a classic example of the failure of public ownership. The key reasons are political interference, abuse as a platform to extend patronage to supporters, corruption, inefficient management, overstaffing and a powerful trade union.

From Monarchy to Democracy | Hans-Hermann Hoppe | The Mises Circle

Lecture presented by Hans-Hermann Hoppe at the Ludwig von Mises Institute's 2005 Mises University conference, the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics. Since 1985, it has been the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream. Held at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama; July 31-August 6, 2005. http://mises.org/

Democracy or Monarchy? Public vs Private Government | Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe interviewed by Lew Rockwell.

Dr Hans-Herman Hoppe is an Austrian school economist and libertarian/anarcho-capitalist philosopher, Distinguished Fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, founder and president of The Property and Freedom Society, and editor-at-large of the Journal of Libertarian Studies. He taught economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and at John Hopkins University in Bologna.

Who Will Build The Roads? | Robert Higgs

From Aristocracy to Monarchy to Democracy

A Tale of Moral and Economic Folly and Decay

In this tour de force essay, Hans-Hermann Hoppe turns the standard account of historical governmental progress on its head. While the state is an evil in all its forms, monarchy is, in many ways, far less pernicious than democracy. Hoppe shows the evolution of government away from aristocracy, through monarchy, and toward the corruption and irresponsibility of democracy- a long march toward today's leviathan state. There is hope for liberty, but reversing the tide will not be easy. Radical decentralization and secession, Hoppe posits, are the last best way forward. This eye-opening monograph is ideal for sharing with friends. It will revolutionize the way you view society and the state.

Audio: https://mises.org/library/aristocracy-monarchy-democracy-1
PDF: https://tinyurl.com/yaejz4s4
Epub: https://tinyurl.com/yb57d9os

School Choice or Bigger Government?

A voucher is a wealth-transfer scheme that takes money from the haves and gives it to the have-nots... by the force of taxation. The name for that is welfare.

Voucher Socialism

Vouchers increase, not reduce, government involvement in education, and also increase the burden on taxpayer.

School Vouchers: Another Income Redistribution Scheme

Clint Bolick idolizes Milton Friedman, and considers Friedman and his wife "the godparents" of the school choice movement. In many ways, we have Milton Friedman to thank for the present monster Leviathan State in America.

School Vouchers Are Basically Food Stamps

Let's not kid ourselves. Voucher advocates are simply advocating for a food-stamp model in education. It's no more innovative than that.

The Trouble with School Vouchers

Education voucher are a Trojan Horse, a mechanism through which government authorities would be able to regulate private schools.