Due Credit

Here's an interesting ad I noticed while perusing the website of Time Out Mumbai:

Take a tour through Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum. The tour introduces you to the enterprise of the slum dwellers. You will see the various small scale industries buzzing inside the slum: from leather tanneries, to pottery, plastic recycling, cloth dyeing, cleaning and recycling of oil drums, and machine-tool making. Reality Tours and Travels.

Some slum!

This certainly makes it appear that the poor in India have more initiative than I credited them with in my previous post - though without more information to establish a proper context I don't know just how effective this actually makes them at rising above their poverty. Obviously, some of them are trying.

Lessons from India

I've been fascinated for some time now with what's going on in India. Now there's a story in the New York Times that leads me to think that India is moving along even faster than I had dared hope:

In India, Dynamism Wrestles With Dysfunction

There is so much I could say about this article, I don't even know where to begin. Reading the article brought to mind so many points made in the writings of Ayn Rand and others about the role of government, the nature & application of rights, law and objectivity, the nature of Capitalism and so much more.

And how many of these lessons can be applied to Oklahoma?

I have posted some comments on Facebook but at this point I have more questions than answers.

The article makes it seem like the poor in Gurgaon are waiting for the government to do things for them. Why aren't they taking the intitiative to solve their own problems?

Gurgaon is depicted as being close to anarchy. What does this say about "anarcho-capitalism"? The rape of the Gurgaon woman in New Delhi - which New Delhi refused to do anything about - strikes me as proof that "competing governments" don't work. Why doesn't Gurgaon sue New Delhi?

There is so much in this article that speaks to Ayn Rand's writings on the role of government. Gurgaon's "municipal corporation" seems more interested in infrastructure than protecting individual rights. Where are the courts? How are property rights protected?

The story shows why a police force is a legitimate function of a government based on individual rights, NOT just an item on a laundry list of "essential services".

Gurgaon needs 3 things: objective laws that protect individual rights, including property rights. Courts to uphold those rights by settling disagreements. Police to protect the rights of the people of Gurgaon.

When Gurgaon takes over smaller cities, it is violating the rights of the residents of those cities. That needs to stop.

Whether you think Gurgaon is the most exciting social experiment on Earth right now or not, it certainly is fascinating and I hope I will be able to follow this story as it develops.

So what do you think? Post your comments here or join the discussion on Facebook!

There is also a reader discussion of this article going on at the NYTimes.