Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Is Germany, as Tyler Cowen argues , the “Silicon Valley of political innovation”? Here’s why he feels so: 1)       Post-war de-Nazification : As Cowen says, “it is difficult in world history to find a comparable switch in attitudes” anywhere in the world. 2)      German unification : The unification went through with barely a glitch, despite the vast economic differences between the two sides. And in record time. Most places split up, and “Large-scale political mergers seem to belong to the era of the 17th to early 20th centuries, but Germany pulled this one off”. It’s hard to argue with the above, but where Cowen goes wrong in my opinion is when he cites the EU (which was formed due to a large push by Germany) as yet another successful example of German innovation. What makes his view even more surprising is that he wrote this in May, 2017. After all, isn’t this the how most of us think of the EU today? -     ...

As Narendra Modi continues as PM, some have started questioning what, if anything, has he done so far. To me, this sounds weird. Did he not increase railway fares (thereby reducing the railway subsidy)? Is he not continuing the trend of letting the market decide fuel prices (thereby reducing the oil subsidy)? A reduced subsidy account means that the government has more money for other things like, I don’t know, infrastructure or hospitals. So to me, the real question is how Modi intends to spend the money gained via the reduced subsidies? And equally importantly, can he ensure those projects get executed at all (and dare I say, executing them on time and at cost)? All this questioning reminds me of this article by Aaron David Miller that talked about how “great” American leaders no longer seem to emerge. After Washington, Lincoln and FDR…nobody. Notice the common theme, says Miller: “We admire the bold, transformational leader who seeks fundamental change, and value less the c...

George Orwell was asked by one Noel Willmett whether he really believed a 1984 like scenario was possible. Orwell’s reply ( via a letter ) is illuminating. Keep in mind that he wrote this letter in 1944, while World War II was still going on. Orwell feared the rising cult of leader-worship (Hitler, Stalin, Franco and de Gaulle). Taken to an extreme, he feared this resulted in “a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer.” (Orwell even mentions Gandhi on his list! Which isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds as first. After all, Gandhi had quaint ideas on the role of villages in economic growth. And while he didn’t wield a machine gun to enforce his view, he did influence post-independent India’s stance on the topic, didn’t he?) Orwell argued that neither Britain nor the US should be too smug on this leader-worship topic because, he argued: “Britain and the USA ha...