Boulding on why Gandhi failed.

Ken Boulding, the Quaker Economist wrote some 50 odd years ago-

Some of us hoped indeed that India, because of Gandhi, would be a new kind of nation, rejecting the whole system of threats and counter-threats which had brought the world to disaster. What has happened since 1947 however has been profoundly disturbing for those of us who held these high hopes.

This is unreasonable. India did not threaten anybody. It merely defended itself. Only a lunatic would have been 'profoundly disturbed' by anything India was doing then or has done since. 

For what has happened? India has become a nation like any other, and even, truth compels me to say with pain, less mature in its foreign relations, less peaceful, less realistic, than many others.

This is nonsense. India had not become a nation like Maoist China or Brezhnev's Soviet Union. It was and is a stable liberal democracy under the Rule of Law. 

In its internal policies there is one outstanding achievement, the maintenance of internal freedom and democracy in the face of enormous problems and difficulties.

That's the only thing which matters. 

I happened to witness the military parade in New Delhi on 26 January 1964 on my way to the Pugwash Conference in Udaipur. I felt as if I was back in the Europe of 1914, and hardly knew whether to laugh or weep. It was as if Gandhi had never lived or had lived in vain. I confess I never expected to live to see girls in saris doing the goose-step!

Why? Because you were brought up in a patriarchal society. You may not have expected to see female soldiers but, because they are just as good as male soldiers, sooner or later, every country will have them.

It is very hard for Indians now to see how they look to the world outside, for they are naturally preoccupied with their enormous internal problems.

Also they know that foreigners are stupid and get conniptions if they see police-women marching while wearing khaki sarees.  No doubt, foreigners would like to see Indians lying on a bed of nails while doing the rope trick or charming snakes.

It is very easy, however, for India's actions to be interpreted as those of a weak and petulant bully, not hesitating to use the old-fashioned threat against a weak enemy, as in Goa, answering provocation with provocation in the case of a strong enemy, such as China, and refusing to make a desperately needed adjustment in the case of Kashmir.

What a load of horseshit! Salazar was a Dictator. The entire Portuguese Empire was soon to be liquidated. Portugal was better off as a result. Goa wasn't an enemy- it was an annoyance merely. As for China, the fact is, by 1967, India had the upper hand in that sector. Indeed, the outcome of the '62 war would have been very different if India had been better led and used its superior air power in that theater. Still, the defeat was useful for India because it ended Tamil separatism and put the Commies in the doghouse. As for Kashmir, Pakistan tried to stir up a rebellion in the Valley in '65 and failed miserably. It was taught a lesson on the battlefield. Then in '71 it was dismembered and thoroughly humiliated. It responded by destroying its economic advantage and going down the path of extremism and narco-terrorism. No 'adjustment' is required when you are dealing with a lunatic.

I am not saying that this image of India is either true or just, merely that it is a possible interpretation of India's actions.

Why say things which are untrue and unjust? Is that the Quaker way?

What is abundantly clear is that India's international posture is an enormous handicap in achieving economic development,

Nonsense! Stupid economic policies were the handicap. 'International posture' did not matter in the slightest. 

a handicap so great that it may prevent development altogether, and may have in it the seeds of a human catastrophe on an almost unimaginable scale.

With hindsight, we can see that Boulding- like all economists- had shit for brains.

The problem of development in a country like India, burdened with a tradition and a religion which for many centuries has produced a heroic adjustment to poverty rather than to a sober and organized attempt to get out of poverty, is so difficult in itself that it requires every ounce of human effort, of talent for organization, and of economic resources to break out of the trap.

Rubbish! Tardean mimetics, Free markets and enlightened self-interest was all that was required. India should have scrapped 'licence Raj' and gone for export led growth at the same time as Taiwan and South Korea and so forth. 'Heroic adjustment to poverty' means being a shithead all your life. No talent for organization is required in letting markets rule. 

Every man, every rupee wasted in military effort is a millstone round India's neck, and may condemn billions of her unborn to poverty and misery.

Utter nonsense! The Military is useful. Gandhian shitheads are useless. America only climbed out of the Great Depression thanks to rearmament. A large military industrial complex turned out to the a great boon for that country. For one thing it meant Jim Crow had to go. Indeed, the need for military efficiency meant that women had to be admitted to the Armed Forces and promoted on merit.

It is quite true that Military expenditure can be wasteful- look at Pakistan or Egypt. But it can be a very good thing. The Israeli Army is the biggest tech incubator in that country. There is a direct connection between Military success and higher productivity. Violence is a learned skill. To get better at killing, you have to study useful Sciences. Talking shite about God and Non Violence makes you stupid. It is a waste of resources. 

Economic development is like a man trying to jump out of a ten-foot hole; it is no use his jumping nine feet eleven inches, for he will just fall back.

This is the stupid Rostow 'take-off' theory. All that matters if free markets. Of course, if the population is completely shit, then the economy will be shitty. But that was not the case in India- at least, large parts of it.

At a certain crucial stage a little more effort may make the whole difference between ultimate success and failure. What are we to say, therefore, to a man who tries to jump out of this hole with a cannon deliberately strapped on his back - yet is not this precisely descriptive of India today!

What would we say of an India that did not fuck up the Chinese at Nathu La in '67, or shit on the Pak Army in '71? For a start, there would be no India to talk about. The Chinese would have armed the Naxals while the Pakistanis would have grabbed more and more territory on the pretext of jihad. 

The plain and ugly truth is that in the game of international politics India is going to be a militarily weak nation for many decades to come.

Boulding was a poor prophet. India prevailed against the Chinese in '67. It defied Nixon and freed Bangladesh in '71. It conducted a nuclear test in '74. At the same time, it became self-sufficient in agriculture so as to become independent of America. Had it freed up the economy in the Seventies it would have raced ahead of China. 

In the modern world especially, with the United Nations and the increasing recognition of the illegitimacy of war, it is quite possible for a weak nation to survive and prosper, and indeed eventually become a "strong" one for whatever that may be worth, which is not much.

This cretin was saying this at a time when America had half a million troops in Vietnam!

When it is weak, however, it must behave like a weak nation, and not pretend that it is a strong one.

So, Vietnam should have let the Americans fuck it in the ass. It shouldn't have sent 50,000 GIs home in body bags. What a wise little Quaker it is to be sure!

Both India and Indonesia - the latter much more so - seem to be under the illusion that because they are big nations they must, therefore, simply because of their large populations, be powerful.

The Indonesians were powerful enough to fuck up their Communists and Chinese immigrant populations. That's why they didn't have a Vietnam type insurgency problem. A large population means you should be powerful and tell the Bouldings of this world to go fuck themselves. What was the big Quaker contribution to preventing the Second World War? As far as I can see, all they did was introduce Quisling to the Nazis who quickly converted him to their vile ideology. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth; their very size is a major source of their weakness,

which is why the US is so much weaker than Panama.

for in the modern world small nations have a much better chance of managing their internal affairs well and getting on the road to development than large nations. It is a fatal mistake, however, for a weak nation to behave as if it were a strong one, which seems to me precisely what India is doing.

If you fight strong people you get better at fighting. That's the only way to get stronger. You have to start at the bottom and work your way up. But there is a big reward for doing so. By contrast, staying weak means getting fucked in the ass.

Quite apart from Gandhian moral standards, then, and even judged by the low morality of international power politics, India is behaving badly and gets a low mark.

Says a stupid pedant who awarded high marks to the cretins who obediently regurgitated his own bullshit. 

The child born with such high hopes has turned out not only to be no better than the average, but actually worse.

Very true! India had ethnically cleansed its Muslims in the same manner that Pakistan had done to its non-Muslims. What's that? India did not ethnically cleanse anybody? Oh, well in that case this Quaker got off on telling stupid lies. 

There are, of course, many extenuating circumstances. Colonial rule is a dreadful thing, which corrupts both ruler and ruled, and the ex-colonial countries all suffer from a well-recognised disease of society which might be called the "post-colonial trauma", and from which it may take several generations to recover

Utter shite! Did America take generations to recover from booting out the Brits? 

- indeed, I sometimes think the trouble with England even today is that it never really recovered from the Norman conquest, for it too exhibits many of the marks of a post-colonial society!

So, Boulding was completely insane! If Britain is a 'post-colonial' society where in the world will you find any other type of society? Does the Quaker Religion instil nothing in the minds of its adherents save a reckless, to the point of absurdity, disregard for the truth? Or should we blame Academic Economics as a discipline which rots the brain?

It takes time to learn mature international behaviour, and the nations - including my own - are all busy teaching each other how to be immature and childish, and learning this lesson all too readily.

So, listen to Whitey coz he is 'mature'. 

Still, the nagging question remains: India, because a new light shone into the world there, should have been different―or perhaps one should have expected Gandhi to suffer the fate of the Buddha!

What the fuck is this cretin babbling about? The fate of the Buddha was that he was deified. True, the Muslims chased Buddhism out of most of India but that's because they were Turkish, not Indian. 

A prophet, as the Christian Bible says, is not without honour save in his own country!

But the Bible was wrong. Prophet Muhammad was honoured and is honoured in his own country. Millions of Muslims make the Hajj pilgrimage to the two Holy Cities where he preached his message. By contrast, Christians are thin on the ground in Palestine.

For those concerned with the theory of nonviolence the failure of Gandhism in India to produce a successful development process after the "revolutionary" change raises severe problems.

No it doesn't. Nonviolence means no coercion. Let Free Markets work in an unfettered manner. 

Nonviolence remains a powerful instrument of revolutionary change―we see now, indeed, in the movement of Martin Luther King in the United States.

Nonsense! The Law is a powerful instrument of change- but this is legal, not revolutionary, change. Dr. King mobilized public opinion. He rejected violence because of the danger of a greater back-lash. The truth of the matter is that some 'Black Panthers'- like Eldridge Cleaver- were despicable men. 

It perhaps has a greater effect on those against whom it is used than on those who use it. In a very real sense Gandhi liberated Britain more than he liberated India; when I go back to Britain I am astonished at how much richer and happier a country it seems to be than the "Imperial" England, of my childhood.

Britain gave up its Empire because the thing could not pay for itself. It was more profitable to have purely commercial and cultural intercourse with ex-colonies. Indeed, Warren Hastings said in 1818 that the time was not distant when the only connection between India and England would be a commercial and cultural one. But for Gandhi's stupidity, India would have become Independent in the Nineteen Twenties. Non-Violence meant doing the stupidest thing possible while pretending to have magical powers. Quakers may be good people, but their politics is for shit.

In spite of the damage and sufferings of the wars, and though Gandhi can hardly be given all the credit for this, the plain economic fact is that in the twentieth century empire became a burden to the imperial power, not a source of wealth or even power. It is hard, however, to cast aside even burdens willingly, as the case of Portugal (the poorest country in Europe, with the largest empire) indicates.

Within a few years, Portugal would find it very easy to cast aside the burden of Empire and to prosper as it had never done before. 

Nonviolence indeed is only effective when it is aligned with truth - ahimsa and satyagraha must go hand in hand.

Rubbish! Nonviolence is only effective if it is 'incentive compatible'. Suppose I want a masala dosa. I go to Sravana Bhavan and say 'I shall do non-violent satyagraha till you give me a dosa'. They reply- 'why not just pay for the dosa like everybody else?' I hand over some cash and non-violently succeed in getting dosa. This is an incentive compatible arrangement. Sravana Bhavan has an interest in serving me tasty dosas and I have an interest in doing some useful type of work in order to be able to eat excellent dosas.

When truth is rejected, and when an illusory view of the world clouds the judgement, as it seems to me is true of India today, of course nonviolence will be rejected.

So, Boulding says 'India is weak. Weak people must say thank you to anyone who beats them and fucks them in the ass. Thus India must follow non-violence- thanking everybody who fucks them over- because the truth is India is a shithole. If any country should be fucked in the ass, it should be the country which is just one big shithole.' By rejecting non-violence and punishing Pakistan in '65 and China in '67, India was ceasing to be an utter shithole. Boulding felt this was a betrayal of the vision of Mahatma Gandhi. Yet, Gandhi defied his Quaker friends by offering to enlist in the British Army when the First World War broke out. He acted as a recruiting sergeant then. When Indian troops went to defend Kashmir, he approved wholeheartedly. Thus, Boulding was either very stupid or else he was telling a stupid lie. 

The critical problem then, comes down to how we learn to test the reality of our images of social and political systems, for the greatest enemy of nonviolence is the lack of "reality testing".

Says a cretin who thinks Britain hadn't recovered from the Norman conquest? What fucking 'reality testing' was he capable of?

Even violence can be interpreted as a crude and costly method of testing our images of the world―as, for instance, Japan and Germany discovered by violent defeat that their images of the world had been wrong.

Every action is a case of 'reality testing'. If the outcome of a violent on non-violent encounter were known in advance then the action would be unnecessary. The bank robber would not need to show his gun to get the bank teller to hand over cash. Nor would I need to write a check to Sravana Bhavan for the vast quantities of dosa I eat there. My Bank would know by magic to deduct money from my Current Account and transfer that money to Sravana Bhavan's account. 

Thus, the failure of Gandhism is not a failure of ahimsa, but a failure of satyagraha.

Nonsense! If satyagraha consists of buying and selling stuff in a non-fraudulent and non-coercive way, then it succeeds. By contrast 'ahimsa' fails because it is based on stupid lies. I may think Sravana Bhavan has yielded to my 'soul force' when it gives me a tasty masala dosa. I may say 'Truly, my Ahimsa is more perfect than that of all those miserable bastards who are not able to eat here.' However, it is not really the case that my 'satyagraha' has succeeded. Rather, Sravana Bhavan knows that my debit card won't be refused by the electronic card reader. They are serving me because it is in their interest to do so. This is Smith's 'invisible hand'. It isn't some Quaker magic.

The modern world is so complex that the truth about it cannot be perceived by common sense or by mystical insight, important as these things are.

The modern economy is not complex at all. A price vector captures almost all salient information. That's why we don't need to know Economics to be very good at economizing. Common sense- as in buy low, sell high- is all that is needed. As for 'mystical insight'- the only way you can achieve it is by stuffing something larger than the Universe up your backside. At any rate, you may have fun trying.

We must have the more delicate and quantitative sampling and processing of information provided by the methods of the social sciences if we are really to test the truth of our images of social and political systems.

This is utterly foolish. There were plenty of economists- like Joan Robinson, or even Samuelson, who gassed on and on about how, all things considered, the Socialist system was much better than the Capitalist one. Yet North Koreans or East Germans had to be actively prevented from voting with their feet. Academics may have very very foolish 'images of social and political systems'. But who listens to them? They are widely derided as shitheads. 

The next logical step, therefore, for the Gandhian movement would seem to be in the direction of the social sciences, in peace research,

There is a heck of a lot of 'Peace research' in various shite University departments. What good has it done? It is utterly worthless. 

and in the testing of all our images of society by the more refined means for discovering truth which are now available to us.

Samuelson had plenty of 'refined methods' at his disposal yet he went on plugging the Soviet system even when it was on the point of complete collapse. 

I am not suggesting, of course, that the social sciences produce "absolute" truth, or indeed that much valid perception is not achieved through common sense and insight. What I do suggest, however, is that the problem of truth is so difficult that we cannot afford to neglect any means of improving the path towards it, and that without this, nonviolence will inevitably be frustrated.

So, some magical bullshit will be frustrated unless we do junk social science of an inutile and obviously foolish type. Why not say 'Alchemy will be frustrated unless we improve our method of testing lead till we can show it is actually gold.'?

Everywhere I went in India in my brief and inadequate visits I heard one thing: "There is no alternative".

This was true. There was no alternative to having an army which killed invaders and a police force which beat the shit out of criminals. Talking worthless shite was not an alternative because without the police and the army, you'd be gagging as your rapist went ass to mouth. 

It was precisely the greatness of Gandhi that he always insisted there was an alternative.

Very true! This was also the greatness of the Maharishi who made a lot of money telling people that 'Yogic levitation' was the way to spread World Peace. 

Morality always implies that there are alternatives to choose, for morality is choice.

Nonsense! Morality is observed when you feel there is no choice whatsoever. Suppose you are left alone with the gorgeous pouting P.Chidambaram. If you are truly moral, you would not say to yourself 'I have the choice to lift this man's veshti and gaze in awe at his shapely haunches'. The thought will never cross your mind. 

To deny alternatives is to deny morality itself.

So, Boulding was an immoral man because he denied that there was an alternative to the sort of worthless shite he himself was peddling. What was that alternative? It was to waste no time on Junk Social Science but just imitate what the smart people were doing. China started to do well when Chinese leaders decided to imitate South Korea and Taiwan and so forth. 

To perceive alternatives requires imagination, hard thinking, and costly and painstaking study.

Sadly, those 'Social Scientists' who had these qualities produced unworkable Utopias. In seeking for a Paradise on Earth, they created a Dantesque Inferno.

If the Gandhian movement in India can recapture this great vision of the alternative, India may yet be saved from the disaster towards which she seems to be heading.

What was the 'Gandhian movement' doing in India at that time? Nothing except for the fraud that was Bhoodan. Thankfully, the whole of Bihar was gifted away and so Vinobha Bhave was persuaded to fuck off back to where he came from. J.P Narayan realized he had been wasting his time in the boondocks. The cretin started clamoring for 'sampoorna kranti'. Still, he helped create an Opposition 'Janata Morcha' which is now represented by Modi's BJP. As for Gandhi, India keeps him around as a mascot- a bit like George Washington who could not tell his Daddy a lie and so his teeth fell out and he cut down a tree to make himself a set of wooden dentures. The Brits would laugh at him so he chased them away. Sadly, some of them came back and, like Boulding, took citizenship coz they liked Jim Crow. Darkies should be kept in their place. One way to do it is by visiting countries like India and telling its people stupid lies.