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Reviving the Invisible
Hand: The Case For Classical Liberalism In The Twenty First century
Lal seeks to bolster up his case by looking into the history of market economies, their relationship with culture and the so-called notion of westernisation. He makes it clear that globalisation of the economy is actually a sign of a healthy economy. The fears that various kinds of nationalists have that it would also result in the homogenisation of culture through westernisation are unfounded, he says. Neither China nor Japan nor India, the leading capitalist economies of today, have succumbed to westernisation despite being far more open in terms of absence of governmental control of the economies, he points out. As he establishes his case for globalisation he also tilts at various moral and ethical shibboleths that are the pets of contemporary western thinking. Democracy, human rights, liberty come in for special comment. Globalisation is a centuries old phenomenon, he points out. All large empires, throughout history, have been globalisers. Only with the British Empire, though, it became possible for a single state to encompass the whole world. That state then began to interfere in a variety of areas that were outside its sphere of competence. And many people found it worth their while to insist that rather than let the society find its own way the state should take up the task of showing the society the most appropriate way. One of the consequences of this was the growth of the NGOs. They have been around for over 200 years, says Lal, but it is only with the encouragement given to them by the UN since the 1990s that they have really come into their own. They claim to represent civil society but are anything but that, points out Lal. Not once have they been able to win any election anywhere. "The notion of human rights is ‘nonsense on stilts’", he says and argues that the greatest tragedy of contemporary times is that the United States tries to impose its ideas of human rights on the rest of the world. Different countries then interpret those impositions in their own ways and that engenders much conflict in real life. Whether a people want democracy, human rights or liberty should be left for them to decide without the West trying to impose. Morality, he insists, is best left to the family and other institutions of civil society and the state should not interfere in it, much in the same way that the state in the nineteenth century kept aloof. Such a position goes against the contemporary grain where we presume the state to be not just the protector of our life and liberty but also the guarantor of our moral and material well-being. However, Lal makes his point forcefully and brings in a large amount of evidence to back it up. If there is bone that I would pick up with Lal is on some of his interpretations of history. Gandhi, for example, was definitely not against western education. Instead, his ashram schools promoted western liberal education and values even while paying lip service to Indian values. Gandhi also did not wish to revive ancient village society in India. Instead, he wrote that the Indian village was a collection of huts on a dung heap. But Lal can be excused for such mistakes. After all, he is not a historian and is merely reiterating some of the popular views of Gandhi – even though they may be factually incorrect.
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THIS is a preachy book
written by one of the most well-known exponents of classical economic
liberalism. Its basic contention is about getting the government out of
controlling the national economy. Using information from across
continents and centuries, Lal makes out a case for the importance of
allowing a people to find their own economic level of existence without
interference from the government. Governments, he insists, should stick
to governance. The economy, especially the international economy, should
be allowed to be regulated by markets. International organisations, like
the UN and it’s byproducts like the WTO, should be consigned to the
dustbin since the former has outlived its utility and the latter never
had one.