People act, individually and collectively within institutional constraints. These institutions are created by and embody rules that have developed historically partly through some social evolutionary process, and partly through some correctly or incorrectly conceived...
Markets work. That’s the “First Law” of the Extended Order of Social Interactions. I just made up that EOoSI bit but the “markets work” bit is a genuine law in the sense that it expresses an observed regularity in human societies. What does it mean? Among other...
Many superlatives have been applied to India. Some are laudatory—the largest democracy; some are appalling—home to the largest number of illiterates; and some whose overall value is hard to assess. In that last category must be the designation of India’s prime...
Many of my Indian American friends, generally a well-informed group, are often surprised to learn that their resident Indian cousins don’t have the kind of freedom of speech they routinely enjoy in the United States. They assume quite reasonably that in India too,...
One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, polymath, inventor, scientist, writer, diplomat, etc., etc., Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) observed that “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” An analogous statement about nations could...
