Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Things Adam Smith said that you haven’t heard till now – 1

There is something odd about the heading. It shows the writer has already decided that there will be sequels to this post (otherwise, why title it as 1?). This may be to your good or bad, I don’t know.
I am in the middle of reading Adam Smith’s magnum opus An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and I was surprised to come across many statements. Initially I thought I would write one post compiling all these statements that caught my attention. But, my reading this tome has become an extended affair and I thought I will drip-feed my readers howsoever few the surprising statements may be.
We have all heard how Smith said that the baker bakes bread not to feed you but to make money. Though you must have heard it many times before, I impose on you and give in full the version I have read: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
OK, as familiarity breeds contempt, I will give something less contemptible! How about, “[T]he clergy are … the greatest engrossers of land.” In the language of that time and in the context of this post, engrossers must mean those who encroach or appropriate public lands. This is also mentioned as the “Enclosure” movements in England in the 18th century. My understanding is justified through the following short quote from the book, “The plenty and cheapness of good land … are the principal causes of the rapid prosperity of new colonies. The engrossing (my emphasis) of land, in effect, destroys this plenty and cheapness.”
Now, Smith, though a friend of David Hume, was not known to be an atheist, or even against religion. It should then be all the more surprising that he had taken a firm stand against a particular, pernicious practice of a religion - encroachment. But, going beyond the surprise factor, let us see how things have changed, if at all, in a different place, India. Different place, different time, different people … different strokes.
It is not impossible to locate new and newer small roadside temples, in Chennai particularly and I suspect in other cities, towns across the country too. At first it is a few bricks around an idol that has mysteriously appeared out of nowhere on a footpath or at the bottom of a tree along it. Sometimes, it might be a small shrine inside a housing colony with its entrance jutting out on to the footpath. Where there is a temple, there are bound to be devotees. This inevitably happens.




Gradually the temple and the number of visitors grow, and attract auxiliary service establishments, like a small stall for keeping footwear, a shop for dispensing, at cost, material for performing prayers to the deity. If it is an idol at the foot of a tree, a revetment is built. And, it grows and soon the pedestrian finds herself on the thoroughfare, exposing herself to the danger of being run over by a speeding vehicle but saved only because the driver had come to a screeching halt to pray at the temple! Never mind he caused a traffic incident. He is catering to his spiritual need; leave him alone!
Encroaching of land by deities, endorsed by the religious!
OK, there is no clergy in the sense Smith meant, but where there is a god, a line of clergymen (mercifully not too many clergy women!) is sure to form anon, each allocating time to serve the encroaching god.
Yet, do not go to Smith to help you dislodge this idol. He is not that powerful. The national highway regulating agency is not that powerful, the municipal corporations are not that powerful, town authorities are even less so, god having suborned all and sundry, including the Resident Welfare Associations (in urban areas), to his cause. This is encroachment by the all powerful. Do not bet against it, damn Smith’s caution that such encroachments destroy economic activities.
Economics or spirituality? Live by balancing on the edge of the foot path or worse, on the road. You live by your choice, or die by it, when the driver does not stop to pray.
Raghuram Ekambaram



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