Model for Prosperity for Punjab
Keywords:
What to do
Better life
Informed
Entrepreneur
Capitalism
Socilaism
Wealth Transfer
Oct 24, 2022
Poverty is the norm, prosperity is the exception.
Throughout history, and for most countries today, poverty is the norm, prosperity is the exception.
If we don’t consciously understand what brings prosperity… we will subconsciously bring poverty through our thoughts and actions, and then we will call it fate or bad luck.
Good intentions and rhetoric are not enough. Without a strategic model, ideology, and direction, random tactical moves are ineffective, wasteful and lose momentum.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” –
Carl Jung.
This article discusses how to achieve prosperity at strategic level rather than relatively simpler tactical acts like make trains run on time, or streamline civic processes, or short-term campaigns.
What is prosperity?
Prosperity we want is:
Inclusive: Prosperity for all rather than just growth in GDP, or transfer of wealth to large corporations, or stock market boom for the few.
Based on
development: Prosperity that comes from social, economic, cultural, intellectual, emotional development, and not from just exploiting natural resources and scientific progress.
Sustainable: Prosperity that lasts generations, rather than riches from exploiting nature and selling national assets that bring prosperity for the few for short term
Money or Prosperity
There is more to prosperity than just money.
A rich man will have comfort, but may have anxiety about the future. Governments can harass him, extort his wealth, and his children might not have secure future in a polluted environment and bad social conditions.
What good is money without good living conditions, mental health, safe food, clean air and water, healthy community, freedom from random harassment from the police, and freedom from exploitation and wealth seizure by government.
We have to ask ourselves if we will make decisions about our future based on money and comfort, or prosperity.
Our current economic model
Business as usual today will lead to economic and social disaster tomorrow.
Our current economic model is
Neoliberalism, and rapidly
evolving into Techno-feudalism.
Neoliberalism comes not from the constitution or our history or our culture. It is a foreign model that is imposed on us by foreign entities like the Wall St, World Bank, and World Economic Forum.
The original premise of Neoliberalism was privatization, deregulation, reduction in government spending and services, and lower taxes. The argument in favor of this was that private enterprises are more efficient. All of these were implemented, without the reduction in taxes.
Government managed public utilities and services such as schools, roads, banks were neglected as part of government policy. Private companies took their place. The tax funded public services that government provided were intentionally made unusable while taxes increased. Tax on petrol goes up, but we have to use toll roads. Income tax goes up but government schools and hospitals decline in quality, forcing us to use private schools and hospitals. This is neoliberalism.
Government by design became bigger, and unhelpful.
An even more dangerous model for the future is Techno-feudalism/Neo-feudalism. What Neoliberalism did to government schools, hospitals, banks, and roads, techno-feudalism will do to private property – that is
your business and
your money.
Your business: shutdown by covid, 3 Kisan laws, sanctions, trade wars, sanctions, end of globalization,
eviction moratorium,
moral hazard of loan waivers.
Your money: destroyed by destroyed by inflation, quantitative easing(money printing),
gold price manipulation, demonetization, KYC rules, digital currency, asset confiscation.
Your life: travel restrictions, visa delays, #loveisnottourism
In the Techno-Feudalism model, money and power will be concentrated in the hands of a few oligarchs, and the majority will be without any rights, land, or assets. People will beg from their feudal lords for basic rights, and get even more exploitation in return. Independent minded people such as entrepreneurs and libertarians will be demonized, blamed, harassed, taxed, and imprisoned.
You will own nothing, and will be kept alive by handouts from the government, entertained by legalized drugs, and dopamine of social media.
All this will be done in the name of social justice, reducing poverty, security, growth, development, saving the country, and to deal with foreign threat or the latest crisis (
Disaster Capitalism).
The government transferred
public wealth and assets to corporations under the Neoliberalism model. Now they also want to confiscate all
private property and give it to corporations under the Techno-feudalism model. The
3 farm laws in Punjab were part of this World Economic Forum global strategy.
Techno-feudalism is also called “New World Order” and “The Great Reset”. The only thing it will reset is reset your bank account to zero.
Economic wars and sanctions are also part of this wealth transfer. Economic wars, restrictions, and
sanctions allow big business to do cross border trade, whereas small businesses cannot.
The next crisis will introduce digital currency and embed the Techno-feudalism model in our day-to-day life. It will be
permanent demonetization of our money.
Digital currencies like the
Central Bank Digital Currency will allow government to track and approve/deny every transaction in the name of social justice, preventing terrorism, managing pandemic, fighting climate crisis, tax collection, security, and of course national interest.
We all suffer from the Inflation created by Government from money printing in 2020-22. Imagine the inflation and social effects of virtually infinite money creation that digital currency will enable. Digitally creating money will be government’s answer to any problem - bad governance, social justice, managing pandemic, fighting climate crisis, foreign threat, and political need.
Bureaucrats want authoritative control, and they will try their best to get it even if it destroys all business, economy, and people’s lives. It is what narcissists in power crave above all – authoritative control. Our democratic system also encourages rise of narcissists that manipulate people with big dreams and small gifts.
“The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults” – Chris Hedges.
“Government creates problems, their solutions make it worse” - Peter Schiff.
This is just a taste of the exploitation and extortion that awaits us if we don’t take ownership of our fate, and just keep shouting at everything and going to government to fix things.
These
foreign exploitative economic models cannot be our model. They are not fit for purpose. They are imposed on us because we have failed to come up with our own model of development. Why should we be loyal to them?
We have to decouple from the current economic model that makes false promises of riches, manipulates people’s minds, destroys families by forcing people to migrate, over-exploits resources, and destroys the environment and our prosperity.
We live in a democracy – which is the worst form of government. Socrates and Plato also warned about democracy leading to bad decisions. Things are unlikely to get better in a Democracy.
"Plato argues that democracy is inferior to various forms of monarchy, aristocracy and even oligarchy on the grounds that democracy tends to undermine the expertise necessary to the proper governance of societies" –
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
Democracy leads to bad governance. It is perhaps one of the reasons that non-democratic countries like Singapore are considered one of the best governed countries in the world.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country has done for you.
Business as usual today will lead to economic and social disaster tomorrow.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country has done for you: Crony capitalism, mafia capitalism, electoral autocracy, Minority Report style policing, end of globalization, Post Truth, visa delays, #loveisnottourism, inflation, social engineering, propaganda, constant anxiety, and PTSD from non-stop crude lies.
Ideological and political vacuum
What happens the day after the revolution?
If we ask an educated, aware, cultured, and well-traveled person today, what will bring prosperity, they will start with ‘government should do this, government should do that...”.
What do we do now after the
kisan morcha (
farmers protest)and elections are over, and other
sangarsh(campaigns) have not succeeded yet? Who are you planning to vote in the next election?
You can try a revolution, but there is a classic philosophical question: what happens the day after the revolution? Will you just keep the corrupt bureaucrats and old systems of exploitation in place the day after the revolution?
What happens the day after the revolution?
Sadly, even among the educated elites, there is no plan except to tell the government to start a government program to do this or that… build hospitals, build schools, build roads, open trade routes, give jobs to the poor, tax the rich etc.
Without a strategic model, ideology, and direction, random tactical moves are ineffective, wasteful and lose momentum.
We the people do not explore any alternate model because we are focused on money, business, our comfort and entertainment. We say we want change, but we merely change faces and personalities of our leaders. We don’t care about understanding the root cause of our suffering. We only shout at superficial symptoms. We have no interest in even thinking, imagining, or believing there is an alternative.
Our intellect is misdirected as we choose to serve and support the government for comfort and money.
“The greatest tragedy ...appalling silence of the good people.” – Dr. Martin Luther King.
“Problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man’s chief dilemma” - Dr. Martin Luther King.
We unable to do anything about climate crises, environmental destruction, pollution, mountains of garbage, government tyranny, decline of human rights, changing demography.
Can you name a problem that was solved in the last 25 years? If we can technologically invent our way out of it like we did with damage to ozone layer and switch to unleaded petrol, we can solve the problem. If we can’t invent our way out of it, the problem keeps getting bigger.
From Dr. Martin Luther King Nobel Prize winning speech: “The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.”
This ideological and political vacuum will destroy our prosperity.
What will be the core building blocks/pillars of our prosperity?
Freedom of speech, human rights, property rights, and environmental protection
Freedom of speech is absolute. It is not relative. No person can decide what others are allowed to say or not.
Freedom of speech is not just freedom to say good or right things, but freedom to say what others don’t like or find offensive or dangerous.
Freedom of speech is absolute. It is not relative. No person can decide what others are allowed to say or not.
“The most improper job of any man is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it” – Prof. J. R. R. Tolkien, Professor of Anglo-Saxon at University of Oxford.
We live in a world of complexity and uncertainty. We need absolute freedom of speech to understand and benefit from this complexity and uncertainty.
Absolute Freedom of Speech creates a marketplace of ideas. Without it, only the single narrative approved by government bureaucrat is allowed.
We wrongly believe that offending others can start riots or weaken a country. Were the largest riots and
1984 Sikh Genocide started by ordinary people or with planning and collaboration with police and government. Will police or courts react when government sponsored agents say things that are offensive or genocidal? We know very well that those approved by the government are treated differently. "...depending where the power is, the law will mean different things" - Noam Chomsky.
It is wrong to think restricting freedom of speech is necessary to maintain communal harmony, law and order, or save a nation.
There will be no prosperity if we don’t allow outdated, inefficient, corrupt practices to be questioned. There will be no prosperity if we don’t allow alternatives to be discussed.
Do not ever under any circumstances let the government punish anyone for what they say. If you let government punish someone for what they say, the same process will be used tomorrow to punish you.
Free speech is THE Human Right. There will be no prosperity without freedom of speech.
“Right to free speech is more important than the content of free speech” – Voltaire.
One of the biggest economic revolution in Punjab was brought by Banda Singh Bahadur who gave property rights to those who farm the land. Sikhs in Punjab have a deep love, and spiritual and economic relationship with its land. Therefore, property rights and environment protection have to be central to our economic model.
Small meritocratic virtuous government
We create big government that interferes in every part of our life because we want government to fix everything.
We cannot fix our problems because of our intellectual and organizational laziness, greed, convenient lack of understanding, and poor character.
It is critical to have small meritocratic virtuous government with limited sphere of influence.
We create big government that interferes in every part of our life because we want government to fix everything. We cannot fix our problems because of our intellectual and organizational laziness, greed, convenient lack of understanding, and poor character. We want the government to fix more and more of our problems. Government gets bigger and bigger. Big government then needs big corporations for help to do its job. This leads to fascism.
Big government + Big corporations = Fascism.
Don’t we all have this secret desire of a strongman or big influential man or police office or government bureaucrat who will come and fix everything? In Punjab, we have a saying: “ਇਹ ਸਾਰਿਆੰ ਨੂੰ ਸਿੱਧਾ ਕਰੂ ਗਾ”. “He is going to fix everyone and everything”. It is not going to happen.
There is no incentive to succeed in the government. There is more money if you keep inventing new problems and keep failing.
In business, if you fail, you go bankrupt. In government, if you fail, you are given more public money to try again without any consequences or punishment.
Every crisis is used as an excuse by the government to pass more laws to get more power and control. Damn the costs or damage to the economy or the people. It is power and control at all costs. Bureaucrats and politicians do this because big Government becomes a festering ground for narcissists and egomaniacs. They always want more power and control, and use that power to get even more money. It is sickness of the mind. We let them because we want government to fix the problems we create. This eventually leads to fascism.
Government’s sole purpose is to:
Draft good laws – be meritocratic, virtuous, and moral in order to do it
Enforce the law
Maintain security(police and army)
Government
not to get involved in:
Social programs – the market and individuals can do it themselves
Wealth transfer or social engineering(taking from rich to give to poor)
Providing services like education, health, infrastructure, housing, subsidies - the market and individuals can do it better
As an example, it is well researched and documented how government involvement in
education,
healthcare, and
housing reduced quality and increased price.
We have to make the government smaller, by
actively ensuring government is not involved where it does not need to be. Yes, government needs to run the army, but not schools, transport, or hospitals. Private sector can do it better if government bureaucrats are meritocratic philosopher-kings who can make and enforce good laws.
“That government is best which governs least”.
“Small government for prosperity”.
“No to cradle to grave government help”.
Learn to say to government, “None of your business”.
Police state
Punjab is an over-policed state with almost 4x budget for police compared to development.
Punjab is an over-policed state with almost 4x budget for police compared to development. Punjab budget in 2020-21 for rural development is ₹1700cr(₹17bn). Police budget is ₹6500cr(₹65bn).
Bad governance, tyranny from suppressing opposition to bad governance, lack of development, and stagflation economy creates social problems. These social problems manifest themselves in unexpected ways as people are stressed and frustrated. Then the government orders the police to restore “law and order” by harassing, suppressing, and imprisoning people. The police is given more money, power, and control as they are seen as protectors of “law and order”. There is no money left for development. Entrepreneurs and investors leave. The cycle repeats itself.
Police presence might be acceptable to some, but the entrepreneurs and the brains of our community don’t like it. They leave.
This is something hard for common man to understand. Common man tolerates the police state, but the presence of police is toxic to the best of the best minds we have.
We have to actively change this culture and laws that allow police to randomly ‘check’ things. Stop this culture of police coming uninvited or invited to every gathering of people.
The best and brightest who have self respect and pride leave. Those who are going to create great ideas, and businesses for the fourth industrial revolution demand autonomy in every field of life. They will leave in a police state, taking away our chance at prosperity.
Libertarianism: Authentic capitalism
The next fourth industrial revolution will be driven by corporations big and small.
We need corporations and private sector else we will get left behind from the riches of fourth revolution.
Only the private sector can efficiently provide airlines, cars, solar panel, drones, Artificial Intelligence, iphone, whatsapp, gmail, youtube, oil and gas, cement, medicines, fertilizer etc. These are not products of a cottage industry or cooperative or government.
The problem with our current model is not capitalism, but the crony mafia capitalism. The problem is not corporations but the nexus of corporations and government which only lets selected corporations succeed.
In this nexus, the government officials and politicians auction access for money. The corporations then have to increase prices to cover the cost of bribes to officials, and election funds to politicians. It costs unbelievable amount of money to contest elections. The public ends up paying for it in the end. The businessmen then naturally use mafia to protect their permits. This is not capitalism but crony capitalism and mafia capitalism.
Crony capitalism and mafia capitalism is not capitalism.
The model for prosperity is of small
Libertarian government with good laws, respect for people’s property and business, and genuine capitalism where government does not give any special favors to any corporations. The government makes the rules, and corporations compete to give best goods and services to the public.
The next fourth industrial revolution will be driven by corporations big and small. We need corporations and private sector else we will get left behind from the riches of fourth revolution.
What plastic is today, carbon fiber will be tomorrow. What diesel generator is today, solar panel and micro-hydro projects, and battery storage will be tomorrow. What migrant labor is today, robots, exoskeleton, drones, and Internet of Things will be tomorrow.
We have to understand this and master these technologies to benefit from fourth industrial revolution. Otherwise, we will be using fax machines in the age of email and whatsapp.
Government bureaucrats, and politicians do not have a clue or interest in what is required to evolve our economy for the fourth industrial revolution.
Governments cannot bring prosperity. They can enable prosperity by drafting good laws and keeping government small. Neither Socialism nor Marxism bring prosperity as it confiscates means of production and property from individuals and gives it to the inefficient fascist state.
Bertrand Russell sums up Socialism, Marxism, and big government well. “If a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feeling. Now Marx is not inspired by kindly feeling. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat, but he really wanted to is the unhappiness of the bourgeois. And it was because of that negative element, because of that hate element that his philosophy produced disaster. A philosophy that wishes to do good must be one inspired by kindly feeling and not by unkindly feeling."
Corporations big and small can bring prosperity, provided there are good laws by meritocratic virtuous and moral government bureaucrats, and corporations don’t spend all their money on bribing officials and donating to politician’s election fund.
As mentioned before, the biggest economic revolution in Punjab was brought by Banda Singh Bahadur who gave property rights to those who farm the land. Sikhs in Punjab have a deep love and spiritual and economic relationship with its land.
Libertarian economics protect private property rights. Socialist co-operatives by failed comrades, crony capitalism, and techno-feudalism takes people’s property away, and give them to co-operatives or corporations. So we cannot allow socialism or crony mafia capitalism or techno-feudalism.
Libertarianism, not Liberal economics, but Libertarianism, is the only acceptable model that protects our rights, provides freedom from government tyranny, and brings prosperity.
What about the poor?
To help the poor, create conditions for entrepreneurs to flourish.
The poor and downtrodden don’t need handouts. They need a meritocratic socio-economic-political model where they have freedom to achieve according to their ability.
The poor and downtrodden have been systematically and intentionally demoralized, their opportunities for growth blocked, and their spirit broken. Now we play games with their mind and brainwash them into staying demoralized and addicted to our handouts.
When middle class is taxed less, they create business which employs others or creates subcontracts. This creates dignity of labor rather than handouts or government job supporting outdated inefficient services.
It sounds kind and caring to care for others and have socialist programs and handouts, but it is not an effective way to help others.
“The only permanent way to cure their poverty is to increase their earning power.” – Henry Hazlitt, Why Some People Are Poorer, Mises Institute.
To help the poor, create conditions for entrepreneurs to flourish.
Learn from our history. Guru Gobind Singh in the late 1600’s gave his blessing to Marwari
lohars(ironsmiths) and called them
Sikligar Sikhs. They flourished by making weapons for the Khalsa Army. This is one of the reasons we respect Guru Gobind Singh as the greatest Philosopher-King. He didn’t give handouts or tell the poor to work for the government of the time. He gave dignity of labor, role in something bigger than themselves, and a sense of accomplishment to common people.
Model for prosperity
The 3 pillars on which to build prosperity in Punjab are:
human rights, property rights, and environmental protection;
small, virtuous and meritocratic government;
genuine libertarianism capitalism for the fourth industrial revolution.
Prosperity has to be:
Inclusive: Prosperity for all rather than just growth in GDP, or transfer of wealth to large corporations, or stock market boom for the few.
Based on development: Prosperity that comes from social, economic, cultural, intellectual, emotional development, and not from just exploiting natural resources and scientific progress.
Sustainable: Prosperity that lasts generations, rather than riches from exploiting nature and selling national assets that bring prosperity for the few for short term
The 3
pillars on which to build prosperity in Punjab are:
- human rights, property rights, and environmental protection;
- small, virtuous and meritocratic government;
- genuine libertarianism capitalism for the fourth industrial revolution.
Sadly, today we have none of these. That is why we see such rapid decline in every sphere of life. Our life is diminished.
Model for prosperity is not more government, or big government leftist socialist government programs run by failed comrades. Big Government is responsible for all our problems today. Why have more of what has failed over and over again for 75 years?
Model for prosperity is not social engineering. It is meritocracy.
It is not handouts or subsidies or facilities for the poor. It is low taxes for enterprising middle class.
It is not more coal plants, but solar power and micro-hydel plants.
It is not banning videos, new ideas, and new technologies, but absolute freedom of speech, and more freedom to the enterprising middle class.
It is not crony mafia capitalism for the select few, but genuine libertarian capitalism.
It is not Minority Report style policing, but freedom from random checks, road blocks and asset seizures.
It is not government hospitals, but private healthcare regulated by sensible laws.
It is not industrial mono-crop, but small scale organic farming for local consumption only.
It is not exploiting nature and natural resources, but environmental protection and riparian rights.
It is not hate, fences, bans, tariffs, and sanctions... but diplomacy, and free trade.
“It is always the country with more freedom and less government, that has more prosperity” - Peter Schiff.
Prosperity does not come from just changing economic model in isolation. Prosperity is a result of our social values, economic model, and political vision. So any model for prosperity has to optimize the social-economic-political landscape. Just tuning one part of this in isolation will have no to limited benefit.
Opposition to the Model
Masses call for their own enslavement.
The prevalent narrative today among intellectuals and academics is left-leaning Marxism where big socialist government programs and anti-capitalism is the way forward. They will not accept small government and Libertarian capitalist model.
The model proposed here will not be acceptable to rich and connected as they have perfected the art of getting benefit from the government. They have perfected art of getting benefits using their
setting(connections). They don’t want that corrupt nepotism system to end. Rich and connected
want the government to brutally suppress in the name of law and order anyone that threatens their privileged life based on their connections.
Sad truth is that the model proposed here will not be acceptable to the majority of the suffering public either because of intellectual and organizational laziness, greed, convenient lack of understanding, and poor character. Majority of the public want big government to take care of them and give them free bread and free circus.
“When a nation is psychologically and spiritually empty, totalitarianism comes in to the fill the vacuum; and the people sell their freedom as a necessity for getting rid of the anxiety which is too great to bear any longer.” – Rollo May.
Mussolini wrote “Never before have the peoples thirsted for authority, direction, order, as they do now”.
People subconsciously thirst not for freedom, but for fascism.
Masses call for their own enslavement. Majority
want Fascism, they just don’t recognize what they want.
The model proposed here will not be acceptable to anyone in government as we propose small government. Government officials, institutions, and politicians will
use all their state power to stop that.
This model will be criticized, ridiculed, and brutally oppressed by all in the name of helping the poor and the sick, growth, development, security, saving the country, foreign threat, or the latest crisis.
Who wants Prosperity?
Only the poor, and the rare individuals with morals, intellect, and spiritual strength want prosperity.
Majority want free bread and free circus. They don’t know what to do when this free bread and circus still does not deliver prosperity. They can suffer for generations.
Governments are careful enough to give the majority minimal survival level free bread(and free circus) to keep them from revolting. Only when the free bread is not enough, and day-to-day life unlivable, does the majority want change and ask for prosperity. However, there is a long way to go between wanting change and getting it. Most just slowly decline.
The comfortable middle class very rarely revolt. Most of them serve the rulers as faceless bureaucrats as it ensures comfortable life. Middle class live with the soul-destroying and empty life this compromise demands. Consumer lifestyle, pursuit of basic human needs, and hedonism fills the void.
So, only the poorest of the poor, and the rare individuals with morals, intellect, and spiritual strength want prosperity.
It was the same at time of Sikh Gurus. Gurus led the ‘poorest and downtrodden’(ਨੀਚੋੰ ਸੇ ਨੀਚ) with the strength of their morals and intellect, and transformed the destiny of their people.
Who will bring Prosperity?
We decide our destiny, for better or for worse.
Poverty is the norm, prosperity is the exception. Prosperity doesn’t just happen. Good intentions and rhetoric are not enough.
Who will bring prosperity?
The majority of the population only cares about bread and circus. It is even worse with today’s generation as they lack the spiritual and moral strength to exist beyond being consumers. We have a pleasure and entertainment driven, emotionally charged culture.
People are not moved by facts but by manipulation of emotion.
Popular culture is characterized by “The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” –
Chris Hedges.
The majority just go with the flow as they lack any strong conviction of their own.
Change occurs when the small
committed minority of 10-20% of the population leads and creates the critical mass of flow necessary for the tipping point.
It was the same at the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the early 1800’s. Sikhs were only 12% of the population at that time, yet they changed the destiny of people in North India.
Raiders from Central Asia and Afghanistan used to raid Punjab, and enslave our ancestors to sell in the markets of Central Asia. But when 12% of the population changed their mindset, Sikhs established their fort at Jamraud near Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, conquered Bala Hissar fort used by raiders, planted Nishan Sahib on the Red Fort, and sent General Zorawar Singh into Tibet. This is the difference just 12% of the population can make. It is enough to transform destiny of the whole land.
The liberal elite will not fix our problems. “Today’s liberal classes believe only in one thing: maintaining their privilege. Their one priority is power. The number one rule is: preserve our careers, our institutions at all cost.” –
Chris Hedges.
“These systems managers made possible the genocides of the past, from the extermination of Native Americans to the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians to the Nazi Holocaust to Stalin’s liquidations. They kept the trains running. They filled out the paperwork. They seized the property and confiscated the bank accounts. They did the processing. They rationed the food. They administered the concentration camps and the gas chambers. They enforced the law. They did their jobs.
These systems managers, uneducated in all but their tiny technical specialty, lack the language and moral autonomy to question the reigning assumptions or structures.”
“The capacity to exercise moral autonomy, to refuse to cooperate, to wreck the megamachine, offers us the only possibility left to personal freedom and a life of meaning” – Chris Hedges, Movement for a People’s Party.
There is no magic spell that will fix our problems. There will be no messiah or strongman or a roadmap from outside that will fix things.
There are rare individuals(the committed minority)who can provide the moral and intellectual leadership required to lead the change, provided the social environment is suitable. They stay in the shadows if the social environment is not suitable.
Only we the committed minority can bring prosperity.
“If not me, then who? If not now, then when?” – Gorbachev.
We have to ask ourself if our everyday thoughts, words, and actions contribute to prosperity or not. Do our daily actions support a foreign, corrupt, planet destroying socio-economic-political system?
Ask yourself if our actions support human rights or take them away.
Ask yourself if you support absolute freedom of speech, or do you think it is acceptable to lock someone to preserve law and order.
Ask yourself if you do business with a genuine capitalist or a crony capitalist.
Ask yourself if your actions create fascism by bringing in big government.
Watch your thoughts, for they will become actions. Watch your actions, for they'll become your habits. Watch your habits for they will forge your character. Watch your character, for it will decide your destiny.
Thoughts -> Actions -> Habits -> Character -> Destiny (source unknown, attributed to Margaret Thatcher).
Do we have the moral strength, the emotional intelligence, and intellect to change the status quo?
“A solid upbringing is exactly what lies at the root of everything good in this world,” - Emmanuel Kant.
Perhaps, spiritual strength from good upbringing and moral values is the key to prosperity. IQ, genes, weather, location, geopolitics, natural resources, history, and other factors outside our control may or may not contribute to prosperity. But all we have under our control is our character and spiritual strength.
As an example, the conversations parents have with their children at dinner table in the evening decides their future. Most children and their parents are only capable of simplistic conversations with their phone or dog or cat. This should give us a realistic indication of our destiny and probability of prosperity.
When our character is of Guru’s Sikhs, we will not give in to brainwash and temptations of the nexus of government officials, politicians, corporations, and media.
When our character is of Guru’s Sikhs, we will have confidence to create a marketplace of ideas, and marketplace of goods and services in a capitalist economy.
When our character is of Guru’s Sikhs, we will elect leaders not on basis of what they can do personally for us, but on basis of their capability.
When our character is of Guru’s Sikhs, we will not enjoy the spiritual entertainment of controversies and emotional speeches, but rational logical thought.
When our character is of Guru’s Sikhs, we will make our own destiny.
Poverty is the norm, prosperity is the exception.
Like good character and good health, prosperity just doesn’t happen no matter how much we want it. It happens when we put conscious, intelligent, and sustained effort into it.
If we don’t consciously understand what brings prosperity, we will subconsciously bring poverty through our thoughts and actions.
We decide our destiny, for better or for worse.
Time is Now
These powerful new developments will destroy our prosperity at scale we cannot imagine if we let narcissistic bureaucrats control them.
We are at a great crossroads in history from the Great Convergence of multiple developments – the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum computing, end of Pax Americana, end of Globalization, end of US hegemony, de-Dollarization,
Gold-backed currency, Climate crisis, Dying days of the Empire, and more.
These powerful new developments will destroy our prosperity at scale we cannot imagine if we let narcissistic bureaucrats control them. These powerful developments have to be managed by a small virtuous meritocratic government. Our security and prosperity is at stake. The 3 Farmers laws in Punjab, and the government over-reaction to COVID pandemic were a trailer of what is to come.
As Dr. Martin Luther King said “We have guided missiles and misguided men”. We cannot let misguided men control guided missiles.
There are decades when nothing happen, and then are weeks when decades happen. Are we ready to take advantage of it, or will we be taken advantage of in these turbulent times?
“The time is always right to do what is right” – Dr. Martin Luther King.
Summary and Call to Action
Here is a model for prosperity in one (long) sentence:
human rights, property rights, environmental protection;
small, virtuous and meritocratic government; and
genuine Libertarian capitalism for the fourth industrial revolution.
Here is a handy pocket-size guide which you can use to see if a concept, proposal, or a person is good for prosperity:
| 10 guidelines for prosperity |
| Assess from actions if something or someone is good for prosperity or not |
| Human Rights |
Does it promote Absolute Freedom of speech |
or |
| Does it promote Property rights |
or |
| Does it promote Environmental protection |
or |
| Small government |
Does it lead to small, virtuous, and meritocratic bureaucracy |
or |
| Does it keep government small and taxes less than 10% |
or |
| Does it reject government managed social programs or social engineering |
or |
| Libertarian capitalism |
Does it keep means of production with people and businesses |
or |
| Does it tear down nexus between large business and government |
or |
| Does it promote participation in the Fourth Industrial revolution |
or |
| Police State |
Does it reduce police budget and intrusion |
or |
| Something or someone is good for prosperity only if all ‘Yes’ |
Our model for prosperity is also the history of Sikhs.
Sikh religion is more than a religion. It is the one and only proven socio-economic-political model for security and prosperity for all natives of this land.
The Khalsa
Raj(rule) of Banda Singh Bahadur brought freedom of speech and religion, human rights; small meritocratic libertarian government with revolution in property rights; and end to crony mafia capitalism of
nawabs and their
jagirs(estates). This was done more than 50 years before the French or American revolution.
We today are addicted to comfort, greed, entertainment, and make excuses due to our intellectual and organizational laziness.
Hundreds of years ago, our ancestors fought the tyranny of the largest empire of that time that controlled 25% of the global economy. Our ancestors gave us freedom from tyranny; human rights and property rights; equality and inclusiveness under law; good governance; and spirit of entrepreneurship. We have to do the same again today.
Related articles
How to change the world
Why is your life in the West so good?
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