- The achievement of Columbus Nick Nielsen, The View from Oregon
- Goodbye, Columbus Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
- China and the new Middle East Michael Singh, War on the Rocks
- Rawlsian democracy and markets David Gordon, Mises Wire
Year: 2020
A short note on Iran and India
Introduction
Ever since the withdrawal of the US from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), or the Iran nuclear deal, in 2018, Iran-India economic linkages have taken a hit. The impact on the bilateral economic relationship between New Delhi and Tehran became even more pronounced after India stopped purchasing oil from Tehran in 2019. The US had ended the waiver from sanctions, which had provided to India and a number of other countries, the continued ability to import oil from Iran.
In 2018-2019, bilateral trade between India and Iran was estimated at over $17 billion (mineral oil and fuel imports accounted for a significant percentage of the $17 billion). In 2019-2020, for the period from April-November, bilateral trade was estimated at $3.5 billion. There was a significant drop in Iran’s imports to India, owing to the reduction of Iranian petroleum imports by India to zero.
Downward trajectory in the bilateral relationship
2019 witnessed a downward trajectory as far as New Delhi-Tehran ties were concerned, with Iran expressing its disappointment with New Delhi for not taking a firm stance against Washington. Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, in 2019, while making the above point in an interaction with Indian journalists, also stated that ‘if you can’t lift oil from us, we won’t be able to buy Indian rice.’
Chabahar Port and the India-Iran relationship
The US on its part has exempted the strategically important Chabahar Port Project, India’s gateway to Afghanistan, from sanctions. The Port was earlier touted by many as India’s counter to the Gwadar Port (Balochistan Province, Pakistan), which is at a distance of 70 kilometres and an important component of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Government of India had taken over Phase 1 of the Shahid Beheshti Port in December 2018 (according to an agreement India was to operate two berths within Phase 1 of the project). During the Covid-19 pandemic, India had used the Chabahar Port to deliver relief materials to Afghanistan.
After India’s decision to stop the purchase of oil from Iran, and the souring of ties between both countries, Iran has given indicators that it is keen to get Pakistan (Iran had proposed to connect the Chabahar Port with Gwadar Port) and China on board. Iran has also complained that progress on the Chabahar Port was slow due to India’s cautious attitude towards the project, (as a result of both American pressure and delays in funding).
In the aftermath of the Iran-China 25-year agreement, India has been paying greater attention to ties with Iran in general, and the Chabahar Project in particular, a point strongly reiterated by the back-to-back visits of India’s Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh, and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, to Tehran respectively. Connectivity, economic linkages, and issues of regional security (specifically Afghanistan) were discussed during both visits.
There were reports that India had been elbowed out of the Chabahar-Zahedan railway project, an important component of the Chabahar Project, but Iran has categorically dismissed this claim.
Indian exports of Basmati to Iran hit by sanctions
While the India-Iran bilateral relationship is often viewed from the prism of the Chabahar Port and Oil, Iran also accounts for a large percentage of India’s Basmati (an aromatic long grain rice) exports – 34%. There is likely to be a dip this year, due to sanctions, and Iran is already substituting Indian Basmati with Pakistani basmati.
The North Indian states of Punjab and Haryana account for 75 percent of Basmati exports. Indian Basmati exporters and growers have expressed their concern over the likely fall in exports to Iran (which is an important market).
Conclusion
The impact of US sanctions on Iran’s economic ties with India, with Basmati exports being an important example, reiterate the point that the Iran-India relationship is far deeper and multifaceted than is often perceived. While the thrust is on connectivity and geopolitics, the economic links are often overlooked. It is important for New Delhi to seek the views of all domestic stakeholders as far as economic ties with Iran are concerned.
New Delhi should also take a cue from the UK, France, and Germany – also referred to as the E3 – which set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV), known as Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), in 2019, to circumvent US sanctions. (During the Covid-19 pandemic, INSTEX was used to provide relief materials to Iran). New Delhi clearly needs to think out of the box, and accord its ties with Iran greater priority given the economic, historical, and political context. The visits of India’s Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh, and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to Tehran in the month of September clearly emphasize the point that India is doing a re-think with regard to its Iran policy, factoring its strategic and economic importance. There is also a realization that Washington’s approach towards Tehran may witness a significant shift if there is a change of guard in November 2020 (which can not be ruled out).
Nightcap
- The Fatal Conceit of F. A. Hayek (pdf) Larry Sechrest, Reason Papers
- Democracies are spontaneous orders, not states (pdf) Gus DiZerega, Cosmos+Taxis
- Empire: public good and bads (pdf) Coyne & Davies, Econ Journal Watch
- Bangladeshi colonies in space Asif Saddiqi, Los Angeles Review of Books
AOC doesn’t understand Christianity
I believe I wasted a lot of time some years ago arguing if Venezuela was a democracy or not under Hugo Chávez. The difficulty with this kind of conversation is that people can have very different views on what constitutes a “democracy”. That is part of the reason why North Korea can call itself a “democratic republic”. However, when somebody claims something about Christianity, and specially about what the Bible says, I feel more comfortable to debate.
I understand that it is like flogging a decomposing horse, but some months ago representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supposedly called out the hypocrisy of religious conservatives using their faith to justify bigotry and discrimination in the United States. Her speech can be watched here. I believe her point is this: conservative Christians only care about religion in order to support their so-called “bigotry”. AOC believes that Christians should support socialism, because after all, that’s what Jesus would do.
AOC says some truths: sadly, the Christian Scriptures have been distorted many times over American history to defend political agendas they were never meant to defend. AOC could go even further on that if she wanted: the Cristian Scriptures were completed almost 2 thousand years ago, and they simply don’t talk specifically to many of the political issues we have today. One can say they offer principles of conduct, but it’s really up to us to figure out how these apply to concrete situations we find today. In this case, using Scripture to support political agendas can be not only morally wrong, but also naive and misguided.
AOC is also right when she says that human life is special (although I would question if “holy” applies) and that we should “fight for the least of us”. All these statements and more are true!
What AOC really doesn’t seem to understand (and frankly, this is quite scary) is that Christianity can’t be forced upon people. Yes, biblically speaking, we are to care for the poor. However, the Bible is addressing we as individuals. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that says that we are to provide medical care for those who cannot afford via government fiat. Actually, there is nothing in the Bible that says that I can force people to act as Christians when they are not.
One of the great gifts from modernity is separation between church and state. I would submit that this separation was present in Christianity from the start, but the concept was so radically different from everything people were used to that it took some centuries for it to be put into practice, and we are actually still working on it. One of the things we realized in modern times is that we can’t force people to be Christians via government. And in her speech, AOC is trying to undo that. She wants government to force people to do a charitable work that can only be done if it is their choice.
As a Christian, I would say this: I would like to diminish suffering in this world, and this is exactly why I’m against the socialism AOC supports. One doesn’t have to be a genius to realize that the poor are much better off in countries that go further away from what Ms. Ocasio supports. It’s not simply a matter of wanting to help the poor, but of doing it in efficacious way. And also: I want to invite people to look to the example of Jesus, who being rich made himself poor for the sake of many. I do hope that more and more people might have their lives changed by Jesus. But I don’t want to force anybody to do that. I want to invite people to consider what Scripture says, and to make their choice to change their lives. As for now, I believe that capitalism is the most efficient way to help the poor humanity has discovered so far.
What is “White Privilege”?
A privilege is a benefit not generally available to the public. There are two source of privilege, voluntary positions, and governmental subsidies.
Suppose a person is the chief officer of a company, and the building has a washroom for the staff and one washroom only for the chief. The chief has the privilege of using the special washroom. It is a voluntary privilege, because the benefit is paid from the company’s revenues, obtained in the market from willing buyers, rather than forcing the public to pay for it.
In contrast, if an enterprise obtains a subsidy from government, and the cost is imposed on the taxpayers, it is an unjust privilege.
What kind is “white privilege”? I will examine this in the context of the United States of America.
Consider easy voting, in contrast to difficult voting. Some state governments make voting difficult for some minority groups, such as limiting the ballot boxes, or imposing difficult requirements that are applied more strictly on the minorities. But easy voting is not really a privilege, since voting is a right held by the public. Blocking the voting is a deprivation of the right to vote. Thus voting by white folks is a right, not a privilege. The minorities suffer, not a lack of privilege, but the denial of a legal right.
Now consider the case of members of a minority being mistreated by the abuse of power by the police. If a white person can go about his business with little chance of being shot by the police, where as a harmless black person has a much greater chance of being shot at, this is not a white privilege. This is rights-deprivation, a deprivation of the right to not be assaulted.
All of what is commonly called “white privilege” is not a direct subsidy to being white, thus not a privilege, but the absence of rights-deprivation. When whites have on average ten times the wealth of blacks, this is not a white privilege. This is the result of the deprivation of economic rights suffered by blacks for 400 years. There is no governmental subsidy that whites are obtaining directly from being white. What is going on is rights-deprivation for minorities.
There is, however, an indirect privilege obtained by whites relative to blacks. Land owners obtain an implicit privilege from government in the form of rent. The public goods provided by government, such as streets, security, and education, make locations more attractive and more productive. The goods thus increase the demand to be located there, which generates greater land rent and land value. As land gets inherited, those who obtained this rent privilege in the past then pass it on to future generations.
European-Americans conquered the land from the native Indians, and then the labor value stolen from the slaves generated greater production and thus higher land rent generally. African-Americans shared little in this land value, because substantial amounts of land were stolen from black owners, and discrimination prevented many African Americans from obtaining real estate.
Thus the greatest white privilege is the governmental subsidy that generates land value to whites who inherited wealth or obtained land value to a much greater degree than blacks.
The way to eliminate this white privilege is to share the ground rent equally, with a levy on most of the land value. Of course society should also stop the rights-deprivation that keeps minorities poor and deficient in political power. But equal rights will not stop the greatest privilege, the generation of rent from public goods, and the way to stop that is to shift all taxation to land value.
The greatest rights-deprivation that is taking place today is the taxation of wages, because engaging in labor and enterprise is a right, not a privilege. A tax shift will therefore simultaneously abolish privilege and stop rights-deprivation.
Nightcap
- What do workers want? Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias
- Bird brains Nick Nielsen, Grand Strategy Annex
- Democracy, deepfakes, and disinformation Adam Garfinkle, Inference
- Who is Sheldon Richman? (comments, too) Roderick Long, Policy of Truth
Nightcap
- The colonial contradictions of Albert Camus Oliver Gloag, Jacobin
- The making of the modern Right (oligarch’s revenge) Manisha Sinha, Nation
- On being eaten Lesley Evans Ogden, Aeon
- Eternal hospital Hao Jingfang, Noema
Nightcap
- The socialist manifesto Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias
- Why Amy Coney Barrett should step down Laura Field, Open Society
- There is no expressive duty to vote Chris Freiman, 200-Proof Liberals
Nightcap
- Required reading at French military schools Michael Shurkin, War on the Rocks
- Stealing libertarianism Chris Dillow, Stumbling & Mumbling
- Liberty is self-government, not rights alone Richard Reinsch, Modern Age
- How Big Film distorts colonialism’s legacy Lipton Matthews, Mises Wire
Pop Epistemology
I believe in gravity. I don’t believe in the flat earth conspiracy. But I haven’t done the work to verify either. Instead, I trust that some social process of “science” has done a reasonably good job of assembling and verifying the knowledge that keeps my house from collapsing or my car from exploding.
There are some areas where I’m qualified to hold an opinion. But honestly, it’s a pretty small set of things and subject to an infinity of caveats. The things I “know” are really things I believe because they were taught to me by sources I trust. It’s an imperfect system, but it works tolerably well and it frees up my time to do things like working, and having a life. I’m not going to “do my research” because that would mean not doing something with higher marginal benefit.
What Trumpians realize is that sowing distrust in sources of knowledge gives them an advantage in the marketplace of ideas. What’s worse is that they’re not wrong about the fundamental ambiguity of knowledge. I haven’t got enough time, energy, or inclination to verify that the sun will in fact rise again tomorrow. I can’t scientifically test the veracity of claims of what sorts of noodley appendages touch us all.
Do I know that Joe Biden is a better candidate than Trump? If I’m being honest, the answer is no. I’m not terribly comfortable with that, so I might decide against being honest. I know enough to verify that at least one of the candidates is a turd sandwich of a human being.
What I know for sure about this mess is that the problems are complex. Even a well funded team of experts with broad powers would have infinite problems sorting things out. And the sorts of people we try to put in power are less capable than well funded teams of experts with broad powers.
As always, I hope we learn a valuable lesson here. Complex systems are always going to confound our simple human sensibilities. Given the complexity of society, we should avoid aggregating so much power into the hands of politicians–especially when “the other guy” sometimes gets hold of that power.
Nightcap
- The language of taxation Frances Woolley, Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
- On feudal exploitation Chris Dillow, Stumbling & Mumbling
- A failed experiment John Tierney, City Journal
- Edward Van Halen (1955-2020) RIP Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
Nightcap
- Conflicts of interest in economic research Fabo, et. al, NBER
- In the dragon’s shadow Frank Beyer, Asian Review of Books
- 2020 is a black comedy Scott Sumner, The Money Illusion
- The risk of creeping Apartheid? Chris Bertram, Guardian
Nightcap
- The bottom of the Progressive barrel Michael Koplow, Ottomans & Zionists
- Taking liberties with the history of freedom James Hankins, Law & Liberty
- Happiness: a tale of two surveys Nick Nielsen, The View from Oregon
Nightcap
- Why Adam Smith was right Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
- Understanding the war in Kenya and Ethiopia Dalle Abraham, Africa is a Country
- Propaganda and art in Iran today Amir Ahmadi Arian, NYRB
- The crypto state Bruno Maçães, City Journal
Nightcap
- Tell me about your mother Claire Jarvis, Hedgehog Review
- The internet of beefs Venkatesh Rao, Noema
- Bangkok’s bloodless revolt Kapil Komireddi, Critic
- Rethinking world order Rebeccah Heinrichs, Law & Liberty
Notes On Liberty 