Is India Important for America’s Freedom?

[Ed Hudgins]

Is India Important for America’s Freedom?
by Edward Hudgins

November 24, 2009 – The visit to the U.S. of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will focus on important geo-political and economic issues. But this visit also should focus attention on the role India might play in an emerging global culture of freedom, helping both America and India. Friends of liberty should take note.

Unenlightened legacy

India seems an unlikely candidate to enhance the planet’s freedom. Its culture has been steeped in irrational religious beliefs, mostly unleavened by modern intellectual enlightenment. Religious violence between Hindus (80 percent of the population), Muslims (13 percent), and Sikhs (2 percent) goes back centuries. While tamped down, it still breaks out today. Particularly anathema to individualism is India’s caste system, which sets human worth based on accidents of birth rather than personal achievements. Couples are still murdered for marrying outside of their castes. Most marriages are still arranged.

In their century-and-a-half rule over India, the British contributed railroads and other infrastructure and they tried to ban some odious practices such as wife-burning. The Brits also offered educational opportunities for India’s small elite. Sadly, most of India’s post-independence leaders were not taught the free-market philosophy that made Britain the 19th century’s economic leader but, rather, the Fabian socialism that would contribute to Britain’s and India’s late-20th-century economic stagnation.

Central planning failed in India as it did in other socialist countries, and India was—and still is—burdened by ossified and corrupt government bureaucracies. Interestingly, India was so isolated from the global economy that it neither exported nor imported very much and thus, unlike Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, it did not rack up huge international debts in the 1980s. India had nowhere to go but up.

Asian rivals

Starting in the 1990s India began to adopt free-market reforms. The Index of Economic Freedom ranks it 54.2 percent free, not a great score but considerably better than in the past. Economic liberalization brought dramatic economic growth averaging nearly 6 percent annually over the past two decades.

India ’s population of 1.16 billion is second only to China, with 1.3 billion. By contrast, there are 308 million Americans. America’s GDP of $14 trillion is still the world’s highest; China’s is $8 trillion, while India’s is just over $3 trillion.

Most American policymakers focus on China rather than India as the country’s most important relationship in Asia. China is seen as America’s major emerging economic rival as well as a potential economic partner. China is America’s largest creditor, holding over $650 billion of the country’s debt. China’s growing military poses security concerns. China’s global security interests are often at odds with those of the United States. And it’s difficult for the U.S. to pressure the country that holds so much of its debt to act against its economic self-interest by taking strong actions against regimes with which it trades but which also sponsor Islamist terrorists.

Further, China’s mix of capitalism and socialism with non-democratic communist rule and restrictions on freedom pose wider problems. The emerging global culture requires open trade and communications between individuals to support economic liberty. It requires respect for the freedom and dignity of individuals and an appreciation of the value of a rational, this-world approach to life.

Friends of freedom who want to live in free countries in a free world thus should consider the promise that India offers toward reaching this goal.

Seven promising points

First, in spite of the unfortunate socialist infection that India caught from Britain, the former British Raj gave India’s educated class familiarity and experience with the economic, legal, and political ways of the West.

Second, India is a democracy, an imperfect, sometimes repressive one to be sure—but politically better off than China. India is more likely to meet its challenges with debate and votes rather than guns and prisons.

Third, the British bequeathed to India’s educated class the English language. English is the international language for business, science, and virtually everything else. The Indian government tried for decades to push Hindi as the national language, even though it is only spoken by about one-third of the country’s population. But English has remained a language that allows Indians from different parts of that multi-lingual country to communicate with one another. It also lets them integrate more easily with the rest of the world and, most notably, the American economy.

Fourth, India has in fact become a location of choice of many American firms for service jobs in high-tech, publishing, and 1-800 help lines. These are not the low-skilled assembly-line jobs often associated with emerging economies. They are high-skilled jobs at enterprises set up by Indian entrepreneurs. Indians in these jobs frequently interact with American counterparts.

Some Americans complain about such outsourcing but, of course, both countries win in these relationships. And when individual Indians and Americans deal openly and directly with one another, it is a cultural as well as economic plus. Meanwhile the Chinese government works hard to censor and restrict communications with the rest of the world, leaving channels open just enough to allow economic transactions.

Fifth, the economic opportunities have produced an Indian middle class that, while certainly not as prosperous as America’s, enjoys the basic comforts and pleasures of life—and it numbers 250-300 million, as large as America’s entire population. Certainly this will be an important market for American goods as well as ideas in the future.

And we see in this middle class many of the values and aspirations of free people in any healthy culture. For example, the productions of India’s dynamic “Bollywood” movie industry often celebrate love and life; Bollywood-influenced Slumdog Millionaire garnered eight Oscars in 2008, including best picture.

Sixth, there is a growing interest in India about the ideas of freedom and reason. For example, Google Trends shows from where in the world the most inquires come for given terms. It shows that India ranks either first or second, depending on when one checks, for the terms “Ayn Rand,” “The Fountainhead,” “Atlas Shrugged,” and “Objectivism.” This interest reflects a thirst for a philosophy of life on this Earth.

Further, there are two excellent libertarian think tanks in India, the Liberty Institute and the Centre for Civil Society. They are run by Barun Mitra and Parth Shah respectively and both are strongly influenced by Ayn Rand.

Seventh, India is dealing with its domestic violence between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs better than most other countries in the region. For example, the 2006 train bombing and 2008 massacre by Islamists in Mumbai didn't result in the kinds of massive, hate-motivated demonstrations seen, for example, in London in reaction to the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Muslims and Sikhs as well as Hindus hold top political and business positions in India and thus have an incentive to keep the country peaceful and stable.

Person to person

Part of the emerging synergy for freedom between the United States and India is seen in the growing number of immigrants to the U.S. from that country. They and their descendents are realizing the American dream. This is a highly affluent immigrant group. Many are medical professionals. There is a strong and successful community of Indian-American businessmen and entrepreneurs who tend to be free market-oriented.

It is interesting that in the mid-1980s, shortly before her murder, India’s then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the U.S. and spoke to a group of émigrés with what she described as mixed feelings because so many of the best Indians had left their homeland.

Today, thanks to easy communication and travel, Indian-Americans are able to keep in closer touch with family, friends, and business associates back in India, facilitating more cross-cultural contact and serving as a potential bridge for the best pro-freedom ideas from America.

The greatest number of foreign students in American universities come from India. This is particularly important because these students will have a deep personal connection with the United States and appreciations for its freedoms and culture--unless they're corrupted by America's socialist professors! They will be the leaders of their country in the future.

Namaste to freedom

The values of individual liberty are universal, appropriate for all people regardless of country. Americans today should be thankful that our country’s Founders put these values into practice in the U.S. government. Today those values are under threat.

We can help preserve and protect them by fostering their flowering throughout the world, not so much through armies as ideas. Many Indians have come upon these ideas and said “Hello” to freedom on their own. Americans who still love freedom should see those individuals as potential partners in liberty, for the good of Indians and Americans like.
---------
Hudgins directs advocacy and is a senior scholar for The Atlas Society, the center for Objectivism in Washington, D.C.

For further reading:

Edward Hudgins, “The Golden Door: Immigration, Liberty, and the American Character." The New Individualist, Summer, 2006.

[BaalChatzaf]

In addition to which India is a source for first class medical services. Not only that India provides good generic substitutes for U.S., Canadian and European drugs, at very reasonable prices. I have been getting a generic equivalent to Advair ™, an asthma inhaler, at about one sixth the price charged in the United States. It works fine.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ed Hudgins]

In addition to which India is a source for first class medical services. Not only that India provides good generic substitutes for U.S., Canadian and European drugs, at very reasonable prices. I have been getting a generic equivalent to Advair ™, an asthma inhaler, at about one sixth the price charged in the United States. It works fine.

Ba'al Chatzaf

We can breath more freely thanks to India!

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Ed,

Thanks for this terrific commentary. Immigration policy is going to become an important battle for Objectivists in the next few years. It looks like xenophobe Lou Dobbs is even thinking about a run for the White House in 2012. Our current immigration restrictions keep the US from attracting the best and the brightest from around the globe which has been a huge source of American prosperity. We need top notch engineers, doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs from China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. It is especially important in the current economic environment to resist the short-term thinking of native hire and encourage US companies to hire the best talent the world has to offer.

Jim

[Robert Campbell]

It isn't just that more Indian immigrants would benefit us (and, over time, the culture back home).

It's that political and diplomatic rapprochement with India was one of the few things that Dubya got unequivocally right.

Now Obama is trying his best to undo it.

Robert Campbell

[Selene]

Ed,

Thanks for this terrific commentary. Immigration policy is going to become an important battle for Objectivists in the next few years. It looks like xenophobe Lou Dobbs is even thinking about a run for the White House in 2012. Our current immigration restrictions keep the US from attracting the best and the brightest from around the globe which has been a huge source of American prosperity. We need top notch engineers, doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs from China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. It is especially important in the current economic environment to resist the short-term thinking of native hire and encourage US companies to hire the best talent the world has to offer.

Jim

Thanks Ed! I almost take the quality of your writing for granted, which is not fair to you.

Jim:

Excellent discussion. The current abortion called immigration is the direct result of Ted Kennedy's mid sixties "immigration reform act". Essentially, securing the borders of the US have nothing to do with open immigration when you clearly state the criteria for your entrance into the United States.

Secondly, the Immigration "service", essentially, needs to be dismantled.

It is clearly a sane policy to state, these are the criteria for applying for citizenship, visas, etc.

At the same time, if we have to hire a line of people, shoulder to shoulder, across our two land borders. The Gulf, Great Lakes and the ocean coastlines are a particularly challenging problem which will require a multi disciplined, multi technological virtual net.

This can be immediately implemented.

Lou Dobbs campaign folks are saying that he is going for the Senate in NJ. Considering we currently have a corpse [Lautenburg, Frank (D)] and moron [Menendez, Robert D)] as Senators, so any functioning mind would be an improvement.

What is your vision of an objectivist immigration policy. I know that this was always hotly debated in all my libertarian work for the last four decades.

Adam

[anonrobt]

Ed,

Thanks for this terrific commentary. Immigration policy is going to become an important battle for Objectivists in the next few years. It looks like xenophobe Lou Dobbs is even thinking about a run for the White House in 2012. Our current immigration restrictions keep the US from attracting the best and the brightest from around the globe which has been a huge source of American prosperity. We need top notch engineers, doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs from China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. It is especially important in the current economic environment to resist the short-term thinking of native hire and encourage US companies to hire the best talent the world has to offer.

Jim

Thanks Ed! I almost take the quality of your writing for granted, which is not fair to you.

Jim:

Excellent discussion. The current abortion called immigration is the direct result of Ted Kennedy's mid sixties "immigration reform act". Essentially, securing the borders of the US have nothing to do with open immigration when you clearly state the criteria for your entrance into the United States.

Secondly, the Immigration "service", essentially, needs to be dismantled.

It is clearly a sane policy to state, these are the criteria for applying for citizenship, visas, etc.

At the same time, if we have to hire a line of people, shoulder to shoulder, across our two land borders. The Gulf, Great Lakes and the ocean coastlines are a particularly challenging problem which will require a multi disciplined, multi technological virtual net.

This can be immediately implemented.

Lou Dobbs campaign folks are saying that he is going for the Senate in NJ. Considering we currently have a corpse [Lautenburg, Frank (D)] and moron [Menendez, Robert D)] as Senators, so any functioning mind would be an improvement.

What is your vision of an objectivist immigration policy. I know that this was always hotly debated in all my libertarian work for the last four decades.

Adam

Basically, if there were no government [public] welfare for immigrants, there'd be almost no problem...

Edited November 26, 2009 by anonrobt

[Selene]

anonrobt:

I think you are a little too quick with that statement.

Depending on where you live, you may have a situational bias.

There was little or no public welfare during the great immigration waves.

German/Dutch

Irish

Italian

Actually, I need to take a look at the immigration patterns since the early 1900's when my people from Northern Italian hit the shores.

Adam

[jeffrey smith]

Adam:

Italian-Jewish-East European-Scandinavian-Scandinavia, if you please

(Not to mention Chinese and Japanese)

Anti-immigrant movements go back to the Know Nothings of the mid 19th century, and no immigrant group in US history (unless you count African slaves as immigrants) received such venomous treatment as the Irish, but the Chinese immigrants fared almost as badly. The great wave of immigration in the four decades preceding World War I stirred up more xenophobia, from which the post war KKK drew its strength (in many places, the KKK was much more an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant movement than it was an anti-black movement). The immigration quotas were made law in response to that xenophobia, drastically skewing immigration quotas in favor of British and German Protestants, thus making it relatively easy for those that didn't want to come here to immigrate, while making it very difficult for the people (Southern and Eastern European) who were most inclined to immigrate to actually achieve that goal. Most of the motivation behind those quotas was racist in origin. And although the system has been changed in the details since then, we're still living with a system in which the major factor that decides who comes and how they come is country of origin, not personal potential.

As it happens, your comment about "situational bias" applies to me. I live in area where immigrants may actually be the majority; where they come from all over (mostly the various countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, but also Israel, Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, etc. etc.), where the vast majority of them seem to be legal residents if they haven't already been naturalized, where most of the entrepeneurship comes from the immigrant community; where most of them ensure that the children speak English fluently even if they, the adults, can't--where, in short, immigration seems to work the way it is supposed to work.

Ironically, the least popular country of origin (meaning the country that seems to have the fewest natives living in this area) is Mexico. But the rest of Central America is well represented.

So when I read people making claims about the vast problem immigration represents, I tend to be skeptical.

I think it's obvious that as long as the US is prosperous enough that living here is significantly better than living in their home countries, people will come here--and if they can't do it by legal means they will do it with illegal means. Canute and the rising tide comes to mind here. So if people are that much afraid of what immigrants will do to this country, the best thing they can do is to work vigorously to ensure that America becomes a third world country. Then the immigrants will stop coming. (I used to propose this as a Modest Proposal. However, current events don't allow it to be a satire anymore.)

Jeffrey S.

[Selene]

Jeff:

What, in your opinion, would be a workable immigration "policy" from this point forward for a constitutionally limited government?

I have no problem with the policy being skills based versus port of origin based.

Adam

[jeffrey smith]

Jeff:

What, in your opinion, would be a workable immigration "policy" from this point forward for a constitutionally limited government?

I have no problem with the policy being skills based versus port of origin based.

Adam

Essentially, as open and flexible as possible. Whether the government is constitutionally limited or not doesn't matter in this regard.

1) Enforcement should aim simply at keeping out terrorists, criminals, etc. At the optimal, a reliable system of background checks in the home countries--which may or may not be a realistic idea, of course. But even if we adopt a suboptimal system, the aim should simply be keeping out criminals and jihadis, and not focused on hunting down legitimate job seekers.

2) Anyone who passes the checks in step 1 can come here, but will be ineligible for any sort of government welfare or unemployment compensation until they have been here for a certain number of years and/or paid taxes for a certain length of time. IOW, they can't draw from the pot until they've paid into it for a reasonable length of time. In the meantime, it's up to them to find a way to make a living. If there's jobs available, they'll be able to work; if there isn't, they'll go back home. Whatever labor laws, etc. are in existence would apply to them equally, as would health insurance (or perhaps a special category of insurance for people who haven't been living here long enough).

How does that sound to you?

Jeff S.

Edited November 27, 2009 by jeffrey smith

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Ed,

Thanks for this terrific commentary. Immigration policy is going to become an important battle for Objectivists in the next few years. It looks like xenophobe Lou Dobbs is even thinking about a run for the White House in 2012. Our current immigration restrictions keep the US from attracting the best and the brightest from around the globe which has been a huge source of American prosperity. We need top notch engineers, doctors, scientists and entrepreneurs from China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. It is especially important in the current economic environment to resist the short-term thinking of native hire and encourage US companies to hire the best talent the world has to offer.

Jim

Thanks Ed! I almost take the quality of your writing for granted, which is not fair to you.

Jim:

Excellent discussion. The current abortion called immigration is the direct result of Ted Kennedy's mid sixties "immigration reform act". Essentially, securing the borders of the US have nothing to do with open immigration when you clearly state the criteria for your entrance into the United States.

Secondly, the Immigration "service", essentially, needs to be dismantled.

It is clearly a sane policy to state, these are the criteria for applying for citizenship, visas, etc.

At the same time, if we have to hire a line of people, shoulder to shoulder, across our two land borders. The Gulf, Great Lakes and the ocean coastlines are a particularly challenging problem which will require a multi disciplined, multi technological virtual net.

This can be immediately implemented.

Lou Dobbs campaign folks are saying that he is going for the Senate in NJ. Considering we currently have a corpse [Lautenburg, Frank (D)] and moron [Menendez, Robert D)] as Senators, so any functioning mind would be an improvement.

What is your vision of an objectivist immigration policy. I know that this was always hotly debated in all my libertarian work for the last four decades.

Adam

Well, I think the Objectivist view is that foreigners should be able to live and work where they choose, criminal, epidemiological and limited national security considerations aside. Harry Binswanger wrote a piece loudly championing open immigration. Having been through a 6 year immigration process with my wife, I can say that the current system is beyond ridiculous.

Jim

[Ed Hudgins]

Thanks Jim Adam, Ananrobt! It is always strange to me when I see the anti-immigrant rhetoric from conservatives. I always tell them to get mad at the federal government for not providing an efficient, legal mechanism for immigrants who want to come here to work. And, of course, if there were no welfare state we wouldn't have many of the free-rider problems associated with illegal immigration. (By the way, my mom's family are Italian immigrants, from Abruzzi!)

By the way, for an excellent book on welfare before the welfare state, check out David Beito's From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967. He spoke at a TAS event in NYC in the late '90s.

I offer a discussion of immigration in my piece The Golden Door: Immigration, Freedom, and the American Character.

All, plus Jeffrey – My clever conclusion concerning how to deal with the current illegal immigration issue is this: Some want to penalize or make illegal immigrants pay fines and such for coming to the U.S. illegally as a prerequisite to becoming legalized and citizens. Others want to give them all sorts of free welfare state handouts, e.g. free Obamacare. So what if their "penalty" is that they will never receive any federal benefits—no Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, etc. But, of course, they would be exempt from all SS, Unemply, Medicare, etc taxes.

The liberals wouldn't know how do with such a proposal! A lot of Americans would probably give up their citizenship, move to Mexico, and reenter the country illegally in order to get such a deal!

[Ed Hudgins]

A bit more good news from the subcontinent!

http://www.reuters.c...B00309720091203

India will not sign binding emission cuts-minister

Thu Dec 3, 2009 8:30am EST

NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuters) - India will not accept a legally binding emission cut nor a peak year of carbon emissions at the global climate talks in Copenhagen, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday…

[Robert Campbell]

Adam,

I agree that immigration to the United States should be entirely open, once provisions are made for

• screening out terrorists (by means up to and including questionnaires about subscription to Salafi or Khomeinite Islam, and about belief in the imposition of shari'a) and serious criminals

• screening out serious public health threats

and

• making immigrants ineligible to receive welfare, either for an extended period of time or for the duration of their stay in the US

The 1924 law was so motivated by crude racism and xenophobia that it made immigration by "Hindus" nearly impossible. The curbs were enacted despite the near-total absence of Indian immigrants from the United States at the time. It was the 1965 law that enabled Indians to come to this country.

Ed,

That's great news about the Indian government refusing to play ball in Copenhagen.

Robert Campbell

[anonrobt]

Adam,

I agree that immigration to the United States should be entirely open, once provisions are made for

• screening out terrorists (by means up to and including questionnaires about subscription to Salafi or Khomeinite Islam, and about belief in the imposition of shari'a) and serious criminals

• screening out serious public health threats

and

• making immigrants ineligible to receive welfare, either for an extended period of time or for the duration of their stay in the US

The 1924 law was so motivated by crude racism and xenophobia that it made immigration by "Hindus" nearly impossible. The curbs were enacted despite the near-total absence of Indian immigrants from the United States at the time. It was the 1965 law that enabled Indians to come to this country.

Ed,

That's great news about the Indian government refusing to play ball in Copenhagen.

Robert Campbell

Speaking of Copenhagen, - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html