Rape of Dominique, Free markets and Me

Being the product of our socialist Indian society, I did not readily believe in the positives of free-market. Then slowly, many authors/writers/columnists and life-experiences "happened to me". 

• Ashok Desai (Price of Onions fame), 
• Swaminathan S Ankleswarn Iyer (Swaminomics fame), 
• Gurucharan Das (India Unbound fame), 
• Atanu Dey (author of deeshaa.org), 
• Paul Graham (essay writer at eponymous paulgraham.com), 
• Amlan Dutta (ex Vice Chancellor of Vishwa Bharati University). 

They gradually convinced me about the multiple implications of freedom and the free market. On top of that I lived and experienced the changes brought by partial Indian liberalization of 1990s. As a result, from being a socialist in 1990s, I became a staunch pro-free-market person by 2012.

Then I read Ayn Rand for the first time. In 2012. By that time, I needed no more convincing. As far as I was concerned, Ayn Rand was preaching to the choir. But the her passionate language and reasons blew my mind. 

I also came across people with intense hatred against Rand. I found at least three people who told me, "But did Ayn Rand not glorify the rape of Dominique by her hero Roark"? I found out that none of the three has read Ayn Rand themselves. They had read commentary on Ayn Rand written by some third person. I postulated a tentative law "Anybody referring to the rape of Dominique has not actually read Fountainhead".

I also found that my socialism-to-free-market journey (from 1998 to 2012) is not typical. Many folks (I know of) are still in my 1998-frame-of-mind, i.e. they are still anti-free-market. Most of these anti-free-market people are in government jobs. That brings me to my second postulation: "A person whose salary is funded by taxes is unlikely to see the virtues of the free market. It goes against her/his means of existence". You cannot convince these people about free markets, and I have given up on such attempts. I understand that I might have become like them if I had taken up a government job.

That brings me to my third postulate. The education system must be privatized for betterment of the society. At least the delivery of education should be privatized. The government vouchers can still fund the students, but the delivery must be in the hands of a profit-driven industry. Otherwise, the socialist drivel is drilled deep into the psyche of impressionable minds. After that, it is challenging (myself being an example) or impossible to alter people's thinking.