I was published at Liberty Unbound with an article on India’s corruption, socialism, bureaucracy, and the everyday collapse of basic public infrastructure.

In the article, I describe the road outside my parents’ house in Bhopal: a small, broken lane that had become a temporary highway, filling the house with dust, damaging health, wasting time, and imposing costs on everyone except those responsible. The failed repair of that road became a small but exact picture of how India works: costs are externalized, work is performed for appearances, photographs replace results, bureaucrats evade responsibility, and corruption becomes part of the moral atmosphere.

The story of the Indian road is the story of much of India. The country keeps asking for more government, even though government failure is already everywhere. What appears to be poor administration is rooted in deeper habits: socialism, mysticism, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and the steady deterioration of social morals.

Read the archived article at Liberty Unbound via the Wayback Machine →