The plans and commands of centralized government failed understanding of economic laws and principles.

My mentor and liberal economist Sauvik Chakraverti has good article in today’s Mint. The last paragraph read: 

“To clear this mess, we must get The State out of education. As Frederic Bastiat, a classical liberal, wrote in his manifesto of 1842: “If you want to have theories, systems, methods, principles, textbooks and teachers forced on you by the government, that is up to you; but do not expect me to sign, in your name, such a shameful abdication of your rights.” He added: “The monopoly of teaching cannot reasonably be entrusted to any but an authority recognized as infallible. Otherwise, there is an unlimited risk that error be uniformly taught to the people as a whole.” So let us be optimistic. There is much we can achieve without The State.”

2008 Bastiat Prize winners

The 2008 Bastiat Prize for Journalism wins Barton Hinkle.

Barton award winning articles are in PDF it has all the shot listed articles for this year prize

 The second prize was won by Swaminathan Aiyar

 Aiyar article are:

How foreigners improve our standards

Market slump and inequality

Path to nowhere leads to success

See the other post here

Why the Shadow Chancellor was so stupid?

FRASER NELSON writes “The Bastiat dinner was a great even” but “the calibre of the six finalists. Swaminathan Aiyar, from the Times of India, got the silver and Daniel Weintraub, from the Sacramento Bee, the gold. A great dinner, which went on to the small hours. I was fielding questions from Americans unable to comprehend why the Shadow Chancellor was so stupid as to climb abroad the yacht of a Russian oligarch – didn’t he know how bad that would look? Didn’t he think? I didn’t know what to say”. 

Who won the Annual Bastiat Prize for Journalism in India? by Chandra

It was the year 2002 the radical free market economist Mr Sauvik Chakraverti (India), columnist, Economic Times won the prize along with Amity Shlaes (USA), columnist, Financial Times and once again put the free society ideas on triumph!

The following are the articles which were nominated for this prize! It is an extremely readable one for all.

1. On Scarcity...and Abundance, The Economic Times, 28 January 2002
2. Teacher, Don't Teach Nonsense! The Economic Times , 26 March 2002
3. Liberals Must Dump Gandhi, The Economics Times, 24 February 2002

More here

In 2005 Mr Dinakar Sethuraman (India), Contributing Editor, Forbes Global and Ila Patnaik (India), Economics Editor, Indian Express were in the finalist for the prize.

And not finally……….Mr Amit Varma (India), Mint won the prize in 2007. His articles are equally readable! The nominated articles are here:

It is quite amazing to see how too late to g..e..t..the Bastiat Price for Journalism from India Mr Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, the man who is afraid of nothing in the economics journalism! He is one of the finalists for 2008 annual Bastiat Price!

Congratulations Mr Swamination!
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