My friend Nihar over at hoopyfrood.org uses the analogy of saving drowning children in his new year musings to argue that we, the non-poor, have a moral responsibility for charitable giving for the benefit of the poor. I find much value in that argument. While I am willing to burden the rich with giving, I also have to hold the poor responsible to no small extent for the poverty in the world. The poor, as I have argued before, are responsible for their poverty.

Here’s a brief response I wrote to Nihar’s post, for the record.

Nihar, an excellent post with valuable insights.

I agree with your view that helping alleviating at least some of the horrendous misery that exists around the world is an imperative for moral people. That said, I would like to look at the obverse side of the issue. It is good to hold people to higher moral standards and demand that they meet them. If one pushes responsibility on the affluent, one should also demand the non-affluent to be more responsible as well. Though cliched, it is still true that it takes two to tango. Alleviation of poverty cannot be the sole responsibility of the non-poor. Perhaps the poor are to some extent — maybe even to a major extent — responsible for their poverty.

If one puts a collective burden the rich to solve poverty, one should also put a collective responsibility on the poor for their poverty. I say collective because individuals are helpless to do anything about the circumstances of their birth. Life is a random draw and you don’t get to choose your parents. Collectively the poor help perpetuate their poverty by their fecundity. If the number of children born to poor parents exceeds the capacity of the society to lift children out of poverty and provide them with a decent shot at life, then the numbers of the poor will continue to expand.

Today you save one poor child from drowning, to use your analogy. But that poor child grows up and produces more children and the world then gets burdened with the saving of multiple children from drowning. At some point, you have to impress on people that they have a personal responsibility towards the children they produce — and that if they cannot care for the children they bring into the world, they out of basic human decency should avoid doing so. It is selfish for adults to procreate in circumstances where neither the adults nor the society has the wherewithal to take care of the children. The rights of the children must matter, not just the rights of the adults who have the opportunity to have sexual intercourse.

The charities that I support are of two kinds: the first, those who help provide education to the children of the poor; the second, those that help the poor have only that many children as they can provide for. The former helps those unfortunates whose parents were irresponsible; the latter helps prevent more unfortunates from being born.

Atanu

What say you?

[Reposted from Asian Correspondent.]

No student of computer science can avoid learning that Turing was an intellectual giant in the field. I recall the excitement I felt when I first understood the power of Turing machines, those abstractions that define the limits of what is computable, and which are the idealized prototypes of all digital computers.

He was just 41 years old when he died. It is as hard to fathom the horrors the man must have endured as it is to estimate the loss humanity suffered from the premature extinguishing of his genius. According to the TIME magazine estimation in 1999, Alan Turing was one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. I think that Turing will also make the list of the top 100 people in the last 2000 years. Our lives are better for him having lived.

That he was forced to kill himself is a damning indictment (as if yet another reason was needed) of the unspeakable brutality that monotheism imposes on humanity. The Western world has to a large extent weaned itself from the ideology that condemns the innocent to torture and death. But the most virulent form of the ideology persists in other parts of the world and the discouraging signs are that it is spreading. They routinely torture, stone, and hang homosexuals in Islamic countries today, just as they did centuries ago.

Alan Turing was born in England but, as the wikipedia entry helpfully informs us, he was conceived in India. He would have been persecuted in India as well, since the bigoted laws of monotheistic Britain were imposed on India. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is exhibit A. It is a crying shame that a civilizational ethos that is so extremely accepting of individual differences should have such bigoted laws on its books. Indians should hang their head in shame that they accept the bigoted narrow-minded medieval attitude of the West and reject the ancient wisdom of their own land. Fortunately, things are changing. There’s been some move towards removing Section 377 from the IPC.

In the West, they are recognizing Turing’s greatness.

A 1.5-ton, life-size statue of Turing was unveiled on 19 June 2007 at Bletchley Park. Built from approximately half a million pieces of Welsh slate, it was sculpted by Stephen Kettle, having been commissioned by the late American billionaire Sidney Frank.

Brings to mind those lines of Samuel Johnson, “See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just, To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust.”

In closing, I quote a few lines from the beautiful song by Don McLean about Vincent Van Gogh but which could as well have been written for Alan Turing:

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Links:

This blog: The Catholic church back-peddles on Charles Darwin.

NPR: All Things Considered (audio).

BBC: PM apology after Turing petition.

The August 2009 issue of Pragati is out. I have a contribution in there. My perspective is that the Indian government must stop subsidizing Muslims who go on haj, and the more general case that the government must stop meddling in private religious affairs of the citizens. The text of my article is below the fold, for the record.

Stop Subsidising Pilgrimages
The Haj should be financed from private charity

In theory, according to its Constitution, the Indian state is secular; in practice, unfortunately, it is far from it. Indian governments routinely meddle in religious affairs and do not treat all its citizens as equal in matters of religion. They involve themselves in matters such as temple administration, fund management of temple donations, and subsiding pilgrimages. The most blatant example of such gratuitous meddling is the subsidy given to Muslims for going for haj to Saudi Arabia. In 2008, Indian taxpayers paid around Rs 700 crores (US$140 million) for Muslims to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Is that a reasonable thing for the government of India to do? No: it is bad in principle, economically inefficient and morally wrong. The government of a secular state must not concern itself with religious matters. India would do well to consider the example of the United States.

The first item of the US Bill of Rights, authored principally by James Madison and adopted in 1791, begins with the injunction that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” The absence of sectarian strife in the US is at least in part attributable to that amendment which, in the words of James Madison establishes a wall of “total separation of the church from the state.”

Something like the first amendment is vitally important and must be among the core set of rules of all civilized states. It traces its origins to the ideas of John Locke who held that each individual is free and equal, and that the job of the government of a civilized society is to protect the property rights of its citizens. The US strictly maintains that separation, as it should since it claims to be a secular state. It contrasts sharply with what goes on in India.

The rationale behind the Indian government’s Haj subsidy goes against any notion of social justice, fairness, and economic reasoning. Firstly, religion is a purely private affair and the government of a purportedly secular state should not get into the business of promoting any religion. Subsidizing the Haj is discriminatory and tantamount to endorsement of Islam. No other country on earth – including Islamic states – subsidizes haj.

Second, the subsidy is unfair. Fairness is the cornerstone of justice. It is unfair — and therefore unjust — for the government to force non-Muslims to subsidize the Haj because ultimately it is the taxpayers’ money that the government hands out. For an Islamic state to tax its non-Muslim subjects is understandable since Islam dictates that non-Muslims pay jizya — “a poll-tax levied from those who did not accept Islam, but were willing to live under the protection of Islam, and were thus tacitly willing to submit to the laws enforced by the Muslim State.” The Indian government is not Islamic and therefore must not impose jizya on its citizens.

Third, the haj subsidy politicizes a purely religious matter. Political parties attempt to woo Muslim votes by increasing the subsidy. They are in effect robbing non-Muslims to pay Muslim, thus attempting to gain the endorsement of Muslims. This is totally unconscionable.

From an economic point of view, subsidies and taxes are sometimes justified. For instance, revenues required for the provision of public goods have to be raised in some way and taxes are one way of doing so. Subsidies are justified in cases where markets fail to provide the socially optimal quantities of public goods. Even then, from an economic efficiency point of view, the taxes required for balancing the subsidies should be paid by the beneficiaries of the public good in question.

A case can even be made for the tax-funded public provisioning of some non-public goods and services, as when very high transaction costs are involved. Collective provisioning through taxes of a private good is justified when it is too expensive to determine individual quantity consumed for apportioning costs among a very large number of users.

The haj subsidy paid for from general tax revenues cannot be justified on the economic grounds mentioned above. The Haj is a not a public good; there is no market failure in its supply; the apportioning of costs is simple and efficient.

Can the Haj subsidy be justified on the grounds that it is charity? It is said that charity begins at home. And that is where it should stay. As a general principle, governments must not appropriate for itself the purely personal decision of its citizens on the matter of which charitable activity to support and to what extent. It is a matter of property rights: one has a right to spend one’s income as one sees fit. Using tax money to support discretionary spending is tantamount to extortion under the threat of violence, since one can be imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes.

Finally, there is the pernicious endowment effect: once an unearned benefit is granted, it is very difficult to remove it without incurring the wrath of the beneficiaries. No government would like to run the risk of removing the subsidy and antagonizing a large voting constituency.

The problem has a straightforward solution: move the funding of the haj subsidy from the public domain to the private domain. Constitute a non-governmental body whose task is to raise funds from private citizens. It is possible to do so in this day and age of low transactions costs due to the internet and mobile telephony. When people voluntarily contribute to fund the subsidy, it moves from the realm of coercion and becomes truly charitable.

This also takes the politics out of the whole matter and reduces the temptation that politicians have in robbing one group to gain the support of another group. By making this entirely voluntary, it removes the deep resentment many non-Muslims feel regarding the matter.

But there is a larger point which goes to the heart of what the job of a government is. Protecting the lives and property of its citizens is the primary reason for its existence. Everything else is secondary. Citizens should be on guard and prevent the government from usurping the freedoms that rightfully belong to them. When the government intrudes into such personal matters as whether or not to support the religious activities of some specific group, the state moves a little bit closer to fascism.

India needs to become a truly secular state since it is multi-religious. Its government has to be constitutionally directed to maintain a strict distinction between matters of religion and matters of state. If this requires a constitutional amendment, then it is time to introduce such a bill. The Indian government has to stop riding roughshod over the basic inalienable rights of its citizens – that of the rights to personal property and equality before the law. India needs the equivalent of the first amendment to the constitution of the United States of America.

The answer is absolutely clear to me: she may stay or go depending on what the law of the land says. Rule of law is something that I consider non-negotiable. So the deeper question is whether India at large, and West Bengal more specifically, is a nation that is governed by laws? Or is it that those who carry the largest sticks, those who can inflict punishment on the nation can dictate what the rules should be?

The more fundamental question is who makes the laws. In a strict sense, ultimately people decide what the law should be under which they will govern themselves. This is true generally and universally, I think. It is a “revealed preference” argument – the people explicitly or implicitly agree to be governed by the laws. For if it were not generally acceptable by the people, there would be mass disobedience and the law will not apply in fact. That certain people persist over long periods of time, often centuries, to allow themselves to be subject to certain laws is sufficient reason for concluding that that is what they want.

The laws of the land therefore reflect the distilled wisdom of the people of the land. If for some reason they have evolved a good set, they prosper; if the set is flawed, they suffer. I make this argument partly to shield myself from the distress I feel when I hear of the horrors that people commit around the world which are based on the law of the land.

Taslima, as a Muslim, is guilty of criticizing Islam and its holy book the Koran. She is guilty of pointing out that women are treated unfairly in Islam. The law of her land, the Islamic state of Bangladesh, finds her guilty. Moreover, her compatriots would murder her for what she believes in, has spoken and written about. That is the law of that land and there is nothing much one can do about it. That is the law and it is non-negotiable.

Recently, a case in Saudi Arabia attracted some attention. A woman was gang-raped 14 times. Her attackers were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms ranging up to five years; she was sentenced to six months in jail and 100 lashes for being in a car with an un-related male when the attack happened. Her lawyer appealed her sentence, but the judges increased her punishment to 200 lashes.

Saudi Arabia is governed by Sharia, the Islamic law, which requires segregation of the sexes. It must be that the Saudi courts do understand Sharia and can rule competently that the woman who was gang-raped does deserve to be punished for violating the Islamic law.

I am all for Sharia for Islamic countries. What I am against is Sharia being imposed on India now. If the people feel that Sharia should be the law of the land for India, then so be it. But India is not yet an Islamic state. Imposing Sharia by threat of violence should not be tolerated. More specifically, in this case, just because someone’s religious feelings are hurt by some author’s writings, it is not sufficient reason for killing the author.

Freedom of expression is something that some people grant to themselves, and some don’t. The people of the developed nations grant themselves that freedom. A case can be made that development is in a sense an outcome of that freedom. Support for it is provided by noting the strong correlation between how free a society is and how prosperous it is. Societies that forbid freedom of expression are insecure, cowering, fearful, and cowardly.

Taslima Nasreen is not alone in being the object of fearful cowardly people threatening her with violence and death. Another women, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, faces the same. She wrote the script of a documentary called “Submission“. The producer of that documentary, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam and a note pinned to his chest with a knife threatening Ayaan. She went into hiding and then had to leave the Netherlands because of the constant danger to her life.

Here’s her story, as she related it at a recent conference. It is a story of uncommon courage. It is hard not to be moved by her story.

The following question/answer session is below:

[Here is the Google video of the same presentation. It can be downloaded.]

I will be back with part 2 soon. But let me record here a bit of personal family history. My ancestors lived in what is today Bangladesh. About 100 years ago, the province of Bengal was partitioned. My grandfather was then a young boy. His family had to leave all their possessions and flee the land which had been their home for centuries to the western part of the state because the choice was stark: either convert to Islam or be killed. In a sense, we are displaced people, refugees. We have been made refugees once before due to Islamic intolerance. A few decades after that, India itself was partitioned because a large percentage of Muslims of undivided India could not bear to co-exist with non-Muslims. A bloody partition is in our history. I am not sure that it is the last one, though. It is quite possible that once again we may have to become refugees if Sharia indeed becomes the law in India. I, like my ancestors, would prefer not to live under submission.

Notes:

[1] I clarify that the state is in India so as to avoid any confusion, given the context, whether it is a place in India or not.

[2] A previous post on Naseen: Weep for Taslima, and Then for India. Other posts: On Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Exporting Islam.

[3] Here’s Submission on Youtube:

I agree with the conception of justice as fairness, as outlined by the Harvard philosopher John Rawls (1921—2002). Fairness must be the cornerstone of any social contract that I live under and subscribe to. “Is it fair?” is the question that would most interest me when I am evaluating any institution or situation.

When I meditate on the deaths of those poor people, and realize that it was not an accident but a crime, I am revolted by a judgment that does not even amount to a slap on a wrist for the criminal. Yes, people are involved in fatal traffic accidents. But a drunken driver killing people is not a traffic accident. To drive under the influence of alcohol is a deliberate decision. That action is more voluntary than involuntary. If that deliberate act leads to the death of innocents, the driver is guilty of murder, not involuntary manslaughter.

Six months of jail time for killing seven people? That’s not fair in my opinion. If the man had killed – or even injured – someone rich and powerful, I am sure that he would not have gotten off so lightly. But in this case, the victims were the poorest of the poor in the city of Mumbai. They slept on the streets, occasional victims of drunken driving by the rich and powerful. If I recall correctly, one movie idol of Indian cinema also had mowed down a handful of sleeping street people not too long ago. He too got away with it.

Collectively I think that the Indian society lacks a sense of fairness. I know that my claim will upset many proud Indians but no more than it upsets me to reach that conclusion. I see too many cases of oppression around for me to conclude that as a society we do not have a very well developed sense of what is fair and what is not.

What would I have ruled had I been the judge? If the prosecution had demonstrated that the driver was drunk and killed a bunch of people, I would throw the book at the criminal. And in the imaginary situation, I would imagine the book to say the following in the case of drunken drivers turned killers.

First, for every person killed, the driver gets a 20 year sentence. Second, he has to pay monetary damages that are set equal to the life-time income of an average person. Ten of the 20 years have to be served in prison and ten outside, with prison years alternating. If the killer has resources to pay for the monetary damages, they will be recovered immediately. Any shortfall in the monetary damages will be recovered from the person’s earnings during his time out of jail. After having finished the 20 years of sentence time, he will be free but his earnings will continue to make up for any shortfall in the monetary damages. The monetary damages are to go to the next of kin of the deceased.

So in the case of Alistair Pereira, since he killed 7 people, the total sentence time is set at 140 years. And total monetary damages to be around $200,000 (7 people times $700 person per year times 40 years of working life). He is wealthy and the family will be able to pay that off immediately. Alistair can then settle down to do his time in jail for the rest of his natural life. The $200,000 can go to help the families of those killed by Alistair.

I am not in favor of revenge. I don’t think that hanging Pereira is fair and just. He is responsible for the harm he caused and by killing him, the harm cannot be undone. But if he were to continue to work to repair the monetary damage at least, it would be better for society as a whole.

What I do advocate is that cases of Pereira-like killings must be prevented. How? By making people aware of that drunken driving kills; that those who kill while under the influence of alcohol will have to pay reparations and also serve mandatory jail time; and most importantly, no one is exempt from the fair application of this law.

The drunk movie star who killed the pavement dwellers some time ago provided an excellent opportunity for society to curb the incidence of drunken killing. Society should have locked that “hero” away for life, stripped him of all his assets to the last penny, and then publicized the incident and the punishment to such as extent that no one who was not totally comatose for the subsequent year would be unaware of who committed the crime, what his punishment for doing so was, and how thoroughly he paid for it. This would effectively put the fear of god into even retards and they would not dream of going near a driving wheel when they have had a few drinks.

But life is cheap in India. The guys who drive SUVs and Toyota Corollas are rich enough to buy out the law enforcement officers. The police can be bought and so can the judges. Politicians, I kid you not, can also be bought. Sorry that my cynicism is showing. But unless the people have a strong sense of fairness, there is little chance that justice will prevail in a country.

That sense of fairness, I am afraid, cannot be bought in a tube of Fair and Lovely.

Those who died were poor. The judgement was that it was a case of rash driving. The judge Ajit Mishra ruled that the drunken driver was not guilty of culpable homicide but was just guilty of rash driving.

The driver is a rich kid. It is amazing how badly the police mess up an investigation when rich people are invovled in a crime.

I am reminded of the incident of the wine-shop in Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” The carriage of Monsieur the Marquis runs over a little child and kills him.

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles.

“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man, “it is a child.”

“Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?”

“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis–it is a pity–yes.”

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt.

“Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. “Dead!”

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.

He took out his purse.

“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that.”

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, “Dead!”

He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men.

“I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?”

“You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smiling. “How do they call you?”

“They call me Defarge.”

“Of what trade?”

“Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine.”

“Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine,” said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, “and spend it as you will. The horses there; are they right?”

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor.

“Hold!” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the horses! Who threw that?”

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.

“You dogs!” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: “I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels.”

Later that night the Marquis is stabbed to death in his bed. Round the knife stuck into his heart is a messasge which reads “Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”

In the decade of Darfur and Iraq, and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to exactly that conclusion.

[Hat tip: Yuvaraj.]

It is cheaper to buy a child than a buffalo in India, according to activists who marched on a summit of South Asian nations in Delhi yesterday to protest against human trafficking.

Most end up in bonded labour or working as prostitutes, the leaders of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) said as they escorted more than 200 children to the gates of the Indian Parliament to call for changes to legislation.

“While buffaloes may cost up to 15,000 rupees (£177), children are sold at prices between 500 and 2,000 rupees,” Bhuvan Ribhu, who conducted a study to be released later this year, said.

Usually such reports lay out the absolutely heart-rending numbers:

India still has more than 12.6 million child workers aged 5 to 14. In Asia the estimated number is 122 million, according to the International Labour Organisation. India still has more than 12.6 million child workers aged 5 to 14, the largest number of any country in the world. Campaigners say that the new law has yet to make any difference because India’s economic boom creates an insatiable demand in the cities for cheap labour. In Asia the estimated number of child workers is 122 million, according to the ILO.

The policy response is to ban child labor. “In October India introduced a law banning children under 14 from working as domestic servants or in the food and hospitality sector. Offenders face two years in prison,” the report notes.

I think that banning child labor under the conditions that exist in places such as India is actually a remedy that is worse than the disease. I have written against such a policy here. The problem of children working as laborers belongs to a class of related problems. Consider one more from that class: the problem of selective aborting of female foetuses. Actually, these are just symptoms and not the actual problem. I have written about why I think these are symptoms and not the actual problem. See “The Skewed Sex Ratio“, “The Lop-sided Sex Ratio Revisited“, and “Sex Selection in a Second-best World“.

It is seemingly heartless to point out that basic economic reasoning would predict the abhorrent situation where a cow is worth many times more than a child. If the return on investment on a cow is high, then the demand for cows will be high. The market price of a cow is determined then by the supply relative to demand. By a similar calculus, the return on investment in a child determines the demand for a child. Poor people are by definition poor and don’t have the resources to invest in the education of a child. If they had the resources, they would have invested in the child’s education. But they don’t. The demand for a child among the poor is low, consequently. The supply, however, is fairly high, for understandable reasons. The price once again is determined by the interaction of supply and demand. The supply is high, the demand is low, and therefore the price is low.

I think marching to the capital to point out the problems that poor children face in India is important. But unless the people also recognize that the problem can only be solved by addressing the causes of the problem, there will be little progess. Reducing the supply is one way to increase the price. Another way is to increase the demand. How does one increase the demand for children. By ensuring a positive return on investment. That is something that society can do. If the poor had the opportunity of educating their children, they would go for it.

The poor cannot afford to educate their children. Society can provide free education. But that still does not work out if the parents are sufficiently poor that they cannot afford to forego the income that the child would have had if he or she had been engaged in labor. Clearly, you have to not only provide free education but also compensate the parents for the lost income. All this requires resources. If the society does not have the required resources, or lacks the political will to actually allocate resources to the problem, the end result is the neglect of children.

The other way to increase the price of a child is to reduce the supply of children. Birth control, the availability of abortion services, increasing the marriage age, etc, are ways to address that angle. But they are politically hard to do. The easiest palliative is to ban this or that.

If banning something was sufficient to remove the problem, I would be first in line for banning. If banning drugs or alcohol, for instance, had the beneficial effect of no drug abuse and had no side-effect of organized crime and violence, it would be great — setting aside for the moment the question of whether a person actually owns himself or not.

I think reports such as the one in Timesonline are extremely important because they shame some people into thinking about the problems whose unfortunate consequences are what the report highlights. We as a society should be ashamed that cattle are valued more than children. We can fix the problem but we lack the collective will to do so.