The myth of the moral

The interviews in SP Jain this year had this rather unfortunate and disgusting emphasis on Morals. One question went like this:

Let's say you manage a company in Nagaland, and some BODO militants spirit away one of your workers and threaten to kill him unless you finance their activities. Would you do it? What if they asked you for a one time payment? What if they kept on regularly pestering you for payments?

Most of the participants said they would not make the payment, which according to me is the most cowardly and unethical choice there is. As an employer you also owe some responsibility to your employees and the state. So I would make a one time payment, or finance their activities (which would also be a one time payment at least initially), and then go to the police.

The next question came back: What if they keep pestering you for money ever afterwards?

Hell! That is the entire principle of taxation, progressive or otherwise.

The government comes around and asks you to pay them a large and substantial amount of your earnings, otherwise promises to throw you into jail (i.e. kidnap and hold you incommunicado). Well, well! When I am paying the government such a large amount of my money, I don't see why the terrorists shouldn't have their cut of my earnings as long as they are doing something useful with it like blowing up a few politicians. Probably most terrorists are ministers (most ministers certainly are), not the villains they are painted out to be (though most ministers are), doing what they are doing because the finance minister left them out when he was distributing the loot.

I really really would like somebody to make a cogent and clear argument as to why taxation is not just extortion when the only difference I can see is just that.

The finance minister though hasn't taken this lying down or horizontally. Money isn't reaching the militants, so he's decided that it's because there isn't any money to go around.

Result: Drop your pants, and I tax you.

The first ministry to actually put into practice the cliche': Taxed when you are born, and taxed when you die.

I now have to pay these guys a huge and wholesome tax when I take money out of the bank, when I buy an article and pay them a tax again when I earn the money in the first place. If that doesn't look like extortion, I don't know what does.

I hate this emphasis on ethics and morality that is plaguing India. The sooner we accept the notion that ethics are only a convenient fabrication of ours to act in strange and irrational ways, the easier it will be for us to do sensible things later on. After a certain point the emphasis on morality becomes less an emphasis and more of a xenophobic crusade. You do wonder whether these morality freaks actually mean what they say or if their mouths are on auto-pilot. Besides morals are a luxury, a weak and rather troublesome indulgence, like black coffee or hashish and only does more harm in the long run, by eliminating your capacity to think.

I hate morals and ethics.

P.S.:

After the interview, I asked a current student if interviews were usually this long and this pointless. Her reply?

"Just pray you get in. This is the best institute to teach you decision making."

The interview was a six hour long one! Ah! Decision Making....

Heaven help us all.

P.P.S:

I also hate taxes and P.Chidambaram