The Fragility of Constitutionalism and the Free Market

POTUS, a constitutional artifice, exposes the fragility of a constitutional system, which has been, undoubtedly, the most robust. The acts of commission and omission from this office have dealt a significant blow to constitutionalism worldwide, which, nonetheless, is struggling to hold on. To me, this manifests a global deficiency of imagination. To see and hold the good has always been challenging. Sages, out of love for human lives, do not seek sacrificial goats to see their ideas prevail. The world is a more perilous place today than it has been at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Let me play my old tune here again. What I say needs unceasing repetition. This is: freedom emanates from the free market and culminates in it. Freedom remains a chimaera so long as the market is not free, i.e., its invisible hand is allowed to work. By extension, democracy needs a free and fair regime of trade to prevail if it is to become the global trend. Its alternative is imperialism, which would lead to the recolonisation of most political communities by a few. If the revitalisation of imagination is delayed, many generations, including the present one, will pay the price.

Niraj Kumar Jha