By Saswat Pattanayak

Today will be remarkable for its deep venality and outright disgust. To add to the tragedy, not that many will mind it a wee bit. But as people will rush to finish filing taxes to meet tomorrow’s deadlines, it is perhaps a time to candidly examine the system of taxation that defines capitalism to a great extent.

For whom the taxes toll?
Instead of a banal question that wonders if taxation is a good thing or a bad thing (which is as debatable as ethics of don Imus), lets ask if it serves the purpose –and more importantly, whose purpose. Logically, the taxation system must be serving some purpose—else, we would not be having the IRS at the first place emerging as the biggest bureaucratic makeup in the country. Now the critical question is whose purpose is it serving.

Surface answers are quite obvious: taxes serve the rich in a capitalist country. After all, the rich get richer, and the poor poorer as the economic gaps in the first world countries would indicate. But it is this extent of disparity that must force us to pause and rethink the strategies to make the taxation system work- for the majority. (And I am not talking about tax reforms here.)

Perhaps it would be fruitful to assume that the taxation system means differently for the power structure at various phases of history. At one point not so long ago, the landless alone paid the taxes. Slavery was the most visibly institutionalized taxation format in the world. Be it under the ruthless kings, the colonialists or the slaveowners, the sarbahara (dispossessed) was exploited beyond humane reasons. From this exclusively oppressive taxation limited to the poorest, to the current practice of universal taxation aimed at the larger population—the point to ponder is how much has changed ever since, and how much needs be replaced.

Capitalism as Charity:
Indeed, no one wrests for capitalism. There is never a revolution enacted with an aim to provide capitalism. Capitalism is the biggest antidote to revolution, because it is based on charities. Not only it thrives on charities, it in fact originates as one. As inherently mocking is charity towards its recipients, capitalism is doubly so. Doubly, because it transcends the hypocrisy of charity and even declares charity itself as a revolution.

If a car brand called Chevrolet amuses itself as the American Revolution or a TV producer Oprah Winfrey declares the push-up bras she gifts out to standardized women as the biggest revolution in the world, its because in an depressingly shell-shocked environment, only the most ignorant can be permitted to legitimize their views.

As the ancestral philosophies of these ribald declarations, charities have been equated with the “revolutionary” thoughts of capitalism. From the founding days of so-called revolutions in all the first world countries, one has only witnessed filthy “free” rules by the master class over their slave classes of subjects. It was not until the middle of last century that the oppressed class received some of the political rights, if at all. Why did the owner class of the “democracies”- Greek to American- call themselves free rulers of a subjugated people for hundreds of years? Because they thrived on their charities towards the “commoners”—at once, getting rid of the psychological guilt and financial burden.

Likewise, political power was granted in charities—indeed this continues to be the case, as we witness the perfect embodiments of rich capitalist class wielding political power in all the “modern democracies”. A system of taxation, thus was evolved to sustain the class character of charities.

Class Character of Charities:
Its rather simple to understand—the more we have, the more we can donate. In fact, many even go to the extent to justify why they need to have more: because they can donate more! In the perfect sense of reformism, the only way a human being can be useful to the world is by being able to donate more to the world. And the donation is not “empty” thoughts that might turn “dangerous” (and therefore the collective disdain at the Communists in this country, for example), but the donations have to be in form of goods, lotteries, charity shows –all forms of capitalistic exhibitionism.

Individual prerogatives:
Many reformists in the past and present argue for opposing the payment of taxes. Some pacifists argue, since a portion of it goes towards war purpose, it is rather not to be paid. By that logic, the absolutely illiterate celebrities (sounds like a redundant phrase here) protest they are paying way too much for (education of) the poor. Both are dangerous freedom frolics who would probably wish for both Imus and Hip-Hop lyrics to stay on, because they would want to have a piece at the dirt arena too. With all the cameras focused on Al Gore and Anna Nicole (these types are born immortal, after all), its rather a good idea for them to maintain the circus of abuses in the name of freedom! More money, more freedom. Add a pinch of Charity, Cause, or Commotion—and we will have another guilt-free year when we file the taxes.

So what is our role here? All of us—the majority of people- who want to pay honest taxes so that they will be spent for good cause? Should we merely refuse to pay taxes? Hell, no. So should we not apply for “deductions”? Yes? Sounds like a noble idea. This way at least we can make sure that our share of tax remains with the IRS, and not paid back. Sounds good.

But highly improbable. With the hundreds of thousands of tax consultants who are ready to swing the carrots of refunds on our face, and the perfectly “legal” clauses that ask for the Thrift Store receipts or Tuition Fee deductions, why would one refuse to claim the benefits? After all, do we ever insist that the discounts at JC Penney be just not applied to our counter purchases?

Ironically, the truth of charities is that it creates a society based on greed and competition. Both greed and competition promote lies, deceit and outright oppression. For an instance, as a student, perhaps one would say a deduction should be claimed on the textbook purchases. At the same length, a venture capitalist would claim deductions based on massive property. In fact while filling out the form yesterday I noticed one could claim deduction if one had provided shelter to a Katrina victim! On all the above three counts, the acts of deductions are absolutely dishonest. What thoughts go through our minds when pay the tax at the counter? Thoughts that we will have it partially back once the tax season comes? What then, remains of the usefulness of taxation system? Of course its dangerous redundancies are obvious from the continuing state of ill-health that the poorest sections continue to suffer at the hand of apathetic administration. But it also begs for a critical reflection over the concept of taxes, charities and their tunes of deductions.

Charities are inherently oppressive. First, the benefactors gain eminence over the recipients. It is so vulgar that the benefactors in fact name institutions after them for throwing in some illegitimate money that pays them tax dividends. At the same time, they weaken the spirits of the “benefited” who thrive on the charities of the rich—essentially, so that they can never revolt against their own state of dispossession. Charities in this sense merely perpetuate the cycles of oppression, hopelessly, ceaselessly. They do not address the causes of disparities, they work to maintain it in a more acceptable fashion. And so that charities do not cause harm to the donor, the flawed system of taxation comes to the rescue. As a trickled-down effect, this provision also comes to help some of us in the lower rung, and we gladly act on it in the manner we would if a ticket price is “discounted” for us (no matter if it merely means we pay 10% of our income for the discount, while the rich pay less than a percent of theirs at the full price). Why do we let this happen?

What should be done?
As long as we can ‘get away’, we will tend to let others ‘get away’ (even if getting away is a matter of vastly varying degrees). Unfortunately, this is still true for most part in the human society, no matter how much we blow the trumpets of individualistic freedoms, the social equality as a principle must always be aimed at curtailing individual liberties.

Taxation, like healthcare, needs to be truly effective, not figuratively universal. Tax reformers have been arguing that tax should be collected on a proportionate basis. That is, the rich will pay more tax, and the poor will pay less. This is an almost perfect argument. Why it is almost so, is because this is an incomplete argument. The point is collection of tax has something to do with deduction of it as well, because in the final analysis, the effects of collection are impacted by the amount of deductions.

For the taxation to be effective, the state needs to enforce the collection of proportionate taxes at a rate that may not be “convenient”, but maybe socially desirable. For those of us who whine at the relativity of “social desirability’ citing postmodern angst, all we have to do is to position ourselves in the lowest social class ladder to get a grasp of reality that is material, not philosophical.

Tax cuts and deductions must be revisited as a system of operation that may not sound very lucrative (as stated above, no one will give away their freedom to cash a check if the free check is around). And it is because of this temptation, this greed to hold onto our “hard-earned” money (because the poor apparently do not earn…and by this crude logic only the rest of us who pay taxes hard-earn), we need a system at place, not some good hearted individuals.


Deductions Depict Class Society:
Tax deductions are indeed the lifeline of a class society. So long as tax deductions are in place, what is important is not merely to grasp the gaps in deductions that people can afford to ‘get away’ with, but the fact that deductions are present so that they must be unequally applicable to people.

In other words, tax deductions are the biggest proof, and, the biggest security for the existence of a class society. If only all the people, irrespective of mental or physical labor, were employed at equitable income level, there would not be such a thing as ‘tax deductions’.

If only people had an equal stake in the maintenance of social structure, and their roles would not have to depend on their level of income, there would not be deductions in practice to promote acts of charity—whose purpose is to make a hero/heroine of the rich, and to silence the potential dissent by the masses who are fed the cakes thrown from tall balconies.

As a reminder, capitalism will never stop the system of deductions, because that is the manner in which it normalizes the income of the richest—those who own the structure and create its norms.

And if we do not question the system that is designed by the rich, of the rich and for the rich, we would be perhaps talking merely wishfully about social justice and peace and happiness. No amount of either personal charities or noble actions of paying “proportionate” taxes will be useful as a means, if the ends themselves are based on promoting a class society—one in which the poor people have nothing to claim as deductions, for they do not even pay the taxes, because they do not even work, and they do not even have healthcare, nor can afford education. And they are accused as the wretched of America—the “freeloaders”, the social security beggars and the charity-seekers. Give it a thought today: it is not they that are at fault.

Instead of “providing shelter to a Katrina survivor’ as a means of tax deduction, we should have engaged the victims of a massive administrative disaster in all the forms we could to snatch for them the rights to be treated equally by the state apparatus thus ensuring no administrative loopholes exist any longer. But then, in a “free” market economy, we have even sold the state’s responsibilities off, where individuals are left to fend for themselves.

On the “Tax Deduction Day”, lets resolve to take the “power” back from the free markets, and truly have a system that “enforces” equality.

Tags: Saswat, Capitalism, USA, Economics, Law

By Saswat Pattanayak

Ironies in the post Soviet days surpass those that characterized it. Despite longueurs of economic progress that “Tsar Putin” has made an exhibition out of, it must appear to be ironical that every publication worth its name declares there is more poverty and less equality in Russia these days than they ever were during Soviet days.

But what’s even more satirical are the suggestions from the concerned quarters that see this as an essential problem of the formerly controlled economy, than as an obvious aftermath of the presently capitalistic one. Considering that the crisis is evident (and multiplying) after the collapse of communism, it should come as no uncommon sense to perceive the root of disarrays. And yet the more populist and political correct accusations are aimed at the former era than the present regime.

Well, that’s not such a surprising finding if we traverse back at the hundreds of thousands of myths that the private capital masters have spread over past few decades about the merits of capitalism. In such ways the myths have been reinforced that even the biggest apostles of capitalism would have to pause awhile.

Its over 15 years since the USSR dissolved in its political form, and yet the only path that its economy has taken for the majority of people is downwards. This, despite absence of any capricious elements in an otherwise compromised economy. Apart from a few oligarchs who have been prosecuted, the country has seen one of the more stable forms of capitalistic expansions by business interests. Despite talks of nationalization or renationalization, only sectors affected thus far have been oil and gas. International currencies, free market and prosperous middle classes are characterizing the country in its free-est market condition in its entire history.

And yet, inequalities of wealth among the population are greater. Poverty, unemployment, crime, and prostitution are way higher. Social security is nearly absent and “terrorism” is at the highest. The country is struggling even to hold bilateral talks, its Nato membership pleas challenged by its own people.

Kremlin is gaining notoriety for “getting rid” of its enemies: Murders of eminent people include journalists (Anna Politkovskaya), research scholars (Indologist Grigory Bondarevsky), scientists (Alexander Krasovsky and Viktor Frantzuzov), security service agents (Alexander Litvinenko), and top officers (Andrei Kozlov- vice president of Central Bank, and Alexander Plokhin, director of Foreign Trade Bank), to mention only a few.

Chechnya crisis, high corruption rate, growth of the Russian “Mafia”, racism by “skinheads”, ban on Communists to conduct parades are not the only features that characterize a fragmented country unable to celebrate its national and cultural diversity. According to the Reporters Without Borders, Russia ranks below many African countries in terms of its press freedom ranking, indeed out of 168 countries, its rank is 147 (worse than Mugabe’s Zimbabwe)! In terms of corruption, Russia is the top most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International’s global corruption reports. Lets not even bring up the controversial but almost accurate Amnesty International which maintains horrific databases.


“The Road Ahead”:
And yet, most economists suggest that even greater private investments hold the key for a country like Russia to gain a foothold. Putin has been acclaimed on one hand for raising the nationalist level among the people so as to take back the country to the days of Tsarist glory (implying the biggest feudal society in the contemporary times where private capitals will be concentrated in the hands of selected domestic business houses). This is the more popular choice considering the general anti-Americanism prevailing among the people and unduly being milked by the Americanized leaders of Europe themselves to further their political (read: democratic) ambitions.

And on the other hand, from the critics’ quarters, he has been advised to opt for greater concentration on capitalistic expansion so as to make way for a truly “free market” (implying the establishment of a neo-American society where money will engage people as a commodity, and take away the human elements that are needed for any progressive dissent).

The third front is, alas an alternative, least explored. While visiting Borders book store, I usually chuckle at the sections such as History and Government & Politics. Several racks of books are collected under different sub-headings for easy perusal. It is there that one understands how silently, and effectively the alternatives are purged. You will surely find subheadings such as “Russian History”, and “Russian Government”, but under parenthesis they have carefully typed out phrase: “Non-Soviet”.

Somewhere between Tsarist oppressions and Capitalistic expansions, the Soviet intentions are conveniently buried. And it’s most ironically absent in Putin’s Russia.

Tags: Saswat, USSR, Economics, Communism, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

In what could be the most visibly grotesque appraisal of monopolistic trends of capitalism, Jeffrey Nelson for Verizon Wireless says, the telecom industry of America is highly competitive. Washington Post quotes him as saying that consumers can choose among numerous handset models and four major providers of cellular services: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. “If you don't like what one company enables,” he said, “find somebody else.”

Perhaps what’s lost on the corporate communicators is the fact that “four major providers” are signs of monopoly, and not of competition. American capitalism is on its path to perfection in the sense of its graduations. In the film production industry, six studios control over 90 percent of theater revenues. The newspaper industry is owned by only six major chains now. Book publishing industry is handled by seven firms and five largest groups account for all major music production in the country.

One may feel nostalgic about the good old days when the situation was not this drastic, and private families were free to own as much as they wanted to since there were communication regulations in place. One may even argue that after the deregulations bills were passed in 1996, things have started looking murkier with consolidations and clustering of firms at the forefront. But I will not debate at that forum.

The fact of the matter is then, and now, we have failed to understand the nature of capitalism to predict its inevitable trends. What the Washington Post article perhaps says could be a tribute to success of cell phone industries elsewhere in the world where more features are available for the users. But again, that’s a matter of relativity in discussion. What is crucial to understand here is neither the features and plans, nor the brand availabilities (although both these factors are attractive on the surface); but the true accessibility of the technology to all concerned.

In the race to have the best of the services limited to the few of us, is there a ceiling on the accessibility of technology? One would perhaps muse that contrary to my apprehensions, technology has become more accessible today than it was few decades back. But that would be to challenge the very nature of the collective course of human actions. Nothing will remain constant and progress is inevitable with collective endeavors at the research, training and development levels. A progress by default is merely a movement in propelled direction. Only a progress that inculcates struggles to uplift common aspirations is of any intrinsic value.

The gifts of technology, by and large have not been shared by the world populace. And in an era of abundant resources at our disposal and accompanying funds to realize many potentials, it should not come as a surprise as to why the distribution of technological assets has failed to earn commendable results.

The answer lies in the pattern of controlled and monopolized territories of technological know-hows and their ownerships. Even where there is an apparent distribution of access, it is owing to the “market demands”, not for human needs. Of course the phrase “market demands” is as elusive as one can get, considering that the market is as real as its proponents make it to be. The demands are “created” out of profit needs riding the waves of accompanying hypes (what they call in more civilized sense as ‘advertising&rsquo.

In this backdrop then it should come as no surprise to us when we see the entire media industry of America are dominated by three understanding, friendly (as long as they don’t consolidate further) mini empires called Time Warner, Disney and NewsCorp. There are scores of other rulers who are defined as new media monopolists by several research scholars and to avoid the academic traps I will not dwell on them. But just as a pointer to the issue than covering it comprehensively, I am deliberating here on the obvious questions we may need to scratch the surface for:

Cooperative economies have produced immense technological benefits. For instance, the erstwhile soviet system did produce the ultimate scientific progresses we have attained thus far: our exploration of the space. And yet we are ever so ready to dismiss the method while reaping the benefits claiming our consumerist society (where getting enslaved to market lures holds the key) as more conducive an environment for technological progress than the socialist society (where minimum standards defined lives of scientists and farmers alike—a notion entirely lost to the imagination of class society pundits).

However, without questioning the merits of competition and fairness --they are different concepts unfortunately, and no matter how soothing it may sound to some liberal economists, there is no such thing as ‘fair competition’ except in their utopian lexicon—one can safely preclude any form of competition from the capitalistic society.

Coming back to the Verizon staff, the four major telecom giants have a history of throttling competitions on their necks and emerging as “giants” than mere fellow traveling companies. The accompanying limitations of power-sharing are also mutually understood notions. The fact that they are monopolists fooling an entire country in a way Lincoln clearly knew-- although he once said briefly you could not fool everyone all the time—is best paraphrased by Verizon’s best friend (in the press of course they are rivals and what-not) AT&T:

“This whole issue is a giant red herring. This is a fiercely competitive industry which has grown almost entirely through the force of competition in the marketplace, more innovative devices and services, and continually lower prices.” (AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.)

If Verizon and AT&T are right, then the rest of us must be fools for sure. The question is for how long this grand Ayn Randian narrative of capitalism-as-citadel-of-competition will be believed? And for how long our media will report these as problems with “four major providers”, and not as inevitable consequence of capitalism?

Perhaps when our media wont be corporate themselves anymore. Well, that’s the point!

Tags: Saswat, Capitalism, USA, Economics, Media, Technology

By Saswat Pattanayak

I am unsure if Shakespeare had such premonitions engulfing his worst tragedies, but the Hindu superpower India with its proud “economic growth rates” has been forcing me to wonder if we are missing the coming signs of the times. The tell-tales are here, the hints of misfortune are looming large, the sustained oppression by the Indian state on its peoples with “foreign aids” is rampant. And yet somewhere since last couple of years a major chunk of world’s geographical region is dancing away at a maddening pace, drinking the drink of its blood and dancing the dance of its death.

The world’s largest democracy is also the biggest booming free market economy. With exception to no other land today, the enthusiasm of the urban youths of India has emerged pure, and unbridled. The mass popular culture of subservient bollywood films, inferior diaspora literatures and profit hungry mainstream media have a projection of jubilance, of multifarious vibrancy in social lives that’s almost instantaneously appealing. In no contrast, the elite high class societal circles are doing their Manhunts, race courses and business parties, relatively different in degrees since they were upto the social mischiefs even decades before the educated mass had its date with ‘freedom’.

Far too often this comfortable dichotomy of mass/class paradigm finds entry into the social consciousness. Whether the cart drives the horse or the horse does it becomes a redundant issue so long as the movements occur for both. In economics, its called a trickling down effect of the riches of the rich which the rest have a privilege to enjoy depending on which ladder of the hierarchy are they located at the time of the rain.

What’s super ironic at such junctures of “progress” in any society based on the premise of those who define the progress is that the ladder is usually placed upon a pedestal to begin with. That is, the hierarchy of profiteers does not begin with the ground, but with the elevated first step that misses the dirt and the wretched entirely before the stepping up can take place.

These dirt of India, entirely absent from global long-term memory are the peasants of the country who hold the ground, but who do not feel the trickles falling on them. Remember how during the natural disasters, helicopters throw relief goods targeted at some places which are usually devoid of women and children. And even when the women and children are present, somehow they don’t succeed at running for the food packets because they are busy holding the grounds under thatched roof, doubly oppressed by the central governments and their oppressive patriarchal custodians. Case against the peasants is almost similar. In a predominantly agrarian economy like India, ever since its “independence”, the ruling class has acted like patriarchs while overstepping and conveniently ignoring them on its way to new heights of power.

Not that, anything else was expected of the ruling elites class characters. Systematically suppressing every peasant rebellion in India during the British rule, the rulers (kings, british, and Indian elites) promised non-violent glories in place of revolutionary emancipation. Although the different strands of national struggle for liberation against the colonialists needed to find support among the larger revolutionary masses, the people were half sensitized about the nature of the national struggles engaged in by a faction of elites who surely fought the foreign power, but also because they wanted to hold onto their own.

Five year plans in India were formerly known to be based on a socialistic desire to industrialize the country soon after the British were shown the door. But instead, the plans with every phase systematically were fine-tuned to improve the lot of the secondary and tertiary sectors at the cost of the primary. This suited the class characters of the ruling elites of course, but what’s more distressing is that it was accepted almost unequivocally as a “progress” for the country which housed more than 80% peasants, that constituted as much percentage of below poverty line populace for the whole country.

Agrarian Crisis Continues:

Agrarian crisis in India are nothing new. Indeed, without any effort to bring the peasantry back to cultural fold, the homegrown capitalists of India have only heightened the crisis with every passing phase. As a result, what we have today is indiscriminate murders of peasants of India. Forcing them to lead lives without a sense of human dignity or basic standards of life, they have been forced to take extreme steps. While some have invariably joined the naxal movements to raise up arms against the Indian state, many are killed by the state power structure.

The media, the maneuvered toy of the Indian capitalists plays the corporate tune at such mass genocide committed by Indian state. More than 800 peasants have been killed in this kharif season alone. The Indian media not only portray these heroic submission to state atrocities as “suicides”, it also pities the deaths. The world must remember that the peasants who are dying every day in India are not committing “suicides”. Indeed, suicides are reactionary steps taken voluntarily by people weak by their willpower. Indian peasants have been among the most brave lot of all peoples of the world when one considers the British oppressions and Indian government atrocities upon them. Despite that, the peasants have carried on with unmatched courage to face the “man-made” disasters perpetrated upon them by the ruling class. If now there have been deaths subsequent to this, just as there are everytime following artificial famines, its not because of their inability to pay off debts, its because of the state power machine inflicting deadly repressive measures against them in particular.

Suicide Pathology of the Elites:

Indian intelligentsia, pathetically devoid of critical reflections have been allowing the corporate media to thrive on assumptions about the citizens. Firstly, there have been no suicides in Vidarbha. Suicides are caused by people themselves. These deaths of peasants are state-aided murders.

Ramu Bhagwat’s report in an unforgivable mistake of Indian fourth estate called, The Times of India, is headlined “3 farmers kill selves; toll 200 in 2 months”. Even after an effete shame of a prime minister by the name of Manmohan Singh visited Dhamangaon village with empty rhetoric which made him famous at Oxford last year, these farmers died because they were unable to repay Rs 13,000 to State Bank of India. That’s how much for two farmers lives? Remember its less than $300. Or in Indian urban class value today, less than half of what a first IT job gets a teenager in a month.

The government of India gleefully enjoying its power trip has not resigned following hundreds of murders it commits on its poor by forcing them to death, because it clearly has no morality. Its opposition, the absolutely brazen right wing coalitions, who at the first place assisted their private business funders to cause price hikes is also unabashed in its hypocrisy. But the worse, the Indian media and the watchdogs of so-called democracy are continually harping on their masters’ tunes by calling deaths as suicides, as though it were the fault of the farmers, and lulling the rest of India into web of ignorance.

That, people have expressed disgust at Manmohan Singh’s promises which has not even helped them to gather little money to sow seeds after saplings were washed away by rain, has been completely lost on the mainstream perception. That if one contextualizes the background of peasant crisis in India, one will realize that this is no sudden aberration on part of teeming millions of peasants but a continuation of systematic exploitation unleashed upon them specifically during the days of the British and during anti-people regimes of Indian state which decidedly started favoring private industries at cost of public cooperatives. And most importantly, that the Indian journalists and researchers are not entirely ignorant of the agrarian crisis and the stoic silence around the issue which is a great socio-political crisis of neo-liberal India.

Despite the social significance of the struggle of the peasants against the Indian state, the self-professed enlightened young and old analysts have decided to treat the deaths as some personal deviance. Indeed, since suicide is a cognizable offence under the law, perhaps the peasants have been declared as criminals by the media experts.

Pathetic pity of indifferent experts:

Take a look at NDTV. Just like Times of India, this mainstream grapevine has a report by Supriya Sharma who proposes that the “suicide epidemic of this scale should be seen and treated as a crisis of mental health”. Indeed she goes on to interview a psychiatrist to trace the etiology. Whereas psychiatry is not such a despicable path to solutions, after all, that the media have a habit of finding problems elsewhere than where it is most obvious is something worth reflecting over. Dr Patil, the subject of Sharma’s study says of a farmer “patient”: “He lost his crop due to the rains. Last year he lost his crop because there were no rains. So for the last 2-3 years he consecutively lost money. So he got depressed.”

She goes on to report:

"When a farmer is in distress, if we could call doctors from Akola or a government official, he feels someone is there to listen to him. And if no one listens, he may feel ignored and contemplate suicide," said a local.

All the cases are a grim encounter that reinforces the fact that the sprt in suicide cases in the region should be seen and treated as a crisis of mental health.

Journalists like Sharma are no simplicists, indeed no reductionists either. They are even literate to the point that they find a need to complicate the situation further to understand it better, in a perfectly academic fashion. But what happens in the process is that their limitations guide their intuition than their grounding in social history of the people they survey. As a result, the superficial flourishes, the blame-game continues at the most trivial manner and the headlines surge them to promotions since they systematically let the system go do its own brutalization even as people are “treated” for mental illnesses.

Oppressors’ aids for the brutalized people:

I will not delve into the other pathetic media stances where the need for peasant revolution for today’s India has been dismissed abjectly to the extent that there is no such mention to begin with. The kinds of questions that are being raised are only sufficiently complimenting the kinds of answers the corporate nation of India today seeks. For example, the conscientious journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai through their media request donations to help farmers by using heart-rending pictures. Tax-exemptions for the rich are obviously on the offing. Sardesai and his likes receive huge accolades for their so-called social concern, to “help the needy”. And the guilt-free doners go back to business of furthering their oppressions.

The cyclic amnesia of the Indian elites while it comes to dealing with their own crimes, (which they translate as peasant suicides) is beyond mere reproach. These are punishable offences that the elites must be taken to task for. Equitable distribution of wealth is not a role of some politicians sitting high on an elected platform. This takes place only through organized revolution by the oppressed classes against the feudal lords of India (who by mistake presume they are some advanced capitalist class, even as they continue to practice the most extreme form of casteism,—Karan Thapar was pronouncedly against the Dalits when it came to reservation issue, for example—sexism,--corporate houses washed their hands off for the murder of HP female employee at the dead of the night, and class society—the division between the rich and the poor has never been so widely marked ever before in the history of India—some people talking of donation of crores of rupees, and most other sell their children for paltry sums on astonishingly regular rate as in states like Orissa.

What we need at the moment is to organize the farmers to demand not aid, but reparation. The peasants of India in the past have upstaged the royal families, they have forced the colonialists out through mass uprisings, and now they need to get rid of the new feudal class of India, the class of oppressors who have been systematically making way for capitalism in India, to make gains for their own class interests, and detrimentally working against the farmers who have been rendered without food, housing and education, far too much, far too long. The feudal ruling elites of India did not demand reparations from the British and facilitated their comfortable exits so that they would continue from where their masters had left. But the peasants and farmers and working class of India must gather up all their might to ensure reparation for the exploitation they have been unleashed upon. And nothing less than an organized revolution by the most oppressed will replace the course of history.

Do not call their sacrifices suicides as yet. They are the martyrs of a feudal India in protest against the elitist rule in their name carried on by confessed agents of imperialism. And these ruling class of liberal politicians, conservative religious cults, their police, military, nuclear regime, and media stooges will be forced to tremble.

Watch out for the wrath of the wretched!

Tags: Saswat, Economics, India, Capitalism, Communism, Media

By Saswat Pattanayak

“So what do they have to say?”

“Didn’t you read the paper? The American president visited us.”

“What does that mean?”

“Of course, it means we are finally making progress. In your days, only heads of the third world countries used to come to India.”

“But we are a third world country, my child. Don’t you..”

(Interrupting..) “Yeah that’s what you think. Come to Bangalore and you will see. Everyone is having a party”

“How many more parties do we need? I think the Congress and the Communists were two big enough parties..”

“Oh no..not those parties. Who needs ideology? I am talking about parties. The late night parties. India rocks. You have to come out of that village. Come to Bangalore. This time you really need to visit my city. It’s where the future of India lies.”

“Future of India? What’s that going to be like?”

“Of course, just like us. We are the future. We got the FDIs.”

“FBI? Are they now concentrating on foreign lands too? I thought it was only CIA.”

“Hell, no. FDI..Foreign Direct Investments.”

“Oh, it’s the same thing, I guess. By the way, why are they investing on us?”

“Well how else shall we make progress?”

“You mean, how else they will make progress? Because we never needed anyone in the history for our progress. They always came after us.”

“Oh come on. They are already developed. They don’t need to make any more progress. Now they want to take care of the entire world.”

“You mean like the way the Kings took care of the subjects, after they had conquered...”

“Yeah, whatever. But remember there are just 7 to 8 countries today who are helping the rest of the world. They have taken up the responsibility to save the world.”

“Like James Bond did in his old movies…”

“Well, even in new ones that you have not seen since some time now...”

“So what do these countries do in Bangalore?”

“Well they have set up big offices. They give us well paid jobs. We work night and day, and earn good money.”

“Do they understand your language? How can they work in Bangalore? I don’t believe you.”

“Come on…they don’t have to understand our language. We have mastered their languages and cultures already. I have a map of Maryland right here beside me. The weather is 37F. Feels like 28F…”

“You can feel Maryland weather? How so?”

“Oh, that’s a lie. But we talk in American English. So it doesn’t matter anyway.”

“So the world is being saved by training the poor people to become expert liars?”

“Don’t start off there again. I am not poor. I have everything with me. I have a car. A flat, a laptop and even an ipod.”

“Oh so, you mean you can actually afford to buy all that? How do you do that?”

“Simple, I buy everything on credit.”

“You mean there are money-lenders in Bangalore?”

“Yeah, but not like the ones in Mother India. So relax. I just pay some interests. At times they are a lot. But then, this government sucks too. They also charge a lot of taxes. But then, it’s ok. You know, I get to own. I have the visa power.”

“Power. You mean you actually have some power by going on debt?”

“Yeah that’s real power. Why else would President Bush have visited India?”

“You mean to make you more indebted?”

“Come on, didn’t you read the papers? If not, at least watch the TV. You should have seen our Manmohan Singh. He was so grateful. Actually we all are.”

“All are? Where? In Bangalore?”

“Hello”

“—Hello …”

“Darn..these Indian villages…they will never improve”

“Hello, my child…I think the line got disconnected. You know your village has a very weak telephone system. But our neighboring village is even worse. So don’t worry. Just send me a letter. Sounds very exciting. This visit of one president to another.”

-hung up—

Tags: Saswat, Economics, India, Capitalism, Bush

By Saswat Pattanayak

“The Czar of all the Russias is not more absolute upon his own soil than the New York landlord in his dealings with colored tenants. Where he permits them to live, they go; where he shuts the door, they stay out. By his grace they exist at all in certain localities; his ukase banishes them from others. He accepts the responsibility, when laid at his door, with unruffled complacency. It is business, he will tell you. And it is. He makes the prejudice in which he traffics pay him well, and that, as he thinks it quite superfluous to tell you, is what he is there for.” (Riis, How the Other Half Lives, 1890)

“One of the most distinctive things about most American cities is that it is not easy to distinguish social class on the streets. Clothes are cheap and increasingly standardized. The old “proletarian” dress—the cloth hat, the work clothes—either disappeared or else was locked up at the shop…… The ironic dialectic that threads its way through the culture of poverty is at work. The industry that comes to these places (rural America) is not concerned with moral or social uplift. It seeks out rural poverty because it provides a docile cheap labor market. There is income supplementing as a result, but what basically happens is that people who have been living in the depressed areas of agriculture now live part-time in the depressed areas of industry. They get the worst of two worlds.” (Harrington, The Other America, 1962)

“In the aftermath of the election of 1980, the Reagan administration and its big-business allies declared a new class war on the unemployed, the unemployable, and the working poor. By the summer of 1981, congressional approval had been obtained to slash $140 billion from the social programs over the years 1982-1984, more than half of it from the income-maintenance programs that provide low-income people with cash, food, health care, and low-cost housing. At the same time, the Reagan administration announced that additional social program reductions of $45 billion and $30 billion would be proposed in 1983 and 1984…” (Pive & Cloward, The New Class War, 1982)

“In the United States, the federal government defines poverty very simply: an annual income, for a family with one adult and three children, of less that $18,392 in the year 2003. That works out to $8.89 an hour, or $3.74 above the federal minimum wage, assuming that someone can get a full forty hours of work a week for all fifty-two weeks of the year or 2,080 working hours annually. With incomes rising through the economic expansion of the 1990s, the incidence of official poverty declined, beginning the new decade at 11.3 percent of the population, down from 15.1 percent in 1993. Then it rose slightly in the ensuing recession, to 12.5 percent by 2003.
But the figures are misleading. The federal poverty line cuts far below the amount needed for a decent living, because the Census Bureau still uses the basic formula designed in 1964 by the Social Security Administration, with four modest revisions in subsequent years. That sets the poverty level at approximately three times the cost of a “thrifty food basket.” The calculation was derived from spending patterns in 1955, when the average family used about one-third of its income for food. It is no longer valid today, when the average family spends only about one-sixth of its budget for food, but the government continues to multiply the cost of a “thrifty food basket” by three, adjusting for inflation only and overlooking nearly half a century of dramatically changing lifestyles.”
(Shipler, The Working Poor, 2004)

Even going by the thrifty food basket standards that clearly undermine needs of people to go beyond food (free time, luxury to spend those times, staying fit, watching movies, traveling, learning technical skills, reading books etc., to realize human potentials), poverty in America is on an alarming rise. There are 37 million Americans living below the poverty line today. This not only indicates an increase by five million since President George W. Bush came to power, it also should remind us that more than one in 10 citizens are below poverty line. The number is actually higher when we calculate the needs of people for education, employment and necessities in life other than just cheap, junk, fatty foods.

In the meantime, Congress has endorsed NASA’s mission to Mars which will cost $500 billion. (Of course, during the 60’s, American poor children sang, ‘Who wants to go to the Moon, Ma? I want to go to school’.) But even before that plan materializes, the Congress has already let more than $250 billion to be spent in the war in Iraq alone (not to mention the consequential costs for civilians, or the dozens of other wars, where no investment ever reaps returns). And we need just $24 billion a year to fully fund every anti-hunger effort in the world.

If for some reason, any reasonable person has doubt about capitalism’s contribution to world poverty, one just needs to look at the storehouses of illicit wealth that fosters the disparity between the haves and have-nots: the billionaires of the world, quite naturally, the highest number of them in the planet, 269, live in the United States. As a traditional bastion of ill-gotten wealth, the billionaire club has amassed such wealth in exclusionary lines. Not just through colonial weapons have certain western countries monopolized over world resources, even within them, certain groups of people have held the power of money so far. As a result, in the United States, whereas almost a quarter of all black Americans live below the poverty line; and 22 per cent of Hispanics fall below it, the figure for the whites is just 8.6 per cent.

The statistics can be pretty informative, but for those who need to seek the solutions, the same statistics can also be used quite effectively. In case of world hunger, if we know the disproportion, we also are aware that only a small minority actually controls the huge majority of the world resources, and in them or lack of them, lies the solution.

Long gone are the days when half of the people in the world did not know how the other half lived because they did not care. With advent of capitalism, only a few people do not appear to care how the rest of the world lives. And if this is not opportunity enough for people to realize that the apathetic few arrogantly immersed with undeserved wealth are not exactly the ones who deserve tax-cuts, then nothing is.

Fortunately, nothing can be said with as much clarity as the class issues. There is no ambiguity, there is no pretension. There is a clear demarcation between those in command, and those in state of despair. Maybe this is the reason why there is no talk around economic class, in a country where every ninth person is unsure of where the next meal is coming from. For, if the real issues come to surface and people ‘come gather round’ and talk it out, there is surely going to be a change in the times.

Till then, the elite minority that anyway controls the mental means of productions, creates a cultural vacuum that drifts away from the issues into the world of sit-coms, fantasies and comedy shows. If that doesn’t suffice, then it reinforces the law and order to silence the potential resistance from protesting the existing structures of inequities of a massive class society.

This should not come as a surprise that the real issue with America today—conflicts of interests between its two economic classes—is thwarted constantly by the media, since there is an attempt at manufacturing both content and consent to draw people’s mind away by the owners of media houses—who are again, from the club. But what should come alarming is that even as the conflicts of interests take place every passing day among these classes, their interpretations are encouraged to be done in an individualistic, religious, and meritocratic way, instead of being prompted to act on the grounds of social justice—organized and agitated, to stake claim, and challenge. Its not poverty of wealth in the world that should matter at this point when we know only too well that this world can spend $500 billion in Mars; rather its the poverty of mass directions that’s grappling today’s age which fails to help the world rise up to the demands of the day. For revolutions do not take place in a historical battlefield. Revolutions must occur in our politicized minds first.

Tags: Saswat, USA, Economics, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

The lesson that China provides is simple, yet very revealing. True that the old guards of the left haven’t had a say in decades, during which periods, puppets of free markets, like Jiang Zemin have only created a “privatized” communist party by allowing business houses to have a say in the country’s governance. It’s also true that the current president Hu Jintao has proved no better with his pro-market initiatives whereby China allows FDIs worth billions in its continued commitment to the World Trade Organization, the single biggest global testament of capitalism.

Alongside, Wen Jiabao, who can be called the Manmohan Singh of China, in that both the prime minister are famous for their constant adoration of a brand of liberalization that promotes national growth only to increase rich-poor divide, has also kept the official policies of China in line with free market than socialist economy.

Clearly it signals two things: after its official differences with the erstwhile Soviet Union following Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in early 60’s and of the Soviet-Chinese border clash in the mid-60’s (following Czech crisis), the US of A has grown to be a bigger player in determining Chinese future courses. It became apparent also recently with the unfolding of Nixon archives , where it was found that the US was clearly subverting the subcontinent region by playing China and Pakistan against India in Indira Gandhi’s pro-Soviet decision to liberate Bangladesh. If not in relative types, in certain degrees more or less, the bipolar world (highly ideology driven, and entirely governed by conspirators who were no mythical then as active they are today) has continued to exist.

I would argue that from an entirely Eurocentric view, the end of cold war may have signaled an end to bipolarism and hence led to the demise of the ideological battles. But from an international peoples’ viewpoint, this is entirely untrue. First, the cold wars were never cold—the obsession to contain communism from spreading caused to numerous mass-scale wars initiated by the pro-capitalist lobby of western militarists in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Secondly, after the demise of Soviet Union, the philosophy and practice of communism never withered away. Rather quite a few places in the world started grappling with the fact that the power of capitalist lobby that they were in constant tussle with, in cooperation with the erstwhile Soviet Union, were looming yet larger without the union. It led even Fidel Castro to buckle under pressure, letting Cuban economy go liberal (a topic not often discussed, lest it becomes another classic case of study to see the disparities in economy during and after a socialist economy). Likewise, just about the same time that his long time friend Nelson Mandela had declared emancipation of working class in the South Africa, to avoid a further escalation of peoples’ armies, the world body “granted” immediate power to the African National Congress, not to lead a revolution by no means, but to conduct structural adjustments with the oppressor class of the country and simmer down the power of its revolutionary peoples forever by singing the garb of newly declared (and never found) freedom. The 90’s heralded the so-called liberation of Eastern European economies too—Czech, long considered as occupied (by the western media), the Poland of its Pope, who never lost interest in ranting his anti-communist views in every trip to his land, and in his enthusiast trips to all lands the then communistic. In other words, the economic pressures, after the systematic downfall of the Russian communism definitely led to (in)voluntary end of many socialist economies in the world. The capitalism had succeeded to intervene in many countries, by sheer intervention, blackmailing, and economic hijacking.

But what had not ended was the bipolarity of the world. What had never ended was the battle of ideologies. With the much less publicized, way less talked about hundreds of events of protests against the world trade organization (the holy cow of capitalism, considering the fates of people who voiced anything undesirable about it) in several countries of the world, where millions of protestors clearly represented the unified voices of the billions of underrepresented people of the world, the private media industry refused to acknowledge these contradictions of its ‘free world’.

With the homegrown crises of capitalism rocking its world, increasing the poverty circles in the so-called western societies, the ruling elites (who also call themselves G-7) decided to shift focus from their unique needs (a la Nato) to massive onslaughts on the economies that still refused to partake in its expansion mode (a la Wars). What we saw in the early 90’s throughout the world was a with-the-enemy-or-with-us approach to free trade agreements. By the mid 90’s, several of those poor yet dignified countries of the so-called third world had already succumbed to the papers. Those who did not, or did so partially, (like India’s yes to markets, and no to NPT), there have been pressures which would eventually make them do so. Recently, Indian PM’s overly enthusiastic agreement to everything that was on the offing is one indication. Not only during the late 90’s, the partners in crime of global militarist lobby, the Indian right wing party BJP was allowed to conduct the N-test, thus leaving behind a corpse of past glories of disarmament advocacies, but with the present Singh government, the unabashed partner in crime of the global capitalist lobby, it was allowed to enter into nuclear pact –very soon it will also sign the NPT. Ha! Don’t be surprised—and go have a dance of death on the debris.

Again, not to say that the entire country of India was dancing on the deathbed of its dignity. Indeed a huge majority of people in China or India –that comprise the majority of people in the world, by the way—work in agrarian sector (if that helps to shatter the myth of a “great Chinese consumer class”, a “great Indian middle class” or “the hi-tech India/China&rdquo and they did not dance to the tunes of mantras that would bereft them from whatever they still have—a home in the forest they do not want to give away to the industrialists, a village by the river they do not want to sacrifice, a low rent apartment in the cities they do not want to let go for their inability to pay higher on the same, a medical bill that continues to spiral by global price rise, a grocery bill that rises in price for essential commodities. This refusal to buckle under pressure to the high price rise of essential commodities, a avowed disapproval to any moral deviation from the disarmament pledge, an economic decision to live cooperatively, a social rejection of the conditions leading to disparities between the elites and the poor—this is an ideology that’s shaped to counter its only one opponent—the high priests and missionaries of corporate capitalism.

The most glaringly obvious example today can be found in China today. The introduction of a bill to usher in right to privileges to the private property owning class, has been challenged highly and mightily by the minority left law makers, making it almost difficult to bridge away from the main question. The question, that was being taken for granted for so long as a non-existent one. A question when answered will show not the predictable fall of communism, but the predictable trends of market economy that result in greater divide between the rich and the poor. In the resurgent neo-capitalist China of 10% annual economic growth, the disparities between the rich and the poor has in fact grown in the proportion of 3.3:1. The case for every capitalist economy is more or less same or worse today in the world, with the flagship country US reeling under economic crises of the poor majority which it refuses to officially acknowledge. But the crack, beginning with China, has started to show and the pundits of market reforms better watch out.

The national economic growth does not have anything to do with the poorest section of the society, purely because the line of development, until taken in the direction of cooperative economic emancipation, will not broaden its base to be inclusive; rather from a purely economic sense of competitive market economy in a capitalist or neo-capitalist society what will prevail are monopolistic trends, bringing in more profits alone, to stay exclusively elitist. For all we know from our basic standards of education, profits are differentiated from welfare in that, they are hoarded for personal greed, not distributed for social benefits.

Tags: Saswat, China, Economics, Communism, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Once again, let’s stop making the individual an issue. Let’s not become patrons of decency by crying foul at one old politician.

Maryland Comptroller 84-year old William Donald Schaefer did ogle at a 24-yr old female aide to Governor Ehrlich. He even called her back at Wednesday’s Board of Public Works Meeting and asked her to walk again in front of everyone so that he could watch her. And the entire country now is being fed with the video for endless times.

Going by the way the video is playing into the headlines of television channels, it appears that the whole of America is shocked. Clearly highlighting the moral standards of a capitalistic hypocritical fiber, Schaefer has become the safest bet. He is eliciting reactions like “what a shame!” to “how can this be?”

A channel like Fox has gone on exhibiting the video to public on the streets and telecasting their responses. No one is feeling any sense of déjà vu. The entire country is shown to be appalled. All the while, making Elizabeth Krum a familiar face for everyone, producing a mordant series of reproduction of the scene where a bunch of old white men are making lewd gesture in a public meeting that’s funded with money that we taxpayers pay every fortnight, the media are turning into a derisive leaf of being loath accomplice in the crime. The media say, “we are shocked beyond belief: Let’s watch it one more time”.

When I was watching this clip being discussed as the main headline everywhere in the country, even as the seasoned journalists were scratching their beards to wonder how did this happen, even as the seasoned legislators were saying it was most unfortunate, as the seasoned feminists were saying actions must be taken against Schaefer and the general beat of the moment was that his romance with the voters may now be over, I was wondering where is the news.

Just like the media being necrophilous is not something new, rich, powerful capitalists at higher seats of privilege transforming the alive into the unalive is no news. William Donald Schaefer, who is one of the most seasoned politicians in the national capital territory of Washington DC-Maryland-Virginia area has served in public office since 1955 including as a mayor, councilman and finally as Governor of Maryland. As twice elected to the office of Comptroller of the state, Schaefer has won peoples’ trust in this country in rejuvenated manner.

Despite being what he has been all the times. Indeed he was in news for his attitudes which are of supposedly bigger repercussions. In May 2004, after his interaction with a McDonald employee, he opined that the immigrants are liabilities. “I don't want to adjust to another language. This is the United States. I think they ought to adjust to us.”

It is the same man who since years now has been ignorant of the federal privacy laws which prohibit an individual’s medical records. Being at the helm of affairs of fiscal sector, being in charge of collecting more than $13 billion dollars per year as state and local tax revenues, which also covers health sector, here is a man who has said people with HIV/AIDS are “bad people”. Two years back, at yet another Board of Public Works meeting he called for a public registry listing HIV-positive individuals! Schaefer said, “As far as I'm concerned, people who have AIDS are a danger. They're a danger to spread AIDS. People should be able to know who has AIDS. It costs an awful lot of money to treat them.” And this reelected representative of our people gave us a slice of his wisdom: “They bring it on themselves, they don't get it by sitting on the toilet seat. ... A person who gives AIDS, who spreads AIDS, they're bad people.”

Wow! Again, this should not surprise us. I mean, if there needed to have been an authentic demand for this man to withdraw, this need not be on the ground that he was ogling at a young female. He should have been culled with more serious charges.

We know that a system exists in our democracy that allows people like this to get away with anything they have to say. Come on, without any pretensions, we know the human rights issues in the US are in shambles. Domestic violences against women are on increase. Sensitivity towards the LGBT community is abysmal. Respect for women and concern for children can be reflected through the unabashed show of commodified women and violent video games. One that does not let women rule the country nor children to organize as communities.

The question is, do we have a system in place which can effectively challenge these? A system that can challenge the status quo. As to why since 1851, the year the comptroller’s office was founded, all of the comptrollers have been old white men? We know well that the people who control the finances are the most powerful. The question is why all of them have to be men.

The question is under the circumstances, what happens to the governor of the state? Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr.’s aide was clearly harassed as we all noticed on the television screen. Will he bear responsibility and condemn Schaefer? Ha! Did he do it when Schaefer bad-mouthed immigrants who were not well versed with English? Well here is what Ehrlich said: “Once you get into this multicultural crap, this bunk, that some folks are teaching in our college campuses and other places, you run into a problem….There is no such thing as a multicultural society that can sustain itself, in my view, and I think history teaches us this lesson.”

Sure, his history teaches him different lessons! Publicly advocating supremacist societies which does not tolerate ethnic identities of diverse population, here is a governor, alright.

Baltimore Sun quotes Steven L. Kreseski, Ehrlich’s chief of staff, saying that the governor has spent time thinking about the concept as a congressman. 'Ehrlich believes that different ethnic groups should embrace American values such as capitalism and the celebration of Thanksgiving.'

Sure, why is it that I am not surprised? How fast, how effortlessly we have moved from issues of Schaefer to issues concerning Ehrlich. Because the issues concern them similarly, because they share the common platform, power and agenda. This is the only truth. There is no news value in this. People deserve the kind of government they elect. And in a god-fearing America, this may be the fate and we are all destiny’s children.

There have been strong critics of the current comptroller. Just like there were critics of McCarthy. Just like there were critics of Clinton. Or there are today critics of Bush. The pressing issue however is not to recognize that there are some odd ones out there who we need to recognize as bad when they target “our own” people. Remember as long as McCarthy was blaming the Soviets for everything, he was a darling. After he harassed a few good men of America, he had to become a ghost. Remember that as long as Clinton was bombing Kosovo and killing civilians in the process, it was fine. When we got the moral yardstick of one white female, the world went upside down.

Regarding our current president, the lesser said the better. War on Iraq is a good thing, American troops dying is a bad thing. Not that President Bush ever said anything different from President Clinton.
It’s just that he has not yet found time from dealing with issues of same-sex marriages, right to abortions and mothers against war. And guess what, he has been reelected too! With all the moral stories and preachings of good over the evil, our good better than theirs, he better be.

Well meaning critics of the comptroller have opposed the way the media have projected Schaefer as acting like his own. Intellectuals have condemned (they said the same thing in 2004 too in this brilliant article) this boys-will-be-boys excuse. The mainline argument is that he has to pay for his attitude. No one wants to buy the cliché that ‘Schaefer will be Schaefer’. After all, we are supposed to be God’s Blessed Land. We are to be upholders of moral standards.

But guess what, I think clichés are words of wisdom at times. And yes, the boys will be boys. Especially, the rich capitalist powerful men will behave like rich capitalist powerful men. Because its not they who are at fault. It’s their system they have carefully structured that’s capable of retaining them no matter what and changing the headlines every flickering moment so that people forget the crimes in the annals of reality TV shows, standardized female bodies, and hopeless comedies of modern times.

Tags: Saswat, Racism, USA, Economics, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

India’s economy is now fully liberalized. With the retail market open to international competition, the economy that was once predominantly agrarian is now fully capitalistic.

I spoke to few fellow Indian bloggers over the past week and found out that the scene is so euphoric that there seems to be no need to challenge even the mainstream coverage of this issue. After all, the argument goes: more flow of capital eventually helps in more residue of capital.

According to the proponents of this school (which is as varied from purely libertarian school to overtly capitalistic), the rich not only get richer, even the poor get rich. The ‘rich’ poor now own television sets at most homes, and they understand well enough to distinguish the fine products from the rotten. So why deprive human beings from their right to choose? The arguments in favor of the blatant liberalization in India run from philosophical quarter (freedom from the angst) to social (right to aspire) and economic (privilege to own).

Freedom from angst:
I have been brooding over this for a long time now. Very ironically, the market was fully liberalized on January 26 of this year. This piece of news was announced on the 56th year commemoration day of India turning a Republic. The tone that accompanied it was significantly cheerful. Just like the day when former PM Vajpayee waved a victory sign to a surprised Indian people after declaring India as a Nuclear-state (whatever that is).

My well-meaning friends resist that comparison, because unlike the secretive nature of the N-test (when no one had an inkling of it, CIA claims it had no idea either), the liberal nature of Indian markets has been a welcome news in India since 1991, if not before. Some even wonder, what’s the news here? “Didn’t you anticipate this?”

Oh no, I at best, was not anticipating. At worst, was apprehensive. Because the people that Friedman writes about, or we talk about in the talk shows with celebrities are the people who are always visible on the radar screen of the active world audience. And this miniscule minority of India is represented as the public opinion makers.

The angst of the majority people in India are hardly accounted for. The way with which the farmers, the mill workers, the poor students, the unemployed youths, the debt-ridden ‘middle class’ (what a sardonically thing to celebrate this class every now and then), the blackmailed employees, the downtrodden women and children and the indigenous peoples perceive these hype around liberalized economy of their land is never projected in the media.

But the downside of the private economy that has been able to almost obliterate a governmental responsibility to tend to its people is never played on the channels. Where there was a right wing government in power, there used to be a disinvestment ministry selling off the public undertakings. With the advent of the centrist party, there is a prime minister who loves to flaunt how much he can sell off what remains of it.

Between these self-proclaimed intellectuals (Arun Shourie and Manmohan Singh), there is no scope for the views of the largest labor force. There is hardly any discussion about the angst of the 60% of the labor force which is working in the agriculture sector (only 17% are in industries, and 23% are in service sectors). The talk is about the growth rate of Indian economy (which basically means rich become richer), but there is hardly any talk about the budget deficit at 9% of GDP (which basically means the welfare sector for the poor receives the worst treatment)! There is always the talk about the software engineers and English speaking educated youths India has been churning year after year, but there is scarcely any projection of the innate disinterest of the majority to be technocratic and the loss of culturally rich languages due to sheer atrophy.

Freedom from the angst is definitely happening, but just as it suits the ruling elites of the country, it suits the serving elites quite well. And the comfortable conversation among this small group of people must not be misconstrued as beneficial to the people as a whole.

Right to aspire:
It is said that the aspirations of a country changes with its economy. Naturally so, because the goal-setting takes different shapes. For India and most third-world countries, the goal of most part of the 20th century was to free themselves from colonial rule. Upon hard-earned freedoms, the countries then formed alliances whereby mutual cooperation would bring the next desired results of the planned economies. Sectors were prioritized, peoples’ strengths were assessed and economies were developed at times to cater to unique potentials, and at times to reinforce the existing abilities. For example, there were cooperative societies formed to take stock of agrarian sectors dealing with poultry, milk, and varied crops. To allow vent of industrial potentials, adult education schemes, trade unions, and minimum wage standards were fixed.

At this point it is always crucial to recognize that unlike many European nations which thrived on colonizing different cultures, most Afro-Asian nations never went beyond their territories to commit the loots. This was so, not out of any predisposed prosperity of any country, as often projected by revisionists (some like PM Singh, say India was really a rich country before the invasions…obviously forgetting that only the royals were the rich lot, anyway..), but because the prevailing natural settings provided for all the needs to be met with. The people could sow and reap, could cultivate and exist, and were largely worshippers of nature for this very reason. Of course as an alibi to exploit the lands of the indigenous, European savages declared they had a burden to civilize these people and went on draining all the resources exploiting the native masses.

Fast-forward, and with revolutionary shifts in the ownership of world territories, and with the balance of power for the first time shifting in favor of the oppressed people (than the greedy monarchies or the ruling elites of political democracies) after the successful October Revolution of 1917, most countries aspired to be free from the shackles, of both the imperial rulers and their domestic lords.

In the countries where the agriculture workers led the revolution, the scenario brimmed with progressive plans for the sector of the underprivileged, the uneducated, the farmer-at-large. In the countries like India, where agriculture workers were not allowed to dominate the national scene of struggle, the plans were laid out in favor of the privileged, the educated, the engineer-at-large.

Hence no wonder, every educated family demanded its children to aspire to be educated further (not in the history of slavery, casteism, African peoples or French misadventures), and become doctors or engineers (not because, India has one of the worst industrial infrastructure and medical facility anywhere) so that they can make individual financial progresses (of course doctors and engineers are highest paid in the Indian class society, be they live in the country or abroad).

The levels of aspirations of elite Indians continued to be the same. They produced the elite engineers in the 60’s, and they became elite engineers in the 21st century. The students of humanities, of social sciences, fine arts and regional literature remained in need of constant assistance. If individuals have rights to realize their potentials, Indian youths had lost them since quite some time now. Frustrations, constant peer pressure and looming unemployment in every other sector had been forcing most youths to take up studies that required them to work for others, not to pursue their instincts. Now, they have been normalized into a sense of achievement. Only that they have lost their rights to aspire; it is only their occasion to despair.

Privilege to own:
The biggest myth of modern times is that there is such a thing called a Middle Class. So much so that there are bestsellers being written about the great Indian middle class etc. In every way that can suit the entry of multinational profiteers into a third world country, a sizeable population is being declared as middle class. This class is always seen with much applaud, as one which is the backbone of the economy, as one where people should be proud to be part of. This middle class is educated (sic!), well-informed (sic!) and going places (sic!).

Let’s deconstruct. Liberal economists point out that the middle class is the driving force behind a successful economy. Because they consume. In order to consume, they need to be informed. To get their information, they need to be educated.

Precisely! I could not agree more. In other words, there has indeed been a constant effort at creating a middle class, in India or elsewhere. This is very much needed for the multinational businesses flourish. Up until 50 years back, we knew that there was the class of rulers which were minority (landlords, kings, presidents), and there was the class of subjects (the rest of the people). The prime distinction between the two was the right to own. The former had the privilege to own (they owned palaces, lands and virgins). The latter was the dispossessed, always working hard on the land that was never their own!

Come the great equalizer, the proponents of market economy, the torchbearers of French freedom, of American capitalism, of individual liberty hallmarkers. They not only destroyed the feudal societies that came on the way of market competitions, but they also slowly killed the competitions themselves forming market monopolies. So we had giant supermarkets and retail chains, not confined to any specific lands. The first world flourished with such unadulterated exploitation of the market, clearly creating a consumer class whose only work was to buy things, because they had no resources left to challenge the elite producer class whose only work was to invest money to earn more capital. The European capitalism thus produced the largest class societies the world has ever witnessed. To succeed with this mission, they produced huge amount of propaganda materials, we know today as business management, marketing management, advertisement and public relations etc.

As happens with any propagandist move of necessary illusions, the torchbearers of the utopian dreams converted their political traits (of geographically annexing territories) to economic characteristics (doing business extra-territorially). But for that, the obvious obstacles were the large poor yet progressive people of the colonies who never got tired fighting the political elite class. The only way to win them over, then was to woo them over. For India, it started with declaration of Indian middle class people as the “smartest consumers”.

The reality, as opposed to the myth stated, is however slightly different. The much-touted middle class in India or anywhere else is a hoax. This class in question is actually very much part of the dispossessed class. Heavily into debts, much into speculations, far from their own lands with urbanizations, uneasily suffocated amidst uncertain jobs, chronically ill, nuclear families, living in shacks of filthy apartments and constantly feeding the insurance companies. The so-called middle class in the world is the biggest curse of the 20th century. The largest segmented population in the of this planet creates the biggest profit for the business houses and unfathomable loss for its own aspirations. That’s the class which is said to be privileged to own, where actually all it does is the unenviable task of falling into debts and several obligations to operate with. When the ruling minorities owned palaces, no one challenged them to show proof or credibility of purchase. But this class pays a property tax on everything it consumes. It pays for the competition it imagines to be fair. It pays for any endeavor it takes up, to earn basic standards of living with daily struggles that are unknown to the elites. It then is encouraged to compete with its neighbors and when the competition is saturated with both parties in debt, the monopolists take them over using their principles of fair competition.

Indeed, competition is a sardonic term. In the process of competition, the entities always let go of their own progress. The aim is to win the race, not to develop the self. Just as no race is ever equal, no self is similar. For example, India’s unique self demands that it builds itself, its political leaders recognize that the country’s development does not depend on foreign investment that produces large deficit budgets, but on domestic endeavors to plan the pace of its progress and work towards it alone (this may not be the same needs for another country today). To lose focus on this means to be subservient to interests of the global capitalists who know no country, no nationality, no people: they know only profits, at any costs.

Third world developing economies need not compete. They just need to cooperate with each other in delving deep into their own unique human resources and strengthen them. In the case under consideration, with optimal development of agriculture, there can be improvement of environment as well as growth of economy. It’s never too late to save the countries from ecological disasters. And it’s never too late to have economic growth at one’s own terms. It’s never too late to look back at history and learn a lesson or two, that colonies were once divided and ruled. That cannot be allowed to happen again.

Being fully liberalized is a truth. But this truth applies to the owning class. They are now free to operate in whichever way. Not to promote competition. Just like in the US, where only four big business houses killed thousands of media outlets and now own every means of mental production, in the republic of India, a handful of business houses have in the past killed all indigenous products and the accruing benefits to the locals. Needless to state, with the retail market open to multinationals, we shall soon see the demise of anything remotely associated with an independent economy.

My well-meaning friends have a last arsenal. It blasts: if market has helped many western economies, why can’t it help India? To that I have just one spontaneous response: Market matters in a country laid down by marketers (or even the black-marketers). Just like race matters in a racist society (and so we need demographics of races), and caste matters in a casteist society (to figure out why some castes in India are still downtrodden), market matters in a market society. For a country like India, where a huge majority of people are still working in the agricultural sector, the economy needs to be recognized as agrarian in nature and every step must be taken to benefit the farmers. Agriculture matters in an agrarian society. The sooner we realize this, the better it is.

Tags: Saswat, Economics, India, Capitalism, Communism

By Saswat Pattanayak

The history of my campus is replete with racism. Most of the presidents of the university were decisively racists. Segregation of students based on whiteness/color had been a constant. In a timeline I helped prepare for my office, we discovered even more startling facts, some too gory to carry online.

Well, what’s new, one would say, when ‘everyone was doing it basically the same’ way up until 70’s. You know, folks actually get away with that loose canon. Of course it absolves the guilt of the guilt. The blacks, the asians, the hispanics had no place in white colleges back then, after all.

Back then sounds like a clichéd history. Except that we oftentimes fail to recognize how hysterically historical our contemporary society even is. The majority of population surrounding my campus are Blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, there are scores of communities of Latino population just outside the campus area (less than 100 meters away). Miles of stretches of apartments are inhabited by Latinos and Blacks. It’s like the invisible America of the national Capital.

After all, the visible are the big cities, not their population. The buildings, not the workers. Powerful sites like Washington DC, New York City or Las Vegas. Invisible are their makers: the cheap labor force. Behind all the glory of the Capitol streets, all glitz of the Times Square and glamour of Nevada casinos are the footmarks of the Blacks and Latinos. ‘They’ construct the roads and buildings and yes keep them darn clean.



Same goes with the giant ivory tower of the University of Maryland. The College Park campus alone is located on 1,250 acres of rolling land. The communities surrounding the campus are predominantly Latino. At least 80 percent of them are! Eighty freakin percent! The PG County which houses the College Park university is predominantly black. About 63% of population in PG County are Black (whereas only 27% are White). Likewise, the adjoining Washington DC –the state that houses the most powerful maniacs in political history—has a population of 60% blacks and only 30% whites.

Now let’s look at the largest campus of the area, the flagship public university and how diverse it is—which basically means how much does the university attempt at recruiting from the population that is represented in the area. How reflective is it of the reality and how contrasting are the statistics when we compare between the people who make up the area and the ones who get the elite tickets to higher education. We are not even talking of the rates of retention which is pathetically lower when it comes to students of color. For the purpose, we are to talk only of the recruitment (colored students who at least showed up—no matter if they left the place owing to the great mismatch between lived reality in their living neighborhood and the classroom incongruence).

Here it is, among the undergraduates: White students: 68%! Asians: 14%. Blacks: 12%. Latino: 5.7%.
And among the graduate students: White students: 83%! Blacks: 7%. Rest: 10%

So what we have here is a complete contradictory picture of what is real outside and what’s reflected inside. This is true of all major universities of the US. All big cities are predominantly inhabited by people of color. Just look at the statistics, from the US census: Latinos comprise 27% of New York City, 46% of Los Angeles, 26% of Chicago, 37% of Houston, 36% of Dallas, 30% of San Jose, 59% of San Antonio, 77% of El Paso, 25% of San Diego, and 34% of Phoenix.

Likewise, Blacks comprise, 28% of New York, 44% of Philadelphia, 37% of Chicago, 26% of Houston, 27% of Dallas, 82% of Detroit, 65% of Baltimore, 62% of Memphis, 61% of Washington DC, and 68% of New Orleans.

Now add these figures for all the major cities of the America. Even if we don’t count the Asians, these numbers alone are staggeringly so high that the reality is, the great big cities of the world are actually great because of the contributions of the hard-working people of color who comprise the majority here.

So where are the 77% of Whites of American population?
Well, a small minority of them are in the big cities, alright. And they clout the elite institutions –courts, universities, business empires in major proportions. They don’t deal with the slum problems since they have got people to build huge buildings for them already. They don’t have communities or neighborhoods. Only towers shrouded by private forests where paparazzi have to make a living of. The majority among the rest of them also take a break and don’t have to deal with the problems of the colored people—leading eventually to real segregation of the great contemporary America—one of the lesser pondered truths of modern times.

Huge majority of whites do not reside in the working class population that constructs the modern monuments. The one that is the invisible America in the Hollywood movies (again an example of mismatch—between who appear on screen and who live in Los Angeles), and the invisible America amidst the homeless millions of New York and DC.

In the cities that control the rest of the country, the ones who control the cities are a small minority White population. And that is the grim reality even to this date. And control they do, remotely. Living luxuriously in posh bungalows in richest counties which either exist side by side the largest slums (consider the fact that the country’s 10 richest communities are in the Washington metropolitan area only—where even as less than one-third are White!) or completely are way off in less dense states, demarcating the lines of segregation.

This is called the classic contradiction of capitalism in the political economy. The majority work hard to make the civilizations, for the minority to rule. The class society reinforces a social divide, uses overpowering instruments—dominant religions, mainstream education, standard work ethics, negotiable law and order—to normalize the illusions. It feels good to assume its one country, one America blessed by a Christian God, one culture where we have reduced the indigenous to less than 2 percent, one power fighting one war of terror outside the country and one superpower solving the world’s problems since we are not supposed to have any.

And it certainly makes most of us also forget –to choose sides in the exceedingly polarized two worlds of modern America—the Haves America, and the Have-nots America.

Tags: Saswat, Academic, Racism, Economics, USA, Immigrant

By Saswat Pattanayak

While introducing a historic bill that will guarantee 100 days of employment each year to every rural household in India, where more than 70% live in villages, Sonia Gandhi has given the most laudable quote of the year:

“I believe an economy which is growing at 7% per year, can and should find the resources for such a crucial intervention.”

The ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill was clearly one of the reasons why the Left parties were claimed to be active in India’s central politics of the day. Sonia and the Left have been lending each other support, but what will be interesting to watch out now is the stake of Manmohan Singh. Is he really in favor of a bill that the critics predict will draw on India’s potential as a world economic player?

India, since the 1950’s has been largely a self-proclaimed welfare state, rationalizing items of mass consumption to cater to the poor. In the process of course, it had been left behind by the capitalist competitors, until the present PM in his stint as the finance minister 15 years back relaxed the economic sectors for class consumption (because he thought India needed to compete with the group of seven looter countries). And amid competition among the giants private sectors, the rural employment schemes (such as Rajiv Rojgar Yojana) and small scale industry initiatives had fallen apart.

In his new avatar as the prime minister, Singh has been vocal about his intent to further worthy lessons of Thatcherism, much to the chagrin of the Left. Now that the Left parties’ demands are about to bear some fruits, it will be worthwhile to watch which fine line will Singh walk (as such he has been severally accused of being remotely controlled by Sonia Gandhi). Will he show his real face this time? Or just stand humbled at the showers of praises?

On a philosophical ground, the Indian initiatives seem contradictory. Allowing industrial workers to be harassed by multinationals on one hand, and promising employments to all poor (in the classic “Garibi Hatao” manner) are not the hallmark of able planning. Call it a premature prediction, but a happy marriage between capitalism and welfare state is just unlikely. For a temporary period, the governments can fool some people for a time being into believing that a free market state can secure the future of the unemployed poor, but it will be a cruel joke all the same.

Intentions of Sonia Gandhi may be above board, and she could be right about the utility of growth rates. But to assume that dividends of the growth rates can be applied to country’s upliftment is a dependability that’s utterly short-term. For example, with welfare schemes, the first casualty is the growth rate itself.

The way to further economic growth has nothing to do with welfare. Indeed, the economic growth in a free market economy happens only with curtailing infrastructure for the poor. A cursory look at China and India in the past decade will vouch for the fact that as the growth rates have taken place, the poorest sectors of population have most adversely been affected. The fastest growing economies of Asia also are seats to the most widening wealth gaps.

The way to further welfare has something to do with economic growth instead. In other words, the goal should be not to improve (or depend on) the growth rate. The goal should be to better the welfare schemes, so that it will gradually (and not suddenly—lets say because of the way IT sectors in India has helped growth of Indian companies flourish which we mistake for a national economic growth) improve the overall economic conditions of the worst affected poor.

When Mahatma Gandhi in his talisman had indicated that we ought to look at the poorest of the poor before taking a step, he knew his words well. For example, IT sector growth helps the middle class become rich, the rich to emerge richer, but it clearly leaves out the poorest of the poor in even worse situation. Although IT investments suddenly help economic growth of the country (per capita increases x fold—per capita is just an average anyway, not an actual reflection of individual incomes), it does not include the state of the 70% of population. The 70% of population reel under even more scarcity since their representatives instead of coming onto the villages to discuss water scarcity issues, then start using video conferencing to talk to district magistrates who do not come out of their little chambers of wires either, in the name of a myopic e-governance. Who gets most affected, and in which way?

The way about it is to look at welfare first, and then the growth. This can be attained by proper planning. As of now, India has pathetic five year plans ( I doubt if we still have any, these days) –economic, and educational. The planning must include the rural areas first (since most people –72 crores in India--live in villages today and most people who are needy live in most rural areas too, although this does not exclude the urban poor—who are growing in number thanks to unplanned urbanization).

The pro-poor planning is the step to viable pro-people economic growth. Pro-sector economic growth is not a step to better peoples’ lives. It only helps a dozen more business geeks to become millionaires (those who eat away the portion of wealth that should have been equitably distributed among the more needy). Planned urbanization, and focus on agrarian rural economy does not exclude information technology –it merely lets people handle the benefits via use of kiosks and self-made computer hardware—much as the spinning machines or mango orchards, instead of letting some private company like Wipro make huge profit margins by selling products at abominably high rates.

If I dare rephrase Sonia Gandhi, the more effective (although less laudable) quote could have been:

“We believe that consistent pro-poor schemes aimed at 70% of people in our country of abundant natural and human wealth can easily maintain an economy to grow at 7% per year and more.”

Tags: Saswat, Economics, Capitalism, India

By Saswat Pattanayak

Maureen Dowd comments on the father-son saga.

Not that the monarchy works any differently. But what is unforeseen are the kind of media coverage and the generated public attachment.

Mugs, t-shirts, books, dvds, calendar, greeting cards, cartoons, slogans, billboards, and op-ed columns. Bush family is the singularly most desisted in the history. Despite the junior’s thumping victory for the second term.

Who enjoys the mud the most? Ones who love getting dirty. And apparently the political system’s internal contradictions of having an elected president who is so much abhorred publicly (for no direct fault of his, he is being blamed for Iraq war to the unemployment problems at domestic scene) is being mistaken for a victory of the system!

No wonder, the Prez is happy as ever (as the story goes, as jubilant as his Dad). After all, the system that masquerades as democracy and in actual, functions as a governing body of the rich is winning the applauds of the day.

Two events come to mind immediately: media covers on Natalee Holloway and lack of media attention on gas price hike. So long as it affects a rich family, the media as we know have gone far overboard with Holloway (with 297,000 google search finds—this blog makes it one more). The gloss and the luster of it attracts so much attention that for some uncritical thinkers (ah, thanks to Fox, their numbers are multiplying by the minutes) the news becomes legitimate. Similarly, the gloss attached to the freedom-loving presidents who go on vacation and play golf in times of crisis that they create for news value is accepted by many as legitimate democratic exercise of good humor.

Three days back, I noticed the despair largely writ on the face of a fellow passenger who was trying to tell me that we should do something about the price rise of gas. After all, the night before it was 2.36 and now it was 2.61. I could sense his frustrations and I agreed that unless people organizedly protest against the monopolistic rises in price, one will not see the end of it (I have seen the prices exactly more than double within the last two years). And when I got off, I knew neither of us was kidding. But neither of us was being effective either. The issue we were deliberating was being seen as non-issue, not meant for editorial tables of the day. After all Iraq war is interesting, not its aftermaths (one of the excuses for price rises). That was not one of the stories to be written by the columnists or staff writers.

The happy-go-lucky political systems are like the celebs themselves. Walking on the red carpet is so alluring that they must need to overlook the people who put together that carpet for them. And for now, democracy talk allows the golfers-presidents to reign.

Tags: Saswat, Capitalism, USA, Economics, Media

By Saswat Pattanayak

So, Internet is the cause behind the widening wealth gap?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) says it is. In a study published by BBC, it is concerned about websites providing househunters with data on neighborhood income levels and ethnicity.

Similar process has already surfaced in the US, the report says, where segregation is more and social cohesion is less. In effect, the Britain, known for class divisions, has accused US (which refuses to believe there is any) of class divisions. And the pundits opine that Internet may be the reason behind the widening wealth gap in both societies.

They may not be out of their wits entirely. Yes, Internet sites offer specialized searches for neighborhoods, categorize them into economic interests and helps people choose communities.

But this theory has two dangerous deductions: one, that people are solely affected by external sources of information (that is, conversely speaking, they do not use their own conscientious judgment), and secondly that, human beings always prefer to live with their likes (in terms of class, gender, ethnicity, nationality) and in effect, abhor diversity.

Oftentimes studies like this as they get prominence in mainstream media are nothing more than mere spaces. The nature of mainstream media to absorb any sensationalism has reached a point, where journalists/editors no more critically screen through a copy before using them for x number of columns/pages/minutes.

Its not merely important to talk about findings (Time magazine’s article on Sleep was another of the kind). That job can be done by the research assistant at the lab. What we as mediapersons need to do is to understand that we are addressing such issues of wide implications to a larger gamut of people and we need to incorporate at least some of the differing perspectives to check if there are some loopholes in the theories of the “experts”. The respect for experts as the “gatekeepers” of today’s news contents need questioning not to undermine their significance, but to critically update their contributions.

Hence in the aforesaid story we could also talk about another parameter: that is, who determine the neighborhoods?

1.Government as the agent 2. People as actors 3. Others as mediators (media, advertorials). Government has a responsibility to enforce desegregation. It’s not just a duty of human beings to morally think of it as a virtue and not practice (we know the colossal difference between preaching of virtues and practice of them). And the mediators are actually the second layer information channels. They are the points of references, not instigators for actions for an informed citizenry.

To claim that certain websites lead to wealth gap is like missing the whole point altogether. The issue of wealth gap itself. The people we elect as representatives simply are not accounted for except for the part of election themselves. Which is self-serving anyway. It’s like people feed them with their doses of electoral bliss and perpetuate the system. What should rather be the focus of stories on widening wealth gap is the lack of accountability on part of the administrators who carry out the oaths of public causes and simply shun them according to their whims.

If the government cannot on any pretext educate people about the need to live in a diverse community, it’s quite easy to blame some websites for mischief. But it also absolves the government (that is the people whom we elect—even in case of non-western democracies the people who we allow to rule over us) of its primary responsibilities—to bridge inequality gaps. Banning certain websites, if any, will not serve any purpose.

Tags: Saswat, Media, Economics, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Robert A Dahl cites the table of Arend Lijphart’s “Pattern of Democracy” in his book “How democratic is the American Constitution” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

Dahl says there are 22 countries in the world that have steadily remained political democracies since at least 1950: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.

Of course the glaring omission is India, whose political leaders proudly claim it to be the largest democracy (and hence they logically deduce it should be a natural ally to the US), as recent trip of PM Manmohan Singh would testify.

Dahl admits that too and he says it has been done for two reasons: one, India had its system disruptions for two years 1975-77, when Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency, and two, India is too poor.

I have a couple of observations here: One, that “at least 1950” was deliberately a yardstick so that countries like Germany and Italy could be included. After all what difference would it have made had the cut-off year been 1940? Quite a lot. Indian emergency would have then looked like a joke in face of 1940’s Europe. Clearly the elites needed to stick together even if they had to do so just in order to exclude other countries.

Two, clearly economy plays a part. Why else would Dahl infer that a poor country had no right to call itself a democracy? But then he is right on target. Democracy has been associated so far with all these 22 countries, and all of them have been economically advantaged.

Thirdly, what becomes clear to me is that politically democracy is not a popular choice in the world, after all. Out of 193 countries in the world, only 22 have embraced democracy. Not only is the idea such unpopular, but ironically the wealth of the world is being owned by only these unpopular elites.

Having said that, let’s look at the Lijphart’s table to see what can justify for the elitisms of the 22 countries. A model democracy case study would be the United States. In terms of performance, it ranks one of the lowest (18th) in terms of women’s parliamentary representation, 19th lowest in energy efficiency, 17th lowest in welfare state index, 17th lowest in social expenditure, 19th lowest in foreign aid, 21st lowest in voter turnout. Not only that, the US has the 4th greatest rich-poor divide ratio (the economic gaps between have and have-not classes) and the highest rank in terms of incarceration rate (the biggest prison-industrial complex in the world).

With all these “worst performances”, where all rest of the countries (100% of them) do better in foreign aid or in incarceration rate, in what respect does the US shine? Only in one field: Economic growth, where it is among the top three rank.

As I view it, more imprisonments are then directly proportional to higher economic growth. And as corroborated by history, this has been the one of the ways (imprisoning, and mass murdering) using which the European expansions have continued to this date. Earlier it was just territory they were after. Now it includes the culture and economy.

The second repugnant truth is that economic growth of a country has nothing to do with socio-economic conditions in which its people live. In case of the US, it’s evident that with greater economic growth, there is greater rich-poor divide. Hence there is an economic growth, but one that helps the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

And is it not ironical that the same US economic model is now in place with more than 90% of the world since late 1980’s? Police states pretending to be democracies and abject poverty and homelessness owing to irresponsible capitalism. That’s the future of our planet earth?

Tags: Saswat, Economics, India, Academic

By Saswat Pattanayak

JF Kennedy must be the hero of the Bush administration. In all the ways possible that Kennedy had thought of the American people to think of what they could do for their country instead of assuming that the country could do anything for them, GW Bush has implemented the dream.

In JFK era, it was a call for the people to sacrifice their lives to destroy a form of economy growing popularity in the world over, where it would be envisaged that people lived with dignity without worries about basic food, clothing and shelter. It was a time where john lennon dreamed of a world free of religions and national flags. A time when the women of color differed with their white counterparts and opposed any sense of essentialism attributed to them. A time when the angry poets hoped to kill poetry because the poetry served the interests of the elites in propagating an uneasy comfort level. When the weathermen and the panthers got their acts together to reflect their dreams of a better world. That had to begin with demanding that the state behave well and take responsibility of its citizenry, young and old, literate and unemployed.

And then, Kennedy spoke of the role of the people in not expecting the state to perform. In a highly nationalistic fervor, many people applauded. The counterrevolutionary stance helped prevent a new world, it led to various blocks, gross mistrusts and people’s selfish allegiance to their state (to do all that they can do for their own country).

Now Mr Bush has ardently followed Kennedy’s path. He wants people to sacrifice their interests, cut the benefits, raise the burdens and maybe hope for a compulsory military recruitment. After all, don’t expect what the country can do for you, think of what you can do for the country.

Such lines are often heard at the German convention of the Aryans. Or the Indian meets of the right wing conservatives.

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, Capitalism, Economics

By Saswat Pattanayak

The signs of the times are often determined by the signs of the ruling classes. This houses an intrinsically flawed assumption too. Which is, that the ruling classes then are endorsed by the ruled subjects.

This first leads to a diversion I wish to address. The political correctedness of our times demand that we not call subjects thus, because they are in fact participants who have human hearts, you see. But so long as the research is in the domain of the experimenter and the people actually do not have a say in the conclusions or the ways to get about to that owing to research limitations, what good is it to call one participant when one is actually not determining the course of study.

Of course some one gets benefited from these subtle word usages. The ones who end up calming the potential agitations.

With such subjects, feeble with access but holding no control, the history of the ruling classes emerge depicting the signs of their times. Its important to remember that the signs of their times necessarily relate only to the times led by the ruling class people, not of the times led by their subjects. Hence the history texts not only talk of the times as glanced by the ruling class elites, always few in number, but also the subtexts run contrary to the historical sentiments expressed en masse by the large population of working peoples.

In effect, all histories written in the past, as documented and used as secondary sources, need not only be revisited for revisions, but also replaced with the anti-text which will be truly representative of the majority peoples’ lives, and hence secure place as the only legitimate history narration.

That’s simpler done than said. Life lies ahead and for us folks who agree to do that formidable tasks, its never too late, for I believe there are fellow-believers who will succeed in generations to come too.

And yes, we gotta take a side, even though the side may not always look at our best. That’s the humble irony at many a times. Hence when we address the societal fallacies it includes us also. For example, our collective disgraceful tolerance of our generation of an unforeseen capitalistic domination in the world. To begin with. More shames will follow. More we realize our gory pasts, more we can look forward with promising future: one made by us, not meted out on a platter manufactured in Hong Kong sweatshops marketed by Wal-Mart family of billionaires.

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, Economics, Capitalism

The IMF's Global Monitoring Report 2005 is out and it seems clear on its agenda: That, without early and tangible action to accelerate progress, the Millennium Development Goals will be seriously jeopardized—especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, which at current trends will fall short of all the goals. At stake are prospects not only for hundreds of millions of people to escape poverty, disease, and illiteracy, but also for long-term peace and security—objectives intimately linked to development. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Economics, Capitalism, Academic

I am never struck by the homeless in New York.
For I know, momentarily, the cheek is turned the other side.

Tags: Saswat, Capitalism, Economics, USA

By Saswat Pattanayak

In the last fortnight, at least two eminent professors and two international administrators ran into arguments with me on a specific subject: Merit.
Does the issue of ‘merit’ merit a discussion?
I guess so. At least when we consider the range of issues it brings forth.
Lets start with Merit-iocracy
Like bureaucracy, Merit-iocracy deserves to be loathed, hence less talked about. Who desires to loath? Only those who wish to get dirty in the process. And most of us are of course clean people and want to wear stain-free clothes. Hence no loathes please.
Especially not loath the people who have ‘merits’. Lets vaguely describes the m-cracy-Not to question the existing system, assuming that the system makes for unequal existence because not all people have the merits to live with equal dignity...
What does the school of m-cracy profess: All human beings are born equal but they do not deserve equally dignified life, because it’s a world of equal opportunities and those who can make it should make it and those who fail to make it must perish.
Lets search for examples: the ones who excel in education (we mean the ones who secure the top ranks etc) are the people with merits. Now these people have other traits too-to finish the homeworks in time, with precision, with knack for meticulous details and ability to compete.
Lets search for anti-examples: the rest of 'em, which is of course, most of us.
At the face of it, it sounds like the obvious. But of course we know that its not true. I am of the opinion that we are not born equal, and hence, we must strive to make it possible to live with equal dignity as we start living...
I can recollect the uncle of mine raised and still staying in my village-with-half-time-electricity, who can web oral poetry like nobody’s business; that friend of my school days who did not graduate the final exams with any distinction but made an extremely good webmaster and teacher or those hundreds of faces that swarm in my mind’s eyes when I look for all the human beings who have made better differences in others' lives than their own.
You have your own pictures by now too. Yet we judge people by certain yardsticks of education or other categories (sports, entertainment, and all other forms of “cultural resonances” assuming that to be the final parameter of merit. Why?
The question is not yet fine-tuned, but I was already offered answers. One forceful one was, no matter what one does, one needs to do it well. Sounds rational, doesn’t it?
But during my life of twenty seven years, one thing which I have learnt of life is that life is not rational anyway. Before we fly philosophical terrains, lets zero down on the examples here. And I guess the time has come for fine-tuning the questions:
a. How does one do well in any field?
b. Why does one need to excel?
c. What makes one feel that one is better than the others?
d. Which is the life’s biggest truth and is it surveyed often?
e. When does one make the leap, if at all?
f. Where does one stop and look back?

All the above questions have been answered various ways. Again, I would say, not really answered as they have been interpreted. Locate the answers in any religious texts and you wont be disappointed or better still look for the new sacred texts: google.com
I will attempt at them strictly and solely from the angle of meritiocracy.
First question attempted: one can do well in any field. But not well enough. Its not a post-modern puzzlement I am hinting at. It’s the knowledge that one’s ignorance is the weapon to combat one’s claims. Its only through the awareness that one is vastly ignorant about the world that one will take the forward steps. Now, for hints that all of us have ignorance in vast measures, I can throw open a question: Do you know me?
In all possibility, no. Because I am sure no one in the world knows me. Each one of them who have known some facets of me are unaware of some others. Counterpose would arise and question the need to know the insignificant me. Lets throw open the other question: Do you know yourself?
It does not take Freud to tell us that most moments in each of us germinate from the unconscious/subconscious. For example do you know why you saw that dream which depicted you as dining with a man whom you never met and are unlikely to ever. We wont even go to the mystery of the flying saucers. Our ignorance is not a bliss or curse. It’s a reality.
Having said that, do we try to do well in any field. Sure. But one needs to name the fields. One needs to qualify which fields are better than the rest. And then only rank the competing people that we are. Here is the catch. The field often defined defy logic. For example, in India, the most “meritorious” are the ones who have become the administrative officers. The second most are those who are in foreign services, the third most could be in the revenue services and then some in the field of engineering and some in nuclear physics. In the US of A one would be the president of the country followed by the rocket scientist. In the world order one needs to win the Nobel Prize, nothing less and if one does not beat that contest, Forbes and Fortune magazines will decide it for them.
In other words, the fields which have been less defined are not the ones which define high merit. For example, fields like cultivating farms or cleaning the roads and the loos.
But hold on. Are we getting surprised? Why is it that the high merit level fields seem like no fields at all, whereas the low merit-level fields are actually the areas.
Let me clarify. Getting into administrative service or becoming president is not a field. Its one of ‘becoming’. That is, these are posts which are conferred. Not areas where one works ‘well’. For example you don’t do president. You don’t do bureaucrat. And certainly you don’t do nobel prize. Whereas, you do farming and you do cleaning.
So are we looking at people who are politicking and writing or who are becoming presidents and becoming prize winners? Are we looking at the “working-at-it fields” or are we looking at “winner-categories”? In more simplified terms, are we looking at only those people for whom there is a defined “winner category”? Which would imply that they are not the same thing as the fields, anyway. And doing well in any field has nothing to do with winning any rewards/awards. Any doubt and ask the one who regularly works at a lake everyday in a muddied Congo and does it damn well.

Second question attempted: Frankly the answer is no. No one needs to ‘excel’. Because excelling is not an intrinsic quality one is born with, rather is a recognition conferred by a particular society...

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, Economics, India, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

Today was the day for Social Justice from Classroom to Community. At least in my campus. Organized by the office I work with.
Click here for Complete Story
The event was meant to be the last of the sessions where a couple of hundred students went through what we call Intergroup Dialogue Programs. This was of course meant to demonstrate how to implement the learning in the community setting. Students had vindicated the findings in a short video film I had made to showcase the students interviews which was screened in the morning. So it was a good afternoon with good attendance with a good speaker and good three panelists.

What could have gone wrong?

The purpose itself. Was the name SJCC sounding too good to be true? Some were confident social justice was possible. But the dilemma remained: social justice for whom? For the marginalized is the obvious.

Now the next sword hanging: the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community is marginalized today and so also is the Jewish community. The Black people are still on the sideline and the women still face the wrath. The Muslims are a minority and the multiracials are the misunderstood. Immediately comes to mind well over a dozen marginalized groups. In the USA, that is. Elsewhere in the world the marginalized people have different characteristics. For example in India it takes a converted Christian to be marginalized. But the speaker of the day, a brilliant orator, a lawyer that he is, continued the trend of public debate in the country and ended with a thumping note: We must work together for social justice in the USA and make America the greatest country on earth. In spirit, the responsibilities of students did not entail them to think beyond the US of America. Isn’t it an irony that the people who can affect most to the world situation (mostly because the world situation has been aggravated by their country’s foreign policies) are always honed to be concerned about their country. That’s the beauty of both the democrats and republicans, of the speakers at the universities and the churches: God bless America. The rest of the world can go to hell.

In contrast I recollect lectures by so called Indian ‘nationalistic’ leaders ranging from Nehru to Vajpayee who have religiously left notes for how to make the ‘world a better place’. In all our morning lecture sessions at school we were praying for the world, for all religions in the world, for peace throughout the world. It seems a completely different set of narrations, as I clearly recall. Don’t know what India gained from it, except for the notion that the welfare of India was dependant on the peace for all people on the earth, not just one country or the other. The slogan ‘vasudeva kutumbakam’ has been used by many a corporate entities to imply that the entire world is one family. Of course in retrospect, one can assume that Indian companies also wanted to spread out to the world to do business (which they have failed to). But all in all, the third world population was more lectured on the social justice in the world whereas the American population (in EVERY single presidential debate, every state university addresses and every telecast speech by the political and business leaders) was lectured on how God should bless America.
The diversion in my line of comment was on purpose.
The important question of social justice has a radical component. Which is, to go back to the roots and understand what we have been. But that’s just a component. And unlike many view, this is not even the first component. There’s quite a bit of chaos needed in analyzing how to lead social justice movement. First component is not in recognizing what we are by our unique socio-cultural roots. This is an essential component in writing a history book, not in leading the future. Rather the first component in achieving social justice is to define social injustice itself.

Social injustice may be portrayed by definition, as a collective feeling that the movements/developments in the world are becoming counterproductive to the progress. Remember the word world in this context. The world as a big family in this case, of course. To take Thatcher out of context, it would translate thus: there is nothing called society. There are just families.
A highly individualistic conservative Thatcher factor can indeed be revisited if we want to understand the concept of ‘family’ vis-à-vis society. The Bush conservatism is no different from the Tina. And no matter how much we crave God to bless America and make America the best place, it will simply not happen. The reason being, the God in question is the Christian God here, not a Muslim or Hindu God. Because apparently elsewhere the Gods of other varieties are protesting through ‘their’ people’s violences.

No ma’am, no sir, the world is not composed of several different social justices. What of the lowest socio-economic status which indeed is representative of the majority of people in the world. They are not marginalized. They are just unheard. They just don’t own the media. No voluntary organizations. No non-profit sector. They don’t become members of the boards of directors of any organization meant for their welfare. There are no organizations for the poor. For, if there indeed will be, all other divisions will be obsolete.

For the real question here is economical existence, not a cultural identity. As I said going back to roots is not the first of the social justice components.

Defining the social injustice is the first.

The poor who will never get to read what I am writing here is still sans a home. For him/her the question of identity will come much later. Or it may never come. For teeming millions are starkly unaware of the identities and their intersectionalities. It sounds un-academic in spirit. It conveys an insincere tone in the politically incorrect sense. But the reality is millions more people suffer from social injustices from the fact that they are economically downtrodden. Their names dont have surnames and they event dont remember their dates of births, let alone any other identities.

Well said, but how about the other ‘complexities’. Is poverty a result by itself or is it induced by several other interactions? Such as race and gender and caste and sects and tribes and languages and nationalities and geographic locations?
Back to social justice.

Yes for sure, I agree that there are several intersections. There are layers of realities which constitute the poor. A minority poor lives harsher life than the majority poor.
But in an average of less than a hundred years that we all live on the planet (much less in many other locations of the world), we cannot do it all. We cannot study it all and act it all. We cannot let people grapple with their identities and wage a historical war with their other counterparts and still think of solving the life-death dilemma of countless others.
We have seen less than a hundred mass-scale revolution. Hundred is a good number to play with. Because it signifies, large but not large enough a number. Has every movement failed. Can’t say for sure. But has one succeeded in solving the misery? Can say for sure that none has.

There is a course for the future. Lets call it Future Course 101:
Let’s acknowledge that there is a divide. Call the divide by many names. But mostly lets call it economic. Why? Well, lets see. There are 48 more billionaires this year, according to the Forbes, which ironically quizzes its readers to see if they have got it what it takes to be billionaire (what it misses out on are traits like manipulation, muscle and motivation to be greedy!). Put the wealth of only the world billionaires together (only 467 people!!!) and their worth is $1.9 trillion, which is much more than the GDP of the entire United Kingdom. Of course the US alone has more than 60% of the billionaires of the world. And nay, the rest are not very well distributed over the world!

Interesting!

Well, the bottomline is what Forbes headlines its article in February 2004 issue as “The Rich Get Richer”. In its March issue, Tim Ferguson writes that “Here are 12 largest countries, by population, with no known private billionaires. We cheekily call them “deprived,” and in a sense they are: Any modern economy that does not produce at least one huge fortune is, almost by definition, not creating the kind of wealth that is the earmark of a prosperous society.”

Interestinger!

Prosperous “society”?
In Ferguson’s defamed list are countries like Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and of course Vietnam. He did not mention China, though. China is making private progress in collaboration, you see.

Another article titled “In praise of inequality”, says “a disparity of income and wealth is good for us, as long as people can move up the ladder”! Of course “us” must have been the “US” in the mind of Nigel Holloway, the author.

That’s the only family, remember. The American homogenous family. Some in the family are not Americans of course, they are either African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or the Hispanics and Latinos and, hold on, the Indian-American (who’s afraid of the natives anyway?). No one gets more correct politically than the sensitized American torchbearer of human identity. One that forgets to call its own race as European-American.

God bless America. Only the Americans.

Now before we diverge to another debate altogether one last proud quote from Holloway: “The income gap is greater in the US than in Japan, but its easier in America to amass a fortune.” I agree.

A country of celebrities, people who are respected because they have wealth! I remember in India we abhorred the landlords and moneylenders because they had wealth and respected our poor school teachers who came by bicycles because they had knowledge. Of course things are changing now, the American way. Now India has respect for criminals-industrialists just because they have ‘amassed wealth’ the American way. So that the rest of us can discuss why the late industrialists’ sons had a family squabble and how one bride owns an art gallery. Food for depraved thought.

Indians will soon have their People magazine (Hint! Hint! Time-Warner).

Now lets talk about the historical roots of the movements against social injustice. Of course we know of the Robin Hood. Lets focus on the last fifty years. Fifty is an interesting number. Not recent, but not much far away either.
Movements of social justice have its roots in peoples. Peoples of the world who have waged revolutions to overthrow existing forms of governments to bring in equitable distributions of wealth. The experiments have succeeded many a times. What perplexes me most is the usual debate over the failure of socialistic economies everywhere. I wonder when at least forty percent of the world embraced communism and let it run for at least ten years (most conservatively) to eliminate the private wealth and ensure equitable distributions of wealth, did we stand by the idea of social equality?

Did we ever try to locate solutions in the wealth distributions when such a process was in force? We sang in praise of ‘democracy’ and almost ‘installed’ democracy as though it were a licensed software even without recollecting to best of minds if there were ever a period of at least ‘ten years’ when democracy has been successful in any part of the world? With vote-scams, selective disenfranchisements, and snobbish ban on ‘immigrant’ (hello, who is this one?) rights to votes, we run a democracy. With a lack of political diversity, we talk of social diversity. To evade the real issue of economic inequality we are talking of a ballot democracy where people are so sensitized about their problems that all they think of is their own fatherland. Where folks have no idea that foreign relations are important enough because countries may be foreign, but issues of economics are not.

Social justice needs to meet a common ground in order to succeed. And that common ground today, as it was five hundred years back as well, is that of economic disparity. Once the economically backward people are organized to call an end to private amassment of wealth which rightfully belong to everyone in the planet on an equal level or none-at-all level, social justice will have well begun.

We have lost opportunities to stand by the people who have been in the struggles to put an end to inequality. Instead we gloat in favor of inequality. And to bring home the point, the social justice drumbeats in the US (which only focuses on the ‘national groups&rsquo are played by the institutional frameworks of private concerns. Ford Foundation comes to mind. Well played. Well played.

Before we all have been played out and enacted our last acts of pretensions that we are progressing where all we have been doing is moving in a myopic direction, before we all in the line of similar thinking act radically differently owing to our own preoccupations of identity crises, before we drop dead thinking that our life was worth living since we fought the entire life for our human dignity of being respected because we have a unique background than others, before we realize the reason why diversity might replace unity, before all that, we need to curb all differential thoughts and ask to ourselves what Gandhi had said long back in his talisman to the “world”: "I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

We got to watch our step. It has to be in direction of the world progress. Of international movement of the working class poor. The step which will proclaim that we can live happily only if we ALL can live happily. Lets call one denominator for the time being, my friend. That of economic equality. And stand by all the people who are trying at it. Lets stand by the striking workers of the world who demand higher wages. Stand by the rising teachers of the world who want permanent positions. Stand by the protesting students of the world who want no more tuition hikes. And stand by the resenting labor force in the third world who are tired of working in the sweat shops.

I am reminded of the wonderful speech made by the director of my office, where she quoted Marcos in the poem mentioned below-with context:
Some time ago, in an attempt to discredit one of the Zapatista leaders in southern Mexico, Sub-comandante Marcos, government officials there tried to put forth the idea that Marcos was gay. In a region where machismo still runs strong, it was hoped this would tarnish the leader’s credibility.

Marcos responded by writing a poem:
“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco Black in South Africa an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.
“Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying `Enough'. He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable – this is Marcos.”
[From Social Justice E-Zine #27.]

To stand by the social justice is to define it. To define it is to know that it has several layers. Almost as many as innumerable. An environment of family conservatism makes girls in India become victims to child sexual abuse which can be translated as social unjust stance. An environment of ‘sexual liberation’ makes the young in the US become victims of the largest pornography industry in the world. Yes Marcos, is right. Its marginalized all over.

But they are not in the minorities anymore. Add “every exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities resisting” together and we have the majority in the world. Because most of us cannot afford to be decent enough to be called civilized anymore. The most of us who are poor and cannot afford to buy clothes and those of us who are otherwise minorities but know how to dress the rich have to find the connection. To look at the mirror and ask as MJ asks: I’ve Been A Victim Of/ A Selfish Kind Of Love/It’s Time That I Realize/That There Are Some With No Home, Not A Nickel To Loan/Could It Be Really Me/ Pretending That They’re Not Alone?

All of us are marginalized in some way. But lets not forget the privileges of the marginalized. And that is, to turn against the tide. And today’s tide is that of the capitalistic notion of development. Within that tide, some of us may be co-opted, used and abused. We better be careful and organize. That’s what they are afraid of. We are no more the minorities. United we stand and we are the majority in the world. Just a helping hand to end the mindless competition, just an empathizing mindset to know how the Congo lives (instead of ridiculing it for having failed to produce a billionaire!) and a firm step forward, without remorse, without attachment, without recollections of the selfish loves, to end the saga which exploits.
It has to begin with the mirror..

Tags: Saswat, USA, Activism, Academic, Economics, Communism

An article by George Monbiot in the Guardian 'This Is What We Paid For', which one can read here

This Is What We Paid For

Britain's foreign aid has been used to bankroll a programme for mass
starvation
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 18th May 2004

Tony Blair has lost the election. It's true he wasn't standing, but we won't
split hairs. His policies have just been put to the test by an electorate
blessed with a viable opposition, and crushed. In throwing him out of their
lives, the voters of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh may have destroyed
the world's most dangerous economic experiment. Read More...

Tags: Saswat, India, Technology, Economics, Capitalism, UK

|

A new study on managerial pay involving more than 2,000 managers from more than 500 organizations finds that not only do women managers earn approximately nine percent less than male managers, but that pay of both men and women managers is also related to the gender and age of those they work with.

Mere interesting or sheer alarming? On May 1, its important as well. Click here to read the rest.

Tags: Saswat, Economics, Capitalism, Feminism

The World Economic Outlook presents the IMF staff's analysis and projections of economic developments at the global level, in major country groups (classified by region, stage of development, etc.), and in many individual countries. It focuses on major economic policy issues as well as on the analysis of economic developments and prospects.

Click here to see it all...Its not worth reading it all, anyway....

Tags: Saswat, Economics, Imperialism, Capitalism

A pretty ill-written commentary by Swaminathan Aiyar meets with a well-written critique...Just discovered on my cyber journey.
Click here--
Indians do better under white rule
"The fact is that Indians succeed at home too. India is full of success stories. But you don't get to hear of them living abroad. There's nothing odd about an Indian being a success in India. Almost every successful person in India, is well, Indian. Indians have built industrial empires, software businesses, a thriving entertainment industry…and not just that. Smaller success stories abound too.........
Now, it is true that Indians do well in countries ruled by whites - the US and UK, are good examples. But Indians also do well in countries ruled by non-whites as well - Indians are significant players in the economies of many African countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. They also do well in a range of countries such as the Gulf states, Singapore, Fiji and Malaysia."

Tags: Saswat, India, Economics, Capitalism