The no logo nation

My 45 year old neighboring lady asked me why I was out on such a fine morning with a decent sized bucket in my hand with the intention of collecting money for the war affected people of Iraq. This happened some while ago, I know iraq aint hot topic anymore. I didn’t have a good answer to give her especially since the honest answer had something to do with my craving for booze. My neighbor, call her madam y, shooed me away saying her sons hard earned money from a prominent software mnc( I wont name it,whew) is not to be wasted like this. After all,what connection does she has with people of iraq or Africa or wherever. Just shoo. And shoo I did.

But after a couple of days I went back to her with an apt answer that was found by me calling up all the intellectual prowess in me as well as the local drugstore. I knocked the door and out came madam y. I gave her my answer. With some research(ahem) I’ve found that the company for which ur son is working has taken up projects for pepsico. Now imagine that if at some war ravaged space in the world like iraq, if the pepsico plants there gets bombed( yes, they do have pepsi and coke plants in iraq and I know they wont ever get bombed,only the neighboring huts), pepsico would have to slash back on their project outsourcing and the mnc for which ur dear son is working may need to cancel some projects might leading to cutting off of employees. Then where would ur son be? Inside or outside.

Of course it was a whole lotta bullshit but the old dame got scared all the same and looking at the expensive kanchipuram sari she had on, asked me to wait and gave me some money for iraq. I told her as a bonus yet another thing before parting. Consider the mnc for which ur dear son is working. They need to put up a new campus or office and evicts more than a handful of farmers to acquire the land for the purpose. Your son has got job in that particular office. The farmers of course got a ‘decent’ compensation from the government after which they are roaming the streets looking around for a tree with proper heights to commit suicide. No matter to which nation the farmer belongs, now don’t u think that u, ur son and the farmer are all connected and u do have a liability to those farmers? Of course, I said all of this since in the back of my mind I’ve already planned to get the next bucket with the cause of ‘evicted farmers of bangladesh’ tagged to it. Got to have booze. But madam y’s response put a curb on it. She declared-“why would I give a fuck about some fucking farmer? My son aint no farmer, he is a highly paid and respected employee in a highly esteemed company.”

My mom always says that I have very limited intellect when it comes to practical things. Maybe she is right. I certainly didn’t have any answer to madam y’s very practical question.

Those of u who don’t want to be bugged by such questions and want to know more about anti-globalisation activities or about the effects of globalization on classes of people, referring the following would help:

1. no logo (non fiction book by Naomi klein)

2. constant gardener(movie by Fernando Meirelles)

3. blood diamond(movie by Edward zwick)

4. The corporation(documentary by Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott)

5. 1000 days and a dream(documentary by biju viswanath)

6. fences and windows(non fiction book by Naomi klein)

7. run a google search on ‘zapatista’

Capitalism and Socialism

Can capitalism alone save the world?

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Lately there has been a growing feeling in India that capitalism is the ideal way to solve all our problems. Therefore we now have people giving more importance to stock market fluctuations, profit margins, acquisitions, layoffs and governments of various states clamoring over one another in an effort to woo industrialists. This is all fine but is it really solving the problems of an ordinary citizen like you and me?

Please do not be under an impression that I am a communist. On the contrary I am totally against communism. I however believe in socialism and yes there is a difference between the two. While communism is a political system of governance, socialism is a system pertaining to economics. I am as opposed to complete communism as I am against complete capitalism. I believe communism is great as an idea but difficult to implement as has been proven by the collapse of hard core communist regimes around the world. The successful ones were the ones who adapted it according to times and have diluted the principles of communism in one way or the other.

Capitalism on the other hand is easy to implement and yields quick results and hence its popularity. But that is not to say that it is the ideal solution to the world’s problems. If that was the case then there wouldn’t be poverty in the greatest of all capitalist countries, America. However we all know that this is not the case even after all these years. Take a look at the numbers and you will find that half of America’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of 1% of its population. That’s the main problem with capitalism. Wealth is generated yes, but is concentrated in the hands of a few.

Image Courtsey:sccs.swarthmore.edu

To really reap the benefits of capitalism it has to be supplemented with good socialist policies. The responsibility for that should lie with the government. While it is well and good that governments encourage new industries to start, they should not forget that the primary function of governance is not just providing assistance to industrialists. Their primary function is to improve the general living standards of the whole of society and not just sections of it. Governments’ efficiency should not be judged by the GDP alone but by ascertaining how much of the living standards has improved across the various sections of the society. The judgment should be more qualitative than quantitative.

Government should ensure that the benefits reaped from industrialization actually reach the lower strata of the society. By that I don’t mean tax the rich more. It should be the government’s duty that industrialization is not localized but spread across the country. Taxing regimes should be more systematic and scientific to ensure that no one escapes the tax burden. Revamp the whole approach of the nationalized institutions and make it more professional and accountable. Also providing more encouragement to neglected industries, like agriculture for instance, should be taken up as a priority.

But more than anything else improve the education standards in the country. By education I do not mean that everyone should be given masters degree. On the contrary by education I mean any skill or knowledge which would give the coming generation to make a difference in this world. India was able to take advantage of the IT revolution not because it was there at the right place at the right time, but because enough of its youngsters had the right education at the right time. To improve education you need to attract better teachers. And to attract better teachers their remuneration too should be appropriate. At the moment it is pathetic to say the least. Do not expect the coming generation to find the way if the ones to guide them itself are half blind.

Image Courtesy: reactor-core.org

It is wrong for capitalists to think that there is no other alternative to capitalism. Capitalism alone will only covet more greed and blind profiteering. There is an alternative where government ensures that at least a portion of the pie is given back to the same society from which it was made. Capitalism alone hasn’t made the world better, why not try this?