[Debate] (Fwd) India needs revo crit (Raju Das)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Maybe if CPI(Maoist) dropped Maoism and converted to some kind of
right-wing Islamism, they could get more support from leftists. . . .

On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 12:25 PM, peter waterman
<peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Possibly, possibly, Yoshie, but I found it nonetheless informative. 'Maoist'
> is another wide spectrum in India, including both those involved in guerilla
> warfare and (see below) parliamentary parties:
> .........................................
> '10 Oct 2010,18:35 IST
>
> Three Left parties, CPI, CPM and CPI(ML), contesting Bihar Assembly
> elections jointly appealed the voters to vote for a secular government.
> Voters should vote for a secular government in order to ensure social
> justice, said CPI leader U N Mishra. Along with the state secretary of
> CPI-ML (Liberation) Nand Kishore and CPI-(M)'s Vijay Kant Thakur, he alleged
> that all the major parties, including the Congress, RJD and the NDA, had
> "fooled" the people of Bihar'.
>
> ..............................................................
>
>
>
> Pw
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi
> <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> The lingo probably means that the author is sympathetic to the Maoists.
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 5:09 AM, peter waterman
>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Patrick:
>> >
>> > I think this piece provides an excellent background to the
>> > recently-posted
>> > exchange on the defeats and disorientation of the CPIM.
>> >
>> > The only question about it left in my mind is the author's statement
>> > that
>> >
>> > 'The left is at the pre-democratic revolution stage, that is, at least
>> > as
>> > many as two stages removed from posing anti-capitalist, proletarian,
>> > revolutionary socialism as the goal'.
>> >
>> > 'pre-democratic revolution', 'stages', and 'proletarian, revolutionary
>> > socialism'? This suggests a 'back to the future' perspective, a return
>> > to
>> > some pristine doctrine. Whereas I would argue that one needs, rather, to
>> > re-invent the left, in the light of the capitalist revolution (not only
>> > neoliberal and global but also computerised).
>> >
>> > His critique of the 'left', however, is spot on. And, of course, not
>> > only
>> > for India.
>> >
>> > PeterW
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 6:30 AM, Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The dirty picture of neoliberalism: India’s New Economic Policy
>> >>
>> >> By Raju J. Das
>> >>
>> >> April 11, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal --
>> >> The Bollywood movie The Dirty Picture (apparently) runs on three
>> >> things:
>> >> entertainment, entertainment and entertainment. The dirty picture of
>> >> neoliberalism runs on three things, as well: class, class, and class.
>> >> Indeed, neoliberalism must be seen as the restoration and reinforcement
>> >> of class power (Harvey 2005), class power of large owners of business
>> >> over the working masses.
>> >>
>> >> This article makes a series of observations on the multiple aspects of
>> >> neoliberalism in India as a class project. What is problematic about
>> >> the
>> >> “New Economic Policy” (NEP) is not this or that aspect of it (e.g. the
>> >> idea that it causes an increase in the number of people below the
>> >> official poverty line). The whole policy is the problem. So it requires
>> >> a dialectical totalising critique, one that places its limited benefits
>> >> in relation to its enormous costs, seen from multiple vantage points.
>> >>
>> >> India’s NEP is more than a governmental policy. It is a program of the
>> >> bourgeoisie tourt court, with devastating impacts on the toiling
>> >> masses.
>> >> Neoliberalism in rural areas – agrarian neoliberalism -- is
>> >> particularly
>> >> ruthless in its impacts. Neoliberalism is also a spatial project: it is
>> >> implemented through transformation of space relations, and it produces
>> >> enormous spatial unevenness. Neoliberalism in India, like in the
>> >> periphery as such, is also a part of the imperialist project,
>> >> implemented via burgeoning “new compradore” elements both in the
>> >> business world and outside. Given the adverse impacts of neoliberalism,
>> >> it has resulted in massive resistance from below which has been
>> >> countered by the state via a combination of palliatives and repression.
>> >> Interestingly, in spite of some opposition it has offered, the left has
>> >> been, overall, a conduit through which NEP has been delivered.
>> >> Neoliberalism has, however, opened up interesting possibilities by
>> >> renewing the classical political questions: national-democratic
>> >> question
>> >> and the agrarian question as well the question of socialism itself.
>> >> What
>> >> follows is presented in the form of a few theses.
>> >>
>> >> What is NEP and what it is not?
>> >>
>> >> The New Economic Policy (NEP) is not just a government policy, and it
>> >> is, in a sense, neither entirely new, nor is it merely economic. NEP
>> >> represents the demands of the capitalist class. More specifically, it
>> >> represents demands of hegemonic fractions of the domestic and
>> >> international (including imperialist and diasporic) capitalist class.
>> >> This class now wants to, and with modern technological changes is able
>> >> to, do business in a different manner than earlier. It wants the state
>> >> to clear the way for this.
>> >>
>> >> Formally introduced in 1991, NEP expresses specific demands to create
>> >> conditions where domestic and foreign capital can invest money to make
>> >> a
>> >> lot of money quickly, by using cheap natural resources of the country
>> >> such as land and cheap skilled and unskilled labour, and via
>> >> speculation
>> >> and other non-productive means. All existing barriers to capitalist
>> >> accumulation should be removed. New facilitative conditions should be
>> >> created. Specific demands of business politically expressed as NEP
>> >> include: deregulation of private business; privatisation of
>> >> government-owned businesses, trade liberalisation, allowing entry of
>> >> foreign capital to own business in India; tax cuts and other incentives
>> >> for business, and withdrawal or reduction of meagre government benefits
>> >> for the poor. The NEP therefore is the neo-liberal program of the
>> >> bourgeoisie first, and a government’s policy second. [i]
>> >>
>> >> All major interventions, including major anti-poverty policies since
>> >> de-colonisation, have been more or less about propping up a national
>> >> capitalist regime, a little protected from imperialism and a little
>> >> free
>> >> from the fetters of feudalism. The pre-1991 age was not the golden age
>> >> for the masses. Mass poverty and (petty) bureaucratic heavy-handedness
>> >> were rampant. Much of the resources in the hands of the state was used
>> >> for the propertied classes (in the form of various subsidies and cheap
>> >> loans) and for the wealthier, high-income, educated people.[ii] The NEP
>> >> is not different from the pre-1991 policy regime in terms of its basic
>> >> class content. So, it is in a sense not that new. It is not that there
>> >> is no difference between the NEP and the pre-1991 regime. But the
>> >> similarity between the two is not to be un-dialectically
>> >> under-stressed.
>> >>
>> >> The NEP is not merely economic. This is because it must ensure
>> >> political
>> >> and ideological conditions for capital accumulation. The political
>> >> refers to state repression and judicial coercion (including suppressing
>> >> democratic rights, discussed later). The ideological refers to the
>> >> promotion of market fetishism in all spheres of everyday life,
>> >> including
>> >> in our consciousness. Associated with market fetishism is the idea of
>> >> getting rich quickly by any means and of the market as the dominant
>> >> method of helping the poor (hence the popularity of such things as
>> >> self-help groups and microcredit in the development discourse). [iii]
>> >>
>> >> In sum, a dialectical conceptualisation of NEP or neoliberalism is
>> >> needed: it must be sensitive to both difference and similarity between
>> >> the pre-1991 and post-1991 policy regimes, the economic and the
>> >> non-economic character of NEP, and such a conceptualisation must see
>> >> the
>> >> governmental aspect as also rooted in the class character of the
>> >> society.
>> >>
>> >> Winners and losers
>> >>
>> >> The NEP has led to a small minority of winners and a very large
>> >> majority
>> >> of losers. Not only in terms of its underlying driving forces, but also
>> >> in terms of necessary consequences, the NEP is a class project in that
>> >> it produces an enormous amount of class inequality. The NEP has vastly
>> >> benefited the capitalist class, including its financial elements,
>> >> producing close to 70 dollar billionaires in the country. It has placed
>> >> a colossal amount of wealth in the hands of a few, the wealth produced
>> >> by the sweat of the propertyless masses. A part of this wealth has been
>> >> hidden away in overseas banks and another part is publicly displayed
>> >> via
>> >> pretentious lifestyles.[iv] The NEP has certainly brought some foreign
>> >> technology and cheaper intermediate goods in some cases. It has also
>> >> benefitted some educated people – including tech-coolies -- employed in
>> >> IT and related industries, providing cheap labour to global capitalism.
>> >> The economic success of this stratum is mobilised as an ideological
>> >> prop
>> >> for the NEP. A wide variety of consumer items is now available for
>> >> those
>> >> with money (approximately 200 million in the country of 1200 million).
>> >>
>> >> On the other hand, the NEP has heaped unspeakable miseries on the
>> >> bottom
>> >> 800-1000 million), the proletarians and semi-proletarians and vast
>> >> numbers of small-scale business/landowners. It has produced a massive
>> >> amount of economic inequality, insecurity, unemployment and
>> >> under-employment, casualisation, informalisation, heightened level of
>> >> labour exploitation and lax or non-implementation of protective factory
>> >> acts. It has produced what Utsa Patnaik calls “a republic of hunger”
>> >> and
>> >> what Jean Dreze calls “a nutritional emergency”. It has produced a
>> >> graveyard of people who are committing suicide because they cannot pay
>> >> their bills, and this is happening not just in villages but also in
>> >> erstwhile booming cities such as Tirupur.
>> >>
>> >> In poor countries such as India, a specific form of neoliberalism is
>> >> agrarian neoliberalism. Agrarian neoliberalism represents an internally
>> >> contradictory logic: enhancing the value of rural areas as an arena for
>> >> big business activities; and reducing state investment in rural areas,
>> >> whether for promoting rural economic development or social welfare.
>> >> Rural areas have become an arena of capitalist accumulation in newer
>> >> ways: buying peasants’ land at dirt cheap prices; contract farming;
>> >> cultivation of capital-intensive high-value farm products such as
>> >> flowers and shrimps in a country where millions even do not have access
>> >> to rice or wheat or a glass of safe water to drink; agribusiness sale
>> >> of
>> >> seeds, etc. to peasants; and patenting of indigenous knowledge of
>> >> peasants. In terms of the state neglect of rural areas, rural
>> >> development expenditure as a percentage of the net national product has
>> >> been decreasing.[v] Government subsidies for fertilisers, electricity
>> >> and other farm inputs and investment in irrigation have been slashed.
>> >> Access to cheap loans to farmers has been limited. Price support to
>> >> farmers has been reduced, and the Public Distribution System has been
>> >> drastically curtailed.
>> >>
>> >> Peasants are losing land to capitalist industrialisation and land
>> >> speculation. Land ceiling laws are reversed because these are
>> >> considered
>> >> to be constraints on capital flows into farming. Peasants are being
>> >> forced to leave their land because farming is not viable: costs of
>> >> cultivation are going up due to shrinking government support. Highly
>> >> indebted, many are driven to distress sales of their products. They are
>> >> also affected by the import of subsidised foreign farm goods.
>> >>
>> >> As Professor Utsa Patnaik (2007) has admirably documented, food
>> >> production and availability per capita is decreasing, in part because
>> >> land is converted to non-food crops both by big companies and smaller
>> >> owners attracted by the prospect of making a little cash. This is a
>> >> grave danger to food security. Also, in the areas where high-value farm
>> >> products are produced (shrimps; flowers), an intense exploitation of
>> >> labour and land happens in order to make the sector competitive in the
>> >> global market. Declining investment in rural infrastructure (especially
>> >> flood and irrigation control) is increasing vulnerability to drought
>> >> and
>> >> floods. Agrarian distress is creating a huge reserve army of labour, a
>> >> part of which is forced to migrate to cities, putting pressure on wages
>> >> that are already very low. This, along with shrinking government
>> >> support
>> >> for workers, allows capital to raise the level of exploitation. That
>> >> NEP
>> >> has produced increasing numbers of wealthy people on the one hand and
>> >> thousands of millions of people whose basic need for food remain
>> >> unsatisfied singularly speaks to neoliberalism as a class project.
>> >>
>> >> On its own terms, NEP is not a big success either. It has unleashed
>> >> some
>> >> entrepreneurial energy. Yet, India still accounts for only 2 per cent
>> >> of
>> >> the global economy and less than 1 per cent of world trade. Even in the
>> >> IT sector, India remains a relatively minor player dependent on the
>> >> technology and markets of the West. There is little sign that in key
>> >> sectors the average level of labour productivity has improved relative
>> >> to that in richer countries. India remains a cheap labour platform of
>> >> global capitalism.
>> >>
>> >> NEP as a spatial project
>> >>
>> >> The NEP as a capitalist agenda is fundamentally a spatial-scalar
>> >> project. It is implemented through accumulation projects that involve
>> >> massive restructuring of space relations, producing spatial unevenness
>> >> at multiple scales. Massive restructuring of space relations has two
>> >> aspects.
>> >>
>> >> 1. To accelerate the movement of commoities at a cheaper cost between
>> >> places and between India and the rest of the world. To increase the
>> >> pace
>> >> of elite consumption, a new built environment is being produced. This
>> >> is
>> >> in the form not only of shopping malls in the cities, but also of new
>> >> roads, railway lines, including dedicated railways lines, modern
>> >> airports, sea ports, etc.[vi]
>> >>
>> >> 2. To produce spaces like this and to set up enterprises (hotels,
>> >> manufacturing units) as well as to construct housing for sale, slums
>> >> are
>> >> being cleared and peasants and tribal people are dispossessed of their
>> >> land. Tribal land is required also for its natural resources, which are
>> >> subjected to intense exploitation. Between big bosses’ rights and
>> >> little
>> >> people’s rights to be in a place, it is usually force that decides the
>> >> matter. This force is often the brute force wielded by private goons of
>> >> moneybags and the more legal force of the state (police, courts, etc.).
>> >>
>> >> The production of space not only facilitates accumulation and money
>> >> making in the ways just noted, it is also an opportunity in itself to
>> >> make money, because space or the economic landscape is a commodity.
>> >> What
>> >> is called infrastructure is big business indeed. The production of
>> >> space
>> >> has an ideological moment to it as well. By constantly asserting that
>> >> the country needs a large amount of money for its infrastructure, the
>> >> state justifies measures to court private capital through various cash
>> >> and kind incentives and for justifying cuts in welfare expenditure.
>> >>
>> >> The NEP has also resulted in an enormous amount of unevenness between
>> >> regions, because neoliberal investment, whose main motive is profit
>> >> making, tends to be geographically concentrated, although the patterns
>> >> of unevenness are not written in stone. Just because investment happens
>> >> in a few places or states, producing impressive glass buildings,
>> >> gorgeous shopping malls and islands of “hi-tech” firms, this does not
>> >> mean that all the places in the country can experience this: the
>> >> process
>> >> in which some places in the country become developed includes most
>> >> other
>> >> places not developing. Neoliberalism is a process of production of
>> >> spatial inequalities (and spatial displacements). A most important form
>> >> of this unevenness is between rural and urban areas; urban areas grow
>> >> 500% times faster than rural areas. Agriculture has more or less
>> >> stagnated as public expenditure has dwindled and public resources are
>> >> diverted from it to infrastructure projects in the interests of big
>> >> business. The geographical face of the country outside the cities and
>> >> their closely connected hinterlands is dismal; this is not to deny
>> >> enormous unevenness between the richer areas inside cities (e.g. gated
>> >> communities) and slums. [vii]
>> >>
>> >> The patterns of uneven development have interesting political dynamics,
>> >> between cities and between states. With pro-business reforms, regional
>> >> elites have some more power vis a vis the central government, and these
>> >> regionally based elites compete with each other for external loans and
>> >> domestic as well as foreign capital. Some states (and some cities) get
>> >> more investment than others, thus creating a new layer of uneven
>> >> economic development. When all places are equally neoliberal in
>> >> courting
>> >> capital, small differences in policy or other factors necessary for
>> >> profitmaking become metamorphosed into large differences.
>> >>
>> >> NEP and imperialism
>> >>
>> >> The NEP is a part of the imperialist project. India’s NEP is a part of
>> >> global neoliberalism, whose history is connected to working-class
>> >> struggle in the West and anti-colonial struggles in the periphery. More
>> >> specifically, capitalism, under the rule of financial capital, has been
>> >> seeking to withdraw, since the 1970s, many of the concessions (e.g.
>> >> welfare benefits) it had conceded to the working class in the advanced
>> >> countries (Harvey, 2005). And global big business is no more willing to
>> >> concede some autonomy to peripheral states and the national bourgeoisie
>> >> of poor countries that it had tolerated in the aftermath of
>> >> anti-colonial struggles. Natural resources, markets, space (including
>> >> spaces to dump waste) and labouring bodies of poorer countries cannot
>> >> be
>> >> entirely left in the hands of the national bourgeoisie to exploit.
>> >> International capital must have free access to these. The NEP, the
>> >> medium of and outcome of global neoliberalism, playing itself out in
>> >> India establishes direct exploitative connections between the
>> >> bourgeoisie (including financial segments of it) of rich countries and
>> >> India’s poor masses to a degree that did not exist earlier. An
>> >> important
>> >> aspect of neoliberalism is “the new determination to drain the
>> >> resources
>> >> of the periphery toward the center” (Dumenil and Levy, 2005: 10) via
>> >> the
>> >> activities of international financial capital and other segments of the
>> >> international big business.
>> >>
>> >> Such transfer of resources occurs via exploitation of workers and
>> >> peasants of India by imperialist capital, a process that the NEP
>> >> furthers. This imperialist exploitation is abetted by the imperialist
>> >> countries and India’s pliant-compradore state, which is epitomised in
>> >> sultans of reforms such as Dr Manmohan Singh.[viii] It is also
>> >> interesting that some of the Indian states are run under budgetary
>> >> guidelines formulated by the US “knowledge” firm McKinsey, the IMF and
>> >> the World Bank and DFID, etc. and comprador intellectuals and advisors
>> >> bought off by these institutions. In many ways, neoliberalism –
>> >> privatisation, cuts in government spending, etc-- was imposed by
>> >> international institutions under the name of conditionalities for loans
>> >> and which have directly affected the masses. It is also interesting
>> >> that
>> >> exactly the same sort of measures have been undertaken in imperialist
>> >> countries themselves in the interests of their top “1%”, which have
>> >> impacted their own “99%”. Neoliberalism – the onslaught of capital on
>> >> the toiling masses – is the thread that links the toiling masses of the
>> >> world, although these masses in the poorer countries are affected a lot
>> >> more than in richer countries.
>> >>
>> >> NEP and class struggle
>> >>
>> >> The NEP has been an arena of, and an object of, class struggle. This
>> >> class struggle has been from above and from below. Given the
>> >> devastating
>> >> impacts of the NEP it is not surprising that there has been massive
>> >> resistance against it. Millions of people have gone on strike multiple
>> >> times since the 1990s. Some of the resistance has been against the
>> >> venal, atrociously corrupt way in which the partnership between capital
>> >> and the state has undemocratically milked public resources. Much of the
>> >> resistance has been directly against privatisation, liberalisation,
>> >> globalisation and reduction in state support for the poor and farmers.
>> >>
>> >> Because of the struggle from below, real and potential, the state has
>> >> slightly slowed the pace of “reforms” (especially, labour laws etc.),
>> >> and this is so especially when a given reform will adversely affect
>> >> weaker members of the bourgeoisie which cannot compete in the global
>> >> market. The state has also tried to provide some palliatives as a part
>> >> of the neoliberal policy to ensure that reforms are not politically
>> >> derailed by the social unrest. In terms of actual support for the poor,
>> >> this is too little relative to the amount of damage caused by
>> >> neoliberalism (note that both the necessity for palliatives and the
>> >> limits to these palliatives are caused by neoliberalism). The dominant
>> >> neoliberal view is one of market idolatry: the poor should be
>> >> sacrificed
>> >> at the altar of the god of the market, the god of reforms, the god of
>> >> growth, which has more power than the millions of gods in our holy
>> >> land,
>> >> and this god will benefit the poor (aam admi) in the long run. In the
>> >> short run, while the poor are prostrating before the market god, they
>> >> get bruised laying on the hard surface, so they need some form of
>> >> band-aid. The so-called employment guarantee scheme, like the farmer
>> >> loan waiver, is one such thing. Finance Minister Chidambaram, like many
>> >> others (Khatkhate 2006; Bhagwati 2001), think that “growth is the best
>> >> antidote to poverty”. So, “what is needed is not less, but more
>> >> reforms’, says our finance minister (quoted in the Hindu, November 8,
>> >> 2006).
>> >>
>> >> The bourgeoisie needs “growth” (meaning a massive increase of money in
>> >> its hands in the shortest possible time). The political parties and the
>> >> neoliberal state, at the central and provincial levels, will deliver
>> >> this. This is the limit to how much and in what way the workers and
>> >> peasants can benefit from the palliatives. The idea that there is such
>> >> a
>> >> thing as neoliberalism with a human face means that neoliberalism
>> >> itself
>> >> is inhumane.
>> >>
>> >> And where numbing of consciousness through official and academic
>> >> market-oriented propaganda, including by finance ministers and other
>> >> spokespersons of capital, fails, where intoxication of the masses by
>> >> the
>> >> fetishism of seasonal festivals called elections eases (note that the
>> >> majority of the masses think that reforms are pro-rich) and where
>> >> official bribing in the form of limited welfare is ineffective, and
>> >> where therefore the masses do rise in revolt, the state has been using
>> >> repression launching class struggle from above to clear the barriers to
>> >> the twin methods of accumulation: accumulation by dispossession and
>> >> accumulation by exploitation (Das 2012). Dispossession of tribal
>> >> peoples
>> >> and years of tribal poverty exacerbated by neoliberalism have led to
>> >> Maoist resistance in several hundred districts. The Maoist threat is
>> >> elevated to the biggest threat to the nation and then is conveniently
>> >> used as an excuse to suppress any legitimate democratically organised
>> >> protest against neoliberalism. Interestingly, the politics of the fight
>> >> against Maoism, which is not necessarily against capitalist
>> >> accumulation
>> >> as such (more below on this), is being used to remove all barriers to
>> >> precisely that, i.e. capitalist accumulation.
>> >>
>> >> The capitalist class has also directly engaged in struggle from above
>> >> by
>> >> undermining the power of workers striking against capital. Capital has
>> >> done this by hiring goons to hurt striking workers, resorting to the
>> >> bribing of union leaders and locking employees out. In many recent
>> >> years, person days lost to lockouts are five times the number lost due
>> >> to strikes. The courts also have ruled against the democratic right to
>> >> strike.
>> >>
>> >> NEP and the left
>> >>
>> >> It is undeniably true that left parties have put pressure on
>> >> governments
>> >> to implement certain pro-poor measures (e.g. public works) and to slow
>> >> the pace of certain neoliberal measures. But overall, the left forces
>> >> (unless otherwise noted, by “left”, I am henceforward referring to the
>> >> parliamentary left as represented by the Communist Party of India (CPI)
>> >> and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) have virtually
>> >> converted themselves into a conduit for the implementation of the NEP
>> >> through ideological and political-administrative means.
>> >>
>> >> Ideologically, the parliamentary left (as well as much of the
>> >> "unorganised left")[ix] has not provided a serious critique of the NEP.
>> >> Whatever critique it has, this critique is rather limited. It is
>> >> limited
>> >> because it is more or less from the standpoint of economically
>> >> less-competitive sections of the so-called progressive national
>> >> bourgeoisie (and a very small segment of the "relatively well-paid"
>> >> salaried working class, mainly unionised public sector workers). The
>> >> critique is from a standpoint which points to the solution of the
>> >> problems in merely government regulation. The left critique has not
>> >> been
>> >> from the vantage point of the NEP being essentially a project of the
>> >> capitalist class (as opposed to a merely new government policy). It has
>> >> not been from the vantage point of the working class and poor peasants
>> >> as a bloc of anti-capitalist classes. It has therefore not been from
>> >> the
>> >> vantage point of the transcendence of capitalism for which theoretical
>> >> and practical preparations must be made now. The left is at the
>> >> pre-democratic revolution stage, that is, at least as many as two
>> >> stages
>> >> removed from posing anti-capitalist, proletarian, revolutionary
>> >> socialism as the goal. Indeed, it is this vision that directly
>> >> influences the left view of everything, including the NEP. Without a
>> >> revolutionary theory, it lacks revolutionary practice. One wonders:
>> >> what
>> >> is "left" of the left (ideology)?
>> >>
>> >> Politically, the parliamentary left has propped up, and supported
>> >> various parties (Janata, Congress, etc.) from time to time, which have
>> >> implemented NEP. It has justified this support on two grounds:
>> >> anti-imperialism (and anti-feudal struggle) as well as anti-communalism
>> >> struggle (to keep the Hindu fundamentalists out of power). The left, on
>> >> whose radar anti-capitalist socialism does not yet exist because it is
>> >> more interested in democratic changes within the capitalist system, has
>> >> lent a pro-poor cover to the governments so they can administer the
>> >> bitter pill of NEP with a little sweetener, i.e. NEP with a human face,
>> >> in a more consensual manner. The left has turned itself in practice
>> >> into
>> >> a radical-nationalist fraction of the bourgeoisie. Its radical blusters
>> >> and theoretical-sounding rhetorical flourishes cannot hide this fact.
>> >> At
>> >> the provincial scale, where the organised parliamentary left was/is in
>> >> power, it has pursued NEP and pro-big business measures.[x] And it has
>> >> done this in a more ruthless fashion via its control over trade unions
>> >> and using the misperception that the left is pro-working class.
>> >>
>> >> Concluding comments: New Economic Policy and old social problems
>> >>
>> >> Neoliberalism is about changing the balance of class power in favour of
>> >> the capitalist class. This is true in rich countries. This is no less
>> >> true in poor countries such as India. India’s NEP is a policy on behalf
>> >> of capital, and it is therefore a policy of capital, tourt court,
>> >> mediated and implemented by the state at central and provincial scales.
>> >>
>> >> A dialectical view of the NEP points to the weight of its
>> >> contradictions. More specifically, the NEP has brought to the fore the
>> >> revolutionary-political questions anew. Consider the national question.
>> >> The national question is no longer about fighting formal colonialism.
>> >> It
>> >> is rather about fighting new imperialism, practiced dominantly through
>> >> economic mechanisms. It is the imperialism of the IMF, World Bank,
>> >> multinational corporations and international “aid” agencies. This is an
>> >> imperialism that is justified and sold to Indians through the discourse
>> >> of development and progress. It is also sold via chauvinistic ideas
>> >> about India’s “superpower status”, which is but as a regional
>> >> subordinate helper of the supreme guardian of global capitalism (the
>> >> United States), which, as Wood says (2003: 133), guards the subordinate
>> >> guardians (subordinate states such as India) of the capitalist
>> >> imperatives in different parts of the world. That a prime minister,
>> >> left
>> >> to choose between holding on to his top job of public service to a
>> >> nation and sealing a strategic partnership with the USA, would choose
>> >> the latter says a lot about the imperialist character of the
>> >> “neoliberality” – the neoliberal mentality – of current state managers.
>> >> The post-colonial neoliberal state itself has become a mechanism of new
>> >> imperialism.
>> >>
>> >> Consider the democratic question. There has been massive resistance to
>> >> the NEP, as mentioned earlier, to which the state is responding in a
>> >> most undemocratic manner. It is also promoting venal capitalism;
>> >> massive
>> >> corruption in the public offices has been endemic since the 1990s. By
>> >> making all political parties/groups equal as far as their adherence to
>> >> neoliberalism is concerned, the NEP has also created a situation where
>> >> casteism and religious fundamentalism are made use of to divide the
>> >> poor
>> >> electorate and to garner votes, creating conditions for the
>> >> perpetuation
>> >> of undemocratic relations based on religious and caste identity.[xi]
>> >> The
>> >> NEP is creating new aspects of the agrarian question as well, the
>> >> question of peasants’ property and their miseries caused by
>> >> agribusiness. So the democratic question – including democratic
>> >> governance, equal rights of citizens irrespective of caste or religious
>> >> background, agrarian question -- becomes important in new ways in
>> >> neoliberal times.
>> >>
>> >> And the national question and the democratic question – i.e. new
>> >> imperialist subordination, the state and society becoming more
>> >> undemocratic, peasants losing land -- are rooted in the fact that the
>> >> NEP is basically a capitalist project. The NEP represents capitalism in
>> >> its most naked and ruthless form. This is where the dirty picture of
>> >> the
>> >> NEP is coming from. The dirty picture of neoliberalism, once again,
>> >> runs
>> >> on three things: class, class, and class.
>> >>
>> >> If the above assessment is broadly correct, it indicates a very
>> >> different sort of solution to the national and democratic questions as
>> >> well as specific problems such as mass impoverishment the NEP is
>> >> creating than what the current left is offering. The intellectual and
>> >> political fight against the NEP cannot be about merely changing the
>> >> dirty clothes of the state (meaning changing its policy and making it
>> >> regulate affairs of capitalism more as during olden times). It cannot
>> >> be
>> >> about interrupting, deconstructing and destabilising things and
>> >> narratives about the NEP or wider society a bit here and a bit there,
>> >> although that is certainly necessary. The idea that there is such a
>> >> thing as neoliberalism with a human face is basically based on the lie
>> >> that basic interests of capital are fundamentally compatible with the
>> >> basic interests of toiling masses of the country in a sustainable,
>> >> contradiction-free manner.
>> >>
>> >> Control of society’s resources by big business, unregulated growth,
>> >> exploitation of labour, income inequality and ecological devastation
>> >> cannot belong to the same set in which socially coordinated wealth
>> >> creation, equality, solidarity, popular democracy and satisfaction of
>> >> needs belong. Therefore, the intellectual and political project must
>> >> have a larger goal of theoretically and practically transcending the
>> >> conditions which produce the dirty picture of neoliberalism itself.
>> >>
>> >> [Raju J. Das is associate professor at the departments of geography and
>> >> development studies, York University, Toronto, Canada. Das is on the
>> >> editorial board of Science & Society and the editorial advisory board
>> >> of
>> >> Dialectical Anthropology.]
>> >>
>> >> References cited
>> >>
>> >> Banerjee-Guha, S. 2009. “Neoliberalising the ‘Urban’: New Geographies
>> >> of
>> >> power and injustice in Indian cities”, Economic and Political Weekly,
>> >> XLIV: 22.
>> >>
>> >> Banerjee, S. 2008. “A Political Cul-de-sac: CPI(M)’s Tragic
>> >> Denouement”,
>> >> Economic and Political Weekly, October 18.
>> >>
>> >> Bardhan, P. 2005. “Nature of Opposition to Economic Reforms in India”,
>> >> Economic and Political Weekly, November 26, 2005.
>> >>
>> >> Bhagwati, J. 2001. “Growth, poverty and reforms”, Economic and
>> >> Political
>> >> Weekly, March.
>> >>
>> >> Datt, G. and Ravallion, M. 2010. “Shining for the poor too”, Economic
>> >> and Political Weekly, XLV: 7.
>> >>
>> >> Das, R. 2007. “Looking, but Not Seeing: State and/as Class in Rural
>> >> India”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 34: 3-4.
>> >>
>> >> Das, R. 2012. “Reconceptualizing Capitalism: Forms of Subsumption of
>> >> Labor, Class Struggle, and Uneven Development”, Review of Radical
>> >> Political Economics (forthcoming).
>> >>
>> >> Dumenil, G. and Levy, D. 2005. ‘The Neoliberal (Counter-) Revolution’,
>> >> in A. Saad-Filho and D. Johnston, eds. Neoliberalism: a critical
>> >> reader,
>> >> Pluto press, London.
>> >>
>> >> Harvey, D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University
>> >> Press, New York.
>> >>
>> >> Khatkhate, D. 2006. ‘Indian Economic Reform A Philosopher’s Stone’,
>> >> Economic and Political Weekly, June 3.
>> >>
>> >> Kumar, A. 2008. “Dissonance between economic reforms and democracy’,
>> >> Economic and Political Weekly, January 5.
>> >>
>> >> Marx, K. 1977. Capital volume 1, Vintage, New York.
>> >>
>> >> Patnaik, P. 2010. “A left approach to development’, Economic and
>> >> Political Weekly, XLV: 30.
>> >>
>> >> Patnaik, U. 2007. The republic of hunger, Three Essays Collective,
>> >> Gurgaon.
>> >>
>> >> Wood, E. 2003. The empire of capital, Leftword, Delhi.
>> >>
>> >> Notes
>> >>
>> >> [i] This does not mean that the way in which capitalists’ interests are
>> >> reflected in the NEP can be entirely reduced to capital’s interests.
>> >> When these interests are mediated by the state, autonomy of the state
>> >> (including electoral compulsion in India) must be borne in mind.
>> >>
>> >> [ii] See the early work of Bardhan (Political economy of development)
>> >> as
>> >> well as Bardhan (2005). While I agree that state resources have been
>> >> used to benefit the proprietary classes, I do not endorse his
>> >> analytical-Marxist sympathies for the market economy (nor his viewing
>> >> of
>> >> state actors as a class) (see Das, 2007).
>> >>
>> >> [iii] Interestingly, the obsession with growth is such that a party can
>> >> engage in sectarian violence, of religious, etc. type (e.g. the BJP in
>> >> Gujurat) but can be still more or less “condoned” if it promotes
>> >> economic growth through pro-business policies. Neoliberalism and
>> >> communalism are not unrelated.
>> >>
>> >> [iv] “The State under neoliberalism … actively promotes an increase in
>> >> the share of surplus value in the hands of domestic and foreign
>> >> corporates …” (Patnaik, 2010).
>> >>
>> >> [v] It has dropped from 2.85% in 1993-94 to 1.9% in 2000-2001 (Patnaik,
>> >> 2007: 155).
>> >>
>> >> [vi] The class bias in the space transformation – road building – can
>> >> be
>> >> seen by the fact that while millions of rupees are spent on high-speed
>> >> roads, etc., 63% of villages with a population 1000 or less are not
>> >> even
>> >> connected by a road. Obviously, people in these villages do not have
>> >> enough market power.
>> >>
>> >> [vii] The cities have experienced neoliberalisation in specific ways.
>> >> “The consequences [of neoliberalisation for cities] can be seen in the
>> >> increasing focus on hyper forms and mega construction activities,
>> >> increased speculation and expanded investment in land and real estate
>> >> …,
>> >> service sector, signature projects, mega cultural events and a reduced
>> >> focus on the employment generating production process, affordable
>> >> housing, and collective sharing of urban space and resources”
>> >> (Banerjee-Guha, 2009: 105).
>> >>
>> >> [viii] In fact, the state apparatus is increasingly occupied by
>> >> pro-market ideologues and neoliberal technocrats and indeed by
>> >> businesspeople themselves. This signifies the neoliberalisation and
>> >> technocratisation of the state apparatus.
>> >>
>> >> [ix] This left – like much of the academic left -- is informed by the
>> >> spirit of civil society activism and micro-political resistance. The
>> >> spectre of "post-isms" (e.g. post-Marxism) haunts this left; the
>> >> spectre
>> >> of proletarian socialism does not.
>> >>
>> >> [x] Sumanta Banerjee writes: “It was under … [Jyoti Basu’s] leadership
>> >> that the West Bengal Left Front government opened up the state’s
>> >> economy
>> >> to private investors from outside, and the long-awaited Haldia
>> >> petrochemical complex was brought to fruition as a public private
>> >> sector
>> >> joint venture... Following this, in 1994 the CPI (M)-led Left Front
>> >> government … adopted a new industrial policy which offered concessions
>> >> to the magnates of the private sector and multinationals to set up
>> >> industries in the state. …[in the process of pursuing neoliberal
>> >> policies], the party ended up by robbing Peter to pay Paul – grabbing
>> >> agricultural land (without paying adequate compensation to the farmers)
>> >> and subsidising the investor industrialists by huge tax relief and
>> >> other
>> >> concessions that eat into the state exchequer”(p. 12-13).
>> >>
>> >> [xi] Of course, why the masses fall for these lies – that caste and
>> >> religious identities are crucial determinants of their economic
>> >> miseries—is an interesting question (see Kumar 2008 for a good
>> >> discussion on this).
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > 1. Invitation: May 1, 2012! Contribute to 'New Worker Movements'!
>> > 2. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman
>> > 3. EBook 2011, 'Under, Against, Beyond - Essays 1980s-
>> >
>> > 1990s'shttp://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/
>> > 4. WorkingPaper 2012: 'Emancipatory Labour Studies':
>> > 5. Draft EBook 2012: 'Recovering Internationalism - Essays 2000-10'
>> > (draft):
>> >      http://www.scribd.com/doc/82125289/ReCovIntComp-A-2
>> >      http://www.scribd.com/doc/82129474/ReCovtIntComp-B-2
>> > 6. Essay 2012: 'The 2nd Coming of the World Federation of Trade Unions':
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>>
>> --
>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>> <http://mrzine.org/>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
>
> --
> 1. Invitation: May 1, 2012! Contribute to 'New Worker Movements'!
> 2. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman
> 3. EBook 2011, 'Under, Against, Beyond - Essays 1980s-
>                 1990s'shttp://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/
> 4. WorkingPaper 2012: 'Emancipatory Labour Studies':
> 5. Draft EBook 2012: 'Recovering Internationalism - Essays 2000-10' (draft):
>      http://www.scribd.com/doc/82125289/ReCovIntComp-A-2
>      http://www.scribd.com/doc/82129474/ReCovtIntComp-B-2
> 6. Essay 2012: 'The 2nd Coming of the World Federation of Trade Unions':
>
>
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Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>