We take birth alone but we grow up by blessings and contributions of hundreds of people we interact and live with throughout our lives.
In this journey let me start with IITK and with faculty.
In the list of faculty @ IITK the most promising I found are:
1. Dr K Muralidhar who has sometimes treated as if I am his son. He is the strongest or the best promoter of PoWER. If he has not been there at IITK, I could have left it or got into hardcore book/journal-oriented research. With his support and presence, I feel safe and dreamful. I have lots and lots of words for him.
2. Dr Aman Madan who has appreciated all my efforts and guided me a lot to identify the right direction in which we as students can contribute to the society.
3. Dr Laxmidhar Behera, the devout Bhaktivedanti. I like the spirit of the professor but I lack appreciation of his following and his followers doing such things which I may not appreciate. I have a good experience with Bhaktivedanta Club IITK but still want to explore my God independently.
4. Dr Anindita Chakraborty, a beautiful Bengali women of great support for feminist values. She encouraged me to have openness of ideas without bothering of texts which I find the best approach towards studies.
5. Dr Sarani Bhattacharya, a tall Caltech Economist having support for heterodox ideas. If she were absent in IITK, i must have left it. So, she is the strongest force for me to stay at IITK for my initial years. Now I got my own ways but still, i feel extremely good about her support.
I will increase the list with time.
keep on watching.
:)
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Meri Bharat Yatra-JanmBhumi
Meri Bharat Yatra-JanmBhumi
Meri Bharat Yatra-Mera College
Meri Bharat Yatra-Dilli
Meri Bharat Yatra-Rajasthan
Meri Bharat Yatra-Gujarat
Meri Bharat Yatra-Maharashtra
Meri Bharat Yatra-Goa
Meri Bharat Yatra-Karnataka
Meri Bharat Yatra-Kerala
Meri Bharat Yatra-Tamil Nadu
Meri Bharat Yatra-Andhra Pradesh
Meri Bharat Yatra-Mera College
Meri Bharat Yatra-Dilli
Meri Bharat Yatra-Rajasthan
Meri Bharat Yatra-Gujarat
Meri Bharat Yatra-Maharashtra
Meri Bharat Yatra-Goa
Meri Bharat Yatra-Karnataka
Meri Bharat Yatra-Kerala
Meri Bharat Yatra-Tamil Nadu
Meri Bharat Yatra-Andhra Pradesh
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Cycle of Exhaustion
Developmental Economics: A beginner’s Approach
Introduction
It is believable that most of the trade and economic decisions are taken by a handful of nations and it can be prejudiced that they are the major stake holders in present unsustainable world economy.
There are multiple forces acting together, some from within the 3rd world nations and some from outside, pushed by developed nations. We can call these perspectives as internal causation as well as external causation perspectives respectively.
External causation is a wrong prejudice but since most of the 3rd world countries were exclusively economically dependent on their former colonizers, so there are direct evidences in support of this perspective. Similarly, there are multiple forces acting within the nations themselves which lead to certain kinds of policies and development patterns; so, they are also accountable.
Below is an attempt to track the patterns in many of the 3rd world economies.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
External Causation Perspective
Cycle of Exhaustion:
It is a cycle/catch in which most of the 3rd world countries are trapped, which has led to severe problems ranging from political instabilities in most of the African countries to poor HDI in south Asian countries. First I want to give a brief introduction of the whole idea and then will try to relate it with many of the existing global problems:
Stage 1:
Starting point: (a 3rd world economy, just after world war-2, if it is liberated)
- Independent and independent in policy formation and resource control
- Poor material strength, moderate trade and all the attributes of a nation after 2nd world war
Stage 2:
Now for most of the cases, imperialist powers who once have been colonizers, want to have resource control in the target 3rd world country. For this, they follow three paths:
• Direct/indirect invasion: Iraq, Afghanistan,
• Creation of dummy governments: Somalia, Arabian countries, Pakistan, many countries in Eastern Europe, most of the African countries and until very recent past most of the Latin American countries.
• Crippling down the economy to follow Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF: - representatives of modern capitalism which has given birth to unsustainable development (consumption-led development), terrorism, global warming, chronic Africa and a lot of seen and unseen global problems) like we had in India in 1991 economic reforms.
Here resource control doesn’t mean direct control but control in policy formation and decision-making. In 2nd stage the overall target is to achieve this control by any means.
Stage 3:
Exclusive investment patterns: By exclusive investment patterns we mean-
• Capital intensive investments which leads to more investment but less employment generation or wealth creation in actual terms. For example, in India, we have IT sector. It can absorb only computer literates and English speaking youths which comprise less than 10% of the youth population.
• Neglect of traditional or age-old industries like Kanpur had been a major industrial centre in north India but could not receive required investments so it is gradually dooming. Agriculture is the best example.
• Contracted growth circle: At this stage, growth is enjoyed by a very small section of the economy so that most of the people are non-participants in the process. Also, there are a very large number of people forming the periphery and a larger no. of people is outside the periphery of the growth circle. All 3rd world countries are victim of this phenomenon that income gap between different sections of society is increasing at an uncontrollable rate.
• Neglect of pro-people policies which lead to deprivation of masses from basic necessities of survival. Neglect of health care facilities, abolition of different subsidies, absence of check in spread of genetically modified seeds, promotion of cash-crops at the cost of cereal crops (one cash-crop economies of Africa are the best examples). Overexploitation of natural resources being the most important as most of the people are directly or indirectly dependent on them for their survival.
• There are a lot many dimensions in which it can be traced.
Stage 4:
Bust
4th stage can be said as bust as in this stage:
• Social, health and economic indicators go down leading to increase in poverty, unemployment, decrease in purchasing power, worsening health conditions, social instability and a lot more. Global warming (which is an eventual outcome of this tendency to exploit world at cost of everything) is a good way to hide the cunning policies!
An example of Mongolia (after policy changes in 1989):
Statistics for Mongolia 1989-1998.
Source: Mongolian Statistical Yearbook, 1998. Referred from a paper by Erik S. Reinert (editor), Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (editor), Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, series ’New Horizons in Institutional and Evolutionary Economics’, 2004.
It shows how different economic indicators have worsened due to certain policy changes and exclusive investments. Similar data for many sectors can be generated for most of the 3rd world countries.
• Returning back of investments: Being dependent economies, returning back of investments is obvious. Though not exact but, recent returning of FIIs from Indian market after recession fears in west shows how fast the investments will return (Sensex in India came down from 20000 to 13000). However, there is no sound proof to it and needs to be studied more.
• Political instability, rise in extremism like insurgency, terrorism etc. Most of south Asia and Africa is facing it. Latin America has overcome it.
Some examples (protests by people against government or any kind of policy or angst against any immediate event). One can find that year 1989 saw policy changes in Mongolia and same year witnessed public protest for the first time in its history. Even Seoul is witnessing increased public protests after it adopted new policies in late 70s and early 80s. Same is true for other places in the representative data below. (info is related to city and number of public protests/unrests in a given year)
Source: Polyarchy Study, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), I am forgetting the source of data; however I am having data of social disturbances in many urban cities across the world covering more than 40 countries.
Annual Social Disturbance Events 1960-2006
We can see increase in number of urban disturbances increasing day by day and these continents are inclining more towards Bretton Woods system progressively in these years.
Source: Urban Social Disturbances in Asia and Africa, Henrik Urdal, Senior Researcher, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)
Some countries are recovering from this state but most of the African nations have failed to do it. So these nations are back to stage 1.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Citations:
• Latin America has started its 1st cycle in 1920s and ended in 1980s and some parts of 1990s. After 1990s, we saw rise of socialist forces because people rejected Bretton Woods. They have restarted with 2nd cycle and are now at 3rd stage. This time they are more conscious to prevent duplication.
• China, India and many of the similar countries are at 3rd stage and are facing huge problems in getting out of it. With the help of extensive knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination systems, China, some SE Asian countries, some countries of Eastern Europe have greatly managed to come out of the cycle. India needs long way to go!!
• African countries are in permanent exhaustion. Many of them are at 2nd stage and some like South Africa has come to 3rd stage. Recent denial of cheap AIDS medicine to its people shows the condition. Milk-trap of Philippines is also another example. Similarly there are many-many examples to support this pattern.
There are more citations but they need sound theoretical support and mathematical proof. That will require some more analysis.
The external causation is not all about Bretton Woods, it only represents a set of policies which have been existing since times of David Ricardio.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
In this analysis, we have neglected the role played by internal forces within a 3rd world country and said that imperialists/neoliberals are fully responsible for it. But it is not the case. There are many internal forces acting from within. I have not analyzed internal causation in greater details because it is too complex in case of India but I am doing it. Some of my observations are (internal causation):
• In most of the 3rd world countries, there is a big and influential section which is born in a 3rd world country but follow the legacy of colonizers. They restrict many processes of knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination which makes majority of the population helpless in this knowledge driven modern world. It can be said that poor African countries can’t support knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination, but big nation like India is also victim of these neo-feudalism. Here also, majority of the population is having non-English background so they can’t access most of knowledge and information. Also linguistic discrimination has a profound effect on Indians that we always regard ourselves inferior and the same happens with all 3rd world countries. However China, Korea, even Russia realized this problem and build their own knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination systems which empowered their common man and helped them a lot to keep away from this cycle.
Most of these neo-feudal have their aspirations in west or west denominated consumerism, so it is a general mentality “raam naam ki loot hai loot sako to loot” which has created discrimination, corruption, wrong-policy making….. and a lot of other problems.
• The problem of global warming can’t be completely related to it but it has its base in exploitative consumerism pillared by people in Bretton Woods. And the same people are here also, so this is the connection.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Now after viewing the problem in an integrated pattern gives us some clues to solve the problem. Since, ours is a knowledge driven economy, so most of the solutions will revolve around empowering people with knowledge and information as well as localization of economic process so that each member can participate in knowledge creation and dissemination. Some of them are:
1. Promoting participative dynamism in industries, centers of excellence and people so that a 3rd world country can have a strong knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination system. It will empower anyone to fight from corruption, discrimination, enable her/him to understand many problems and find solutions for insurgency, terrorism, political instabilities, global warming, health care, education, employment, agriculture etc.
2. Creation of intermediate/appropriate technologies so that majority of the people can be brought in development circle and then a person will not be a consumer only he will be a producer also. It will also help in empowerment.
Along with this, we will have to design certain vocational courses at very low or subsidized teaching costs so that even less skilled or less educated people can learn them and use them. Development of intermediate technologies will spur new horizons of economic engagements. Strict environmental rules will be of great support for them and also we have to avoid any unsustainable development pattern.
3. Redefining the so-called “rational behavior” so that economy could be understood in an inclusive way. We will have to create multiple new identities of human away from being a consumer only. Story of stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com/ has made an excellent attempt to represent the idea in an understandable way.
Realism has been a strong instrument to design policies by the designers of Bretton Woods, so we need to design certain new political instruments which thoretize different perspectives. Other Canon, a school of thought currently developing to explain economy in a different perspective is a strong step in this regard. Post Autistic Economics is also a strong attempt.
Shock Doctrine (by Naomi Klein) was also a good attempt to explain workings of Bretton Woods. Similarly we have to evolve different ideas from different perspectives and let all be experimented; we will eventually get the best in coming decades.
4. Creation of new identities other than religion, nation, gender etc so that human engagements could be diversified and many problems of insurgency, terrorism, violence, ethnic clashes etc can be solved. For this we will have to separate religion from polity and science. It is very much needed in countries of South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.
Regarding women empowerment, there is an idea “Leelavati”. It is an extension of adult literacy program .It can be extended with the help of NGOs, Govt. and independent activists across the globe starting with India. The idea is to compile some volumes of books like literacy program books with increasing complexities, dealing with the issues of rights, duties, healthcare, mathematics, business, politics, law, geography, sciences and other things in form of short stories, events and citations modeled to local language (written and/or spoken). It will greatly help women in attaining money muscles and machine with which they have been kept away for millennia.
5. In 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries when modern world was taking theoretical foundation, things like democracy, market, state-non-state actors, humanism etc originated. We will have to redefine some of these ideas and give new flavor to feminism (political feminism).
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Plan of action: (what we can do)
# Create a platform for convergence of industries, centers of excellence, and people and promote innovation and application developments to achieve the targets of knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination.
IIT Kanpur is aggressively working on a platform named PoWER. Many interest/project based groups have been formed and many steps for long-term skill-building and application developments have been taken. A sum of Rs 2 crore has been allocated by the institute to support these activities of student endeavor. Similar initiatives are being propagated at IITD with a name Technocracy and other IITs also.
# Create intermediate/appropriate technologies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology ) that are eco-friendly, cheap, simple and can be used by masses to increase their productivity without much changing their life-style.
We can work with many NGOs like National Innovatin Foundation, Delhi Science Forum to efficiently channelize problems and their solutions. We can also create some enterprises like SammaN Foundation which is integrating the local manual-rickshaw transport by improving quality of seats, facilities given to passengers, taking care of rickshaw-pullers and their families.
# We, a group of students have attempted to create an alternative to IUPAC nomenclature (predominant chemical nomenclature system) as our attempt towards experimentation with knowledge creation. In this regard, we have done some logical nomenclature of elements and compounds.
Viz: Aluminum: Suhaxapara सुहक्षपरा सु comes from सुचालक meaning conductor: the objective behind emphasizing this property is its being substitute of copper in electrical industry; also copper is limited. ह comes from हलका meaning light; point to be noted is Aluminum is light and hence used in aviation industry. क्ष comes from क्षयरोधी as Aluminum is resistant to corrosion and hence a better substitute to Iron in many industries; also emphasizing corrosion means we are taking it as a grand challenge. परा comes from परावर्ती meaning reflective. Pure Aluminum is extremely reflective and here परा also refers to group identity of Aluminum as every group has its identity in this system.
Similarly knowledge can be created in all sectors engaging everybody. Issues like its lack of internationalization is baseless as no German or American ever thinks about their counterparts in other parts of the world. Focus should be micro-level engagement of people and such processes will definitely do that. Then only we can have local economy and participative democracy.
# Define rational behavior and human identity in feminist way. Heterodox economics need to be institutionalized as a starting point.
A group is needed to study male and female characters, their behavior and then propose a new identity of humans as we have been identified so far as consumers but in fact it is a conspiracy. Inculcate this new identity in education from basic childhood. Promote freedom and love (family values and community living).
# Do a complete analysis of the problem with different perspectives and redefine economics with sustainable development at its core rather than consumerism or dependence on foreign economies. So it means that we will have to adapt some of the Gandhian philosophy and make its hybrid with latest developments in technology, connectivity and participation. Post Autistic Economics is a major step in this regard.
# Institutes of International Studies: Another idea upon which we are building is creating ‘’Institutes of International Studies” evenly distributed in all parts of India. Think for a center named Indo-German Institute of International Studies. It targets cultural exchange, scientific exchange, academic exchange and business & economic exchange. For this, it has a world class university township also including a trade center and a political high commission. The business center will foster businesses in both countries as well as channelize them. Political high commission will help in forging healthy relationships between the two countries. The university will be meant for cultural exchange, joint researches, joint labs, ventures and joint industrial projects. Regions around this township will teach German as a third language and there will be a bilingual (Hindi, German)/trilingual (Hindi, German, vernacular) newspaper focusing on India, Germany and their mutual interests. Similarly if similar centers emerge across the country then we will be able to make India a “Grand Cosmopolitan” which will have long-term implications for India and the world.
The need for such an institutes is also immense as existing centers for different types of exchanges are not well planned and their functioning is not proactive and supportive as we have observed 2 important BRICS nations: Russia and Brazil and the quality and efficiency of services and help they provide needs great improvements.
# Green Economy:
The major issues under green economy are:
1. Localization of economy: Through local currency, local finances and decentralization of economic production, planning, decision making and knowledge systems.
2. Green Jobs: Currently, energy or waste or water audit is not mandatory in any of the countries. If through legislations, these audits are made mandatory like account audits and we have statuary bodies like Institute of Energy Auditors of India or Institute of Water Auditors of India like Institute of Chartered Accountants of India then it will definitely be a big source of green jobs. Also it will make us accountable of our consumption of environmental resources.
3. Organic Lifestyle: Currently, we are living a highly energy and chemical intensive lifestyle which is a root cause of overexploitation of environmental resources. If we change our consumption patterns and consume only organic and sustainable products then definitely, we will reduce great burdens on this nature. Asal, an enterprise selling only organic and sustainable products is a good example in this regard.
4. Green Community: One of the interesting experiments at IITK is going towards green community. The whole idea is to make it zero water, zero waste, clean air, clean traffic and green energy consuming community. Currently, baseline survey of water (including rainwater, sever water and potable water), solid waste and energy audit of the campus are going on. A team is working on installation of air-quality monitoring stations in the campus and another team will soon start baseline survey of GT Road from IIT gate to Rawatpur for primary understanding of the problem.
# Educational Reforms: Currently we are not working much on educational reforms but some of our tea-members are focusing on creating new paradigms for inclusive and participative education. We are promoting a group of students to design a new logo: the graphical language taught to children. The logo we are designing can have commands in any language and any script even customized by the child who is programming. This type of freedom has multiple real and psychological effects in long run.
# Many more ideas and actions can be evolved and can be worked upon.
We are currently trying to develop our understanding towards all contemporary issues and evolve a cross-country network of developmentalists.
Introduction
It is believable that most of the trade and economic decisions are taken by a handful of nations and it can be prejudiced that they are the major stake holders in present unsustainable world economy.
There are multiple forces acting together, some from within the 3rd world nations and some from outside, pushed by developed nations. We can call these perspectives as internal causation as well as external causation perspectives respectively.
External causation is a wrong prejudice but since most of the 3rd world countries were exclusively economically dependent on their former colonizers, so there are direct evidences in support of this perspective. Similarly, there are multiple forces acting within the nations themselves which lead to certain kinds of policies and development patterns; so, they are also accountable.
Below is an attempt to track the patterns in many of the 3rd world economies.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
External Causation Perspective
Cycle of Exhaustion:
It is a cycle/catch in which most of the 3rd world countries are trapped, which has led to severe problems ranging from political instabilities in most of the African countries to poor HDI in south Asian countries. First I want to give a brief introduction of the whole idea and then will try to relate it with many of the existing global problems:
Stage 1:
Starting point: (a 3rd world economy, just after world war-2, if it is liberated)
- Independent and independent in policy formation and resource control
- Poor material strength, moderate trade and all the attributes of a nation after 2nd world war
Stage 2:
Now for most of the cases, imperialist powers who once have been colonizers, want to have resource control in the target 3rd world country. For this, they follow three paths:
• Direct/indirect invasion: Iraq, Afghanistan,
• Creation of dummy governments: Somalia, Arabian countries, Pakistan, many countries in Eastern Europe, most of the African countries and until very recent past most of the Latin American countries.
• Crippling down the economy to follow Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF: - representatives of modern capitalism which has given birth to unsustainable development (consumption-led development), terrorism, global warming, chronic Africa and a lot of seen and unseen global problems) like we had in India in 1991 economic reforms.
Here resource control doesn’t mean direct control but control in policy formation and decision-making. In 2nd stage the overall target is to achieve this control by any means.
Stage 3:
Exclusive investment patterns: By exclusive investment patterns we mean-
• Capital intensive investments which leads to more investment but less employment generation or wealth creation in actual terms. For example, in India, we have IT sector. It can absorb only computer literates and English speaking youths which comprise less than 10% of the youth population.
• Neglect of traditional or age-old industries like Kanpur had been a major industrial centre in north India but could not receive required investments so it is gradually dooming. Agriculture is the best example.
• Contracted growth circle: At this stage, growth is enjoyed by a very small section of the economy so that most of the people are non-participants in the process. Also, there are a very large number of people forming the periphery and a larger no. of people is outside the periphery of the growth circle. All 3rd world countries are victim of this phenomenon that income gap between different sections of society is increasing at an uncontrollable rate.
• Neglect of pro-people policies which lead to deprivation of masses from basic necessities of survival. Neglect of health care facilities, abolition of different subsidies, absence of check in spread of genetically modified seeds, promotion of cash-crops at the cost of cereal crops (one cash-crop economies of Africa are the best examples). Overexploitation of natural resources being the most important as most of the people are directly or indirectly dependent on them for their survival.
• There are a lot many dimensions in which it can be traced.
Stage 4:
Bust
4th stage can be said as bust as in this stage:
• Social, health and economic indicators go down leading to increase in poverty, unemployment, decrease in purchasing power, worsening health conditions, social instability and a lot more. Global warming (which is an eventual outcome of this tendency to exploit world at cost of everything) is a good way to hide the cunning policies!
An example of Mongolia (after policy changes in 1989):
Statistics for Mongolia 1989-1998.
Source: Mongolian Statistical Yearbook, 1998. Referred from a paper by Erik S. Reinert (editor), Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (editor), Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, series ’New Horizons in Institutional and Evolutionary Economics’, 2004.
It shows how different economic indicators have worsened due to certain policy changes and exclusive investments. Similar data for many sectors can be generated for most of the 3rd world countries.
• Returning back of investments: Being dependent economies, returning back of investments is obvious. Though not exact but, recent returning of FIIs from Indian market after recession fears in west shows how fast the investments will return (Sensex in India came down from 20000 to 13000). However, there is no sound proof to it and needs to be studied more.
• Political instability, rise in extremism like insurgency, terrorism etc. Most of south Asia and Africa is facing it. Latin America has overcome it.
Some examples (protests by people against government or any kind of policy or angst against any immediate event). One can find that year 1989 saw policy changes in Mongolia and same year witnessed public protest for the first time in its history. Even Seoul is witnessing increased public protests after it adopted new policies in late 70s and early 80s. Same is true for other places in the representative data below. (info is related to city and number of public protests/unrests in a given year)
Source: Polyarchy Study, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), I am forgetting the source of data; however I am having data of social disturbances in many urban cities across the world covering more than 40 countries.
Annual Social Disturbance Events 1960-2006
We can see increase in number of urban disturbances increasing day by day and these continents are inclining more towards Bretton Woods system progressively in these years.
Source: Urban Social Disturbances in Asia and Africa, Henrik Urdal, Senior Researcher, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)
Some countries are recovering from this state but most of the African nations have failed to do it. So these nations are back to stage 1.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Citations:
• Latin America has started its 1st cycle in 1920s and ended in 1980s and some parts of 1990s. After 1990s, we saw rise of socialist forces because people rejected Bretton Woods. They have restarted with 2nd cycle and are now at 3rd stage. This time they are more conscious to prevent duplication.
• China, India and many of the similar countries are at 3rd stage and are facing huge problems in getting out of it. With the help of extensive knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination systems, China, some SE Asian countries, some countries of Eastern Europe have greatly managed to come out of the cycle. India needs long way to go!!
• African countries are in permanent exhaustion. Many of them are at 2nd stage and some like South Africa has come to 3rd stage. Recent denial of cheap AIDS medicine to its people shows the condition. Milk-trap of Philippines is also another example. Similarly there are many-many examples to support this pattern.
There are more citations but they need sound theoretical support and mathematical proof. That will require some more analysis.
The external causation is not all about Bretton Woods, it only represents a set of policies which have been existing since times of David Ricardio.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
In this analysis, we have neglected the role played by internal forces within a 3rd world country and said that imperialists/neoliberals are fully responsible for it. But it is not the case. There are many internal forces acting from within. I have not analyzed internal causation in greater details because it is too complex in case of India but I am doing it. Some of my observations are (internal causation):
• In most of the 3rd world countries, there is a big and influential section which is born in a 3rd world country but follow the legacy of colonizers. They restrict many processes of knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination which makes majority of the population helpless in this knowledge driven modern world. It can be said that poor African countries can’t support knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination, but big nation like India is also victim of these neo-feudalism. Here also, majority of the population is having non-English background so they can’t access most of knowledge and information. Also linguistic discrimination has a profound effect on Indians that we always regard ourselves inferior and the same happens with all 3rd world countries. However China, Korea, even Russia realized this problem and build their own knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination systems which empowered their common man and helped them a lot to keep away from this cycle.
Most of these neo-feudal have their aspirations in west or west denominated consumerism, so it is a general mentality “raam naam ki loot hai loot sako to loot” which has created discrimination, corruption, wrong-policy making….. and a lot of other problems.
• The problem of global warming can’t be completely related to it but it has its base in exploitative consumerism pillared by people in Bretton Woods. And the same people are here also, so this is the connection.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Now after viewing the problem in an integrated pattern gives us some clues to solve the problem. Since, ours is a knowledge driven economy, so most of the solutions will revolve around empowering people with knowledge and information as well as localization of economic process so that each member can participate in knowledge creation and dissemination. Some of them are:
1. Promoting participative dynamism in industries, centers of excellence and people so that a 3rd world country can have a strong knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination system. It will empower anyone to fight from corruption, discrimination, enable her/him to understand many problems and find solutions for insurgency, terrorism, political instabilities, global warming, health care, education, employment, agriculture etc.
2. Creation of intermediate/appropriate technologies so that majority of the people can be brought in development circle and then a person will not be a consumer only he will be a producer also. It will also help in empowerment.
Along with this, we will have to design certain vocational courses at very low or subsidized teaching costs so that even less skilled or less educated people can learn them and use them. Development of intermediate technologies will spur new horizons of economic engagements. Strict environmental rules will be of great support for them and also we have to avoid any unsustainable development pattern.
3. Redefining the so-called “rational behavior” so that economy could be understood in an inclusive way. We will have to create multiple new identities of human away from being a consumer only. Story of stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com/ has made an excellent attempt to represent the idea in an understandable way.
Realism has been a strong instrument to design policies by the designers of Bretton Woods, so we need to design certain new political instruments which thoretize different perspectives. Other Canon, a school of thought currently developing to explain economy in a different perspective is a strong step in this regard. Post Autistic Economics is also a strong attempt.
Shock Doctrine (by Naomi Klein) was also a good attempt to explain workings of Bretton Woods. Similarly we have to evolve different ideas from different perspectives and let all be experimented; we will eventually get the best in coming decades.
4. Creation of new identities other than religion, nation, gender etc so that human engagements could be diversified and many problems of insurgency, terrorism, violence, ethnic clashes etc can be solved. For this we will have to separate religion from polity and science. It is very much needed in countries of South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.
Regarding women empowerment, there is an idea “Leelavati”. It is an extension of adult literacy program .It can be extended with the help of NGOs, Govt. and independent activists across the globe starting with India. The idea is to compile some volumes of books like literacy program books with increasing complexities, dealing with the issues of rights, duties, healthcare, mathematics, business, politics, law, geography, sciences and other things in form of short stories, events and citations modeled to local language (written and/or spoken). It will greatly help women in attaining money muscles and machine with which they have been kept away for millennia.
5. In 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries when modern world was taking theoretical foundation, things like democracy, market, state-non-state actors, humanism etc originated. We will have to redefine some of these ideas and give new flavor to feminism (political feminism).
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Plan of action: (what we can do)
# Create a platform for convergence of industries, centers of excellence, and people and promote innovation and application developments to achieve the targets of knowledge substitution, creation and dissemination.
IIT Kanpur is aggressively working on a platform named PoWER. Many interest/project based groups have been formed and many steps for long-term skill-building and application developments have been taken. A sum of Rs 2 crore has been allocated by the institute to support these activities of student endeavor. Similar initiatives are being propagated at IITD with a name Technocracy and other IITs also.
# Create intermediate/appropriate technologies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology ) that are eco-friendly, cheap, simple and can be used by masses to increase their productivity without much changing their life-style.
We can work with many NGOs like National Innovatin Foundation, Delhi Science Forum to efficiently channelize problems and their solutions. We can also create some enterprises like SammaN Foundation which is integrating the local manual-rickshaw transport by improving quality of seats, facilities given to passengers, taking care of rickshaw-pullers and their families.
# We, a group of students have attempted to create an alternative to IUPAC nomenclature (predominant chemical nomenclature system) as our attempt towards experimentation with knowledge creation. In this regard, we have done some logical nomenclature of elements and compounds.
Viz: Aluminum: Suhaxapara सुहक्षपरा सु comes from सुचालक meaning conductor: the objective behind emphasizing this property is its being substitute of copper in electrical industry; also copper is limited. ह comes from हलका meaning light; point to be noted is Aluminum is light and hence used in aviation industry. क्ष comes from क्षयरोधी as Aluminum is resistant to corrosion and hence a better substitute to Iron in many industries; also emphasizing corrosion means we are taking it as a grand challenge. परा comes from परावर्ती meaning reflective. Pure Aluminum is extremely reflective and here परा also refers to group identity of Aluminum as every group has its identity in this system.
Similarly knowledge can be created in all sectors engaging everybody. Issues like its lack of internationalization is baseless as no German or American ever thinks about their counterparts in other parts of the world. Focus should be micro-level engagement of people and such processes will definitely do that. Then only we can have local economy and participative democracy.
# Define rational behavior and human identity in feminist way. Heterodox economics need to be institutionalized as a starting point.
A group is needed to study male and female characters, their behavior and then propose a new identity of humans as we have been identified so far as consumers but in fact it is a conspiracy. Inculcate this new identity in education from basic childhood. Promote freedom and love (family values and community living).
# Do a complete analysis of the problem with different perspectives and redefine economics with sustainable development at its core rather than consumerism or dependence on foreign economies. So it means that we will have to adapt some of the Gandhian philosophy and make its hybrid with latest developments in technology, connectivity and participation. Post Autistic Economics is a major step in this regard.
# Institutes of International Studies: Another idea upon which we are building is creating ‘’Institutes of International Studies” evenly distributed in all parts of India. Think for a center named Indo-German Institute of International Studies. It targets cultural exchange, scientific exchange, academic exchange and business & economic exchange. For this, it has a world class university township also including a trade center and a political high commission. The business center will foster businesses in both countries as well as channelize them. Political high commission will help in forging healthy relationships between the two countries. The university will be meant for cultural exchange, joint researches, joint labs, ventures and joint industrial projects. Regions around this township will teach German as a third language and there will be a bilingual (Hindi, German)/trilingual (Hindi, German, vernacular) newspaper focusing on India, Germany and their mutual interests. Similarly if similar centers emerge across the country then we will be able to make India a “Grand Cosmopolitan” which will have long-term implications for India and the world.
The need for such an institutes is also immense as existing centers for different types of exchanges are not well planned and their functioning is not proactive and supportive as we have observed 2 important BRICS nations: Russia and Brazil and the quality and efficiency of services and help they provide needs great improvements.
# Green Economy:
The major issues under green economy are:
1. Localization of economy: Through local currency, local finances and decentralization of economic production, planning, decision making and knowledge systems.
2. Green Jobs: Currently, energy or waste or water audit is not mandatory in any of the countries. If through legislations, these audits are made mandatory like account audits and we have statuary bodies like Institute of Energy Auditors of India or Institute of Water Auditors of India like Institute of Chartered Accountants of India then it will definitely be a big source of green jobs. Also it will make us accountable of our consumption of environmental resources.
3. Organic Lifestyle: Currently, we are living a highly energy and chemical intensive lifestyle which is a root cause of overexploitation of environmental resources. If we change our consumption patterns and consume only organic and sustainable products then definitely, we will reduce great burdens on this nature. Asal, an enterprise selling only organic and sustainable products is a good example in this regard.
4. Green Community: One of the interesting experiments at IITK is going towards green community. The whole idea is to make it zero water, zero waste, clean air, clean traffic and green energy consuming community. Currently, baseline survey of water (including rainwater, sever water and potable water), solid waste and energy audit of the campus are going on. A team is working on installation of air-quality monitoring stations in the campus and another team will soon start baseline survey of GT Road from IIT gate to Rawatpur for primary understanding of the problem.
# Educational Reforms: Currently we are not working much on educational reforms but some of our tea-members are focusing on creating new paradigms for inclusive and participative education. We are promoting a group of students to design a new logo: the graphical language taught to children. The logo we are designing can have commands in any language and any script even customized by the child who is programming. This type of freedom has multiple real and psychological effects in long run.
# Many more ideas and actions can be evolved and can be worked upon.
We are currently trying to develop our understanding towards all contemporary issues and evolve a cross-country network of developmentalists.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Theory of Admiration
You are good at caring. Can you please take care of our children!
You are muscular, so can you fight for generation of our livelihood!
Your charm, expressivity, beauty and physical appearance are incomparable, so better you focus on these issues [and not be much concerned with money, muscle and machine; let them be our business].
So, in this gradual process of admiration, women were kept away from resource control and decision-making! And we see a visible division of labor.
You are muscular, so can you fight for generation of our livelihood!
Your charm, expressivity, beauty and physical appearance are incomparable, so better you focus on these issues [and not be much concerned with money, muscle and machine; let them be our business].
So, in this gradual process of admiration, women were kept away from resource control and decision-making! And we see a visible division of labor.
Good Boy-Bad Boy
Our systems across the world are patriarchal, so most of the growing girls in their initial ages, (when they are below teens and teens) are subjected to harshness of this patriarchy. So, almost all of them develop a strong dislikeness for rule, laws, ethics, philosophy and similar ideas which define system and provide it any form of visible/ invisible rigidities. Unconsciously they develop a likeness for the symbols of breaking all these rigidities. So they develop a likeness for bad boys..........type psycho (here bad boys refers to those who do not follow the ideals of society). So, media and entertainment industry, which has the largest market (consumers) or audience in older days, among these so-called bad boys or later complete males grown out of these bad boys, present and promote (and create the general opinion) the particular female identity which bad boys want (due to dominance of this identity in means of communication, it had become dominant identity and we generally talk about). Since, it had been made to represent breaking of rigidities, so females do not put any organized opposition to this stereotyping by media and entertainment industries. And follows the idea of integrating females with consumption / consumer goods (anything from mobile to car to clothes to pizza....women are shown advertising a commodity which is going to give as much pleasure and satisfaction as the women in front).
Political Economic Approach to the idea of Rationality
Abstract: Money, muscles and machine are the three pillars of male overwhelming dominance over the world and is creating a lot of problems for humans survival itself; and that is having its deep roots in the basic perspectives of male identity: violence, power and control. We do not know what the alternate way is, what we r practicing till date in our lives is the same: we are a participant of this rat-run. But there are different worlds as per differences in mind as each mind has its own set of world and many a times an array of minds with similar world views are created by nations and their people and it is successfully done by the so called systems, ethics, and obedience.
…………………………………………
1
Excellent levels of learning and adaptability are the most important attributes of Homo sapiens making them different from other species on this planet (if we are not concerned with extraterrestrial lives). It also contributes to high levels of creativity which is having consequences in design of human mind (cognition). The history of humans is the history of this design.
A system (human socio-political organization) is a functional association of different actors and processes a member has to face. A system always tries to maintain its continuity by evolving certain kind of values and rule-regulations depending upon the origin of the ecological circumstances originating the system. For example, a woman in a tribal community is socially more empowered than in an agrarian community because the ecology doesn’t allow male to have a hegemonic control over resources and decision-making process in the prior. Before going into further details, let us understand the meanings of Hysterical and Procedural systems.
Imagine a patriarchal kingdom in which rulers belong to a particular community. Now this system has following attributes:
- Not all members of society can join the ruling class.
- Not all people belonging to ruling class can become King.
- Only men can become kings.
This kind of a system in which actors and processes depend upon certain non-universal and non-neutral rules and values and their application depend upon the birth, position and other partial values rather than merit (skills and capabilities), mode of participation and other neutral values is called a Hysterical System. On the other hand, a system in which there is no partiality and processes and actors depend upon neutral universal rules or say processes are called Procedural Systems. Rationality is supposed to be inbuilt in above mentioned system if replaced by participative democracy in which anyone can become the head of the state based on favor from majority of the members of the state will be a procedural system.
Let us come back to design, there are always different types of forces active to create systems according to it. Therefore we can find certain types of attributes common in different members/participants of a system. We can integrate these common attributes and make analytical studies upon it taking it a representative identity. This representative identity can be called ideal type.
2
Human, like animals, was having procedural systems in the very beginning of its history but the emergence of society, culture, larger visible and invisible forces destroyed the naturally evolved procedural system and we fell into hysterical system. From very beginning of our organized life, there have been such visionaries and leaders who always tried to reestablish the procedural one. Actually our history is the history of transitions from hysterical to procedural and vice-versa.
What is the best attribute of the machine for which it is liked most? Similar set of inputs give similar outputs. Yeah! It seems to be completely rational and procedural. It gives us a great control over the processes and we can manipulate as per our will. This control is continued and universalized with a standard set of measurement units. Indus Civilization was the first to develop a complete set of perfect measurement units supporting marvels of engineering (4500 years ago). It was the beginning of the controlled rationality.
What is law and why do we need it? Why should it be common to all? Probably our classification answers it. The first substantial recorded history of law is Hammurabi’s Code. A humanist will find it to be very severe as it curses death easily to anyone as well as it is based on the principle of “tit for tat”. Some of the examples are:
- If anyone bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
- If a Builder build a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
Before making any laughter, let us look deeper into the contexts of the laws. Hammurabi lived nearly around 1760 BCE. At that time we didn’t have sophisticated courts, lawyers, lie-detecting machines and many of the present organizational or scientific techniques which make judicial process humane. But anyway, introduction of a neutral law was a big achievement.
The third wave of rationality created new dimensions around 5th century BCE all across the world. In India, we see Gautam Buddha and Vardhman Mahavir protesting against the excessive controlled rationality of Bramanism. They explicitly focused that how personal freedom and negation to external control can be created, co-existed and sustained; and similar were the Greek philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. We see that the Greeks stressed more on attributes of materials as symbolizing this universal coexistence while Indians focused on non-material universalization. A third perspective developed in China by Confucius who introduced well defined state actors, personal morality and codified behavior for all members and processes of the Chinese state. A more politically inclined perspective is found in Arthashastra by Chanakya who rigorously deals with state actors, political processes, political economy and foreign policies. In this same period, we see feminism, universal declaration of Human Rights, an urge for sustainable development and emergence of rationality (the issues we are talking in 21st Century) under Emperor Ashoka in the same empire founded by Chanakya. So in one side there are extremes of controlled rationality and there are struggles for more personal space. And all are said to have rationality in their contexts.
3
This era was not followed by any other great procedural shift but one can find a great hysterical shift as controls became more and more prominent over time. When we started with ages, we found controls creating neutrality (measurement units in Harappan Period) but gradually we see it to be resulting into hysterical one. Why?
When a control is created in a particular era against disarray, it promises to create neutrality but to support this neutrality it creates hegemonies, and these hegemonies, without visionaries try to maintain the older visions created under contemporary contexts, and hence go hysterical! So, continuity through regular updations is the key to maintain a system procedural.
Spread of Buddhism, emergence of Christianity and Islam started with a neutral appeal but very soon after their beginning, they became hegemonic. Instead of improving themselves they promoted controlled rationality and we trapped into the Dark Ages. This was the worst time in human history of rationality.
4
The Dark Age was not completely dark. We had visionaries across the world, keeping their minds and acts anew. In our popular language/terminology, we call them scientists, sufis, bhaktas and saints. The ideas of these great visionaries spread across the world and we see an era of renaissance in Europe. Controls were challenged even at the risks of lives. Europe (and somewhat India also) seemed to be war place between hysterical and procedural systems. Art, astronomy, mathematics, sciences and democracy started taking their modern shapes and giving rationality newer faces.
Here again, we see different paradigms emerging in Asia (excluding middle-east and central Asia) and Europe. In India (or China and South-East Asia) we had people like Kabir who stressed more on spiritual rather than material or political needs which were prominent in Europe. The sharp distinction can be attributed to many reasons. Prosperity in Asia (excluding middle-east and central Asia) didn’t require day-to-day survival struggle against nature while it was most important in European and middle-east countries. So, they had only few options like migration, go for trade or exploit surplus regions of world through military conquests. Islamic military raids or European search for India were perfectly rational in their terms of survival. We, the colonized parts of Asia may say it to be irrational. So now we see regionalization of rationality. We will have a detailed discussion in later parts.
5
New machines were being invented which replaced human (partially) in textile production. They were faster, cheaper, indifferent and controllable. The idea of control over such bigger machines gave rationality a greater designable aspect. There was an acute need of cheap workers in factories and agriculture was sufficient for British farmers to sustain. Although factory wages were sometimes higher than other unskilled industries, male workers were originally reluctant to enter the workforce because they lost their independence. As a result, the bulk of the factory workforce came from the more exploitable sector of the population: women and children. It is estimated that in 1838 only 23% of textile workers were adult men. As the factory system progressed, more men entered the workforce and women were gradually confined to the domestic sphere. Early unions were often male dominated and saw women workers as competition. Many men who lost control over their work by being reduced to factory automations reasserted control through domestic violence at home or against women in workplace. Here two issues are discussed; we will focus them one by one.
Productivity of male is more than that of women and children, so it was very much needed to bring them to factories. So, deliberately relief to agriculture and poor were abolished through reforms in Poor Law Act (1834, Britain) and men were forced to come to factories. It also created a scenario of free labor market; in fact cities in England originated due to Industrial Revolution. Similarly, we can see the ideas of free-trade and liberal government coming into picture.
The status of women in primary industrial society is a debatable issue. We can see here that women has been replaced by men `from factories and at the same time, a virtual competition has started between man and women for resource control and decision-making. The stereotyping of women as stupid, less intelligent and commodity can be traced back to this competition.
6
Enlightenment: it is not a word only; it represents a revolt against controlled rationality. It liberates human from the basic hegemonic controls of anything.
France is in the heart of Europe. By the end of 18th century, it became the center of battle between hysterical and procedural systems. On one side, there were Church, Royal Family, different state actors, all sorts of undemocratic practices and mismanaged market practices and on the other hand there were intellectuals and mass which came out massively to eliminate all these odds. Enlightenment was the key to this revolution.
Liberty, Fraternity and Equality are three basic requirements of a system to become neutral. French Revolution showed the path to the world with the Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizen. It was 2nd to Emperor Ashoka’s Declaration. The declaration said that “the aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” If we replace man with human then it becomes the UN Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. And if we look at “All living entities in my state are my children” declaration by Emperor Ashoka, we enter into a bigger domain of rationality having implicit sustenance.
7
Machines machines everywhere, not an activity left.
Make bigger and complex machines, generate more money and again make a more complex machines. Control compounds. Make humans obsessed with these machines and money, so that they will always tend for greater controls. Control makes one impersonal, so experiment for impersonal designs. Greater impersonality, more neutrality, more rationality: we are reaching towards 2nd industrial revolution marked by giant assembly lines in USA where a person is basically an automated unit (many of them really replaced by robots and automatic processes). Here we see hegemonic growth again leading towards hysterical pathways but it is continuously countered by ideas emerging everyday in large numbers. We can say it a sustainable procedural model. But it is one-sided story, we will discuss in details later.
French Revolution said that a person is born free and equal, but the system of machine-based control always gave some people hysterical advantage of means of production. This advantage resulted into a society dominated by capitalists and soon there were a large number of wage laborers who were marginalized in all respects. So again, some visionaries propagated the idea of a socialst society in which no one will have any hysterical advantage, instead, practically, state became the level-player acquiring the paramount hegemony over its citizen. It was Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and Socialist Revolution in China.
8
“Naked Fakir”: it was the appraisal for a 70 year old coming downstairs in Imperial Office, London. He was holding a stick, wearing half dhoti (and covering body with the rest half) and was fighting with the strongest government of its time with simple weapons of truth and non-violence. His truth and non-violence are implicitly imbedded in life giving strength for “satyagraha”. He was against party-politics; strong supporter of localization and decentralization of powers within an economy and demanded more space for individual even in the presence of state. The ideas of globalization, mechanization and fast growth with lucrative practices and conspicuous material outlook are anti-Gandhi. We see that as we are building our capacities to understand sustainable development, these are the most promising perspectives!
9
Every year more than 500 students take admissions in Undergraduate courses at IIT Kanpur. In the beginning all are equally treated in a perfectly neutral environment. During orientation period, there are some rules applied commonly to them: Golden Rules. These are:
- Do not argue with seniors
- Seniors are always right
- In case of any confusion or dispute, refer the above two
These rules give seniors a supreme lead over incoming juniors and continue for more than 15 days. So it causes a perfect orientation of their minds. For past few years, we see a greater proportion of students going for easy-money jobs like consultancy or management or finance. The tastes and distastes for particular ideas and institutions build at this time and continue up to his/her undergraduate study at IIT Kanpur. Until or unless (s)he undergoes a stronger orientation program, this mindset continues till his/her life, even though (s)he realizes very soon that (s)he had been stupefied. One of the biggest benefit seniors get is getting students motivated towards cultural festivals and hall rivalries. Larger the size of festival, more they can show their managerial capabilities (here managerial is a generic word used at IIT Kanpur to represent skills for organizing an event with a bigger pomp and plunder), better the job they think to get. Similarly, greater hall rivalries, more will be scope of lobbying for different posts in festivals and Students’ Gymkhana, more managerial skills to learn and greater the probability of getting a job in finance, consultancy or management.
10
For this subsection, rationality means calculability, predictability, efficiency, automation and control over uncertainties.
Max Weber had extensively worked upon rationalization. It is the process making someone rational. He thinks that rationality is an eventual outcome of process of industrialization and capitalism. He assumes that systems were hysterical before that so they were irrational.
Control and determinism are the biggest contributors to rationality. it is reflected in calculability, predictability, efficiency, automation and control over uncertainties. Since the machines and uniform capitalistic laws support these on a massive scale, so mechanization and capitalism are carriers of rationality. it doesn’t mean that he didn’t support personal pursuit of interests, but he stressed that means should be universal, and deterministic.
The organizations and actions known to be modern are very controlled, neutral and deterministic. Greater it is rational more it sustains, propagates and greater are the chances that it will become hegemonic like what has happened multiple times in the past (discussed above).
Weber has classified rationality in four types:
a. Practical rationality: A person is free to follow any path to attain its final goal depending upon the contemporary circumstances, once it is defined that his goal is a rational choice.
b. Theoretical rationality: it is the rationality of ideal types not dealing directly with real life.
c. Substantive rationality: An individual is not always running for a rational end or a determined target. (S)he has a lot of life components which are done without much universally controlled and deterministic output. Taking bath in a small town like village (like my native place Katoria, Bihar) is an example. A person can take bath in tap inside bathroom, take bath at government hand pump or well, take bath in a pond or the river flowing nearby. There is no any determinism or set of rules deciding which one is better or efficient. In other words, it can be referred as a set of freedoms at personal level. It is substantive rationality. it is an uncontrolled procedural system.
d. Formal rationality: When processes try to develop continuity, they evolve hegemony over personal procedures; rather they focus upon larger procedures as we have seen that greater and efficient machines gave greater control which evolved more and more controlled universalism. This universalism is strengthened by economic, legal, and scientific institutions, as well as in the bureaucratic form of domination.
Weber felt that advent of technologies; capitalism and formal burocracy symbolize growth of hegemony of formal rationality which will restrict creative social actions. His feelings are supported by matrician evolution of consumerism.
Weber had extensively analyzed the design of rationality. He said that market needs indifference, calculable determinism and a level player (money); people and governments are trained to support it as a rational choice. To attain all these it applies appropriation, market, rational technology, free labor markets and commercialization of every aspect of our economic life.
11
Water resources in Chili can be a private commodity. One can own a river! Mining firms at Quillagua, world’s driest place, is prospered by Loa River. A mining firm Soquimich (SQM) owns 75% of the rights in Quillagua. Now the river is completely controlled, its water flow, uses of water, species flourishing in it everything determined. Perfect rationality! Relative humidity of the region is nearly zero as it is extremely dry. Living things in the water have died; it is neither crops nor livestock getting natural support from the river they were getting earlier. And now, people around it also suffering a lot so most of the people below 50s have migrated from the city. Only old and helpless are left at the mercy of these firms and God.
One can find that the initial stage of river sharing was very procedural but later, firms got a hegemonic control and the system became hysterical. After all, the question underlies: what is more rational: social efficiency or economic efficiency.
12
China has made a tremendous progress in recent decades with its sustainably high growth rates. This growth has given Chinese government so much power that it is now trying to promote its interests across the world. But what is Chinese Govt.? It is an amalgamation of power, capital and military (physical strength). People and environment, both are not respected much and it is the country and the party getting top priorities. So it became the most green house gas emitting nation (overtaken USA). If Chinese policies or success are there to confine its boundaries then it is not a big challenge but when its Oil firms fund ethnic cleansing by Janjawee Militia (Darfur, Sudan) or its pollutants accumulate over Canadian air disturbing the whole natural cycle and kind of species living then it really requires serious attention. Some days ago, China had conducted world’s largest artificial snowfall and now Govt is going to create two artificial rivers supplying water to its north. The point which is common is comprehensive control and determinism enjoyed by the Govt. This dominance is increasing day by day and more and more countries are now being inclined towards this Govt model. This is the whole challenge. Hegemonies are alarmingly increasing.
13
Before 2nd World War was about to end, USA got a paramount position in control over capital and energy. So, its policy makers decided that capital intensive and energy intensive practices, whatsoever it may be, will make people across the world more and more dependent on USA. So with the help of its financial, scientific and political instruments and institutions, it became the propagator of unsustainable development across the world on such a large scale that only China is matching it.
GDP has been made the indicator of economic development as it is directly related to capital accumulation. GDP can be increased only if consumerism is increased. So USA tried to increase consumerism massively within and outside its boundaries. A human identity was reduced to a consumer fed up with ideas poured in by advertisements floating in the mass and private media. It is not just feeding, it is a kind of attack over individual identity. Society, systems and lifestyle had been so much intervened by these forces so that everything has been made perfect, calculable and deterministic. Japan is the most suitable example. However there have been region-specific approach in this design and different strategies have been applied for different regions of the world.
This trend is being followed by all countries of this world. 5% Americans (315 million) need 20% of world resources. How many earths we will be needed for its nearly 7 billion population if everybody follows that model?
14
Arab is the center of controlled Islam. It has got a lot of oil money, so it started designing of a bigger control over the thinking of the Muslim population across the world. USA had a convergent interest, so it employed its military for this purpose and got a control over world oil politics (energy and capital) in turn. And USSR had to be stopped by USA at all costs (Eisenhower Doctrine), so USA also got people to contain the growth of USSR.
In 1979, there was a Islamic (Shia) revolution in Iran and in the same year, USSR attacked Afghanistan. So USA and representative Arab countries (Saudi Arabia and its allies) decided to contain both. So they started supporting the idea of hardcore Arab Centric Sunni ideologies like Wahhabism. Thousands of mosques were erected across the world (especially Pakistan) preaching this radical form of Islam. Consequently, Muslim societies across the world became more and more fundamentalized, Taliban and other Islamist groups sprang-up across the world and the cultural sphere was completely excluded. One can see that many of the cultural aspects propagate freedom at individual level, so hegemonies always tried to either eradicate culture (Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Taliban) or propagate the designed one (consumerism culture by USA, Arabic Islam in south Asian and south-east Asian countries). A very simple example is replacement of Khuda Hafiz (Indo-Persian) by Allah Hafiz (Arabic). In short run, it provided fighters against USSR and ideological unity of Sunnis but now it is biting back USA and Pakistan. It is worth mentioning that Pakistan has been culturally very sound even after it was carved out of India. But the radicalization process has made Pakistani Society so habituated to anti-cultural violence and terrorism that the recent attack on Sri Lankan Cricket Team was hardly countered by Pakistani security personnel and society both (viz. easy exit of attackers from a posh area in Lahore with heavy arms and ammunitions).
15
After trade embargo, Cuba has evolved one of the best agricultural practices in the world. Life expectancy of Cubans is more than that of Americans (USA), there are more number of doctors per unit of population and they use one eighth energy as compared to USA. They also use minimum energy and minimum capital technologies; their economy has evolved localized models eliminating any scope for multinationals to commercialize every aspect of life. Not only this, community services and activities have developed so much that they have several models of collective ownership.
Scandinavian countries are systematically eliminating commercialization of life step-by-step; the boldest one was commercialization of sex. It helped a lot in controlling women trafficking, forced sex and eroticization of women (though increased after 1990s but recent laws are decreasing it). We have seen above that women have been portrayed as competitor of men in the beginning of industrial revolution, so violence against women, their objectification and their identity crisis have been systematically nurtured.
European and American countries are outsourcing their pollution; Asian countries are receiving carbon credits and carbon-tax is another kind of compensation for the pollution caused by rich. These ideas are propagated as solutions to future sustainable development, but they are not so. In a conversation to BBC, Wangari Mathai (Nobel Peace Prize winner) was saying that if you want forests and wildlife to exist and at the same time, you want to commercially exploit forests then there will be neither restoration, no conservation.
16
Local economy, less energy and less capital intensive technology and lifestyle, decommercialization of certain aspects of our life and heterogeneous outlook to world eradicating universal systems and practices could be the starting points. Money as a level player needs to be displaced and GDP must be replaced by a more inclusive and well designed Human Development Index. Profit maximization and efficiency increment are implicit to our idea of rationality; these should be supplemented by implicit sustenance. All attempts of hegemonies need to be eliminated through decentralization of resources and authorities, means participative democracy must be promoted. Britain is witnessing a no-party election campaign for next general elections. In this regard, Gandhism must be revisited.
The ideas dominating the world till last century were mainly European, so we could see materials at the top. But this century is Asian Century, therefore we can hope beyond saying that human body is only a combination of different chemicals, parts and components!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
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