Society changes. Physical environment becomes different. Science makes new
discoveries and gifts new ideas to man kind. Socialists the world over churn the prevalent ideas
and struggle to bring new theories to enrich the mental geography of the world. One such
socialist group is in America. They publish the magazine ‘Analytical Monthly Review’. In the
September-2014 of this magazine Fred Magdoff’s article ‘Building an Ecologically Sound and
socially just Economy’ brings fresh air to the socialist fraternity.
Environmental problems are ringing a warning bellfor humanity. We can ignore
it at our peril. To quote Fred Magdoff, ‘Not just climate change, but also pollution of the air,
water, soil, and living organisms, the loss of biodiversity both aboveground and in the soil, the
extinction of species, and the overuse and misuse of both renewable and nonrenewable natural
resources.’ These issues plague the whole of humanity. Unemployment, inequality and poverty
should not be tolerated by any state. Economists plan for constant and perpetual growth. This
is not a sustainable proposition and must be abandoned.
The Brundtland Report (UN-1987) says that ‘development is that which meets
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs.’
To-day illusive money is ruling the world. To quote from the book Ecology
Economy, ‘Money has come to exist more and more in token form-from notes to electronic
trading. In relation to massive debt, the whole edifice of money stands increasingly revealed as
a colossal illusion. Phantom wealth is created through a phantom mountain of debt. Andrew
Simmas’ Ecological Debt (2005) contrasts the impossible, un-repayable financial debts that
Third World governments owe to First World banks with a different level of real debt owed by
the world’s financial elites to the regions whose resources they have plundered.
Felix Padel, Ajay Dandekar, Jeemol Unni
‘Since the bailout of banks in the US and the UK-starting in 2008 with massive
injections of government funds –something of the insanity our present world financial system is
based on has become increasingly visible. Could wedo things differently? Are we mortgaging
our earth to pay for a style of living that can only be sustained for a minority of humans, for a
brief period?’
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel- winner economist, is alarmed at the World Bank and IMF
imposed policies ruining the world, ‘Economics of the Fund-Bank kind is bad for many reasons.
It is intellectually dishonest, and does not really benefit countries or reduce their poverty;
profits created at human expense can be seen as morally bad, specifically bad Karma. The
destructive impact of escalating debt is the essence of bad economics.’
Ecology Economy
Why are the rulers of different countries accepting these wrong policies?
Actually, democracy has crumbled in all most all countries of the world. In the US, one percent
of people are deciding the policies and strategies of the government. (Stiglitz says that
2
American democracy is “of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1 %”). Both the Republicans and
Democrats are controlled by the leading capital- owners, who are one percent of the public of
the US. In India the situation is not different. The two leading parties, the BJP and Congress,
are at the beck and call of corporation powers. The people of the democratic countries are
misled by the media owned and managed by the corporation elite.
‘Perpetual growth’ is the formula constantly dinned into public ears by the
media and the state -controlled economists.’
‘Does the world need more growth, as mainstream economists and politicians
continually affirm, or a planned degrowth, as ecological economists advocate (Martinez-Alier
2010; Simms and Johnson 2010)? Does it need a different kind of growth? If so, what, and how
could his be managed? Herman Daly points out the logical fallacy in models of economic
growth.’
‘In its physical dimensions the economy is an open subsystem of the earth
ecosystem, which is finite, non-growing, and materially closed. As the economic subsystem
grows it incorporates an ever greater proportion of the total ecosystem into itself and must
reach a limit at 100 percent, if not before. Therefore its growth is not sustainable. The term
‘sustainable growth’ when applied to the economy is a bad oxymoron. (Daly and Townsend
1993).’
‘Rather, it (GDP growth) is an economic system that has basic internal forcesespecially the profit motive and competition among firms-that operate in such a way as to
promote exponential growth while simultaneously causing massive negative social and
ecological effects.’ Ecology Economy.
It is unfortunate that we forget that we are livingin an inter-dependant world.
‘All living beings are members of ecological communities bound together in a network of
interdependencies. When this deep ecological perception becomes part of our daily awareness,
a radically new system of ethics emerges.’ Fritj of Capra: The Web of Life.
‘Non-violence’ is considered as the greatest value of the Yoga system. The
Mahabharata places non-violence at a higher level than truth (Adiparba- Kausika Myth).
Violence shatters the web of life and disturbs the normal pace of nature.
Mining companies are making profit only because of state’s support.
‘Out of This Earth (Padel and Das 2010a: 373-95, with a CBA (cost-benefit
analysis) of Aluminium projects showed that making alumina and Aluminium can only make a
profit with huge subsidies on the price of electricity, water and transport, and by excluding
pollution costs, etc. as ‘externalities’. Also, any mining makes a profit only if the basic cost of
ore is kept abysmally low-far lower than it should be considering the huge environmental and
social costs involved. Keeping costs and prices low is what cartels are about.’ Ecology
Economy.
3
America’s top aluminium expert wrote: Aluminum making is dependent on vast
continuing grants of low-cost electricity…. (It) is no great maker of employment, uses little
skilled labor, and adds little to the independent development of an area…. The US cannot any
longer afford to make aluminium if it can be obtained in large enough quantities an on
favorable price terms from other sources. (Anderson 1951:21, cited in Padel and Das 2010a:
278).
Stiglitz writes, ‘Resources should belong to the people and governments should
represent the people, which means government can’t permit the appropriation of public
resources by the private sector….’(2011).
In the book Power and Morality two world-level sociologists Prof. Pitirim A.
Sorokin and Walter A. Lunden write, ‘When the morality and mentality of rulers and the ruled
are measured by the same moral and mental yardstick (and not by the double standard
discussed above), then the rulers’ morality and minds appear to be marked by a much stronger
dualism-by greater mental and moral schizophrenia than the morality and mentality of the
members of the ruled populations. The moral behaviour of ruling groups tends to be more
criminal and sub-moral than that of the ruled strata of the same society. The greater, more
absolute, and coercive the power of rulers, political leaders, and big executives of business,
labour and other organizations, and the less freely this power is approved by the ruled
population, the more corrupt and criminal such ruling groups and executives tend to be.
Morality and mentality of Rulers
Sorokin and lundenalso write in the book Power and morality:-
In regard to the captains of finance and wealth, it was said long ago that it is
easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of
God. The truth of this maxim is well confirmed by the experience of the past as well as by the
careful histories of the modern big fortunes and by the biographies of recent captains of
industry and finance, go-betweens, and some labour leaders.(1) These histories and
biographies show that in recent times, just as in the past, there are few, if any, big fortunes
amassed without crime, just as there are few captains of industry and finance, and few
powerful labour leaders that are free from criminalviolations of law and morality.
------Other Power elements: Criminality of captainsof finance and industry,
Labour Leaders and others.
Though computer scientists have discovered that nature moves in a particular
direction to produce the human species on the earth (Prof. Stuart Kuffman calls it order for
free), scientists generally accept the idea that man’s appearance on the earth is an accident.
Darwin made the greatest discovery of the 19
th
century but he gave competitionthe key role in
evolution. Male- dominated Euro- centric thinking biased Darwin. The same bias guides many
leading scientists of the world. Scientists like Stephen jay Gold and Lewontin raised their voices
against scientists having the race bias but they too for got that we would be living in a world
free from wars and aggressive nationalism, had female intellect directed world affairs. Non-
violence in the ambience is necessary for freedom of all the species on the earth. Man went
against nature’s direction when he gave importance to violence.
4
In the News paper Hindu of December-28, 2014 Harsh Mander write: - To draw
men into struggles against patriarchy, 1,200 activist from 94 countries converged in Delhi for a
conference titled Men Engage. “Patriarchy and gender injustice remain defining characteristics
of societies around the world with devastating effects on everyone’s daily life,” the conference
declared. Patriarchy constitutes “immense threats to human wellbeing” because “no matter
who we are, and no matter where we are in the world, these forces make our relationships less
fulfilling, less healthy and less safe. From an early age, they introduce suffering, violence,
illness, hate and death within our families and communities. They strip us of our fundamental
human rights and hinder our ability to live a life with love, dignity, intimacy and mutual respect.
They hamper the development of our economies and keep our global society from flourishing.”
A landmark UNFPA study confirms how closely men andboys in India conform to
these domineering models of masculinity. Ninety-three per cent men felt that “to be a man,
you need to be tough”; 60 per cent of men report that they are violent with their intimate
partners. Nine in 10 men felt that a woman must obey her husband, and three in four that, in
family matters, a man’s word should be final. Only15 per cent of men involve their wives in
making family decisions.
How devastating the unholy combination between capitalism and male
chauvinism can be, comes out in the book Churning the Earth, the Making of Global Indiaby
Aseem Shrivastava and Ashis Kothari.
The two authors went to an area which the Government wants to declare as SEZ
(special Economic Zone). An area of 25,000/- hectares will be in this SEZ. The state is displacing
the farmers of number of a villages with the help of the police and the anti-social elements
created and energized by the think tank of the reliance industry. In the words of Shrivastava
and Kothari:-
To be sure, some famers (hedging their bets) have sold a part of their land.
Others have made distress sales, given the tough economic conditions. But they have not
been able to take advantage of the compensation money. We asked a farmer in Pelpa who
was attending a meeting of the village elders (known as taus) what he did with the money he
had received from Reliance. He responded that he barely got to see the money. We asked
whether Reliance had paid him. ‘Of course,’ he responded, ‘but the boys took it away.’
Why did you give them the money, we asked. His response caught us totally off
guard.
My son put a pistol to my head and took the money away. This is becoming
quite common here. They (the boys and the young men) are only interested in three things:
gadi, daroo, bandook (cars, liquor and guns). Comewith me one evening after sundown to the
road which bisects the SEZ area. I will be able toshow you the line of new jeeps (SUVs) parked
along the road. Loud disco music blares out of thevehicles. The boys drink and make merry in
them till the early house of the morning. Our bahu-betis (daughters-in-law and daughters)
have stopped stepping out in the evening. It used to be very safe here. Now it isn’t. The boys
return home in the early hours of the morning, sleep till the afternoon, and in the evening
return to their favourite hideaway to repeat the routine. How many months will Rs.22 lakh
last if it is being burnt at this rte?
5
The farmer’s wife says, ‘This is not just the forced takeover of our land and
ancestral village, it is also the decimation of our culture and roots. Alcohol was always a
problem in our villages. Now, with easy money, alcoholism is a daily nightmare. Men are out
of control. Domestic violence is all too common. We do not belong to the city. And our own
village seems alien to us now. Hum toh kaheen ke nabin nabe (We belong nowhere now)…….
Rural society in Haryana is in a state of moral breakdown. A certain despair
haunts people here. It is the despair of ‘traumatized communities that have lost control over
their fate………….’
Globalization has led to lumpenization of the proletariat and the elite also.
Societies are becoming atomized as well as herd – like. Human society through millions of
years developed its intelligence and social abilities. Man lived in band societies. Human bands
consisted of about 148 members. Prof. Dunbar and his colleagues researched and came to the
conclusion that the volume of human mind was proportional to the number of members in a
band. Gibbons are not so intelligent. They live in bands of five or six. Chimpanzees live in
bands of 50 to 60 members. They are more intelligent than Gibbons. Socialized bands of
humans was definitely the contribution of the females of society. Big bands of humans gave
them safety from the predatory animals. To-day, within decades, we are under- mining our
heritage of millions of years. We are going in a reverse direction to evolutionally nature’s
intention of building a matricentric socialist society because we (the rulers and commoners)
are getting atomized and lumpenized at a fast pace.What to speak of band societies of 148
members? Even families consisting of a few members are breaking in different countries. Man
is a product of society. Lumpenization is an enemy of social values. To-day economic
Globalization and lumpenization reinforce each other. Economic Globalization is also creating
ecological disturbance. How to prevent both is thequestion that cries for answer among the
social thinkers of the world.
(To be continued in Evolutionary (Science-Directed)Socialism: Part-VIII)
Bhagwat Prasad Rath,
3rd Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. – Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002, Odisha.
Phone No. 06856-235092
Cell No.-08895860598
bagwat_prashad@rediffmail.com
satyabhamajankalyantrust@rediffmail.com
www.samalochana1.blogspot.com
www.samalochana.blogsome.com
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