Caste politics determine the economic independence of the Scheduled Caste farmers and agricultural labourers in and around Tuticorin district. Even though they are more in number, the “upper caste” Nadar maintain a strict control over their wages and entry into agriculture.
In the villages of Peikkulam, Palayamkottai, Sawyerpuram, Arumugamangalam, Nattathi and Arel, banana plantations account for the majority of cultivated land. Spread over more than 2,000 acres out of the total 3,500, they are irrigated by water from the Thamirabarani River and 100 bore-wells. The remaining land is used for paddy and drumsticks cultivation.
Agriculture has been the main occupation in these villages for the past 140 years and has been paying good returns on investment. However, caste politics have an iron grip over the livelihood of the Scheduled Castes to the extent that they continue to get suppressed.
The Peikkulam Farmers’ Association represents all farmers and farmland-owners over the 3,500 acres, and claims responsibility for “arranging for” assistance in times of need. However, according to Mr. Paramasivan, a farmer belonging to the Scheduled Caste, “When the price of DAP jumped from Rs. 12,500 per ton in April, 2011 to Rs, 18,000 per ton in October, 2011, the cost per acre of paddy cultivation jumped from Rs. 18,000 to Rs. 25,000 for small farmers.”
“All this while, the Association stood back despite demands for the regulation of fertilizers purchases and redistribution of income.” In the same period, the membership fee for these small farmers, mostly of the Scheduled Caste, was increased from Rs. 400 to Rs. 600 per acre citing “technical issues”.
Mr. M. Murugesan, the Secretary of the Association, and his colleague, the President of the Association, Mr. S. V. P. S. P. Sundarapandian, are the leaders of the local Nadar community. They have been traditionally administering its duties for as long as agriculture has been practiced in the region: 140 years. Mr. Sundarapandian admitted that even though elections are held amongst the farmers for various offices in the union every year, the posts of secretary and president have always been inherited by Nadar leaders.
When asked about the wages for the people employed on the farms, Mr. Murugesan responded, “The men do the more specialized tasks of planting the seeds, digging the irrigation channels and grafting, and they are handpicked from our community from the neighbouring villages. They are paid Rs. 400 to Rs. 500 a day.”
As for the women, he said that they “are engaged only in slicing the leaves, picking the fruits, mixing and sowing the fertilizers and pesticides, and in other coolie tasks. They are also from the neighbouring villages, but since they will be performing tasks that everyone can, they are paid Rs. 140 to Rs. 150 a day.”
While many have considered withdrawing from the Association, its added benefits are costlier to procure without its support. Two such benefits are insurance against disasters – which is sustained by donations made to the Association’s coffers – and bargaining power against the government. A third aspect, that of loans, hinders the “lower caste” population from turning into landowners.
“Two banks that operate in rural Tuticorin and that have affordable interests for small farmers, Canara Bank and the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank, are dominated by Nadars,” says Mr. V. Perumal, a farmer employed by Mr. Sundarapandian. “When we seek loans to buy land and operate our own farms, there are significant delays in processing the loan. One of my kinsmen was denied a loan even though he had just returned from Tirunelveli town with all his savings.”
Such unionism is well-established in the seven villages. There are government initiatives that are aimed at increasing the representation of the Scheduled Castes via quotas in universities and government offices, and the Rajeev Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana scheme that subsidises electricity supply. However, the ground-level situation remains harshly inconducive to economic independence for the poorer sections.
Even after extended decentralization of authority in the form of the Gram Sabha and employment opportunities through the NREGA, being of a “lower caste” still pushes these people to live between debt and more debt.
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Saturday, 5 November 2011
The third-world contingency problem
Matrices are used to represent curves on the Cartesian plane. Consider this matrix:
1 0It's a 2x2 identity matrix that can be represented on the Cartesian plane in terms of the x and y coordinates.
0 1
x yOn the Cartesian plane (or a graph paper), this can be represented by a line that goes from [0,0] to [1,1] with a slope of 45 degrees. Now, this is a two dimensional matrix where x and y are the dimensions. Let me add a new dimension, z, of depth. Now, if I were to represent the same line in space, it would be
x 1 0
y 0 1
x y zTo imagine this, think of a graph sheet where a line is drawn from [0,0] to [1,1]. By adding the z dimension, this line is drawn from [0,0,0] to [1,1,0]. To paraphrase, it is a line in a 3-dimensional space with a direction. In the first case, the line was a line: because of the starting point, the ending point and the slope being defined, it was scalar. Now, by adding one more dimension, the line has become a vector. This is a popular notion in mathematics: when an entity exists as a scalar in n dimensions, it will exist as a vector in n + 1 dimensions.
x 1 0 0
y 0 1 0
z 0 0 0
In order to prove this theorem, the origin of the n + 1 vector space must be found. Considering the above 3x3 matrix as a determinant and using Kramer's rule to solve it,
x y zIt becomes evident that-
x 1 0 0
y 0 1 0
z 0 0 0,
D = 1 0 0Thus, the solution as given by Kramer's rule:
0 1 0
0 0 0
Dx = 1 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
Dy = 0 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 0
Dz = 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
x = Dx / DIn doing so and substituting the [z,z] value with 0, 1 and -1, the value of the D determinant goes from 1, 1 and -1. In other words, the value of D on the number line goes from one side of zero to the other side. Since the number line is one dimensional, it has 2 directions within the dimension: positive and negative. Therefore, the same line which was a scalar in n = 2 dimensions now becomes a vector in an n+1 vector space because it now has directions as well as magnitude.
y = Dy / D
z = Dz / D
This problem, along with its many requirements and conclusions, is used widely used in economics. Before I state the problem, however, there is one more important concept: the Laplace transformation. Every vector space, in order to exist as a vector space, must conform to the basic mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. If it conforms, then it joins the vector space club.
Say there is a vector space denoted by V5 (i.e., having 5 dimensions). It conforms to the basic operations as well as 5 parameters of its own, three of which are length, breadth and height, one of which could be time, and the fifth one could be, for example, weight. All these dimensions are possessed by, say, a chair.
In order to transform this V5 space into a V6 space, the following rules must be met:
- The V6 space must conform to the basic mathematical operations
- 5 of the 6 dimensions of the V6 space must be length, breadth, height, time and weight
Take the chair. It has dimensions in a V3 space, a time component in a V4 space, and a weight component in a V5 space. In the V6 space, it may now assume a monetary value component.
Now, here is the problem:
Developing nations all around the world have a contingency plan for crises that is defined by 3 conditions: intrinsic non-monetary (Inm) parameter, extrinsic monetary (Em) parameter, and globalization(Glo).
Most economics models today, if not all, deal with the variations in Inm and Em exclusively. However, we know from reality that the variation in Inm and Em are not independent. To whit, if there is no rain during a particular season, the agricultural produce volume falls, agricultural exports fall, the imports increase, inflation within the country rises, the purchasing power parity falls, the income of the earner goes from enough to not-enough and foreign direct investments fall.
So, why can't economic models deal with them together? In mathematical terms, the solution for the [Inm, Em, Glo] vector space is found by excluding the set [Inm, Em], while in realistic terms, the [Inm, Em] space exists very much.
This is done so because of two reasons:
- The matrix denoting the relation between Inm and Em has too many parameters: there is no one factor that yields a proportionality relationship between Inm and Em.
- The relation between Inm and Em is a relation and not a function, a function being defined by a set variation pattern. While, one day, Inm and Em might be defined by a function f1, the very next day they become instances of another function, f2.
So, how is an economic model that deals with [Inm, Em] formulated?
Sunday, 7 August 2011
The forces that move
The following is my assimilation of Dr. Prabhat Patnaik's fairly straightforward lecture delivered at the Asian College of Journalism on the 5th day of August, 2011.
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
Notes:
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
- The rise in numbers of the poor in western Europe
- Transitional problems in developing nations
- Institutionalization of equality
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
- Drop in unemployment - If the worker didn't have a job, he didn't stay unemployed in the that place. Instead, he moved to another place where he could be employed.
- Raise in standard of living for domestic workers (already discussed)
- Marketing of capitalist production - Countries slow to the awakening of capitalism suffered the "displacement" of the local markets because commercial proliferation of more-developed countries resulted in the encroachment of local markets
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
"Labour market institutions [can be] seen to inhibit the clearing functions of the market by weakening the demand for labor, making it less attractive to hire a worker by explicitly pushing up the wage costs or by introducing a negative shadow price for labor."
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
*
Notes:
- Superimposition - In those countries that developed capitalism later than the rest, the destruction of the old communities and the formation of the new ones were parallel processes, which was not the case with the early developers. So? So the pre-cap. communities were not fully broken down during the onset of capitalism, leading to a superimposition of the two. The early developers didn't have this problem.
- Fail-safe - Capitalism, when faced with challenges by the new and supposedly "pro-capitalist" community, makes compromises with the pre-cap. communities
- The difference between affirmative actions toward efficiency and affirmative actions toward equity, and why the former is mandated while the latter is not
- Poverty as a social construct
The forces that move
The following is my assimilation of Dr. Prabhat Patnaik's fairly straightforward lecture delivered at the Asian College of Journalism on the 5th day of August, 2011.
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
Notes:
--
Before I start off, I'd like to make it clear that I didn't like the way Patnaik ended his lecture: "I'm Marxist." That just threw everything off-balance for me and I was forced to look at all the notes I'd taken in new light. Anyway, the lecture was, like I said, straightforward, filled with simple cause-effect relationships all over the place.
The rise of capitalism
The rise of capitalism as such was marred by three of its most significant consequences:
- The rise in numbers of the poor in western Europe
- Transitional problems in developing nations
- Institutionalization of equality
In fact, as businesses shifted toward more efficient models, workers began to lose their jobs en masse and were forced to migrate to destinations that promised employment and/or any other such necessities for survival. As a result of this exodus, those labourers who chose to stay back home were in the company of fewer consumers, and so with the same wage could enjoy a slightly enhanced standard of living. In a way, this movement of manpower could be described as the invisible hand of Smith as work, gradually stabilizing a drastically changing system.
Because of the lack of precedence, there was no defence for the argument that capitalism was the sole cause of these debilitating circumstances, and therefore transient economies began to face some resistance from the people of the states. However, in such an evaluation, the loss of jobs featured as a parameter while migration did not, and therefore, the other effects of moving workforce were disregarded. These are:
- Drop in unemployment - If the worker didn't have a job, he didn't stay unemployed in the that place. Instead, he moved to another place where he could be employed.
- Raise in standard of living for domestic workers (already discussed)
- Marketing of capitalist production - Countries slow to the awakening of capitalism suffered the "displacement" of the local markets because commercial proliferation of more-developed countries resulted in the encroachment of local markets
A cause-effect paradox
The first incongruence arises when capitalism, as the herald of modernity, gives rise to modern industrialist capitalist production that does not absorb labour (do artificial intelligence, the Large Hadron Collider, and space exploration seem like a consequence of the proliferation of Communism?).
The decrease in that absorptive power was mostly as a result of the introduction of labour market flexibility: in the words of economist Horst Siebert,
"Labour market institutions [can be] seen to inhibit the clearing functions of the market by weakening the demand for labor, making it less attractive to hire a worker by explicitly pushing up the wage costs or by introducing a negative shadow price for labor."
Furthermore, the high growth rate of industries ensures that divides are accentuated quickly: a man who continues to remain poor becomes too poor in the same time a man who is slightly rich becomes quickly rich. I don't condemn this; in fact, I stand by it.
Now, there's a certain vicious cycle that I've detailed here (with some exaggeration) that widens the gap between the rich and the poor in an economy driven by capitalistic initiatives. Capitalism could be said to add to such a cycle because it displaces the poor, keeps them from being reabsorbed into industries, and in the process renders migration moot. Therefore, while the poor increase in number, all the wealth is localized in smaller and smaller pockets even as redistribution becomes processually more difficult (which is the essence of the abrasive relationship between democracy and capitalism).
Helpless superheroes
To save the thus-displaced, the state intervenes, the position of its intervention resting on the discordant view that irrespective of regional or demographic disparities, the larger collective has its first duty toward the poor. Consequently, reservation was installed in order to safeguard, rather vouchsafe, opportunities for the marginalized and eventually kill marginalization itself. However, the onset of neo-liberalism saw a decline in state-support for the destitute.
(The plot between direct + indirect per capita food grain consumption on the Y-axis and per capita income on the X is logarithmic.)
Now, the idea of a government as such rests on the strength of communities, the oneness that people are capable of establishing as a consequences of concentric and concurrent goals. The notion of community, with the advent of capitalism, was split up neatly into a pre-capitalistic form and a post-capitalist form (although I prefer to call the latter the pro-capitalist form).
Before I continue to rant about the (good) mess that capitalism's landed us in, it'd be appropriate to discuss the one thing that the coming of modernism (as an accompaniment of capitalism) achieved: the penetration of education into the social strata. Education raised the expectations of the people and made them aware of the lack of resources in satiating those expectations. Education awakened the people to the real problems irking them without their knowledge. Education mobilized social frustration.
Soon, individuals began to break away from the pre-cap. community and "enrolled" with the proletariat (and I use the word only because social integration would've taken time). An alternate group of communities were also formed in the name of trade unions, rather as trade unions. Further, the breakup of the pro-cap. communities was exacerbated by the introduction of commodity production, and with it, competition, rivalry, and money.
Interlude: Rise of the Second Serfdom
Unfortunately, a Second Serfdom awaited the poor: just like the failure of the industries to reabsorb the unemployed spelled destitution, the failure of the proletariat to absorb the "countryside" individual gave cause for the pre-cap. communities to persist. When the proletariat shut its gates, the peasantry stayed on with the pre-cap. community it'd come from, and cut into its subsistence.
Again, as a result: persistence of institutionalized inequality (an axiomatic conclusion).
Forces at war and forces at work
The capitalist market is not an equalizing phenomenon, especially when it's known that the profits reaped thereof are directly proportional to the strength of the economic and social powers that engage within its ambit. Because of this tendency to counter any stabilizing agents, inequalities inherited from other bases also become susceptible to accentuation. These are the forces at war.
The interaction between the persistent pre-cap. communities and the rapidly growing pro-cap communities resulted in the engendering of identity politics, structured within the framework of negotiations between the two. Within the capitalist order of things, individuals were being coerced into particular roles that best suited their new lifestyle. Due to the consequent limitation of identity, it's not surprising that it became a battleground for political causes. One way or another, these were the forces at work.
*
Notes:
- Superimposition - In those countries that developed capitalism later than the rest, the destruction of the old communities and the formation of the new ones were parallel processes, which was not the case with the early developers. So? So the pre-cap. communities were not fully broken down during the onset of capitalism, leading to a superimposition of the two. The early developers didn't have this problem.
- Fail-safe - Capitalism, when faced with challenges by the new and supposedly "pro-capitalist" community, makes compromises with the pre-cap. communities
- The difference between affirmative actions toward efficiency and affirmative actions toward equity, and why the former is mandated while the latter is not
- Poverty as a social construct
Thursday, 30 June 2011
The poor-smart and the rich-foolish
The World Wide Web (3W) is going somewhere.
The amount of history it has backing it up is nowhere close to what it was for any other field that was decidedly going somewhere. Apart from the industrial and technological advancements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, all that we did we'd been trying to perfect for a long time. The 3W, on the other hand, has been around for just about 2 decades and it has already instituted a smart-foolish gap beside its rich-poor counterpart.
In the future, there is definitely going to come a time when the rich will become poor if they're not smart enough to capitalize on accessibility of the web and the poor will become rich if they're smart enough to capitalize on the quickness of the web.
When information exchange is this quick, some measure of trust and an assurance of quality will accomplish the same amount of work in a second as a brick-and-mortar establishment does in two days. It's just that the handshake is called a "click" these days.
The amount of history it has backing it up is nowhere close to what it was for any other field that was decidedly going somewhere. Apart from the industrial and technological advancements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, all that we did we'd been trying to perfect for a long time. The 3W, on the other hand, has been around for just about 2 decades and it has already instituted a smart-foolish gap beside its rich-poor counterpart.
In the future, there is definitely going to come a time when the rich will become poor if they're not smart enough to capitalize on accessibility of the web and the poor will become rich if they're smart enough to capitalize on the quickness of the web.
When information exchange is this quick, some measure of trust and an assurance of quality will accomplish the same amount of work in a second as a brick-and-mortar establishment does in two days. It's just that the handshake is called a "click" these days.
The poor-smart and the rich-foolish
The World Wide Web (3W) is going somewhere.
The amount of history it has backing it up is nowhere close to what it was for any other field that was decidedly going somewhere. Apart from the industrial and technological advancements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, all that we did we'd been trying to perfect for a long time. The 3W, on the other hand, has been around for just about 2 decades and it has already instituted a smart-foolish gap beside its rich-poor counterpart.
In the future, there is definitely going to come a time when the rich will become poor if they're not smart enough to capitalize on accessibility of the web and the poor will become rich if they're smart enough to capitalize on the quickness of the web.
When information exchange is this quick, some measure of trust and an assurance of quality will accomplish the same amount of work in a second as a brick-and-mortar establishment does in two days. It's just that the handshake is called a "click" these days.
The amount of history it has backing it up is nowhere close to what it was for any other field that was decidedly going somewhere. Apart from the industrial and technological advancements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, all that we did we'd been trying to perfect for a long time. The 3W, on the other hand, has been around for just about 2 decades and it has already instituted a smart-foolish gap beside its rich-poor counterpart.
In the future, there is definitely going to come a time when the rich will become poor if they're not smart enough to capitalize on accessibility of the web and the poor will become rich if they're smart enough to capitalize on the quickness of the web.
When information exchange is this quick, some measure of trust and an assurance of quality will accomplish the same amount of work in a second as a brick-and-mortar establishment does in two days. It's just that the handshake is called a "click" these days.
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