It seems that facilitating bargaining between wealth-seekers and welfare-seekers has become a major function of politics.
The new era of election season has arrived. Five states (Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab) will elect new assemblies and chief ministers in the coming weeks. Parties are wooing voters with new promises. Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal is offering ₹1,000 per month to all adult women (age above 18); Shiromani Akali Dal offers ₹2000 for poor women, which corresponds to the Congress in Punjab. Samajwadi Party is promising 300 units of free electricity in Uttar Pradesh, and is near the center expanded its free food program ,Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, or PMGKAY), across the country, by March 2022.
More such measures and promises can be expected once the election campaign intensifies. Tamasha and campaigns for enumeration of welfare schemes are run around big projects. This emphasis on redistribution coincides with an emphasis on job creation in political rhetoric, whose promises still exist but only as a weak addendum. Governments observe a synchronic celebration of ‘job seekers’, often associated with ‘job seekers’, who subtly exonerate themselves. If you can’t find a job, why not make one?
a new constituency
In fact, the current wave of competitive welfareism isolates Indian politics from the middle class that believed in majoritarianism-market union and happily initiated it. A section of them may be disappointed by the material progress stalled during the last years of the United Progressive Alliance government. But politics is now being driven down the social and economic ladder by those who are desperate to have it. The plethora of welfare schemes, often involving a few hundred rupees in cash donations, makes up a vast political arena. Politics seems less about aspiration and more about desperation.
It is easy to blame individual leaders or natural disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic for this knot. Mismanagement and incompetence of individual leaders may exacerbate this, but the core puzzle is the conflict between democratic politics and market-driven development. The difference between the principles of a market economy and the imperatives of a democratic society is the fundamental dilemma of liberalism. The strong liberal notion that markets and democracy are integral to each other is being questioned by the leaders of both.
For example, in the United States, popular leader Bernie Sanders calls himself a ‘democratic socialist’, while Peter Thiel, one of its ruling capitalist moguls, fears that democracy will stifle human progress and Will derail the system. The trajectory of technological and economic progress is exacerbating this divergence.
a conflict ensues
More than a question of inequality, the conflict between political and economic systems stems from the shrinking of the latter’s ability to satisfy the basic aspirations of the masses through the market mechanism. Robert Reich points out that the interests of the consumer and the investor conflict with the interests of the citizen and labor. hypercapitalism, The politician facing the electorate has to create and protect jobs and build public facilities; The impetus for job creation, if at all, is indirect and distant for the investor who is always looking to reduce the workforce or move work to cheaper places and workers. Politicians are trying to restrict the mobility of capital through measures such as the global minimum tax, etc. Meanwhile, capitalism itself is trying to escape the planet, and in the interim, trying to free itself from state authority through technological avenues such as cryptocurrency.
Accepted ‘jobless development’
As the structure of the economy changes in favor of activities requiring less labour, growth creates fewer jobs. More than a decade ago, ‘jobless development’ had become a topic of discussion in Indian political debates. No one talks about it today – not because the problem is solved, but because everyone has taken it for granted. The downstream current has weakened. Politicians respond to this reality. For example, Mr Kejriwal said at a gathering in Uttarakhand on Monday that he would create lakhs of jobs once he came to power, but that could take time. “…In the interim, we will pay ₹5,000 to each unemployed person.” Universal Basic Income is one such idea that is now being discussed globally. Barons like Elon Musk and Bill Gates support a universal basic income for the entire population in the coming days.
welfare, redistribution
It’s turning the ‘there is no free lunch’ bombing (which politicians and business leaders together did in the early 1990s) on its head. Then the subsidies were withdrawn, and people were asked to compete for sustenance and success. Pushed to the wall, they rebelled and voted for government after government. Welfareism returned, and how. Not only that, the Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act – a rural employment scheme that provides 100 days of employment/employment in a year to anyone at minimum wage – survived, and increased four-fold between 2014 and now. It was ridiculed as a monument to the failure of the erstwhile regime, but today, it is the lifeline of the present regime along with add-ons like free cooking gas and cash incentives to farmers. Welfareism is secular – all parties from the Bharatiya Janata Party to the CPI(M); And leaders from Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala) to Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi are all looking for new opportunities to signal compassion. In Kerala, the free ration kit, last Onam, came with a sweet and vermicelli among its items. Elsewhere, free laptops, cycles and smartphones seem to be part of the welfare mix.
Redistribution has become important for the existence of democratic politics everywhere in the United States or India. Smart politicians know that men do not live by bread alone. So, many state governments in India now offer free pilgrimage! Far from the outrage over the Haj subsidy, voters now have a list of free pilgrimages to choose from, fitting a variety of beliefs and superstitions. The success of a politician is to find adequate voter support to remain in power and the minimum price to be paid for upholding the fundamentals of the social and economic system. The threshold is not too high. Two-thirds of voters voted in India and the US in their latest elections; 37% voted for the current regime in India; In the US, the regime has the support of more than half, which is more due to the country’s two-party system than its popularity. Political stability in democratic societies is dependent on the continued belief of the threshold population in the system.
more generosity
As the decades-long experience of many Indian states shows, welfare schemes have produced significant development results in the long and short term. He was seen as the depth of democracy. When welfare is weaponized to dismiss genuine political questions, its effect on democracy is less convincing. The present generation of welfare schemes does not come in the form of the rights of the citizens but as the generosity of the individual leader. Similarly, while the promotion of entrepreneurship by the government is laudable, turning it into a call for people to create jobs rather than seek jobs, redefines aspiration as a personal burden and responsibility.
It seems that facilitating bargaining between the wealth-seekers and the welfare-seekers has become the primary function of politics. But it is not clear whether it will remain an infinitely durable lubricant that reduces fundamental friction, and whether the state can return to coercion. For now, there will be free lunch and dinner for one song. Or a vote.
varghese.g@thehindu.co.in
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