Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The dirty picture of neoliberalism: India’s New Economic Policy

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The dirty picture of neoliberalism: India’s New Economic Policy

Click here to access article by Raju J. Das from Links. [Raju J. Das is associate professor at the departments of geography and development studies, York University, Toronto, Canada. Das is on the editorial board of Science & Society and the editorial advisory board of Dialectical Anthropology.]

The author describes how neoliberalism under the New Economic Policy (NEP) is currently being applied in India and its devastating social effects.

The NEP is not merely economic. This is because it must ensure political and ideological conditions for capital accumulation. The political refers to state repression and judicial coercion.... The ideological refers to the promotion of market fetishism in all spheres of everyday life, including in our consciousness. Associated with market fetishism is the idea of getting rich quickly by any means and of the market as the dominant method of helping the poor....

And when these methods prove to be insufficient, the ruling capitalist class, as usual, takes their gloves off to reveal the hidden fist of fascist repression and violence.

The capitalist class has also directly engaged in struggle from above by undermining the power of workers striking against capital. Capital has done this by hiring goons to hurt striking workers, resorting to the bribing of union leaders and locking employees out. In many recent years, person days lost to lockouts are five times the number lost due to strikes. The courts also have ruled against the democratic right to strike.