Inequities, quorum, and vote

Lead India - A Corporate-Sponsored Circus from Desicritics by C R Sridhar

The so-called free market with the invisible hand of demand and supply guiding the destiny of the nation is a figment of corporate fantasy. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winner for economics, points that for public good to be realized there must be a strong government enforcement of anti-trust and consumer laws to foster competition and protection of consumer interest. Without strict enforcement of the government private sector would run amuck mulcting the people.

Adam Smith who is endlessly quoted by the corporate class was not such a great devotee of greed and self interest as made out to be. In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, he points out virtue and not greed was the most important standard in social life. Adam Smith was quick to point that society should be alive and vigilant to the dangers of ruthless profiteers from holding the society to ransom.

The battle for leadership in India would be fought on the dusty plains of Indian villages. Here majority of the poor Indians live who were betrayed by the state which neglected to deliver them food, shelter and protection from disease. It is this India that would make and break the politicians who failed to deliver them social justice. Here the sound bites of corporate sponsored leaders would have no resonance. The tall claims of the corporate sector that its animal magnetism would be unleashed for the good of the poor would fall on deaf ears and receive the contempt it deserves. It is this Republic of India steeped in ancient inequities that carries both hope and despair in the difficult years to come.

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Athenian democracy, much more advanced than our own, had reached the point where the vote was considered as payment for a service, after all other repressive solutions had been tried and found wanting in order to insure a quorum. -- Baudrillard, Jean. "Simulacra and Simulations." Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed Mark Poster. Stanford University Press, 1998, pp.166-184. Available: www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html