SPECIAL ARTICLE

Death of Democracy An Inevitable Possibility under Capitalism

Rajan Gurukkal

What happens to democracy when capitalism becomes emocracy has always been considered a goal which is a global? Capitalist expansion and democratisation are long way off, ever since the onset of differentiated economy and stratifi ed society. Throughout history, popularly represented by the magical term D we took oligarchy for democracy and always believed that “development.” However, the unbridled development bourgeois democracy could be transformed into real democ- of capitalism is invariably based on the over-exploitation racy through constitutional reforms. One liberal political sci- of natural resources, and the consequent entist even contemplated the globalisation of Western liberal democracy and the subsequent “end of history”1 as immi- impoverishment of tribal people, expansion of the nent (Fukuyama 1992). Expectedly, a total rebuttal of the end middle class and transformation of the nation into a of history thesis came, with reference to the reawakening of crony capitalist state. The latest phase of capitalism, history under the revolutionary force of the people (Badiou namely techno-capitalism—with its corporate system 2012). Hope for a people’s resurgence in the form of survival struggles does make sense, and it may be reasonable to of organisation and highly centralised top-heavy dream of the European lower middle class resuscitating their administration, or “corporatocracy”—signifies the revolutionary democratic values and passions of 1789 or 1848. measured death of democracy. However, few expect the North American elites to endorse a renewed call for liberty and equality, as in 1776.

Capitalism and Democracy Capitalism denotes the means, forces and relations of produc- tion, facilitating transformation of money into capital, through industrial production and profi t-maximising exchange. Capitalist development means the enhanced accumulation of capital (Marx 1867). Its juridico–political devices were manifested in the post-feudal polities of constitutional monarchy and patri- archy. Colonisation of the new world was an early landmark of capitalist development. It was after the American war of inde- pendence in 1776 and the birth of the United States (US), that the patriarchal juridico–political system was transformed into bourgeois democracy. Since then, capitalist development has depended upon the democratic state, run by the bourgeoisie. The rise of a new Europe following the French Revolution of 1789 tended to democratise beyond the middle class, but the middle-class alliance with the bourgeoisie sabotaged this process, substituting it with an absolutist state under Napoleon Bonaparte. Capitalism developed through competitive colonisation, often turning state power into imperialism, by waging wars globally. Anti-colonial struggles and the constitution of liberal demo- cratic nation states as well as dictatorships emerged in Asia, where capitalism developed in alliance with both. Nevertheless, capitalists were constrained to fi ght dictator- ships for economic reasons, while they tried to retain bourgeois Rajan Gurukkal ([email protected]) is a historian and democracy, also called liberal democracy—guaranteeing in its social scientist, and is vice chairman of the Kerala State rhetoric, the freedom of the press and speech, and the right Higher Education Council. of habeas corpus—for ensuring a laissez-faire state. Both,

104 August 25, 2018 vol lIiI no 34 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE people’s democracy and the free market, are part of the rheto- Broadly speaking, theories of development can be divided ric of capitalism, for its inexorably hidden “real” has never been into two mutually antagonistic categories, the liberal and the anything short of oligarchy and monopoly. Capitalists radical. Liberal theories of development are based on the instigated anti-communist bourgeois democratic struggles, notions of neo-classical economics, while radical theories are promoted liberal democratic states, and put up a sustained based on the critical political economy and development an- resistance against communism. However, communist revolutions thropology. Theories under the fi rst category constitute the gave birth to socialist dictatorships in Russia fi rst, and subse- core of modern economics, which provides capitalism with its quently, in China, where capitalism was yet to develop. In due foundational knowledge, allowing for the articulation of neo- course, capitalism developed even in communist countries by colonial, neo-liberal and neo-imperialist ideas within the “sug- transforming socialism into state capitalism. In spite of the ar-coated” rhetoric of development. Some of these are indeed contrasts between state capitalism and transnational capital- liberal theories—based on pragmatic criticism and upholding ism, capitalism has continued its inevitable development into democratic values and social ethics—but which function global capitalism. Under it, perhaps the only relatively appreci- largely as eddies in the capitalist current. Radical theories of able democratic state since the world wars might be the Nordic development are founded on Marxist epistemology, but with model in the Scandinavian countries. However, their social varying levels of praxis intervention, ranging from armed rev- democracy based on privatised Keynesianism has proven olution (Marxist–Leninist) and social –democratic collective unsustainable, demanding enhanced collective responsibility operation (neo-Marxist), to civil society reformist initiatives. (Crouch 2009; Castells et al 2017).2 Of all the theories of development justifying the capitalist The fate of democracy under capitalist development has never agenda, Walt Whitman Rostow’s (1960) formulation ranks the been a topic of serious debate, despite the fact that Karl Marx’s foremost. It conceives development in terms of fi ve stages, and theory of capitalism, as applied by Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1999) accordingly classifi es economies as traditional, underdevel- to state power, had brought about the thesis of imperialism as oped, developing, developed, or post-industrial. It was the highest stage of capitalism.3 Rosa Luxemburg found impe- Rostow’s work that popularised the term development. rialism to be a theoretical inevitability in the process of develop- ment of the capitalist mode of production, through global-level Theoretical Engagements capital export and extension of accumulation under monopoly Several scholars have highlighted the cultural strategies of capital (Luxemburg 1913; Wolfe 2001). Under capitalism, the capitalist expansion, camoufl aging imperialist ways of capitalist life of democracy is positioned as “being-toward-death,” in ref- exploitation and legitimising unequal power relations (Adorno erence to what Martin Heidegger said about human death: an 1991). There is an impressive body of literature by neo-Marxists inevitable and imminent possibility, which everybody ignores. like Louis Althusser, Etienne Balibar, Fernand Braudel, André Gunder Frank, Immanuel Wallerstein, Walter Rodney, Samir Development Rhetoric Amin and others, analysing relations of diplomacy, trade According to Marx’s theory, development means capitalist agreements, development treaties and technology transfers, development. However, in popular parlance the term “devel- which expose the presence of imperialist state power behind opment” is taken to mean all that people aspire for them- the so-called democratic governance of capitalist countries. selves. Its usage cleverly and successfully conceals its real Their reinterpretations of hardcore Marxist political economy meaning: capitalist growth with underlying implications of have brought to bear the incompatibility between democracy “colonialism” and “imperialism.” Another related popular and capitalism, by demonstrating how capitalist states created term, “globalisation,” similarly hushes up its actual meaning and sustained the underdeveloped world (Wallerstein 1976; of capitalist globalisation, which implies “neo-colonialism” Frank 1971, 1979; Rodney 1983; Amin 1990, 1997). Neo-Marx- and “neo-imperialism.” Despite the recurrence of recessions, ists or post-Marxists like Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, capitalism expanded through fresh strategies of accumula- Slavoj Žižek, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, Jean-Luc Nancy, tion, which were able to acquire social legitimacy under the Partha Chatterjee and others, discuss the sad plight of postco- ideological veil of “development.” Development is, therefore, lonial democracy against the background of the rising global a mischievous term, but one of universal acclaim for some- capitalist neo-imperialism. Their studies provide insights into thing ideal. It means the expansion of capital-, technology-, the politics of caste and ethnicity in postcolonial democracies energy-, and chemical-intensive industrial production for global with crony states, which are at odds with the nation state as consumption, in order to achieve maximisation of profi t, high well as capitalist development.4 To Partha Chatterjee (1993; rates of capital accumulation, a current account balance of 2011), the politics of ethnicity in India, although apparently an payment surplus, the lowest capital–output ratio, and the essentialist entity, is not a contrast to national democracy. highest per capita consumption rate; are all attributes of Neo-marxist theoreticians do not believe that democratic development (Ruccio 2011). Almost all nations in the northern nationalist essentialism is opposed to democratic ethnic essen- hemisphere are distinguished with these attributes. They tialism, because the essentialism of both is susceptible to slip jointly constitute the capitalist economic structure that into authoritarianism and subsequently, fascism (a natural subsumes and dominates the economic relations and manifestation in advanced capitalist development). This is functions of the world. evident in India where caste and ethnic politics, although

Economic & Political Weekly EPW August 25, 2018 vol lIiI no 34 105 SPECIAL ARTICLE ostensibly championing the subaltern causes, are susceptible technology transfer, fi nancial support, soft loans and big debts to be trapped by the dominant communal essentialism. for industrial growth and export maximisation, have trapped Antonio Negri and Hardt (2000) argue that imperialism un- the underdeveloped and developing nations. der advanced capitalism is not manifesting within the nation A recent estimate of Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and the state as one would expect. Global capitalism has been fast by- Centre for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Eco- passing and undermining the state system. A new global impe- nomics (2015) shows that the net drain from the global South rialism—run by international institutions like the Internation- since 1980 adds up to $16.3 trillion. In fact, of this net outfl ow, al Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and the World Trade since 1980, developing countries have transferred $4.2 trillion Organization (WTO)—has already outdated state-driven impe- to the developed countries by way of interest payments on rialism. Ever since the open withdrawal of the state from most debt (Hickel 2017; World Bank and International Debt Statistics sectors of people’s welfare, there has been a steady intensifi ca- nd). This has been the consequence of the high debt service tion of privatisation of public assets, impairing national trap, systematically made more inescapable by the developed economic sovereignty. What some heads of state in the grown- countries using strategies of trade reforms, technological sophis- up capitalist countries exhibit is not national imperialism per tication, free imports, reduction of import tariffs, privatisa- se, but a mere refl ection of the capitalist global power. tion, free capital fl ow, full convertibility of national currency and so on, all encouraged as “solutions” to the crisis in the Development Anthropology under developed world. Development anthropology, an offshoot of neo-Marxist theory Underdeveloped and developing nations are in debt traps, of capitalist development, focuses primarily on the micro-level and the myriad pressures that the market-friendly culture processes under the infl uence of postmodern and post-struc- exerts often leads to increasing suicide rates. Over fi ve lakh tural perspectives. They owe their pattern of thinking to farmers are reported to have committed suicide during the fi ve Michel Foucault (1972) and Jean-François Lyotard (1979). It is years of liberalisation and structural adjustment since 1995 Foucault’s discourse analysis—which helps understand how a (Shiva and Jalees 2009). There is a commendable body of lit- text of the power–knowledge combine works on its subjects— erature on suicide mortality illustrating the plight of indebted upon which development anthropologists have depended for farmers and weavers of India in the wake of the unpredictable their interpretations. According to Foucault, a discourse trans- market conditions. Articles published in this journal itself are forms people into its subjects and acts as the de facto infl uence many. Financial globalisation—that facilitated the fl ight of on their minds and bodies. Postmodern anthropologists per- American and European capital to developing countries through ceive capitalist development as a discourse that fundamentally the liberalisation of the capital market—has led to a series of transforms the mindset of people, and makes them subjects, effects such as privatisation, free trade, foreign investment uncritically accepting the meanings, measures and truth growth, hegemony of global organisations, mounting debt, claims rendered plausible by the “development discourse.” intensifying competition, strengthening of new market pres- Development anthropologists like James Ferguson and sures, heightening of political, cultural, social and economic Arturo Escobar have criticised the neoclassical and neo-liberal insecurity, etc. Also, the often sudden and arbitrary withdraw- perception of development as an extension of Rostow’s theory al of foreign capital investment pushes the host nation into (Ferguson 1990, 2006; Escobar 1984, 2011). Applying Foucault’s trouble. Decline of the public sphere is another consequent concept, they conceive development as an epochal discourse disaster (Habermas 1989). that has transformed most people into its subjects through pro- It is now being increasingly recognised that development, as duction and dissemination of necessary knowledge, that is, new demonstrated by the capitalist economy, will never be univer- meanings, ideas, relations and processes of development as salised, because of the growing theoretical awareness of its truth. This construction of knowledge, technically called exploitative relationship of imbalance, which has been inevita- objectifi cation, results in the creation of the appropriate men- bly structured by the dominance of the developed countries. tality for accepting new truths about the subjects themselves. Countries subject to this exploitation are slowly coming to Accordingly, nations with discursively engendered development terms with the reality that their “development” through trans- subjects, uncritically accept their status exactly as construed national capital aids and technology transfer was mere myth by the development discourse. Since World War II, the criteria and propaganda (Rahnema 1988). of the development discourse, which included several extra- Hardly a scheme for developing the underdeveloped, it was economic factors like food habits, architecture of dwellings, rather a strategy for sustaining the development of the devel- costumes and other cultural practices made them uncritically oped through a variety of methods, enabling the transforma- accept their status as poor countries (Rahnema 1988; Maxwell tion of national economies into structures of freewheeling 2003). As a result, many consider themselves underdeveloped, capitalism. Nevertheless, many liberalists still believe in and hence at the mercy of the developed countries for evolving Kuznets’ curve and hope for the process of “trickle down” to strategies of development. These countries, after signing vari- set in soon (Kuznets 1955; Piketty 2014). They continue to view ous treaties and agreements with developed countries, have population growth, inequality, urbanisation, agricultural been awaiting development. A variety of neocolonial/neo- transformation, education, health, unemployment, etc, in their imperialistic strategies in the form of development treaties for own merits, and not merely as appendages to an underlying

106 August 25, 2018 vol lIiI no 34 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE growth model. Development anthropologists preferred to go work for an alternative domain of thinking, which is capable of further by focusing on the marginalised as victims of develop- critiquing and replacing modern development economics, is a ment. They seek to discuss how the discourse works in every- decolonising project. Sustainable development discussed widely day development situations and orders social relationships with- is not altogether different from the dominant development, for in marginalised local communities (Grillo and Stirrat 1997). it has not led any developed country to bring down its gross With the growing indifference of the state to problems of domestic product (GDP). Hence the elements of alternative devel- drinking water, food, healthcare, education, and public distri- opment are being articulated through a countercultural move- bution, people have been forced to become market dependent. ment and survival struggles led by the marginalised millions.. Corporate capital entered unbridled, into areas of natural This disastrous expansion, covered by the veil of “develop- resources and ecosystems of biodiversity, causing disposses- ment”—an enchanting word with wide social consensus— sion of local people’s age-old subsistence strategies, disruption often involves deforestation, denial of forest rights, destruction of culture and local wisdom, and devastation of habitat of habitats, deprivation of livelihood, disruption of culture, (Hobsbawm 2007). With agricultural seeds now being made contamination of the drinking water sources, acquisition of into a patented commodity, farmers are unable to exchange rural farm lands, etc. Naturally, the tribal people and poor them anymore, while expensive fertilisers have made agriculture peasants facing such acute crises have no alternative other costly. Unpredictable markets on occasions of good harvest and than launching unending struggles for survival. Survival is the frequent crop failures due to unsuitable climatic conditions central objective across the plurality of these struggles that have made the life of farmers extremely miserable. Farmers’ manifest in multiple forms ranging from organised militancy of suicide mortality is too stale a topic of analysis for social the Marxist–Leninist revolutionaries, struggles led by environ- scientists to be inquisitive about, and an issue least topical for mental activists, joint movements for people’s rights, and politicians to be perturbed. Inequality has become unprece- spontaneous protest outbreaks by the victims of development. dentedly glaring with the proliferation of billionaires on one Indeed, the unprompted mass survival struggles generally side and the phenomenal rise of the impoverished on the other acquire the solidarity of the larger society thanks to the advocacy (Piketty 2014). Billionaires come up not only through the soft- by middle class intellectuals as well as those politicians ware industry, but also through trade in drinking water, a representing social concerns. commodity of high-profi t trade for corporate houses. Many are deprived of access to drinking water, which has become a Development Decentralisation contested natural resource almost everywhere. The loss of Several countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa introduced national aid towards food and fuel has made the life of the decentralisation through constitutional reforms under the poor incredibly miserable and they are increasingly being World Bank agenda of local-level development. Indian states pushed into a struggle for survival. were encouraged to carry out decentralisation for development Nevertheless, the process of capital growth at the cost of through local self-governance. The social misconception equity is heading for a cul-de-sac. These warnings of the limits of the word development led many people to misunderstand to capital growth are by way of ecological non-sustainability, the actual meaning of decentralisation. They took it to mean environmental degradation, inescapable entropy and the inevi- democratisation at the grass roots, without knowing that table collapse of the capitalist system (Rifkin and Howard grass-roots democracy is hardly attainable through constitu- 1980; Meadows et al 1972; 1993, 2004). tionally-ordained reforms, which seek only to quicken devel- opment administration. Limits to Growth What could, at best, be feasible through constitutional Development involving the squandering of natural resources reforms is administrative decentralisation, without upsetting denotes a process of economic domination, which deprives the local social power relations as exemplifi ed by the People’s common people of their means of subsistence. Its technology Plan initiatives (Isaac 2001; Tharakan and Rawal 2001). Con- has acquired free access to natural resources, initiating their stitutionally engendered decentralisation is not democratisa- over-exploitation at an unprecedented intensity. It is a process tion, for it hardly means anything more than a localisation of of shifting control over natural resources from the local power class governance, based on the status quo. It is well known structure to the supralocal, national and international. that democratisation brings about no social change in the Nationalisation of natural resources has divested the local structural sense, so long as it affects no institutional develop- community of its livelihood rights over them, and similarly ment in local administration that would upset the local power internationalisation divests the nation of its sovereign control. structure (Esman and Uphoff 1984). The state of affairs in sev- World Bank projects of eco-restoration are examples of this eral countries shows that the development of institutions— divestment. Through their funding for securing the livelihoods which combine the public, private and membership sector— of forest dwellers, they often deprive the people of their liveli- aiming towards the empowerment of the local poor through hood rights. International fi nancial control of natural resources better access to power and resources, is at a low ebb. Actually, in the name of biodiversity conservation, ecosystem manage- democratisation should lead to the development of local insti- ment or wildlife preservation has implications of deprivation tutions and organisations, limiting and controlling state actions of sovereign power of the nation over its natural wealth. To and private forces (Gran 1983). However, their structural

Economic & Political Weekly EPW August 25, 2018 vol lIiI no 34 107 SPECIAL ARTICLE transformative role will be minimal, unless alternative civil capitalists, who maintain ultimate control (Vincent 1987: organisations and institutions emanate from the grass roots. 34–39; Green 1988: 62–68). In India, democratisation has been occurring through state- Ever since the open withdrawal of the state from most sec- induced administrative reform. It is no accident, therefore, tors of people’s welfare, there has been a steady intensifi cation that there is no indication of institutional development at the of the privatisation of public assets. This process has been grass roots to ensure better access of the weaker sections to pushing developing nations like India into a solvency crisis, local resources and power. The existing level, extent and basis where public sector disinvestment is forging ahead under the of participation relates to the ongoing national democratic pretext of reform, transferring national resources into the system and its pro-middle class incentives as determined by hands of a minority. Integrated to the process of decentralisa- the power relations of the local society, which are rooted in the tion, local public assets are being privatised in alignment with dominant class–caste–community–religion nexus. In fact, this the national policy. Further, all kinds of anti-social concepts precludes institutional development with enough potential to such as “outsourcing,” “downsizing the public sector,” “multi- liberate the locality from exploitative macrostructures of ple stakeholders approach,” non-governmental organisations, bureaucracy and capitalist markets. It is inevitable to search voluntary agencies, etc, have become sophisticated expres- for political ways and means to transcend this theoretical sions, exciting no repulsion in the minds of the general public. stalemate. Only praxis strategies of politicisation and empow- In countries like India where capitalism grows unbridled, the erment of the marginalised, facilitating people’s struggle national political power, although democratically engendered, against structural contradictions in local power relations, remains ultimately only a tool in the hands of corporate houses. would lead to grass-roots democracy (Gurukkal 2001). A crony capitalist state, it allows corporate houses to loot the Various factors impede the politicisation and empowerment public and the state revenue by contracting services, for of the marginalised and the poor. Deprived of critical thought, “better effi ciency.” they remain largely apolitical and susceptible to ideological “Development,” the most misleading term, has conditioned coercion by the dominant. Caught up in culturally contingent us to accept any “anti-people” scheme as natural and inevita- identity traps of ethnicity, caste and religion, many of them ble. It is now not even necessary for the state to hide its instru- are least amenable to politicisation. Therefore, in reality, it is mental role in the conversion of people’s common property centralised governance structured by the dominance of the into private assets. Today, the state is openly an agency deter- upper class, that we call democracy today. The dominated and mined to subsidise capitalism by all means and facilitate its exploited poor are unaware of the contrast between the reign- expansion, even at the cost of the livelihoods of the poor ing democracy and grass-roots democracy. Theoretically, the ( Gurukkal 2012). In the process, state power is itself privatised state machinery (even the truly leftist), being ultimately an in the form of the sale of public credits or bidding for the job of upper-class instrument, can hardly empower the downtrod- recovering government loans, or even tasks of crime investiga- den. Presuming otherwise, is as good as expecting the state to tion. For instance, there are private agencies working as assets participate in the class war of the poor. Yet, many people still reconstruction companies and crime investigation groups in believe that liberal democracy can resolve the problem of class India, to which the state outsources its monopolistic functions contradiction through legislation. of recovering loans and investigating crime. This amounts to privatisation of certain executive and juridical powers of the Crony Capitalist States state.5 Common justifi cations of the state measures for privati- Today’s nation states the world over, are largely undemocratic, sation of its functions are the lack of concern of the benefi ciary of course, to varying degrees, while not altogether totalitari- public, irresponsibility of public servants, incapability of pub- an in each case. They are made up of several orders or lic sector institutions, bureaucratic ineffi ciency, bribery and hierarchies around uneven economies, but are almost entire- other forms of corruption. All this allows the capitalist minor- ly structured by the dominance of relations and functions ity to loot public revenue in connivance with the state, under under capitalism, irrespective of the distance between the the pretext of one development reform or the other. This phase region and the metropolis (Resnick and Wolff 1981; McDer- is called crony capitalism, for which there are many instances mott 1991). More or less relieved from pre-capitalist social in India. encumbrances and placed at the mercy of the market with The establishment of special economic zones (SEZs) is the the freedom to buy and sell, the people are now integrated most widespread instance of crony capitalism behind the veil into the hierarchies of bureaucracy attached to state, of national economic development measures. SEZs are a major semi-state and private enterprise. Every enterprise is bureau- institutional intervention which subsidise capitalism, and cratic and hierarchical. This is the unilinear global structure which involve a very heavy loss of national revenue. Various that recurs in any nation state, although with numerous other illegal methods of parting with huge shares of public culturally contingent specifi cities. With its various organs wealth in favour of monopoly capitalists compound crony capi- representing diverse groups, relations and interests in talism. Despite heavy revenue losses, they enjoy a private society, the state seemingly plays the central role of overall space of sovereign control too, a paradox of sovereign power coordination, but in effect, only as desired by the middle class, within sovereignty. SEZs thus embody crony capitalism of the which constitutes the government, and as determined by worst kind. Another instance is the outsourcing of bank loan

108 August 25, 2018 vol lIiI no 34 EPW Economic & Political Weekly SPECIAL ARTICLE recovery to asset reconstruction companies (ARCs). All revenue fi elds, a group of highly paid transnational bureaucrats—the related transactions within the crony capitalist state are exe- principal actors in the system—have penetrated into the cuted at the apex level in secrecy and whatever matter thereof extant democratic state systems all over the world. They recon- is made public, is invariably couched in the catchy rhetoric of stitute the state into a corporatocracy, a government of, for development. In this manner fascism penetrates into bour- and by corporations, a new type of governance that enmeshes geois democracy, by constraining bureaucrats of the crony and destroys democracy. state, to practise functional autocracy at the expense of democratic procedures. Attempts at Legislating Autocracy The impairment of democracy, an inevitable consequence of Latest Phase of Capitalism capitalist development, has been progressing in India for the The latest phase of capitalism, academically termed tech- last two decades, and is slowly turning the democratic state nocapitalism and popularly known as the “knowledge eco- into a functional autocracy under corporatocracy. Corporate nomy,” depends on the commoditisation of technology and houses create state power, which effi ciently mobilises people’s science as the main source of capital accumulation. It has consent for functional autocracy. This process is made easier been presented as a new version of capitalism (Feenberg 1991; by uncritical masses, moved by sentiments of divisiveness, Perelman 2004; Suarez-Villa 2009, 2012).6 The production rooted in caste and communalism, which degenerate national- and exchange of new knowledge as the most high-value ism into false consciousness. A crony capitalist state, with its commodity is its main industry. In the process, the new economic sovereignty highly impaired, will automatically seek knowledge is alienated from its actual producers, as in the to counterbalance itself with overtly self-aggrandising politi- case of any other commodity. Their creativity or innovative- cal sovereignty. Systematic and steady attempts at passing ness is commoditised and turned into patents and intellectual legislations against democracy have been taking place in the property rights (IPRs), which constitute the industry’s pre- country since the 1990s (Gurukkal 2017). Legislative measures cious intangible asset. Profi t-maximising transactions of pat- of liberalisation, structural adjustments, public sector disin- ents and IPRs have made marketable knowledge both a com- vestment and commercialisation of services under the pres- modity and capital today. It has given rise to a new type of sure of the IMF, World Bank and WTO following the nation’s “commodity fetishism” centred on knowledge, as an exten- signing of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT), sion of what Marx originally theorised long ago (Marx 1867).7 are examples. The process acquired an added aggressiveness Science is constrained to technology, as it is essential for the in the service sector after the nation’s surrender to the WTO by production of innovative knowledge, capable of securing signing the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) on patents and IPRs of enormous profi t potential in the fi eld of 1 January 1995. exchange. Today, the huge transactional value that innova- In education, health and environment, the state, under tive knowledge and related properties generates is almost juridical obligation began to be enthusiastic about legislating four-fi fth of the total global returns (Suarez-Villa 2012). anti-democratic ideas, institutions and practices. GATS required Techno-capitalist enterprises are organised into the corpo- India to adopt legislative reforms, apparently for the country to rate model, a new form of organisation of the most sophisti- gain from trade in services, but actually, to benefi t the cated techno-militaristic set-up of monopolistic control over developed world. Accordingly, several reform bills, as part of the market (McDermott 1991; Suarez-Villa 2012). With an aim neo-liberal initiatives for “improving” the country’s higher towards the production of innovative knowledge, corporate education sector, have been proposed, and the Private Univer- houses have built huge research establishments the world sities (Establishment and Regulation) Act, 1995 was the fi rst to over, in multiple science–technology hybrid fi elds of knowl- get legislated among them. The Foreign Education Institutions edge.8 In these fi elds, thousands of young experts in theoreti- (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010, Prevention of cal research and micro-engineering are employed by corpo- Malpractices Bill and the Educational Tribunals Bill, 2010, rate research establishments (Suarez-Villa 2012), which National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher function as powerful techno-military complexes of electronic Education Institutions Bill, 2010, and Higher Education and sophistication. Globally, they have adopted adequate juridical Research (HE&R) Bill, 2011 are other examples. All these bills measures for appropriating the creativity of the brilliant minds have been pending legislation due to controversies over their at their disposal, enhancing the brain-drain in such countries constitutional validity. (Suarez-Villa 2012). Another example of an attempt to legislate centralisation in There is no democracy in the structure and function of the the higher education sector was the move to replace the techno-capitalist enterprises. Forming corporate houses, they University Grants Commission (UGC) along with other national have evolved a new form of techno-military industrial organi- regulatory councils with a single authority. It was the National sation based on principles of oligarchy and monopoly. Corporate Knowledge Commission that recommended a special legisla- techno-military imperialism uproots democracy through a va- tion for establishing an Independent Regulatory Authority for riety of sophisticated ways. For instance, by paving the way for Higher Education (IRAHE) to set standards and determine the rise of billionaires through the software trade, or through eligibility criteria for new institutions. Thus, the National the provision of unbelievably high salaries for experts in certain Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) Bill,

Economic & Political Weekly EPW August 25, 2018 vol lIiI no 34 109 SPECIAL ARTICLE 2011 subsuming all democratic regulatory bodies in higher government initiated steps to realise the avowed purpose education—the UGC, the All India Council for Technical through a series of amendments to the various acts concerned. Education (AICTE), the National Council for Teacher Education This too, has been stalled due to wide public criticism. These (NCTE) and the Distance Education Council (DEC)—took are well-known examples of the state’s repeated attempts at shape. Due to nationwide opposition of its undemocratic legislating autocracy and there could be several others that nature, the government withdrew the bill on 24 September have not been made public yet. 2014. Ever since the withdrawal of the bill, there have been efforts to reintroduce the bill for a national authority of higher Conclusions education. The latest incarnation is the draft legislation for the Marxist theoretical perspectives of capitalist development Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), prepared as ad- inform that imperialism is the juridico-political outcome of vised by NITI Aayog. The commission will be the sole national advanced capitalism. As capitalism acquires higher dimen- authority in the place of the existing democratic regulators sions of development, democracy becomes increasingly such as the UGC and other statutory councils. implausible. It is the political economy of capitalist develop- With a view to enabling hassle-free acquisition of land for ment, and not the idiosyncrasies of individual political the Make in India project, amendments to the Right to Fair Com- leaders, that turn the state towards fascism. It is unlikely pensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation that the state—already crony capitalist in its structure and and Resettlement Act, 2013 were proposed in favour of the cor- function—faces ethical pressure to combine economic porate houses. A de facto solution was sought by appointing a growth with social and environmental justice. Whatever high power committee on environment in 2014. The bureau- hope the magical word “development” sustains in people’s cratic committee, innocent of ecology and environmental sci- minds, it essentially means capitalist expansion, through ences, proposed virtual nullifi cation of all foundational acts of over-exploitation of natural resources with the inevitable social and environmental justice viz, Indian Forest Act, 1927; consequences of marginalisation of tribal peoples, uncon- Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; Water (Prevention and trolled growth of inequalities, transformation of the nation Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; Forest (Conservation) Act, into a crony capitalist state, and proliferation of billionaires. 1980; Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981; and Among crony capitalist enterprises, SEZs exemplify the most Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (Subramanian 2014). It undemocratic of all. They symbolise the capitalists’ de facto also recommended the constitution of two bureaucratic bodies control over the country’s economic sovereignty. Corporate for environmental management—the National Environment houses try to restructure the government by forcing it to be Management Authority (NEMA) and State Environment functionally autocratic through bureaucracy, and by Management Authority (SEMA)—sidelining departments of legislating centralisation to substitute democratic proce- academic expertise. Fortunately, both the houses of Parliament dures. All this puts the state in perfect alignment with the prevented the legislation of this anti-democratic document. growing global techno-militaristic neo-imperialism and However, through the Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) Notifi - reaffi rms the death of democracy; an inevitable possibility cation (Reference no 400/WG/2015) on 4 September 2015, the under capitalism. notes competition by monopoly—making imperial- between who makes what, who works for whom, 1 Fukuyama (1992) argued for the legitimacy of ism inevitable. the production time for a commodity, etc), the the emergence of liberal democracy as a sys- 4 See Laclau (1973); Laclau and Mouffe (1985); relationships among people (buyer–seller), and economic relationships in trade and market tem of government the world over, defeating Negri and Hardt (2000); Lenin and Žižek (between the cost and price, and between rival ideologies like hereditary monarchy, (2002); and Nancy (2007). money and capital). In short, “commodity fet- fascism, and communism. He further viewed 5 It is ludicrous for the state to depend upon pri- ishism” obscures the true economic character liberal democracy as the culmination of man- vate companies for recovery of loans or detec- of the human relations of production between kind’s ideological evolution, as well as the fi nal tion of crimes, which demand use of state’s ju- the worker and the capitalist. Actually, in the form of government, and hence in that sense ridical and executive powers. Privatisation of economics of markets, there is no “the end of history.” functions and responsibilities involving coer- relation between the social products—the cion and juridical powers are susceptible to 2 “Keynesianism” in this context refers to the products of labour—and the commodities ap- blackmail, bribery, gang control, mafi a forma- system of public demand management, while pearing as priced objects for exchange involv- tion, etc. privatised Keynesianism refers to a situation of ing a series of material relations. It is a strategic unregulated derivatives markets enabled by 6 Andrew Feenberg was the fi rst to analyse tech- concealing of the truth about goods as prod- hugely indebted states. This was proved unsus- nological development against the perspective ucts by people through relations among them, tainable because states caught up in global fi - of critical theory and characterise the political and instead, their dehumanised presentation nancial traps left the markets unregulated. economy of technology. Although Michael as commodities “self-born” in the markets People desperately wanted their governments Perelman identifi es, defi nes and characterises with an altogether different set of consumer to redistribute wealth, enhance consumption, the salient features and dynamics of this relations. Marx calls this “the fetishism which boost investments, and generate employment. phase of capitalism as a new version, it is Louis attaches itself to the products of labour as soon Frustrated by a capricious capitalist economy, Suarez-Villa who terms it “Techno-capitalism” as they are produced as commodities, and is people turned to their own alternatives like co- and theorises it accordingly. therefore inseparable from the production operative enterprises. 7 “Commodity fetishism” conceived by Marx of commodities.” 3 Although Lenin was reviewing the institution- relates to the postulation of a commodity as an 8 These fi elds include genomics with automated al and functional developments of capitalism object with an economic “life of its own,” inde- methods based on microarray technologies for against the background of contemporary impe- pendent of the volition and initiative of the analysing gene expressions, structural genomics rialism, there are numerous insights into the worker who produced it. According to Marx, it for understanding gene structure through future of capitalism in his analysis of the changes is a clever misrepresentation of the social X-ray crystallography and robotic crystallisation in the last stage—such as the displacement of relationships involved in production (the relation procedures, and protein structure analysis

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through high fi eld nuclear magnetic resonance — (2012) “Resistance and Hope: Freedom Strug- Perelman, Michael (2004): Steal this Idea: Intellec- (NMR) spectroscopy, advanced bioengineered gles in India Today,” Kappen Memorial lecture, tual Property Rights and the Corporate Confi s- molecular processors, nanotech sensors and Bengaluru: Visthar Publications. cation of Creativity, London: Palgrave Macmillan. transmitters, graphene engineering, synthetic — (2017): “The State, Markets, Equity and Quality Piketty, Thomas (2014): Capital in the Twenty-fi rst bioengineering, bioinformatics, bio-pharmacology, in Higher Education,” India Higher Education Re- Century, Cambridge: Belknap Press. bio-mimetics, robotics, artifi cial intelligence, port 2016: Equity, N V Varghese, Nidhi Sabharw- Rahnema, Majid (1988): “A New Variety of AIDS holographic interfaces, cloud computing, etc. al and C M Malish (eds), New Delhi: Routledge. and Its Pathogens: Homo Economicus, Devel- Habermas, Jürgen (1989): The Structural Transfor- opment and Aid,” Alternatives, Vol 13, No 1, References mation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a pp 117–36. 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The Limits to Growth, New York: New American cal Studies, Vol 3, Peter Cain and Mark Harri- Frank, André Gunder (1971): Capitalism and Under- Library. son (eds), London: Routledge, pp 352–64. development in Latin America: Historical Studies Meadows, Donella H, Jørgen Randers and Dennis L World Bank and International Debt Statistics (nd): of Chile and Brazil, London: Penguin. Meadows (1993, 2004): Limits to Growth: 30 “Interest Payments on External Debt: Low and — (1979): Dependent Accumulation and Underde- Year Update, London: Sterling Publishing. Middle Income,” https://data.worldbank.org/ velopment, New York: Monthly Review Press. Nancy, Jean-Luc (2007): The Creation of the World indicator/DT.INT.DECT.CD?end=2016&locati ons=XO&start=1980&view=chart&year_low_ Fukuyama, Francis (1992): The End of History and or Globalization, Albany: State University of the Last Man, New York: The Free Press. New York Press. desc=true. GFI and Centre for Applied Research, Norwegian Negri, Antonio and Michael Hardt (2000): Empire, Lenin, Vladimir I and Slavoj Žižek (2002): Revolu- School of Economics (2015): “Financial Flows Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: tion at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from and Tax Havens: Combining to Limit the Lives Harvard University Press, pp 5–7. February to October 1917, New York: Verso. of Billions of People,” Global Financial Integri- ty, www.gfi ntegrity.org/wp-content/uploads / 2016/12/Financial_Flows-fi nal.pdf. EPW Index Gran, Guy (1983): Development by People: Citizen Construction of a Just World, London: Praeger An author-title index for EPW has been prepared for the years from 1968 to 2012. The PDFs of the Publishers Inc. Index have been uploaded, year-wise, on the EPW website. Visitors can download the Index for Green, Leslie (1988): The Authority of the State, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp 62–68. all the years from the site. (The Index for a few years is yet to be prepared and will be uploaded Grillo, R D and R L Stirrat (eds) (1997): Discourses when ready.) of Development: Anthropological Perspectives, Oxford: Berg. EPW would like to acknowledge the help of the staff of the library of the Indira Gandhi Institute Gurukkal, Rajan (2001): “When a Coalition of Con- of Development Research, Mumbai, in preparing the index under a project supported by the fl icting Interests Decentralises: A Theoretical Critique of Decentralisation Politics in Kerala,” RD Tata Trust. Social Scientist, Vol 29 No 9/10, pp 60–76.

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