Growing up in communist Kerala and being raised by a father whose idea of utopia was the U.S.S.R. or Cuba, I was a rabid free market ideologue. Milton Friedman was God and the pursuit of money was the same as the pursuit of happiness. I could conceive of no happiness without money - not just enough to indulge in mild luxuries, but mind-blowingly oodles of the stuff! Objectivism was the religion I lived by and I saw my world in black and white. I was also naive enough to believe that most people are good. I had the arrogance of youth and the confidence that I was living by everything that I believed in. I wouldn't cheat in exams and not even share work for individual assignments.
Even before the crash of 2008, I started having my doubts about the efficiency of the free market. I could see people getting their eye balls ripped out (figuratively) in India and all sorts of nefarious schemes to cheat people and get rich. I sneered at these and decided that I should pursue my dream in a land better suited for it. The land of milk and honey was where democracy was strong and systems were not abused. Ah, how naive I was again.
In this country, I think I like the general population far more than in any other. I like the fact that that I have true freedom of expression. Which other country will allow a movie to be made and screened on Che (btw, France had banned the all too wonderful "The Battle of Algiers" for 5 years) who is a symbol of everything that the capitalist system fears and loathes! That freedom of expression and critical dialogue is arguably what had sustained a strong democracy. But now with political debates being simplified to 30-second sound bytes, I am inclined to believe that the next election might well be won by whomever has better hair. Worse, I have started believing that it doesn't even matter who wins. I was not one of those who was inclined to believe that it was a victory for liberals when Obama won the election. Honestly the man stood for nothing in particular other than vague promises of "change" and "hope". I am too old a hand in corporate skullduggery to be taken in by such classic consulting style fluff and I've seen my share of corporate visionaries who have laid out similar rosy visions while refusing to lay out clear plans to translate this vision into reality. Indeed, more often than not, even what this vision means is left unclear!
I am watching an anarchical experiment with great interest. Auroville, is in opinion, a significant socio-economic experiment of our times. It is anarchy at its best. No decisions that affect the whole community can be taken without a complete consensus. Of course, this means that progress is slow and nothing much gets done. But this sort of direct representation and debate is what used to help America build a good democracy at a local level. With gradual distancing of local governance from the governed came the complexities of ensuring and monitoring results. After all who has time for all that between T.V., sports and shopping! This disinterest in politics has come at great cost as those disenfranchised did not even realize how the system was being gradually co-opted to the self-serving interests of those in power.
So now I have moved from being a naive free market ideologue to being a cynical anarchist. Sad, but true. And like the good old communists like my father who still claim that communism was an idea that was good in theory, while perhaps falling short of the ideal in practice, I too maintain that free market ideology and objectivism were not misguided but were based on the essential goodness of man. Huh - two sides of the same coin? Absolutely - as the fictional Carlos says in the movie (which is an absolutely superb essay on the futility of armed struggle that relies on you being played as a pawn by power-brokers of all sides) who said that he started viewing the U.S.S.R. and the US as being essentially the same. The early 90s saw the unravelling of the communist system. Will we see the capitalist system unravel now in this decade? I am inclined to believe that we are closer to the abyss than ever before. I am as terrified as I was in 2008. So much so that I might even start saying the occasional prayer.
ubergeek, the
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