Commentary/Ashok Mitra

People with empty stomachs and without jobs will not take the excesses of the free market lying down

For one full decade, history and dialectical materialism walked in different directions. This, quite a few thought, will be the permanent state of affairs -- the working class movement will remain in retreat in country after country, and the rich will either hold on to or regain their kingdom.

The '90s started off in a fine fashion. Abominable habits such as state intervention and wasteful public outlay on education and social welfare measures were being fast despatched to old curiosity shops.

The blueprint drawn up for the future was indeed impeccable. Guarding the whole edifice will be the world's only superpower, the United States, and those transnational corporations offered parking facilities by it. The European Union, once its monetary integration plans get fully implemented, will emerge as the second ranking superpower.

It was sheer happenstance, one will be assured, that both the superpowers were of Caucasian stock. It was equally coincidental that there was a mutual, unseated understanding between the two to beat down the number one yellow peril, Japan, and to contain the threat of the other, potentially much greater menace, China. Scandalously, the two non-Caucasian powers are making mincemeat of the 'whiteys' in the international marketplace. This is an outrageous development, putting into disarray well laid future plans.

Once the US and the EU had taken care of the little, local difficulties created by minor players, the free play of market forces was expected to comfortably lead the way to a global duopoly. And wouldn't that have been lovely! Just the US and western Europe and all the world's spoils between them!

A beautiful dream, and its execution till now has appeared to be faultless. The thought might have appeared in some minds whether a duopoly can ever constitute a stable equilibrium, but few were expected to have the temerity to articulate such foolish speculation. Everything, so said soothsayers, will fall nicely into place, and the great saga will roll forward off resurgent resilient capitalism beyond which there will be more and more of -- what else? -- resurgent resilient capitalism.

In country after country, society's upper stratum had begun to breathe easily, their hegemony was going to be permanent and the aspirations of the infernal working class were to be squashed for ever. It was a beautiful dream inducing an ethereal feeling among those with the right class background.

But now look, mama mia, what is happening. The French people marched off to elections and the silly asses have chosen to bring back to power the Leftists. Lionel Jospin, the new prime minister, does not allow any grass to grow under his feet. He straightaway says globalisation was the greatest enemy civilisation has ever faced. Such rhetoric spells trouble, for others are bound to take the cue from France in matters concerning culture and civilisation. Nothing could be more upsetting to the cause.

And yet the French electorate has given a verdict based on their own direct experience. Globalisation and liberalisation are conceivably notions good in theory: should there be free, untrammeled play of market forces, both efficiency and global output would maximise.

But, in reality, the freedom of the market is a nonstarter. The infinite number of sellers and buyers remains a fiction. The strong and the powerful come to dominate the market. Consequences flow including the lay off of thousands of the labouring classes. These unreasonable people refuse to take their plight lying down.

Plans for full scale European integration were being proceeded with to honour the pledge of further reducing employment opportunities for the non-rich. Suddenly something goes wrong. Such a denouement can take place only over their dead bodies, shriek the French workers. The plotters of the EU are seized by panic. Last minute manoeuvres are on to incorporate a so called employment charter in the manual being readied for the Euro.

It is, all told, a clumsy situation.

History is proving a stubborn customer. Basic issues remain unsolved. In Germany as well as in France, the rate of unemployment is in the neighbourhood of 13 per cent, nearly a quarter of the British citizenry are on dole, and millions go hungry in a Russia restored to capitalism.

People with empty stomachs and without jobs will not take the excesses of the free market lying down. They will not keep silent merely because the prestige of a theory is involved.

In case the vast majority of a nation encounters grave difficulties because of events unleashed by the application of the theory, they will vote with their feet, as they did in France and, earlier, in Italy. As they did in the erstwhile Soviet Union. It has taken the Communist party, banned in 1991 in Russia, barely five years to emerge, in free democratic elections, as the country's leading political entity.

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