“Trust Deficit” Rises All-time High

Government indifference to the farmers’ plight is shocking, their coldness  beyond belief. The aggrieved party’s only request is that the PM listens to their “Mann ki baat” just once. Whatever be its final outcome, one thing emerges clear: Trust Deficit in society has assumed unbelievable proportions. 

No matter how many seats the Party in Power captures bribing the unvigilant masses, what they have brought into existence is a “culture of mistrust” and a civilization of indifference to the weaker sections. People see only betrayal. 

National assets, Mamata Banerjee complains, are being sold off to BJP favourites and Hindutva ideology-promoting corporates one after the other: Air India, Railways, coal, BSNL, BHEL, banks, defence production, tribal land…the fruit of the exertion of generations and the ancestral heritage of indigenous communities.  Oxfam calculates that just nine Indians today own 50% of the national wealth, 1% owns 77.4% of India’s wealth, and the bottom 60% mere 4.8%. The number of billionaires in the country has risen to 119, the greatest growth under BJP rule. The average citizen is nowhere.

Galloping Inequality in the Globalized World

Unfortunately, mounting inequality is a world phenomenon today that disturbs most social thinkers and cultural leaders round the world. Thomas Piketty’s book “The Capital in the Twenty-first Century” (685 pages,  Belknap Press, Harvard University, 2014) on inequality sold out 2.2 million copies within three years of its publication, in more than 38 languages.

 It stimulated a debate among economists, both affirming and qualifying his findings, whose arguments were published in “After Piketty” (678 pages, 2017). Piketty himself followed up his work with another book “Capital and Ideology” (1093 pages, 2020), which makes a comparative study of the economies of the world.

Unlike Karl Marx, Piketty does not threaten a revolution, he merely wants to initiate a public debate. What Piketty fears is that if inequality is not moderated within an intelligently planned democratic framework, the principle of “infinite accumulation” (Karl Marx) may become operative, and workers revolt (Piketty  2014: 9). Pope Francis too had expressed similar anxiety in his “Joy of the Gospel”. “Inequality eventually engenders violence”, he said (EG 59-60). 

Will the world belong in a short time to a few billionaires from China or oil kings from the Middle East, asks Piketty (Piketty 2014: 15). We Indians ask ourselves: will India slip into the hands of Ambanis and Adanis during the COVID lockdown period, when all rights seem to stand suspended? Questions like these are not irrelevant. Vast areas of Africa and Latin America are being bought up by China, immense assets are being acquired in the West by Middle East Emirs, and in India, those who defend the indigenous people’s land like Father Stan Swamy are accused of threatening national security and are pining away in Taloja jail. Democracy has moved into the hands of Big Money. 

Turning Social Anger against Created Enemies: Minorities, Neighbouring Countries 

Piketty shows how in the 19th century, belief in the absolute right to Private Property had become almost a religious dogma in the West, favouring the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few. Inequality grew sky high. Though Piketty does not argue that this was the cause of World War I, he does suggest that the anger that this economic imbalance generated was turned against the external enemy during the War. What is happening in early twenty-first century is something similar: the top 10% own 80-90%, and leave the lower 50% with less than 5% of the wealth (Piketty 2014:438). This working-class anger is being directed against immigrants and minorities in US-EU. 

In India too, the BJP regime is re-directing the poor man’s economy-related anger against religious minorities and neighbouring countries (Pakistan, China) and distracting society with temple-building, vista-construction, love jihad laws, cow cabinet and cow cess. The Shiv Sena organ SAAMNA considered it a crime to call protesting Punjabi farmers Khalistanis and use water cannons against them in the cold season. The Administration took weeks before providing Stan Swamy with a sipper and straw! Indira Gandhi’s Emergency pales before the horrors of Modiji’s “Ache Din”. 

Absence of Financial Transparency

Piketty shows how business leaders who are close to the Government keep adding an unfair share to their wealth in a hidden manner, gaining control of natural resources (like coal, gas, minerals), through the privatization of public assets (like airports, railways), or partisan licensing arrangements. Bill Gates profited by patenting public knowledge (Piketty 2020: 28), and his wealth grew from $4 billion to $50 billion within two decades. Once you reach certain heights, your capital leaps ahead by itself (Piketty 2014: 440). 
Even public suffering can be turned into profit, as was done by news agencies during the COVID lockdown. Thus, the wealth of the rich keeps increasing. According to Forbes, in 1987 there were 140 billionaires in the world; in 2013  there were 1,400 (Piketty 2014: 433). During BJP rule, Indian billionaires have profited most. More is in the pipeline. 

A cause for major worry is the absence of financial transparency on international wealth (offshoring of production, worldwide spread of marketing system, misuse of tax havens)  (Piketty 2020: 422). It is very hard to say for certain today who owns how much. However, studies show that in the US the salaries of the top 1% has gone up 165% from the 1970s. For practical purposes, Chief Executive Officers decide for themselves their own salaries (Boushey 2017: 68). 

Piketty Coins New Words: Brahmin Left and Merchant Right

It was “mass anger” due to gross inequality that threw up Trump into power in the US, voted for Brexit in the UK, and developed an aggressive attitude against immigrants in the EU. The poor white workers in their helplessness turned anti-immigrant, nativist and xenophobic (Piketty 2020: 40).

Piketty uses the phrase “Brahmin Left” for those upstarts from the working class in the West that have risen to top executive positions as CEOs and technocrats; they excel in their competence. The Merchant Right are the moneyed class with a flair for business and great negotiating skills. Both stand sturdily for the market (Piketty 2020: 766). Today, the Brahmin Left and the Merchant Right are closely allied; they think alike: low taxes, high salaries for top executives. There is hardly any ideological difference between party and party, though interests differ. The Market commands. In India, the Brahmin-Bania alliance has taken over, as the Left had always feared. 

Devious Ways of Taking Advantage of the Weak

Circumventing law and evading national and supra-national surveillance are the Rich Club’s  main concerns. For example, several large companies have evolved ways of outsourcing production, subcontracting work, so that they do not have to deal with workers, unions, strikes, health care, or retirement care (Boushey 2017:210). Production is distributed to small enterprises that have to sell their products to the big companies at competitive rates. The weaker ones always lose out in the bargain.

The most shocking truth about today’s global economy is the total “absence of transparency”, to which Piketty refers many times. The major portion of newly created wealth escapes to small countries with least tax and minimal control (tax havens like Luxemburg, Isle of Man, Ireland). Over 55% of the profits of US corporations are at 6 tax havens. This type of offshore activities combine production where labour is the cheapest, distribution where the profits can be the highest, and accumulation of wealth in states where the taxes are the lowest and legal control least. Things like common good, social responsibility and ethical values are clean forgotten. 

The Collapse of Ethics

Tales are terrifying. Corporations spend huge amounts on accountants, investment advisers, and lawyers to make their capital as invisible as possible. The task given to them is ‘tax-dodging’  on a gigantic scale (Boushey 2017: 290). They merge normal business with illegal trade in art, dealings in arms, drugs, people, animals, and environmental waste. No matter where the owners live, they remain elusive and evasive in order to avoid tax (Boushey 2017: 287-8) and legal cases. The scholars who studied the problem have divided these companies into “Everywhere companies” and “nowhere companies” (Boushey 2027: 293), since they notice that the elites and their wealth remain highly mobile to avoid harassment by the Government, media and civil society. They are “deterritorialized” (Boushey 2017: 294). 

These plutocrats are a nation unto themselves, strangers in their homeland, globally net-worked, and having their abode in imaginary space (Boushey 2017: 294). They acquire multiple nationalities to claim rights, entitlements, and protections; are equipped for visa-free travel to 110 nations. They are able to get citizenship within 3 months of diverse nations of their choice (Boushey 296). Strange but true, in London, property can be bought anonymously (Boushey 2017: 297). All such opacity has been created “legally”, leading to a “shadow banking system”…all coded and connected (Boushey 2017: 298). We would be unwilling to believe in such possibilities until scandals like WikiLeaks and SwissLeaks expose top level felonies. They bear witness to dark-pool trading, explicit tax evasion, links with politicians, banks, and criminal organizations (Boushey 2017: 301-2), even murders.

Just the other day, the Interpol and Basel Institute of Governance organized a 132-country meet on criminal finances, cryptocurrencies, criminal flows and operations in dark markets, money laundering involving virtual assets, and transfer of drug proceeds.  Last week, Vijay Mallya’s assets worth 14 crores (Euro 1.6) were seized in France under anti-laundering law. Nirav Modi was expert at similar games. This anxiety will not end till transparency returns. 
Piketty’s Solution: Progressive Tax on Wealth, Income and Inheritance

Piketty believes that answers come from anxieties. “History is the product of crises”, he says. They set people thinking, ideas are generated (Piketty 2020: 967). What he calls for is not any Marxist type of class struggle, but a stimulating intellectual exercise…a debate on the issue of inequality from various angles. “No one will ever possess absolute truth about just ownership, just borders, just democracy, just taxes and education”. History itself is a “quest for justice”, he says  (Piketty 2020: 1036). 

So, let us keep searching. What he himself proposes is “Progressive Tax” on wealth, income, and inheritance. The idea of a progressive tax was first proposed in 1901 and conscientiously imposed in EU during the period between the two World Wars (Piketty 2020: 150). Denmark had introduced progressive income tax as early as 1870, UK in 1909, US in 1913 (Piketty 2020: 151). Sweden had the Viking sense of tribal equality (Piketty 2020: 185), which is very different from Manu-inspired caste inequality towards which the BJP leadership is dragging India.

The Indian Situation    

The tribal communities in Northeast India too have a strong sense of equality that is gradually being eroded as the practices of the caste-ridden communities of the mainland are over-influencing indigenous leadership. The RSS are steadily undermining the local value system. Most scholars look at Buddhism, the Bhakti movement, the Communist movement in Bengal and the South, and Maoist movements in Central India as powerful reminders of the average man’s eagerness for equality. Violence is often the protest of the weak. 
Piketty puts India just above Sub-Saharan region which holds the poorest communities in the world, far below North Africa and China (Piketty 2014: 62). Our pretensions sometimes are unrealistic. What he notices in India is an effort on the part of the Ruling Party to break the solidarity of the working class. Traditionally the Hindu working class and poor Muslims kept together and voted for parties that stood for equalization (Piketty 2020: 951). 

The Hindutva strategy to break this solidarity through cow-devotions, temple-fanaticism, anti-Muslim themes (anti-Pakistan nationalism, Ayodhya, Kashmir, anti-Muslim historic narratives) has eminently succeeded. Votes are divided according to religion, not according to socially beneficial programmes. We are a fractured society today. Consequently, Indian economy has taken another 7.5% dip this quarter.

Piketty draws our attention to the fact that India’s health budget is one the lowest in the world, well below China, and far below US-EU (Piketty 2020: 355). Education budget too (Piketty 2020: 356). The caste system has stood on the way all along. Curiously, the British census of 1891 showed caste-free Myanmar far ahead of India in literacy rates: 44.3% (women 3.8%), while Indian rate was mere 10.4% (women 0.5%) (Piketty 2020: 338). The burden of the caste-system has remained with us all along. 
Add to that the present anxiety: India occupies the 97th  position on the World Hunger Index, 190 million go to bed hungry every day, and 25% of children suffer from malnutrition. And again, lamentably, Transparency International places bribery rate in India at 39%,  the worst in Asia…far below Japan 2%, even Nepal 12%. 

A Way Forward: Fruitful Public Debate

When ordinances are passed in a hurry and laws are rushed through the Parliament in haste, citizens are not given a chance to exercise their intelligence on any of the decisions made in their behalf. National discontentment is taken to the streets and passed on to anti-social elements.  Muscle decides issues when brain is not given a chance. 

What Piketty suggests is a debate among competent people (Piketty 2020: 1036). Interestingly, what Pope Francis suggests towards solutions to today’s problems is precisely an “interdisciplinary communication” (FT 204). These views stand extremely close to the idea of the Nobel winner Amartya Sen’s ‘Public Reasoning.’ When concepts of competent persons converge, we are likely to be closer to the truth. But, will such a manner of approach fit in with Modiji’s modus operandi?