Your edit ends with two basic questions that governments must address — growing inequality and systemic legitimacy. Time and again, in every crisis, there has been an attempt to “displace” the blame on the system and adjust the levers a bit here and a bit there and shrug the whole matter off till the next crisis.
Perhaps the cue lies in two unrelated pieces of information, yet deeply-connected issues, that I observed from two videos. One was a video by TED – a non-profit devoted to “ideas worth spreading” – of a Harvard professor explaining that property rights by John Locke was one of the seven reasons the West grew faster than the East since the 15th century. Yet this very concept may be the reason the West, if not the whole world, is in permanent crisis-mode on the environment, social and economic front. The other video was a documentary movie Corporation in which it is mentioned that till about the 14th century there were huge “commons” in Europe. The people belonged to the land and not the other way around. Why is something property when it is fenced/rights-protected? Is not clean air/water, a stable society, a government for all and not for some also property?
This matter is yet to be challenged by the intellectual elite, comfortable as they are in the rhetoric of the marketplace and in the mistaken assurance that the pursuit of individual needs/greed will take care of societal good.
Hari Parmeshwar, on email
Readers should write to:
The Editor, Business Standard, Nehru House,
4, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002,
Fax: (011) 23720201; letters@bsmail.in
All letters should have a postal address and telephone number