The Ghost of Marginal Cost has Vanished from the Dismal Desert of Economics

Today we are all living largely in a knowledge economy in which innovation and subsequent knowledge creates value compared to previous industrial economy in which value was dependent on the tangible production and output. This has turned matters up-side down. For example, according Professor, Geremy Rifkin, this transition to knowledge economy has made the mythical marginal cost (mc) concept on which the entire capitalism is built has become obsolete and irrelevant in the economic discourse. The basic idea of the mainstream economics is that the goods and services has to pass through various stages in the form of exchange of either inputs or output entailing additional cost at each level and therefore, price must be decided based on the additional or incremental or  marginal cost. Of course, it may appear to be appealing to the logic even though it is not possible to figure out how much is marginal cost in the practical situations and therefore, it is mythical. At the same time, in a knowledge economy, there is no such a cost like marginal cost at all. For example, consider my blog for which the service providers has to ear mark certain space which constitutes both total cost and fixed cost. Even if it is accessed by billions of the people around the world, it does not entail any additional cost to the service providers or to me. Thus, the spirit of mc has vanished from the dismal desert of economics.

Another most amusing development in the modern knowledge economy is the astonishing u-turn and thereby camouflages of the economic agents (read human being), which instead of destabilizing the very foundation – selfishness- on which the modern economics is built, it has essentially reinforced its credibility to remain as well as continue to be the foundation of economics. In the erstwhile industrial economy, the selfishness of the people vis-a-visa economics was satisfied by way of denying others what they possessed and thereby distinguish themselves from others based on the ownership. For example, land lords in the past denied others the right to own land and thereby they satisfied their selfishness by owning vast stretches of land in which they were proud of. Thus, in the past people appealed to and satisfied their selfishness by way of denial and deprivation. But, contrary to this, in the modern knowledge economy the same people are appealing to and satisfying their selfishness with sharing and distribution, just opposite of what they did in the past to achieve the same objective. What a miraculous turn of events.  Today, people share their blogs, their videos through Youtube, their wisdom through facebook and twitter. How this will satisfy his/her selfishness and thereby help economist to eke out a living for their otherwise hapless kids. The idea is this:  unlike the past industrial economy in which tangibles like gold  which were considered to be the assets  must be kept in the dark inner rooms of the castle to deny it to others, as Travancore King did in the past by storing huge amount of precious metals in the Temple as he can draw credit out of this as he is the custodian of the temple and thereby satisfy your selfishness by ruling the paradise of fool over the pride that I have this or that which others do not have so that I am distinguished from others and hence your ego which is your boss who controls you will be happy with you, the slave, today in the modern knowledge  economy, your boss (selfishness) will be satisfied only you share your asset like knowledge  with others because what made you proud of you in the past industrial economics is the impression that I am great or noble because I have land , BMW etc whereas who will mind  and acknowledge you today if you conceal your knowledge within your shelf at home without sharing it with people. Once you share your wisdom with others, if it is impressive, you will be acknowledged which will make you proud of yourself and thereby you will also make your boss happy. That is why people share their wisdom today not necessarily to be useful to others but to glorify themselves. Economics, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. You are a wonderful and beautiful ghost.

By the way, being distinguished form others is one of the driving forces of the life. For example, why should the so called VIPs insist that they should not be frisked at the airports? Are they smugglers? No, the issue is that all others are being frisked so VIP should not be frisked so that he is distinguished from others. The logical root of the current identity politics can also interpreted with same reasoning as the modern champions of identity politics proclaim that they are of being, say, a dalit or being hailing from a particular regions and thereby they are trying to invoke the spirit of identity to appease their ego. Thus, ultimately what matters is not the quantity of good you have produced, or length of the land you own or colour of the sari you have purchased for your wife , instead what matters is your ego or your selfishness because you are simply and miserably so poor and so constrained to be happy simply by appealing to your selfishness as it is the dominant evil force controlling you and also because you ultimately love only yourself and you pretend to be in love with others not because you really love them but because you really love you. That is, when you inherently pretend to love others, they will also be doing the same thing and you will be pleased as you are under the false impression that they love you and finally, thereby, you, the idiot, satisfy your princess of selfishness. You are a fool because others are also indulging in the same tactics directed at you to satisfy their princess. Thus, life is a drama written by an idiot (in which the actor is also an idiot).

Undermining the True Spirit of Globalisation

As I discussed the importance of a continuous policy regime at the level of countries today in a previous post, the same reasoning is also applicable to global economy as a whole. In this era of close integration and dependence among countries, countries must extra care not to interrupt the existing progressive policy regimes so as to elbow both investors confidence as well as to strengthen the trust between governments. Each country, in particular, must avoid taking such policies which will erode the confidence of others against whom such policies are directed to safeguard the interest of the former. This sort of shadow-boxing along the policy lines by the member countries of the world especially by powerful forces will undermine the very sprit and purpose of the globalization.

The on-going standoff between US and Russia over the Ukrain issue has to be evaluated with this perspective. There two things here, first, any attempt to address a political crisis with an economic solution is not desirable as a political crisis must be resolved through political means. Second one is the resonance of economic embargo being surgically imposed on Russia across the globe. What message this episode spreads across the world?  Because already international community look at the on-going process of globalization with suspicion about its true intention as they firmly believe that it is old wine in a new bottle. The criticism raised against the current of form of globalization that it is designed and adopted for the comfort of rich also attracts credence. Two things appear to be on the side of the detractors of the globalization; first, globalization has touched only the strengths of the rich like capital and manufacturing whereas the strength of the poor, labor is still unexplored to the detriment of the poor countries. Second, the notion of old wine in a new bottle implying that globalization is the new avatar of the old imperialism also appears plausible in the context of US actions against Russia that a US led globalization to benefit out of its own strength like capital and restricting other to make use of their strengths is so designed to brow beaten and coerce others to fall in line to serve the interests of the US. In other words, US’s attempt to intervene in a political crisis with an economic solution strengthens the suspicion that globalization pursued today is not to make world better off, but to make certain section better off at the cost of others. Thus, this kind of lop-sided and miss-guided policy prescriptions will undermine the true spirit of the globalization and thereby lose an historical opportunity to the world to change its face for the better if it is pursued better.

Exclusive Inclusion of ‘Kudumbasree’ in Kerala

The microfinance phenomenon has now caught the imagination of both academicians and policy makers all over the world with its much touted success in the amelioration of poverty in Bangladesh under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammed Yunus. Thus India has also witnessed rapid expansion of the microfinance institutions in the various parts of the country including   the microfinance component of the “Kudumbasree” in Kerala with the purported aim of achieving inclusive growth. But, the fundamental question is whether kudumbasree-lead microfinance programme is really inclusive as being often clamored? In my view, it is exclusive rather than inclusive both conceptually and structurally. Firstly, conceptually inclusiveness demands secure recognition of the individuality for rights or privileges of members in the specific context of an entity like kudumbasree-lead microfinance as it will induce the person’s incentives to exert more effort in the right direction not indulging in the moral hazards like deceit or secure recognition of individual property rights in the specific context of property like land. For example, consider the land reform which is obviously inclusive as it secures the property rights of the each individual who got land.   If so, where is the recognition of individuality in the kudumbasree-lead microfinance? Of course, it recognizes the individuality of rights, but to a very limited extent compared to, ironically, the stipulation of the collective responsibility of individuals. In other words, the overwhelming collective responsibility of the individuals in the kudumbasree-lead microfinance to avoid moral hazard like non-payment of loan dwarfs the recognition of individuality for rights as symbolized by the meager benefit accrued to members through its services leading often to a situation in which the very system get stagnated under the burden of responsibility without being able to make progress on account of the meager benefits. Therefore, they get further excludes and alienated from the system to which they were originally meant to be included.  

Secondly, since the kudumbasree system is organized as a particular group of people being systematically carved out of the general public and hence treating them as a separate entity with no formal link with general public in regard to its functioning, it get excluded from the general public and therefore, it misses those spillover benefits which it could have derived had it functioned in a collaborative manner with the general public. How can you achieve inclusion of a group into another group by separating the existence and functioning of the former from the latter? Or does this separation means that this group already possesses required resources to be included into the mainstream, however, they are denied the leeway to make use of such resources at their disposal for their upliftment as they are closely associated to the mainstream and thus, they are separated from the mainstream to circumvent this difficulty to gain freedom to make use of their resources for their upliftment? I think this justification will not stand the logical test as it is amply evident that people who join in the kudumbasree are marginalized deprived sections of the society who lacks any sort of resources to a considerable extent. Thus, nobody can contest the simple fact that if you want to raise a certain group to a higher level on par with another group who are already at a higher level, then the best strategy is to leave the former group to be in close proximity with or amidst in the latter so that the former can gradually pick up momentum in accordance with the momentum that exists in the latter. This highlights the structural exclusivity of this initiative. The fundamental question here is that what this inclusion is all about or where are you trying to include these people? Of course, as I observed earlier, they are meant to be included into the general mainstream public. If so, the recognition of individuality of rights must be, at least, on par with the stipulation of the collective responsibility to avoid moral hazard so that people will be in a position to sustain their incentives to put extra effort for the development and expansion of the entity which will improve the growth and pace of inclusion.

Given this reality, one can doubt then why this initiative is being structured like this in its current form without addressing its structural imbalance defeating the very purpose of this initiative? The answer to this question lies in the brutal politics behind kudumbasree movement in Kerala. This movement is originally conceived to mobilize people especially women from the marginalized sections of the society by political establishments in the state as their hither-to employed means and ways of mobilizing people were waning rapidly. That is why the kudumasree-lead microfinance initiative so incoherently designed with the ulterior objective that people should never be economically empowered for which the recognition of the individuality of members when it comes to rights  were suppressed so that they will remain to be poor and excluded from the mainstream forever so that these political predators can stalk them indirectly forever and  at the same time, they should be made politically active as staunch comrades to sweat and even to die for the party for which the recognition of their collective responsibility, to avoid moral hazard in the form of desertion from the party,  must be over-emphasized so that they will  always  be alert and asleep to ensure that each group remain intact and remain united to achieve the objective of inclusion under the guise of the broad umbrella of politics. This readymade provisioning of a net work of a united group feeds the political aspirations of their bosses without much sweating. Thus, the kudumbasree movement is a part of a mega conspiracy hatched to rope in party workers when hither-to used traditional methods of mobilization was failed.  

Anthropological Hypothesis

There are mainly three views regarding why inequality exists in the world. One is the climate hypothesis of French Philospher, Montesueiu who argued people of tropical areas are lazy and therefore, they are less innovative and productive whereas people of other areas are hardworking and therefore innovative and productive. That is why UK and USA are rich while Sub-Saharan Africa is poor. Second one is the Cultural Hypothesis of German Sociologist, Marx Weber who argued it is culture in the form of the protestant ethics that made UK rich. Third one is the ignorance hypothesis formulated along the line of the definition of the economics by Lionel Robinson and according to this economies often face market failure and rich countries are rich as they are able to formulate better policies to tack the menace of market failure as a they are knowledgeable compared to poor countries who cannot formulate better policies to deal with market failure and therefore they are poor.

 In my view none of these views are satisfactory to explain the phenomenon of world inequality as demonstrated by Acemoglu and Robinson (2013) in Why Nations Fails…….and a satisfactory explanation to the world inequality lies in the anthropological attributes of human being as explained below.

Ignorance hypothesis says that rich countries have eliminated the problem of market failure with better policies. If so what enabled them to make better polices? Or why poor countries are unable to make better policies? To answer this we have to resort to their culture. Rich people are rich because of their rich culture, not in the sense defined by the Marx Weber along the line of religion; instead it is to be defined in the line of the anthropology. To go further in the sense that to know how Anthropology rendered world unequal, we have to unearth the mystery behind the human evolution. I do not believe that people of the world as whole are evolved from the same origin and in the same environment. It is this difference in the origin and environment that caused difference in the culture, appearance, norms, skills, talents, aptitude etc which made someone better and other worse. There can be a temptation to explain this link between Anthropology and Inequality with Montesquieu’s Climate Hypothesis citing the example that people of Tropical area like Africa are black whereas people of arctic areas like Canada are white. But, I think it is not appealing because if so, how the people of tropical areas like Middle East and Australia happened to be white?

Also, there is a problem with the perspective we look at the development today. We look at the development through the prism of the principles dictated by industrial revolution which as per this Anthropological Hypothesis could be the outcome of the natural instincts and aptitudes that the British people inherited from their ancestors and thereby they were naturally tuned to develop means and ways to make industrial revolution successful. How can we say that people of another region, say India, would be comfortable with such means and ways that found fascination with British? Not one thing here that in the ancestral tradition of the Indian society, “sanyasm” (sainthood) is an important stage of their life in which they renounce all their material endowments and move to jungles or Himalayan mount ranges to meditate. A the same time, in a society like British, what we have seen is just contrary to this with a penchant to make more endowments throughout life. Please do not try to interpret this with the Max Webers’ cultural hypothesis as culture is the outcome rather than villain.

Therefore, in my view, to find a sensible explanation to the world inequality, we have to recognize the anthropological diversity of human being which forged their varying capabilities and cultures. However, in the modern era, only the capabilities and culture of the British inherited from their ancestors got patronage though industrial revolution and therefore, modern developmental discourse got biased in favor of a particular group and capabilities to the complete decimation of the capabilities and talents that people of other regions had inherited from their ancestors. That is why world is unequal.

It is in this context, a truly democratic globalization assumes significance recognizing the diversity of the human aptitudes and capabilities paving way to comparative advantages across the world. Thus, if we capitalize this diversity thorough international trade in a truly democratic manner giving due consideration to all, we can eliminate the world inequality. 

The Economic Implications of the Purported New Political Dawn in India

As India has had been on the election trail in the recent past, what we are repeatedly told is that Indian politics is at the door steps of a new dawn. We are told that a new savior is on the way to change the face of Indian democracy substituting the said to be failed existing model with another model said to be successful somewhere else. We have also heard so much about the pros and corns of this transformation in the offing. But here the issue is not whether someone is fit enough for bringing about such a change or not or whether a particular model is successful or not, rather the issue is what are the potential economic implications of this new political dawn in Indian democracy? First, it means that we have wasted our past sixty years after independence as we failed to develop a political consensus regarding our development strategies. In that sense, this new dawn is akin to scratching our head with burning stick. For, the political exercises like election and selection of executive are means which should not confused with ends- people’s wellbeing. We undertake this sort of exercises not simply for the sake of these exercises or for the sake of the personal glorification of those who are clinging to such political exercises for decades. Instead, we, the people of India, take part in such democratic exercises spending huge amount of resources with the ultimate aim of building a prosperous and powerful India in all respects. For achieving that ultimate goal democracy has to play a pivotal role.

 Second, the new dawn implies beginning of a new policy regime of all sorts especially economic policies implying political and economic discontinuity instead of political and economic continuity and thereby stability. How India’s democracy can afford to cry out for a new political beginning of this kind disregarding the virtues of the past?  Can we expect to build a prosperous India in a discontinuous India? Never! Because, prosperity is a dynamic process which requires not discreet or static policy regimes but continuous and uninterrupted policy regimes. How can we achieve something dynamic  in a static environment? Let us not forget the historical reality that it was continuity along with stability that made countries like United States one of the richest countries of the world. Acemoglu and Robinson (2013) in their book  Why Nations Fail has pointed out this referring to the forces behind US development as a rich country that political institutions ensured stability and continuity. For one thing, they made sure that there was no risk of a dictator taking power and changing the rules of the game ………… How can we induce private investment in a country characterized by the discontinuous political and economic regimes even after sixty years of its independence? Shouldn’t we feel ashamed over the fact that we miserably failed even to develop a consensus regarding our development strategies even after sixty years of democratic experience? Hence, a pinch of caution would be desirable to be applied to those arguments that all out transformation of the system that we have now is in the best interest of the country.    

Win-Win Politics of Secularism and Communalism in India

The professional politics in India today can be  characterized by a win-win politics carved out in the name of secularism and communalsim for the convenience of our professional politicians  as it presents a win -win situation for both secularists and communalists because in a democracy like ours, the best and easiest way to make political capital is to cause polarization in the society in the name of  either caste, or religion or region etc. as relatively poor people in all sense can be easily carried away with such tactics where as it is very sweating to capture the imagination of the people in the name of progress especially in a challenging social economic setting that exists in India. That is why our professional politics has somehow managed to divide the society into tow by way of defining politics in terms of communalism and secularism. If so, then the rule of the game is simple: suppose election is on the way, then you just manage something like Muzaffar Nagar episode, polarize the society on the one hand and at the same time, consolidate your vote bank through the same polarization, on the other hand. Thus, this process of consolidation on the both sides presents a win-win situation to both the champions of secularism and communalism. What is interesting is the fact that immediately after independence certain section has realized that they can make inroads to politics of power in India only through the exercise of polarization and thereby, they themselves has implicitly agreed to act as the forces of polarization which was wholeheartedly accepted the so called forces of secularism as it is beneficial for them. Thus, to a large extent Indian democracy today is essentially driven by this kind of implicit win-win strategy pursued by our profession politicians.   

Does Kerala’s Social Development deter its Economic Development?

The state of Kerala in Indian union occupies a distinguished position among its counter parts in the country in terms of development in social sector as well as in its tertiary sector. This phenomenon is widely known as ‘Kerala Model of Development’ in the literature. If we observe the Kerala economy and its society we can amply deduce an important element inherent to this lopsided system of development which is fundamentally feeding the same vicious circle of development. In other words, the Kerala economy with a social sector which is said to be highly developed resting on weak economic fundamentals itself is responsible for the continuation of this often unpleasant development trajectory over the years. Thus, in my view, the fact that social development in Kerala preceded the economic development of the state appears to be a curse in itself so far as the overall development of the state is concerned. For, a socially developed society, whether it be economically developed or not, will be highly conscious and sensitive to all sorts of other developments in that society. Let me note here one thing that the term ‘social development’ I have used here is in relative sense to other states rather than in absolute sense

However, given this socio-economic background of Kerala, when the state attempts to develop its economic fundamentals, say infrastructure development like widening of National Highway or building new airport, will  met with stiff opposition from the people. At the same time, in those states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra etc with relatively better economic fundamentals on the one hand and poor social sector on the other hand, would not have to face such opposition from the people in the context of building up the economy. What lies at the root of this kind of behavior on the part of the people? How do we economically justify this character? The underlying factor behind this sort of a behaviors on the part of Kerala society can be traced back to the very origin of the discipline of Economics- the trade off involved in the utilization of available scarce economic resources like land, water etc. Economics exists not only because resources are limited but also the limited resources have alternative uses which is known as trade off which implies that resources used for a particular purpose will not available for another purpose and hence a rationale economic agent like people must evaluate the cost and benefit of using a particular resource and the resources will only efficiently and optimally used when the net outcome (difference between cost and benefit) is positive or beneficial among alternative uses. That is why malayalees object to the all most all economically significant progarmmes and policies brought about not only by government but by private sector also. For, if you want to develop the economic base of Kerala, the people of the Kerala should be willing to make sacrifices on many fronts because of its geo-demographic peculiarities. For instance, Kerala is having high density of population compared to other states as the total geographical area of Kerala is narrow. Therefore, in the backdrop of given social, geographical, demographic and even anthropological peculiarities of the state of Kerala, when it implicitly indulge in the process of the assessment of pros and corns or the costs and benefits of a change as part of the process of strengthening its economy will turn out be negative implying the net-outcome will be against the very change proposed by the external forces like government. Thus, in my view, the envious social development that Kerala has achieved over the years remains to be a stumbling block in its own economic development. In other words, the social development of Kerala has empowered its citizens in all respects especially politically to with stand the forces of change which is against their interest, at least in the short run. Whereas as far other states whose economic development has preceded their social development are concerned, their citizens are neither in a position to make an informed evaluations of the resulting  cost and benefit of the changes suggested by external forces nor empowered to withstand such forces of change and therefore, the changes are often imposed rather than espoused. Thus, in that sense, social darkness that exists in such states is a benign rather than malign as far as the economic prosperity of such states are concerned in the long run. That is, the current generation bears the brunt of the changes brought about for the development of the society which will be helpful for the overall- social and economic- development of the future generations of such states. As far as the Kerala is concerned, since its current generation is no longer ready to absorb the sacrifices involved in the changes, its future generation will have to bear its brunt.  Thus social sector development of the malayalees on the one hand and the lopsided economic development pattern on the other hand is inextricably interlinked wherein the former keep on feeding the latter.

The economic reasoning I have drawn on here to comment on the Kerala’s economic and social experiences has got its resonance even abroad. Two things are worth mentioning here. First, according to American Intellectual, Seymour Martin Lipset, economic development via the mediating effect of social development in the form of increased education, social equality and changes in the class structure, will lead to the increased democratization of the society. Prof. Jagatish Bhagwati, in his book In Defense of Globalisation has interpreted this view of Lipset as that economic prosperity produces a middle class and this emerging middle class creates an effective demand for democratization of politics. From both these views it can be figured out that social development should be preceded by the economic development so that a pressure-group like middle class in terms of the economic endowment emerges to rectify the aberrations of the democracy from its true path. If so, why not interpret this otherwise that if economic development precedes that social development, then a mediocre social group in terms of the social endowment (instead of a middle class in terms of economic endowment as in the case of former) will be created and such a group will be working as resistant group to the forces of economic development. I think this could be what actually happened in the context of Kerala economy. The pattern of social and economic development experienced by Kerala was akin to what I have just described and therefore, Kerala society has seen a phenomenal growth of such a mediocre group in term of their social consciousness not compared to other states (as I noted in the outset) but compared to societies of advanced countries and it is essentially this mediocrity of the Kerala society which is responsible for the intolerance of malayalees to cope with the real costs associated with the new changes either in the form of policy or programmes to support its weak economy.  The current state of the affair in the higher education of the state also corroborates this perspective. Despite widely acclaimed achievements at the level of basic education compared to other states in India, Kerala’s higher education scenario is in pathetic condition today. Universities and other higher learning centers are being reduced to simply factories of degrees and certificates wherein a post-graduate who got educated throughout his/her career in English language find it impossible to write a single sentence in the same language without error.  In my view, this kind of pathetic situation in the higher education in the state which is said to be highly socially aware and alert, in a sense presents a paradox. And this paradox may be untangled through the above reasoning. That is, our mediocre nature in terms of our social awareness limits us to be concerned adequately and effectively about the quality deterioration of our higher education and therefore, it is left to the mercy of the destiny.

Second, Jagdish Bhagwati also explains in his book the contrast between the development experience of Russia and China by way of linking their experience with the thesis of Lipset. According to Bhagwati, Russia under Gorbachev opted for political freedom before economic restructuring including an end to autarky whereas China opted for economic change before undertaking democratization. Thus, Bhagwati observed that China’s enormous success and Russia’s astonishing failure have lead to many think both that democratization should follow, not precede, economic reforms and the prosperity and the middle classes that follow the success of economic reforms will indeed lead to democratization down the road. Thus, it is clear that the so called highly celebrated Kerala model of development is not something  alien as far as the global development experience is concerned and therefore, there is little to celebrate or fanfare on such a model as we have seen throughout last many decades. It remained to be an alien and something be clamored only for those who always look at the economics through the prism of statistics and percentages rather than entertaining the reality that economics cannot sensibly exist in isolation from politics, culture, sociology including anthropology. Therefore, I would like to conclude with the loose observation based on the above analysis that Kerala still continues to be an economically fragile and weak state with a developed social sector because of the inherent fallacy of the composition of the same development structure.

We Are All Literally Cheering Spectators!

What is so special if we are all spectators? Generally all those who are watching a game, say foot ball, will be taking side with either a particular team or with certain players. This is the result of a particular human nature to make their participation, at least as a spectator in this case, in this event as enjoyable as possible with cheering or shouting. It is so naïve to believe that there would be at least one spectator with a yearning that let all the players or both teams play the game in a manner so that ultimately the very game itself will benefit in whatever respect. Instead, all are divided and thereby fundamentally appealing to the zeal of his/her selfishness by way of identifying some favorites.  Thus, if we are looking at the game through this kind of individualistic perspective, the game would appear to be lively and enjoyable. But, in this process, an important element of the game is getting trampled upon: the very spirit or the health of the game as such. What I mean is that in this kind of a setting even improper means on the part of your favorite to emerge victorious would be knowingly or unknowingly justified. This kind of a tendency on the part of the spectators, as result of being carried away by their zeal of selfishness, will ultimately degenerate the very institution of the game. But, for sure, the spectators cannot compromise on their favoritism because part of the performance of their favorites rely on the degree or display of their favoritism despite being the fact that these favorites are charging hefty remuneration for their sweating whereas this staunch spectator will be gifted with a -throat in the end. Ideally one who are really serious about the very institution of the sports must watch the game without taking side so that pros and corns of the game can be addressed in the required manner and thereby the very esteem of the game can be preserved. I am afraid that I would remiss if I did not mention the role of commentators here. As long as there are plenty of words in their lexicon and saliva in their throat, they can keep on appeasing those who have charged them with what they have to do.

I would like to draw an analogy between such a game and the current system of politics, religion etc. We are all literally spectators in front of the game played by the champions of such social institutions. We take sides either in favor of a party or a group or an individual simply to find amusement in the game being played by such favorites in front of us. We clamor for them or cheer them so that their vein will be animated with spirit and hence they will play much more vigorously so that we can improve the degree of our amusement. Thus, this kind of setting in our society makes way for a situation in which the so called players become infallible. But sadly, what miss in this entire process is the very esteem of the institution, be it politics or religion etc and the very purpose for which they ought to exist get subdued. Essentially, we all are ought to be serious spectators who can evaluate the pros and corns of the system so that we can take an informed decision in the end. In a system in which people are effectively informed and thereby not susceptible to being carried away simply by factors like favoritism will take the society into its logical conclusion. Of course, here also I don’t want to remiss our societal commentators like advisors or think-tanks or intellectuals who are doing what they should be doing in the current system.

Reality Wrapped up in the Obscurity

Nowadays especially during the election campaign our politicians who are mostly our past rulers often excuses themselves for their inability or insensitivity for containing sky-rocketing prices of essential commodities as well as for plummeting the prices of our farm produces as an international or global phenomenon in which the government of the day has nothing to do with. It shows how despicable and misconstrued is the concept of democratic accountability in our practicing democracy. Remember, at least, one thing that we are all living in a world which is getting more and more globalised and thereby integrated to each other. In other words, a country like India, by and large, is today a major part of a single entity called global economy rather than like a closed economy of the last century. It implies that the day to day business of any economy has a direct bearing on the rest of the economies of the globe. Thus, today our political leaders can no longer hide themselves under the excuse that the development in the domestic economy is the effect of the developments outside. Instead, our rulers must build adequate security measures to protect the domestic economy through a mutually acceptable framework to all stake holders at the global level. For instance, if the prices of the farm produces in the domestic market are at low level because of the unfettered import from rest of the world, our political leaders cannot afford to remain idle simply attributing this to global factors. Instead, our rulers must engage with the leaders of other countries through multilateral institutions like WTO and arrive at such decisions which will ensure that domestic farmers are protected from the vagaries of the market. This calls for courage and commitment to the people who have elected these leaders. Thus, in this highly globalised world, any attempt on the part of our politicians as  extensively observed  to pass the buck to international context smacks of complete ignorance of the on-going geo political dynamics of the contemporary world  which in no way can be tolerated from our potential rulers. In other words, the rulers of each country in a globalised world must not only have a country–specific perspective but an international or global perspective also. Then only the challenges brought about by globalization can be effectively addressed and opportunities presented by globalization can be tapped. We, the people of the each and every country especially people of poor and developing countries, must realize this fact in the backdrop of their important democratic exercises like general election to elect their government.