In the standard economics, monopolistic completion is one of
the prominent structures of the market in which product sold is differentiated
in the sense that the product brought into market by a particular producer is
differentiated from the product of others in the same market by of changing, say,
its appearance without any substantive change in the quality or ingredients of
the product. Firms, therefore, incur enormous amount in the form of advertising
expenditure to promote their product and thereby enlarge their customer base. Examples
are soaps, soft drinks, tooth paste etc.
A close look at the enterprise of political religions in
vogue today reveals that an analogy can be drawn between this enterprise and monopolistic
competition. At the very outset let me make it clear that by the term political
religion I mean those folks or groups who are out there in the street to
mobilize innocent common man under the
banner of religions often misconstrued in a manner to serve their either
political or economic or personal agenda. In other words, the term political
religion has nothing to do with those people who have inculcated the true
spiritual and moral spirit of religions as a means of enlightenment, salvation,
brotherhood, self-purification and thereby cracking the mystery behind the
universe etc whom we will not see in the streets and on the dais.
Before justifying the analogy I have drawn here, it is
interesting to reflect that ‘political religion’ is a normal good. Economists
define normal good as a good for which the demand increases with increase in
the income or purchasing power of the people. Thus, political religion or the
products they try to sell in the religious market can be said to be a normal
good implying that with the increase in the standard of living or general
material prosperity of the people today, the demand for their product has been
witnessing increased demand. For instance, the number and frequency of
religious sermons or electronic and digital varieties of religious programmes
has witnessed an unprecedented increase in the recent years. Nobody will
contest the view that the number and frequency of religious maneuvering like
gathering staged mostly on the streets and bazaar or products like CDs in the
past was not as much and frequent as it is today. That is, with increase in the
well-being today, people can financially afford to enjoy such religious
products or services in complete contrast to the past when people were even
struggling to find food, let alone CDs. Also it is much more interesting to
observe the fact that how modern economic and commercial principles and
strategies have deeply influenced the forces behind this political religiosity.
For example, the external cover of products like CDs marketed by such forces
reads like this: ‘coming soon to the market’ signaling to their customer base
that a new product is in the offing and hence be prepared to purchase it. This sort
of marketing strategies are extensively found in our day-to-day life in the
form of display of canvass or flex board which reads ‘opening shortly’ in front
of commercial shops looking forward to commence their operation soon.
Now coming to the task of justifying my analogy, let us first
consider the concept of product differentiation which is the hall mark of
monopolistic competition and illustrate it with the previous example of
electronic product like CDs. A close observation of such products reveals that
they are all concerning various topics under the broad umbrella of a particular
religion sold by either one individual or a group of individuals like firms in
a monopolistic competition. Thus, the act of producing such products concerning
various topics under a particular religion is the example of the product
differentiation in the market for political religiosity. Along with this, we
must take the fact into consideration that each
religion is highly divided
between various inter and intra groups and sects indicating that there exists
tremendous competition among themselves to both maintain their prevailing
customer base and expanding their customer base to others, if possible. Essentially
it is this high competition prevailing among various individuals and groups and
the resultant fear of being ousted from the scene or market or leadership in
the face of existing or fresh competition, inspire them to keep on producing
new products and services like CDs concerning various topics (product differentiation)
and selling it in the market with enough advertisement either through local
news papers, visual media, announcement at religious centers, organizing formal
display of such products at related gathering etc. To strengthen my argument I
would like to draw the attention to the fact that the same market would
certainly have dealt with such products concerning the same topic by someone in
the past. If these champions of political religiosity are sincerely interested
in the propagation of the religion as called upon by their supreme leaders,
they, instead of bringing their own version and product from time to time ,
must have alerted the common man of the existence of such products and services
already in the same market and avail its service. Instead they find it as an
opportunity for a fresh niche market to sell their differentiated version of
the same debate. Apart from this, the
product differentiation also sometimes takes the form of pinching the old
dogmas with latest wisdom and knowledge. For instance we can see a tendency on
the part of these political religions to relate their ideas with the scientific
revelations of the modern scientists in an effort to increase the scientific
acceptability and validity of their dogmas.
Thus, let me conclude that political religion today is a
monopolistic competitive market in which political theologians (firms) sells
‘differentiated normal goods’ namely political religiosity in the form of CDs,
Sermons etc.
(I have written these personal views in an
academic spirit and in no way I have
meant to hurt the religious sentiments of anybody)
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