THE CAPITALISTS GONE CRAZY

Vikas

If we needed any further evidence of western hegemony, a write-up by Margaret thatcher, published in a recently in the Guardian (and copied by the HT) provides exactly that. In this article- titled 'Unfinished business', -she suggests that the west, for protecting its 'values', needs to strike against all potential violators of these values. And that Islamic extremism, needs to be defeated, the way communism, was -by strategic armed might. Her targets, which she asks the US -and its 'exemplary leader' president- to strike, include countries in Africa, south east asia and ELSEWHERE. She goes further to add that the US, while it has the responsibility and the military might to strike against these countries, should do that, than concern itself with 'social work'- i.e., contribute to the construction of these countries, after it has destroyed them.

The tone that Thatcher uses in this article- that of a lumpen shouting in the streets- is very unfortunate. That a person, who spent five years in one of the highest offices in the world and must have had access to other viewpoints, even if they didn't fill into the ambit of her direct experience indicates a dangerous schizophrenic self-obsession that may be growing in the west. The attitude, the tone, the words, and above all the actions of the juvenile American president- a generation latter- only help establish this fear. And that the American people, supposedly the most developed people in the world (education, health, income- what not!) should have elected him, only further assert the question marks against these development models and for that matter all of Thatcher's values! We, in the developing countries, who are still to reach those levels of 'development' and who may still have the space for alternatives -in our minds- seriously need to radically question most of the values that we seem to have unquestioningly picked up from Ms. Thatcher's west- be it through the media or through the Macaulian education system. While Thatcher may speak very highly of these values of the west- why should she not, for she rose in that very value system to the highest position in her country - I'm sure that much of the working class and the other less privileged, would definitely have done with a better deal, more 'just' values and exchanges. That the west itself, benefits much from these value systems that it has been able to establish throughout the world is another dimension. (Hasn't the west itself, witnessed many of these screams for justice, when capitalists crashed into people's lives- and aren't the voices of the deprived, more often than not, crushed institutionally). Forced institutionalisation of these so called 'liberal' values is as much fundamentalism as any else and should be denounced in the strongest terms by anybody who stands for 'pluralism' and 'justice'. These liberal, read 'capitalist' values, have not only resulted in mass inequity at levels, perhaps never seen before, ushered in a consumerist culture-locking everybody in an ugly race to gulp down resources and reduced human beings to factors in the production system but may well have pushed the earth to the very brink. Well, if some thinkers are to be believed, the next thing human beings could be soon on to, once nothing is left to eat- unless they destroy themselves before that- could be to eat each other out. The strong eating the weak, no prizes for guessing where the former would be coming from.

While Ms. Thatcher may benefit from the excuse that she happens to be advocating what may be in the short terms interests of her race and her class- though the future interests of human beings across the globe are undoubtedly tied together and her views definitely do not serve those interests- we in the developing countries would be fooling ourselves, if we go by her words- and for that matter, the words of the capitalist liberal. But those of us- who belong to the classes, are able to reconcile with that, do not mind being subservient, and could not care less for what happens around and what happens in the future, to ourselves.