{"id":134582,"date":"2021-09-16T20:31:26","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T15:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=134582"},"modified":"2021-09-16T20:31:26","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T15:01:26","slug":"democracy-of-producers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/democracy-of-producers\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy of Producers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis<\/strong>: Real democratic freedom is impossible without economic equality.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Democracy is about freedom. Rosa Luxemburg<\/strong> famously opined that real freedom is the freedom to disagree. In a functional sense, democracy means discussion, debate and dissent.<\/p>\n

But in India, these are fast disappearing and there is a deliberative deficit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

How democracy accumulates undesirable tendencies?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Shrinking Public space<\/strong>: There are only some spaces provided by political parties wherein discussions are directed and controlled.<\/p>\n

Inequality<\/strong>: Structurally, democracy must mean equality, but equality is possible only in a non-hierarchical situation.<\/p>\n

No real decentralisation<\/strong>: Under democratic decentralisation, what really happened was the devolution of certain centrally determined functions, responsibilities and resources to lower tiers of administration, without changing the power structures.<\/p>\n

Hence, power,<\/strong> whether at the national, regional, local, corporate or family level, always tends towards centralisation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Power itself is the problem<\/strong>: Power is always used by the powerful against the powerless. Thus, the state is an instrument of oppression. The more unequal a society, the more authoritarian the state.<\/p>\n

Growth of authoritarian State<\/strong>: In India, because economic inequalities is increasing, the state is becoming more and more authoritarian. India is becoming a democracy without freedom.<\/p>\n

Democracy prefers stability and continuity: <\/strong>questioning inequities invites draconian laws. For instance, statement in Madras High Court by famous lawyer and human rights activist Kannabiran: \u201cCrime is defined by law, but the criminal is determined by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another example, migrant workers were treated badly in the lockdown and the incident in 2018 in which a starving Adivasi in Attappadi, Kerala, was beaten to death for stealing some food.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

First<\/strong>, in an egalitarian system<\/strong>, state power has no place. Marx<\/strong> had said that in a classless society, state would wither away.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, real democracy is economic democracy<\/strong>, as Ambedkar<\/strong> stressed. Hence, we need to ensure economic security to all, not through an income transfer programme (universal basic income), but through the provision of universal property rights<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>, the poor should be treated not as welfare borrower, but as consumers, active producers, and potential entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Fourth<\/strong>, MGNREGA<\/strong> allocation must be utilised not for creating wage-employment but for building the asset base of the poor, developing entrepreneurship among them, building idea\/incubation centres and helping undertake production\/ business units, individually or on a group basis.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: This post is based on the article \u201cDemocracy of Producers<\/strong>\u201d published in Indian Express<\/strong> on 16th September<\/strong> 2021<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Synopsis: Real democratic freedom is impossible without economic equality. Introduction Democracy is about freedom. Rosa Luxemburg famously opined that real freedom is the freedom to disagree. In a functional sense, democracy means discussion, debate and dissent. But in India, these are fast disappearing and there is a deliberative deficit. How democracy accumulates undesirable tendencies? Shrinking… Continue reading Democracy of Producers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-134582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704693780},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}