The Age Of Market Politics

 

Yuba Nath Lamsal

Ideology, values and principles have taken a back seat in the post-industrial societies. What constitutes prominence in the present day politics is the interest and profit. Even in politics, everything is being judged and calculated from the matrix of interest, profit, and loss. In the age of market politics, market has emerged as the principal determinant, where money plays bigger role than anything else. This is not an isolated trend of a particular country or region but a global phenomenon.

Politics is for power. For ancient idealist thinkers like Confucius, Plato and Aristotle, politics is struggle to attain power through ethical means while realist philosophers like Niccola Machiavelli are of the view that politics is ‘the ruthless pursuit of power’ to be achieved by hook or by crook and ethics has no place. In the book ‘The Prince’ Machiavelli even suggests the use of deceit, murder and war as legitimate means to attain power and maintain grip on power. Saint Augustine even justified crimes to get power, while Mao Zedong went one step forward defending brutal force and said ‘political power flows out of the barrel of gun’.

Non-violent approach
However, people like Mahatma Gandhi, calling ‘violence as the weapon of the weak’, championed the non-violent approach to get political power. Demand and supply play a key role in economics, so is with politics. When profit is the principal motive in politics rather than public good, parties turn out to be enterprises, and the politicians the bosses turning politics into a profit-making venture and the ‘last resort of scoundrels’ as aptly said by George Bernard Shaw. Politics becomes the affair of profiteers, and public good and social service are confined to mere showcased artefacts.

Gandhi, in his later life particularly after 1940s, realised that his dream of a democratic Indian society would be a sham with the partisan politics and broached the notion of consensual governance. Even Alexis de Tocqueville saw greater danger to democracy from within the system rather than from outside. Tocqueville said ‘governmental centralisation and market consumerism reduce civic virtues into private life of quiet servitude’.
As citizens tend to become more self-centred, political and social movements are getting weaker. The survival and development of democracy depends heavily on the constant vigil of the people, which is fast eroding. The changing nature of society and growing individualism have given rise to public apathy to political system from which authoritarian tendency is slowly rising its ugly head both in parties as well as in governance. Some western political scientists and analysts even try to liken the eccentric Trump era in USA, rise of Boris Jonson in the UK, Recep Erdogan of Turkey, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Narendra Modi of India with this newer trend of world politics.

Alberto Fujimori also did not intend to be a dictator. He rose to power by means of election with the pledge to heal Peru’s multiple wounds. However, circumstances and his own ambition coupled with wrong decisions led him to earn the ill-fame of a tyrant. Similar case is with Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, Napoleon Bonaparte of France, Benito Mussolini of Italy and Adolf Hitler of Germany, who ran evil empires of their time. Joseph Stalin of Russia earns the reputation of noted authoritarian hawk in the world of doves. Ziaul Haq, Pervez Musharraf, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot are also a few names of worst nemeses of democracy.

In the present globalised world, Nepal, too, is not immune to this syndrome. Market politics has contaminated Nepali parties and leaders. Despite the rhetoric of commitment to democracy and democratic ideals, our parties are getting bureaucratic and leaders autocratic in both action and behaviour. The bigger the parties, the more bureaucratic they are. Power is being concentrated at the hands of a one man (women, so far, have not held the apex position of any major political party in Nepal) or a tiny clique close to power centre, whereas the voice of the rank and file is getting feeble. The behaviour and working style of the principal leaders of major parties are its manifestation.

Even party’s organisational apparatuses give leaders more leverage to become autocratic. Our political culture itself is more power centric and seeks power worshipping. Some relics of feudal system like chakari, curry favour and sycophancy have not gone away completely in our society even after doing away with the feudal system. Feudal culture continues to rein in our mind, thought process and our working style. Leaders tend to be rulers and masters whereas people are still treated as subjects. Whatever leaders do is either for their own, or for their families and the cliques close to the leaders.

Even the party is not in their interest, let alone the people and the country. Whatever meagre they do in the name of public good is not taken as their duty but as out of expediency or favour to the people. This scenario is exactly what Aristotle called ‘an oligarchy — ‘the rule of rich, the rule by rich and the rule for the rich’. Despite all odds and ills, there is no alternative to democracy. What we need to do is to manage, improve, reform and update ourselves, our functions and our handling to make the system more workable and accountable to the people. Moreover, the complications and deficiency we have come across is not owing to the system alone.

Accountability
Politics is not a problem but should be a solution. The political system we have adopted is virtuous, though it may still not be perfect. The problem is, therefore, not with the system but with those who are responsible to handle the system. Its cure is with ourselves, our parties and our leaders. Transparency and accountability in parties and leaders are what we need the most. For this, greater public vigil and democratic literacy among leaders and people are also equally necessary which alone compels leaders to be more democratic, transparent and accountable.

Democratic culture does not ripen overnight but requires a long time to take its roots, grow and develop. Our democratic history is relatively short, chequered and tumultuous with many ups and downs; twists and turns. We can, thus, be optimistic that with the march of time and volume of experiences, we can enrich our democracy. Let us hope time heals everything.