On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 9:05 PM, Mani A a.mani.cms@gmail.com >>> All of the non-left State Governments in India and the Central Govt
are essentially being run by the big business and apart from the usual
.. could have been true at some point of time in history, Mani, definitely not now.
Its pointless to blame other governments, because they don't declare themselves to be followers of any particular ideology. There is no common concern in outlook of most such governments.
They certainly determine, most of what seems to exist and does not seem to.
My point was that left governments today are never far off from non-left governments. In certain cases, it had been left which had blundered, allowing non-left govts to push harder on similar lines. Microsoft, Pepsi, Cola etc all got their foothold in respectable positions because of shady dealings of left governments, in states like Kerala and Bengal. Left had lost much of its moral positions because of such indulgences, at highest levels of democracy which it enjoyed (one must acknowledge that at lower layers of governance, things are pretty different - there are far too many sincere people around).
Most people would be silent if, for instance, left-front rechristens itself to "neo-liberal revolutionary front for individuals" - because
The Left has never really been in a position to implement 'truly leftist' policies. They do admit that and their essential policy is
But they were really in a position to implement extreme "right-ist" policies - whenever they got an opportunity to deal with big corporates. SEZs are living testimony to this - an area where markets enjoy unbridled freedom and unrestrained mobility to act and function on its own. A trade minister in Kerala recently said he's implementing SEZs primarily because he wants the world to know that the left is no longer against SEZs. How can any sensible person decode it differently ?
one of minimizing damage in the present circumstances... beginning from accepting to play democracy in a capitalist democracy and right up to the hilarious 'we will prefer manufacturing units of corporates to global money lenders'. Yes of course there is plenty of room for debate. Marx did say that ideology must be flexible enough to deal with the circumstances in question. (You can see a forum like Pragoti for debates on such issues. They had a long debate on unions for IT employees and policy recently)
Debates are good, but are those in power ever involved in such debates? Sensible people debate, lesser sensible ones decide-and-implement discreetly - why do they need to debate, when they already have freedom and power to do anything without it ?
One recalls the earlier era of human civilisation where large sections of people were involved in enchanting the world, with a view to control the powers of the universe. This era continued till people and scientists came forward to establish that universe had its own laws and is thoroughly purposeless and directionless. May be a renaissance is round the corner now, to convince the people in governance who are increasingly indulging in such *enchanting of the development mantra* to convince them that citizens of the entire world are united against their assault-moves.
Free Software, in that sense, shows a unhindered way of participation by those willing and in a direction that is tended to be away from corporate-culture - one driven by selfish interest, greed and profit-motive.
CK Raju