No More Hiroshimas Anywhere, Ever

Anamika #47

There is a term called Empathy, when you feel the situation what other person is.

But for empathy first thing is sinceerity.

Does India want solution of Kashmir or is just hoping to buy time, so that some miracle happen and Kashmir remains with India (it is purely empathetic).

The survival of Vajpayee depends only on Hindu Nationalism. And once Kashmir issue is solved, he has to find other targets in his home country, to continue his politics.

But Indian politics demand secularism to be successful, because confrontation is the anti thesis of progress.

Either BJP has to present as a moderate, which it is slowly trying to do, as induction of Dalit on its higher echeleon and taking actions against Bal Thackeray (resignation of minister accepted by Vajpayee) are some examples.

What is in hold in future nobody knows. Who in 1990 thought that India will regain economically. (I had a talk with foreign office person who came from a meeting in 1992(one of my friends brother). The prediction at that time was for the most bright future for Bangladesh among Pakistan, India, Iran, SriLanka etc).

But one thing is for sure. Indians should reorient their thoughts more realistically. Kashmir will never be solved in Indian constitution.

In response to bd (Reply # 48)
Dear bd:

Your statement: “Perhaps I could use Rashid`s ``economic`` framework to express my hypothesis that nuclear weapons are here to stay in the subcontinent.”

Comment: Given the status quo, the nuclear weapons are very much likely to stay in the subcontinent. However, we need to ask a different set of questions regarding the good and bad consequences of possessing the nuclear weapons. Should we maintain the status quo or should we make a reasonable effort to transform our planet earth into some kind of global “community”? The choice is ours, the task is extremely difficult.

Your statement: “. . . it is my hypothesis that nuclear weapons are here to stay until and unless there is a equal or more than equal social reality change. This bigger change can arise, unfortunately, due to the following reasons: 1. nuclear war, 2. conventional war, 3. economic implosion, 4. extremely significant social movement (arrival of a Jinnah or for India, a similar situation as to when Rajiv Gandhi was elected by a stomping majority right after Indira Gandhi`s assassination), etc.”

Comment: It is good that you see the possibility of “change.” Is there any way that we bring social change without the wars and economic difficulties? You are right that we need social movements to overcome some of our difficulties.

Your statement: “Your comment that until and unless India and Pakistan become friends or desire peace, nukes will not be removed. I suggest that there is a intervening stage, that is of strengthening of the command and control systems with a system of hot-lines, graduated response levels and the whole nuclear control structure. . . . Since they cannot be removed, make it as difficult as possible so as to obviate accidental release. In any case, if someone wanted to chuck a weapon of mass destruction NON ACCIDENTALLY (HA!!!), its quite easy to get a CBW weapon in a small aerosol canister and dunk it into the headwaters of Indus, jhelum, ganga, bhramaputra.”

Comment: Destruction is a much easy process than construction. Weapons will be produced as long as the entire global community allows them to be produced. A New World Order is possible if and if the more powerful nations in conjunction with other nations honestly desire to construct a mutually acceptable sense of global community. Is this possible under a predominantly capitalist set of social relation? I doubt very much. Should we try to bring social change? I would argue: Why not? Should we make an effort to slowly and gradually move toward the formation of a global community? Without any reservation, yes (not in a naive sense).

Your statement: “In any case, friendship will NOT obviate the need for nukes nor the desire to retain them.”

Comment: Friendship and the desire for peace are likely to reduce some unnecessary tensions between the two countries. The desire to become a nuclear power is not merely guided by the internal factors. The means of destruction will be produced as long as the global community would allow them to be produced. Are we a global community? Surely not. Am I asking for a major change in our attitudes over a short time period (my life time; our life time)? Definitely not. Finally, I tend to agree with your view that national and international reconciliation is a generational game.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

P.S. Please inform us more about Sarkar’s conceptualization of social reality.

#49 krashid

So Indians should reorient their thinking? You say this because (a) India is the problem (If only India gave up all will be well), or (b) Indians are the only ones equipped to reorient their thinking because they are more reasonable. Which is it?

Dear Bilal Saheb

Thank you for your comments. I hope I can do as much justice to your comments as you did to mine :)

Point 1&2. Good and Bad consequences of nukes. Bilal Saheb, the good and bad consequences have been discussed in exhaustive detail for the past 50 odd years. Very simply speaking, the decision to abandon nukes (a special class of weapon - this distinction is very important - the reasons are beyond this message) or to keep them is roughly a dynamic between security/international relations needs versus disarmament/liberalism and to a smaller extent, economic factors). Well, I suggest we briefly analyse 3 countries who have ``given - up`` nukes ``voluntarily``. These countries are South Africa, Brazil and Argentina. I would like to distinguish this group of countries with countries who have NEVER taken up nukes or have extremely strong opinions against them, for example Japan, the Nordic Nations, many European nations and to a lesser extent, Canada. So what made the former group of countries, take such a drastic step?. (this also answers your second point). In the 3 countries, the entire social system was overturned, ending of apartheid in case of South Africa, Military Rule and severe economic difficulties in case of Argentina and severe economic difficulties in Brazil. You would also note that each country came out of these massive social dislocations with an extremely charismatic leader in tow, who personally sponsored the removal of nuclear weapons capability or plans. So the answer to your question is, yes, nukes can be removed, but as you can see, only after significant social system disruptions capped with a charismatic / powerful leader.

Translating this to the South Asian scenario, I am afraid I am extremely doubtful that India or Pakistan will have such kind of situation in the immediate future. In India, coalition governments are here to say and the chances of a very powerful NATIONAL leader has gone. Nehru was one, Rajiv Gandhi had power thrust upon him by virtue of his massive majority, but both did not use it. India also didn`t have an economic implosion and wont have it either (just due to the sheer amount of static agricultural sector - IT and services notwithstanding). Which leaves war to trip the dynamic over to the disarmament side. Now for Pakistan. After the Quaid, there has been only ONE strong leader appealing to all sections of society, Bhutto and then to a lesser extent Zia ul-Haq. I do not have to repeat why they would or did want nukes. Economic implosion is a distinct possibility, but I can say, with fair certainty, that this will not happen, specially not on the scale of hyperinflation in the times of the Weimar republic. A nuclear state is NOT allowed to implode economically (Ukraine and USSR). Which leaves war.

I have to admit that the religious factor and the willingness to die/kill for religion puts another wildcard into play. Logically speaking, we come to the conclusion that only after a nuclear war, will disarmament take place. Now, while posturing and sabre rattling is quite common, this should not trip over to nuclear exchange, which is the reason why I am suggesting strengthening of the command and control systems. If we manage to keep the hotheads under control, then hopefully the generational change and economic upliftment of our people will slowly tip the balance. Another point to be considered which is VERY important within the South Asian framework is the relative cheapness of human life. Till we value human life as worthless (or near worthless), killings and nuclear weapons are nothing bad per se`. In any case, how many times you have heard this statement, there are too many people in our countries anyway.

Point 3, a. impossible to attain a sense of global community within a capitalist framework, b. advisability of social change, c. initiating and movement towards a global community.

I agree whole-heartedly on points b and c. I am afraid I would place more emphasis and faith on the very same capitalistic system than any other social system. That could be because of my prior history, training and inclination and I am willing to discuss it in greater length. My simple hypothesis is that economic welfare is best achieved within a capitalist framework, a pure meritocracy which is matched with concern and action towards poorer sections of society and the environment. Call it compassionate conservatism or a centrist political philosophy (I think the UK and Canada have managed to achieve a reasonable balance). Given the WTO machine, lowering of tariffs and import/export duties, trade is mushrooming and economic upliftment does reduce the dangerous aspects of ``nationalism``.

Point 4, I agree with your points totally.

As for Sarkar`s law of social cycles, I will have to check out my research papers, its been a long time since I referred to it, if I find the references, i shall post them here.

Hope to hear your comments.

Sincerely

bd

Bilal Saheb

Here are the references that I could procure at short notice:

Sarkar, Prabhat Ranjan, ``Law of Social Cycles`` in _Human Society_ Part 2 (Calcutta: A.M. Press 1967)

Batra, Ravi, _The Crash of the Millennium_,

1999, Harmony Books; NY?

The book on amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609605127/o/qid=966479581/sr=8-1/026-6189724-8301252

You may find this url interesting as well, fascinating as a matter of fact.

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/future/j7/SOMERVILLE.html

Another discussion on Sarkar`s Law

http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg24282.html

I apologise, I dont have all the papers and references to hand, but if you are still interested, I would be happy to try to procure the original paper as well as Batra`s book and we can discuss further.

Sincerely

bd

In response to bd (Replies # 52 & 53)
Dear bd:
Thank your for the citations and various URL`s. I will get back to you if I have any more comments or questions.
Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

In response to bd (Replies # 52)
Dear bd:

Your statement: ``My simple hypothesis is that economic welfare is best achieved within a capitalist framework, a pure meritocracy which is matched with concern and action towards poorer sections of society and the environment.``

Comment: Is this your view? If so, what is the basis of your hypothesis. Isn`t it profit maximization that lies at the heart of capitalism? If yes, how profit is maximized with what consequences? Please explain.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

bd #48

It appears that you are some form of economist.

I seem to agree with your idea of Capitalist production and spill over to common man leading to overall progress.

Will the society always remain the same, and is it a law of nature, against which human particularly born poor are destined to go in.

With Capitalist production, wealth is accumulated in one class, with its attendant political power.

Let me give you an example, situation in 1993 in US when I first came in, although the times were not very bad but still in magazines like Times there was an air of Foreigner bashing.

Due to accumulation of Capital, the ruling class are more secure than common man. In bad times, the common man struggles among themselves, manifesting in biases and trampling of other people on the basis of race, creed, color, netionality etc etc. Another manifestation is going to war by soldiers. Why would a person go for the defense of his country meaning Capitalist of his country except by necessity, when he can earn a good living without war and act as a mercenary(save a few heavily indoctrinated people).

If the sources of power mulitiply, and there is enough power to common man, both of which are related to economic strength only then there is a chance of realizing potential of man to full extent.

You are right practically, that is what is reality. But this reality, is very dark.

Like once accumulation of wealth is enough, the power that may be, can work the common man like robots. They will find enough workers to fight war. Enough people as journalist to justify war and killing of people, enough people to prepare machinery of war, creating conditions in the world for war to sell weapons. (The irony of this is that this war business is a very important part of capital development and economy with its attendant benefit to people working in it). Some manifestation is everyday experience in America, which if got worse will be as I am saying above.

I think, I am talking utopia. But human development should be the target. Although Capital generation and human development go hand in hand, but prioritizing human development will take a effective arsenal out of Capitalist armentararium.

Wishful thinking on my part.

RE: KRashid# 56

Very genuine and intelligent arguments, Sir.

In response to bd (Reply # 53)

Dear bd:

Are you aware of the literature on longwave cycles of economic growth and decline? If not, I would like you to read pages 85-88 of Paul Knox and John Agnew’s “The Geography of the World Economy” (Arnold, London, 1989). These pages provide a concise and critical discussion of the contribution of Kondratieff‘s 50-year long cycles. As far as Ravi Batra is concerned, I have reservations about his scholarship. The science of economic forecasting is still in a rudimentary. Ravi Batra has to date failed to come to grips with the complexity of economic forecasting.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Bilal and Rashid,

I am combining your questions in one response here, since Bilal sahib is asking a macro justification while Rashid sahib is commenting on the ``dark`` side of capitalism. I wish I could have given my background, that could have explained quite a lot behind my statements, but as you would appreciate, I fear that it will compromise my independence and objectivity behind my statements and comments on chowk. Lets just say that I have experience of military duties, entrepreneurship, rigorous academic studies and very extensive international financial markets including personal work experience in more than 40 countries. My love for my country took me through many areas (including various religions), trying to find the best way to ``help`` my country, and I have come to the following conclusions (wrongly or rightly).

1. Man is essentially greedy and self - centred.

2. For man to care about his fellow man, some third party motivation/compulsion is required. That third party can be religion, money (greed). If you want to go philosophical, its fear and / or desire which drives man.

3. Man has a fantastic capability to surprise you by being extremely cruel as well as becoming extremely altruistic.

4. The first 2 conclusions operate independently of time, or of social units more than an individual, family, neighbourhood, city/town/village, state, country, continent.

Bilal Sahib, I will not bore you with the economic theories behind political systems or economic systems. Simply speaking, in an ideal world, profit maximisation is in equilibrium between the forces of demand/supply/price, given the other equilibrium between raw materials, labour and services. Profit will be maximised given the above mentioned equilibrium constraints and this has worked quite successfully across the world and within our countries as well. Other economic systems, like socialism break this relationship down. This introduces a inconsistency within the system. Governments, by virtue of being a monopoly, is a very inefficient distributor of resources. Consequently, the cost of production, the cost of distribution and the cost to the consumer does not have any relationship at all within a socialist system, simply because this relationship starts to include extraneous factors.

Let me give an example, say a government has a public sector enterprise making a consumer good - say bread (dont laugh, India has a huge public sector company making bread - dont ask why). The stated objective, of making the bread at a cost effective price is submerged or overshadowed by labour, capital and raw material objectives. Consequently, the massive dislocation of resources does nobody any good. Given a reasonably free market, capitalism works for its stated objective to provide goods at equilibrium prices, wages and capital. This again as been observed all over the world, and there is no reason why this will not continue. This allows the satisfaction of conclusion #1. For provision of natural monopoly services such as electricity, travel, education, healthcare etc., private enterprise combined with a strong and effective regulatory regime is preferable to total government control (re Canada, united kingdom and the host of countries in Europe and Asia).

The final nail in the coffin of socialism and bouquet in the arms of capitalism is that this greed / selfishness of man is best captured in the form of a strict meritocracy. If you wanted to look at an example, just look at India, as Rashid Sahib mentioned, who would have ever thought that India will take off at 6-8% growth after 1990?, its the same for Pakistan as well but the political situation and lack of institutions make it difficult. That is a different argument and no place here. But I am a firm believer in our people. If the shackles of corruption are dropped and a good capitalist framework given to our people, they will rock the world. In case you doubt that, I would just point to the millions of South Asians who generally perform excellently once they are outside our countries. Meritocracy usually exists extremely poorly with utopia and socialism, hence my distrust. I would prefer to work with what we have and what we are, then assume what we dont and work from there, building on sand, so to say, make the greed, selfishness and meritocracy work for our countries.

With respect to conclusion #2, the third party compulsion to make an individual man care for his fellow man. This is where the government, NGO, faith based organisations should and do step in. This includes societal facilities, starting from defence of the realm to provision of elementary, primary and secondary education to make citizens functionally literate (that`s all), universal health care and caring for the aged (difficult and contentious one). I again point to the UK, Canada and Europe for examples of such frameworks, similar organisational structures also exist in South Asia) There is a fine balance between a government managing social responsibilities and using resources efficiently/effectively but it can be met. I personally doubt and fear faith based organisations, simply because monetary compulsions can be managed, religious based compulsions have a nasty habit of devouring good intentions and shooting off into unknown directions (mainly because of conclusion #1). I hope, Bilal Sahib, I have managed to explain why I think that the capitalist model with a strong social conscience is the best possible framework for the development of our countries. I have no problem with people maximising their profits, subject to the equilibrium conditions mentioned above and a strong institutional framework.

Rashid, you have raised some very very interesting points, I dont know whether I would be able to explain it satisfactorily, in any case, here goes.

1. In a capitalistic meritocratic society, every man is a common man. Every man has certain disadvantages and certain opportunities. What should NOT happen is that the disadvantages should be put on you deliberately, that is wrong and I condemn it strongly. With a good rule of law, this problem should be avoided. People will always be poor and people will always be rich, expecting everybody to be equal is an utopia which I have no belief in, plus it violates the law of nature and laws of physics. Your point of wealth sticking to one class is a misnomer, Rashid Sahib, these classes are artificial classes, and they keep on breaking down over time, new classes emerge and so on and so forth. I take your point about built in racism in USA in 1993, but could I give you the counter example? if I am not wrong, the entire south Asian ethnic group is overall the richest in USA?, even more than the whites? do you see my point here? given free flow of ideas and a meritocratic society, people do rise up above their class/station. Just like you and Bilal Sahib, education, jumping at opportunities, etc. all drive people to succeed.

2. Rashid, as for the defence of the country. This is going to be contentious, but here we are. People in defence forces are there because of 1. its just a job and there are no others, 2. they have a religio/nationalistic drive, 3. it educates them for free (short service commissions), 4. it allows them to legally kill. Except for the points 1 and 3, there is no economic consideration involved at all. So, even within a capitalistic society, the defence forces can be formed and people join up. That is an entirely different dimension to the capitalistic/socialistic discussion.

3. As for the rest of your points, I totally agree, resource investment in war industries is logically if not economically correct, but as you said, that is what is real and happening in the world. We have to manage around it. My hope is that given freedom to trade in a capitalistic meritocratic society, the incidences of war will reduce (for example, for more than 400 years France, England and Germany or their ancestors fought to the death, now they are in economic and political brotherhood in just a matter of 10-15 years post WW2. We have to get the greed and self-centeredness of man to work for us instead of against us.

I do realise the above sounds extremely cold blooded, too black and white and extremist. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost patience with egalitarian ideas of utopia and decided, if you cannot beat them, work with them and gradually turn them around. I look forward to your comments.

Sincerely

bd

my email address is beady@visto.com, in case you want to take this offline :)

Urstruly 57

Why you are reminding me of my grey hairs which have become grey early. Sir.

I forgot the name of person, but if you remember the mass suicide in Jonestown. There are evidences according to a documentary, that CIA or some other agency was very interested in him. Because it was for them emperiment in mind control. And as far as my meagre knowledge goes, they are very interested in experiments to control mind.

There is no way out. Once the accumulation of Capital is sufficient and money concentrated in few hands. As a group or class, they will be able to manipulate practically everything and we will acting like a robots in a very predictable fashion.

Particularly, if the voice of dissent or a different voice has no means to express itself, except by himself.

I have not seen but heard about a movie of Charlie Chaplain where in the end he acted strangely because he was as much a machine as the machines (or something of sort).

I don`t think this is going to happen. Because, I think it is not God`s wisdom. The knowledge and technology and continuous strive has its survival advantage over lethargy and acceptance of status quo. And with the expansion of knowledge and technology, the power is going to be distributed more equitably. But its price is continuous struggle, rather than accepting status quo.

Just think about the actions taken against Microsoft with full Government force under many garbs. My opinion is fuzzy, but I think growth of microsoft, would have changed the current power structure of American Business and Government. But this technological revolution I think is going to expand the knowledge base and increase in scattering of power.

Just ramblings.

Don`t remind me of my grey hair.

The last line was a joke not serious.

In response to bd (Reply # 59)

Dear bd:

Thank you for sharing your personal, academic, and other background with me. I wish to make a few additional comment for your consideration.

I treat capitalism as a necessarily growth oriented, technologically dynamic, and crisis prone system. Marxian scholars have paid considerable attention upon an understanding of capitalist crisis. One of the ways capital can temporarily and in part surmount crisis of overaccumulation of capital (particularly idle productive capacity and unemployed labor power) is through geographical expansion. This is what David Harvey calls the “spatial fix” to capitalism’s contradictions. No study of capitalism ever makes much sense if it neglects the spatial component of capitalist development and its consequences. Remember that space is bounded and the resulting geographical landscape is not only unevenly developed but strongly differentiated.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

RE: BD, Bilal and Rashid

I have been following your discussion for a while and found it to be a great learning experience. I would really appreacite if you dont take this discussion off of this thread yet-it is invaluable.

Being a ``mistery`` by profession I wont be able to contribute much but I am a good listener.

Thanks

Bilal Saheb #58

I am sorry for the delay in answering your comment. Actually, my research specialisation was in financial markets and financial economics, hence my reference to Batra. While I do share your doubts about the viability and reliability on economic forecasting, I found Batra`s thesis fascinating more from the viewpoint of Sarkar`s Law. I am personally doubtful about the viability of long term economic models (On the other hand, real options theory in financial economics do offer a fascinating way of judging long term investments such as power stations etc.). There are just too few data points to draw meaningful comparisons or models, and these mostly dont stand up post sample or when the assumptions are relaxed. Considering that I work in the financial markets, I have to judge models with a very simple rule, do they make money?. Unfortunately, they dont, but do offer broad guidelines. Thank you for the reference, I will make it a point to look it up.

Coming back to these broad guidelines, Sarkar suggests that the transformation of society from teacher led to soldier led to business led to worker led and back to teacher led and this is fascinating. That instinctively appealed to me as a concept to explain societal movements on a broader scale. Do you have any other references on this kind of social theory?

Sincerely

bd

bd #

Your points are well taken.

What you are pointing as Capitalist with compassion.

(I am not economist, so please take my words in a political sense).

If you remember the Capitalism in last century, and the poor condition of workers in Europe and America, the compassion factor was missing. People sweating in factory for 18 hours a day just to be able minimally to survive.

As Maxim Gorky wrote in Mother:

a worker at the age of 28 sick with T.B said that the mill owner has taken away all the energies of his youth, so that the mill owner can buy a pot of gold for his concubine.

The bad time on Capitalism arise when the revolution in Russia started and Communist movement started to spread in other parts of world. So it was not for compassion, that Capitalist suddendly decided, to abandon their profit. If you see that FDR, and Atelly in US and UK announced it in 1940`s.

And more the threat of Communism increased, more compassioante the Capitalist countries became.

Apart from China, which is a big hindrance now, I don`t see any real threat to Capitalist economy.

If you are viewing the recent events, you will be aware of cost cutting measures, by Capitalist like mergers, laying off decreasing people`s dependence on Government funds and other cost cutting measures. (I work in a rural Hispanic area and I know that with good times with economy in such a boom, if people are living like this. If the times are little hard, people will be in much worse condition).

Now as I have alluded to before, that Capital does not means Capital, but power and absolute Capital means absolute power.

On a different note. Although, you have to say, that China has to adopt Capitalist mode of production. But the reason of its economy for me is self dependence.

Because, for the same reasons you are giving, maximizing profit, Capitalist will not like or want self sufficient economies emerging, who can challenge them. Its manifestation is seen in the actions all over the world by Capitalist Countries.

Although, some are loathing Nehru, for backward economy of India. But isn`t it the Nehru, whose investment in Education and Institutes are bearing fruit for India, now.

If it was left to Capitalist, would Indian people had a chance.

I am pretty sure Capitalist will be very happy at the situation in India, with multiple divisions and weakening of Nationalistic forces (Hinduvta is very disastrous for India in long run and is not Nationalistic but forced as nationalit). In appropriate time they will be making inroads to maximize their profit without much resistance.

Just ramblings.