Modern progress seems to be a cold-blooded creation of oligarchy. Creating a few on the top of the economic and control pyramid, who have all the powers. This irreversible concentration of wealth with the soulless corporates, who are right at the top of the economic pyramid, widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
SAJI P MATHEW OFM
‘What is progress?’ is the starting question of the mind expanding documentary called, Surviving Progress (2011). In a world of 195 countries (may be a few more) with a planet with 7.8 billion people, this is a difficult question. Rightly so, the documentary does not answer the question; but unambiguously throws light on what is not progress. Modern progress seems to be a cold-blooded creation of oligarchy. Creating a few on the top of the economic and control pyramid, who have all the powers.
What does it mean on economic terms? A glance at the grand GDP deception may give some clarity. A country’s progress is calculated by its gross domestic product (GDP). India’s GDP is 2.6 trillion dollars; India has 1.38 bullion people. India’s per capita GDP is calculated as Rs. 148064. It is portrayed that every person in India has an annual income of Rs. 148064. But what is the truth? This 1.38 billion people are there only for the calculation; the income in millions per annum goes to only less than 1 percent; and income in billions per annum goes to top 117 people, with Mukesh Ambani heading the chart. India has 40 crore people just earning below Rs. 32 a day, around Rs. 10000 a year.
This irreversible concentration of wealth with the soulless corporates, who are right at the top of the economic pyramid, widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. In this era of chronic capitalism, progress is what the corporates bring about for their advantage; a capitalist government makes the toiling masses believe that it is for the advantage of the masses. And the politicians are paid for it.
The Peasants' War
I love Kathe Kollwitz for a few reasons. Firstly she being a woman artist who got noticed, or rather the world could not ignore her in the first half of the 20th century, a time when art was thought not of women’s realm.
Secondly, her regards and concern are for those at the bottom of the social scale. She made people; often labourers and mothers with children, suffering under severe social contradictions brought about as a result of Germany’s rapid modernization her subject for art. Perhaps it is more right to say that she made art serve the marginalised.
Thirdly, for me she was like finding of a treasure. I had never heard of her in art history classes; or in academic books of expressionism, where she actually belongs; or in religious circles when they go verbal about the option for the poor. It is another proof for the argument that history is written by men and the victors. It may soon be rephrased as ‘history is written by the corporates and the chronic capitalist governments’.
Fourthly, for what she contained. Her young son was killed in the battlefield during the First World War. She never went after perpetuators of war. In all her other series, she portrays the emotional agony and resilience of the victims. Her work proclaimed loud and clear that a war perhaps has victors, but surely creates victims.
Kollwitz’s two great series concerned with social injustice: A Weavers’ Revolt, completed in 1897; and Peasants’ War completed in 1908, depicting a peasants’ uprising in 16th century Germany. The artist uses the historical setting to show the state of farmers and workers all along history. The peasants are always out. They, as their produces, are used; used to satisfy ones bodily appetite to getting a political party into power. They never had power to themselves, to make decisions and to manage their businesses. Centuries later history repeats itself on Delhi streets. And the graffiti stands, “every time history repeats itself the price goes up.”
Take over by the corporates
Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country –William Jennings Brain.
Why are the framers spending this biting winter on the roads risking everything? Plainly speaking, they are on a twofold mission; on the one hand they are fighting the corporates from taking over the country; and on the other hand, they are revolting against the government that is selling the country to the corporates.
Simon Johnson, former chief economist of International Monetary Fund, explains how this taking over by the corporates happen. People who got the economic power use that power to buy influence. With that power to influence the governments, they get more deregulations and more of the playing fields shaped in the way they want it; with no government interventions and restrictions. That allows them to make more money and with that they buy more political power and influence. That explains why our government and governments elsewhere are hostile and at times even violent to the civil society protesting and dissenting peacefully.
The farmers most often are in debts. The corporates and their banks willingly and with generous gestures lend to the farmers and the struggling middleclass. How much can they pay back every year? They can pay only as much they earn. Now with new Farm Laws their earnings will be controlled by the corporates who have lent them money. With the new Farm Laws 70 percent of people in India who depend primarily on agriculture for their livelihood will lose their bargaining and purchasing power.
End of Progress
Ronald Wright, the author of A Short History of Progress, has coined a phrase, ‘Progress trap’. He defines it as human behavior that appears like improvement and seems like that there is no down side to it. But when they reach a certain stage they reach dead-ends or become traps. They ultimately lead to disaster because they are unsustainable. Going back to the Stone Age, when our ancestors were hunting animals, they reached a stage when their weaponry and hunting techniques had become so good; they discovered ways to kill two animals instead of one with the same weaponry. That was progress. But when they discovered that they could kill a whole herd of two hundred animals at once by driving them over a cliff and they could have more than what they need, had fallen into, what Ronald Wright called as, the progress trap. They had made unsustainable progress. The result then was that many animals became endangered; and food eventually became less available.
Discovery of nuclear energy was one of the most promising discoveries of 20th century. It had prospects of contributing immensely to improve applications in the fields of agriculture, medicine, space exploration, water desalination and more. Nuclear energy was a discovery towards progress. Look at the happenings in 1945. It was a progress trap. On august 6th the first atomic bomb called the Little boy was dropped in Hiroshima, Japan; killing thousands of people, making thousands and thousands of people handicapped, and worse still, people come to know the fact, that their mothers will for years, thereafter, will live with the chances of giving birth to deformities and a mass of ill formed human flesh, because of the massive radiations. But what did the world learn from this tragic incident? May be they grew more confident of their power to kill. Thus few days after on the 9th of August 1945, a second bomb called the Fat man was dropped in Nagasaki: killing even more people, making more chances of deformities and abnormalities. When progress gets caught in a progress trap, progress becomes suicidal.
Over consumption or over population
If every person in every part of the world has to consume like the affluent of the world, the world can accommodate only one third, even less, of present population. The carbon footprint of those on the top of consumption pyramid is upsetting. Someone in the United States or Europe is consuming 50 times more resources than a poor person in places like Bangladesh or India, if China or India has to reach the level of consumption like the United States or Europe, it is very unlikely that the earth can support
Environmental scientists in every major summit on earth highlight the alarming increase of carbon in the air. In 2020, the carbon level in air is more than 400 parts per million (ppm). When the Industrial Revolution began, the carbon count in air was below 200 ppm. The maximum possible level of carbon in air is 450 ppm. The distance between us and the end of breathing is less than 50 ppm.
Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their report in early 21st century noted that if the earth is still inhabitable, it is because the third world countries are not developed as massively as the first world countries. Dr. Sunil P. Ilayidam in his speech on the World Environment Day gives further statistics: a person’s average annual carbon emission per year in the US and in other super developed counties is 27 tons. Around 5 billion living in poorer countries has an average carbon emission of 1.5 tons per person. Imagine if this 5 billion hit the ‘progress path’ and begin to emit 27 tons carbon per person; that would be the end of the world. Dr. Sunil concludes humorously, it is not because of the massive developments of the first world countries that the earth is enduring, but by the non-development of the third world countries. The Five billion of world’s poor can boldly stand up to the two plus billion rich of the world, saying, “you live because of us”. Yes, it is not the other way as we always think. The question comes back to us. What is the real problem over consumption or over population? It’s worth recalling the words of the Mahatma; “The earth has enough resources to meet the needs of all but not enough to satisfy the greed of even one person.”
We make a road by walking.
Our Farmers are on the road. What is our response? It is easy to be apolitical when we are the privileged section, when all our needs are met, and when we do not see beyond our nose. In the bible, Qoheleth, the preacher, begins his discourse with a pessimistic proverbial question, is there anything new under the sun? I would think it is a question of the privileged, who wants to keep the past going undisturbed. After about 200 years Jesus gave the optimistic answer to that question. Yes, new is possible. And the new happens by we beginning to walk in a new direction.
The famous book that records the conversation on education and social change between Myles Horton and Paulo Freire is titled We Make the Road by Walking. Let this New Year be a year of fresh strolls and walks that create new roads of inclusive progress. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021.
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