INEQUALITY TECHNOLOGY AND DEMOCRACY
A lot of talks are going
on about the World Inequality Report 2022. In the mean time the US has
organized and hosted @first Summit for Democracy.
Interestingly although the said report has no connection with the summit and
when we go for doing some analysis of inequality on one hand and of democracy
on the other hand we find that at the end we arrive at the point where we
find inequality in terms of economics is nothing but an
authoritarian way of distribution of economic resources and this is the
concentration of inequality of economic endowments and resources against the
masses which promotes authoritarianism against the democracy.
Democracy
is not only a political system. That is just a myopic solution to see
democracy as a pure political system as envisaged by Margret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan during 1980s. They and after them most of the world leaders
failed to understand that if concentration of political power within a few
hands was allowed to continue to grow this would only
enable small groups of the rich and the super rich to dominate and to
capture political power by using vast resources which would help in
subordinating masses to the might of money and political power.
This happened and the seats of power all over the world started being
slipped into the laps of crony capitalists.
On the
other hand social dimension of economic inequality was never considered extensively. Social
value system was hurriedly replaced to provide room for
authoritarianism. Worldwide prevalence of patriarchy has been responsible in
the long run in strengthening the tendency of inequality .We can enumerate the
lists of the causes which explain the role of and also impact of inequality .
In nut shell we can safely say that economic inequality gets its life from
political authoritarianism which is opposite to democracy but paradoxically is
present in many so called democracies. Even this word of democracy is
extensively used both by politicians and capital owners just to regularize
their monopoly over political and economic resources and this monopoly over
economic and political resources enables small groups of oligarchs -Crony capitalists to
capture the social structure of the country or the society. Hence with increase
of inequality in economic and political terms the social capital becomes
concentrated in the hands of oligarchs -Crony capitalists and they consciously
promote the value system in the society which is conducive for their growth.
This is the reason behind strong social trends that support inequality ,
communalism and open and unhindered market system, meritocracy. All
these trends go against the majority of population and keep them pauperized so
that they for their basic needs continue to depend on the philanthropy and
mercy of the system. Even the latest trend of limiting human capability with
the help of technology originates from this philosophy of inequality. In fact
growing inequality is not a failure of modern capitalism rather it's the
strongest tool of modern capitalism which guarantees oligarchic rule in the
sacred name of democracy.
On
the other hand technology is marching ahead at very fast speed. Technology is
changing from traditional intelligence to Artificial Intelligence. Automation
and digitization have caused shrinking of labor market resulting in
decline of employment opportunities and consequently economic inequality has
become sharp. Those who are at the top of the pyramid don't prefer to allow
government expenditure on social sector. When democracy is dependent on
capitalists leaders for their own sake are not in a position to out rightly
brush their wishes aside. Elections in modern crony capitalist democracies have
been being fought not by convincing people but by winning people by employing
some emotional issues or by combination of money and muscle power or by
combination of the two. In such a situation for voters more than
inequality other questions are important for choosing their governments. This
serves the purpose of crony capitalism to continue to keep hold on resources in
the name of democracy. Modern democracies in name of free market
economy and meritocracy have given up their one of the basic tasks of social welfares.
This has propelled inequality in the milieu of changing technology.
Besides failure in investment in social welfares failure to
maintain the level of knowledge required for meeting technological advancement
is another reason for rising inequality. Today in the era of AI driven
technology skill is the new capital which if neglected population of working age is not
able to earn sufficient. This on the one hand makes majority of working people
vulnerable and on the other hand keeps the owners in advantageous position
. This generates a huge "useless class" as Yuval Noah Harari calls.
As this turns majority of the population week in bargaining democracy
suffers as the "useless class" is efficiently used by politicians as
plebeians to consolidate their power by engaging them in vigilantism. In this
way though democracy still exists as a system of governance it exists without
the independent choice of the people .It is run by oligarchs for furtherance of
their own interests.
Then what are the way
outs? For reducing inequality we need certain governmental interferences
urgently.
First the governments will have to increase
investments in health, education, skill development and social welfare sectors.
Second, certain institutional changes have to be introduced to make wage
distribution more pragmatic, opportunities for modern education and skill
developments more accessible. Infrastructure must be developed throughout the
country. These are pre market interferences. Similarly post market
interferences in form of tax reforms .Similarly industrial and agricultural
policies must be framed in such a way that more and more people can have access
with beneficial returns. At micro levels we need more decentralized and localized
interferences. A country of the size of India there are many areas which are
economically untapped. We need to harness their capabilities. Green energy is
another area where much needs to be done. So inequality is more an issue
of public policy and it has less to do with technology. Democracy has more
direct connection with the state of inequality. Governments will have to come
out of the graveyards of politics to do their job of policy formulation and
execution. Unless this is done democracy is bound to suffer as if inequality is
not lessened by conscious interferences crony capitalism will continue to
dominate eroding the base of democracy.