Capitalism: A Ghost Story Read online

  Today we know that “the American way of life”—the model that the rest of the world is meant to aspire toward—has resulted in four hundred people owning the wealth of half of the population of the United States. It has meant thousands of people being turned out of their homes and jobs while the US government bailed out banks and corporations—American International Group (AIG) alone was given 182 billion dollars.

  The Indian government worships US economic policy. As a result of twenty years of the Free Market economy, today one hundred of India’s richest people own assets worth one-fourth of the country’s GDP while more than 80 percent of the people live on less than fifty cents a day.3 Two hundred fifty thousand farmers driven into a spiral of death have committed suicide.4 We call this progress and now think of ourselves as a superpower. Like you, we are well qualified, we have nuclear bombs and obscene inequality.

  The good news is that people have had enough and are not going to take it anymore. The Occupy Movement has joined thousands of other resistance movements all over the world in which the poorest of people are standing up and stopping the richest corporations in their tracks. Few of us dreamed that we would see you, the people of the United States, on our side, trying to do this in the heart of Empire. I don’t know how to communicate the enormity of what this means.

  They (the 1%) say that we don’t have demands . . . they don’t know, perhaps, that our anger alone would be enough to destroy them. But here are some things—a few “pre-revolutionary” thoughts I had—for us to think about together.

  We want to put a lid on this system that manufactures inequality.

  We want to put a cap on the unfettered accumulation of wealth and property by individuals as well as corporations.

  As cap-ists and lid-ites, we demand:

  One: An end to cross-ownership in businesses. For example: weapons manufacturers cannot own TV stations, mining corporations cannot run newspapers, business houses cannot fund universities, drug companies cannot control public health funds.

  Two: Natural resources and essential infrastructure—water supply, electricity, health, and education—cannot be privatized.

  Three: Everybody must have the right to shelter, education, and health care.

  Four: The children of the rich cannot inherit their parents’ wealth.

  This struggle has reawakened our imagination. Somewhere along the way, Capitalism reduced the idea of justice to mean just “human rights,” and the idea of dreaming of equality became blasphemous. We are not fighting to tinker with reforming a system that needs to be replaced.

  As a cap-ist and a lid-ite, I salute your struggle.

  Salaam and Zindabad.

  Notes

  1. Pablo Neruda, “The Judges,” in The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, ed. Ilan Stavans (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 229.

  PREFACE: THE PRESIDENT TOOK THE SALUTE

  1. “Migrants Blamed for Surging Crimes in Cities,” Indian Express, April 2, 2013, http://newindianexpress.com/nation/Migrants -blamed-for-surging-crimes-in-Delhi/2013/04/22/article1555785.ece.

  CHAPTER 1: CAPITALISM: A GHOST STORY

  1. “Mukesh Ambani Tops for the Third Year as India’s Richest,” Forbes Asia, news release, September 30, 2010. The article notes, “The combined net worth of India’s 100 richest people is $300 billion, up from $276 billion last year. This year, there are 69 billionaires on the India Rich List, 17 more than last year.” India’s 2009 GDP was $1.2 trillion.

  2. Vikas Bajaj, “For Wealthy Indian Family, Palatial House Is No Home,” New York Times, October 18, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/ 10/19/business/global/this-luxurious-house-is-not-a-home.html.

  3. Frederick Engels and Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party, trans. Samel Moore (Torfaen, UK: Merlin, 1998), 17.

  4. P. Sainath, “Farm Suicides Rise in Maharashtra, State Still Leads the List,” Hindu, July 3, 2012, www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/ sainath/article3595351.ece.

  5. National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector, Government of India, August 2007. The state-supported study notes that though a “buoyancy in the economy did lead to a sense of euphoria by the turn of the last century . . . a majority of the people . . . were not touched by this euphoria. At the end of 2004–5, about 836 million or 77 per cent of the population were living below Rs.20 a day and constituted most of India’s informal economy” (1).

  6. As of March 2013, Mukesh Ambani was worth $21.5 billion, according to a Forbes profile: http://www.forbes.com/profile/mukesh-ambani/.

  7. “RIL Buys 95% Stake in Infotel Broadband,” Times of India, June 11, 2010, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-06-11/telecom/28277245_1_infotel-broadband-broadband-wireless-access-spectrum-world-class-consumer-experiences.

  8. Depali Gupta, “Mukesh Ambani–Owned Infotel Broadband to Set Up over 1,000,000 Towers for 4G Operations,” Economic Times, August 23, 2012, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012 -04-23/news/31387124_1_telecom-towers-largest-tower-tower-arm.

  9. Brinda Karat, “Of Mines, Minerals and Tribal Rights,” Hindu, May 15, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/of-mines -minerals-and-tribal-rights/article3419034.ece.

  10. See Michael Levien, “The Land Question: Special Economic Zones and the Political Economy of Dispossession in India,” Journal of Peasant Studies 39, nos. 3–4 (2012): 933–69.

  11. S. Sakthivel and Pinaki Joddar, “Unorganised Sector Workforce in India: Trends, Patterns and Social Security Coverage,” Economic and Political Weekly, May 27, 2006, 2107–14.

  12. “India Approves Increase in Royalties on Mineral Mining,” Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB125006823591525437.html.

  13. From a 2009 Ministry of Rural Development report titled “State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms,” commissioned by the Government of India: “The new approach came about with the Salwa Judum. . . . [Its] first financiers . . were Tata and the Essar. . . . 640 villages as per official statistics were laid bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of the gun and the blessings of the state. 350,000 tribals, half the total population of Dantewada district are displaced, their womenfolk raped, their daughters killed, and their youth maimed. Those who could not escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee camps run and managed by the Salwa Judum. Others continue to hide in the forest or have migrated to the nearby tribal tracts in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. 640 villages are empty. Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest bidder. The latest information that is being circulated is that both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines” (161). http://www.rd.ap.gov.in/ IKPLand/MRD_Committee_Report_V_01_Mar_09.pdf.

  14. P. Pradhan, “Police Firing at Kalinganagar,” People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) report, Orissa. April 2006.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Sudha Ramachandran, “India’s War on Maoists under Attack,” Asia Times Online, May 26, 2010, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/ South_Asia/LE26Df02.html.

  17. “Anti-Naxal Operations: Gov’t to Deplot 10,000 CRPF Troopers,” Zeenews.com, October 30, 2012, http://zeenews.india.com/news/ nation/anti-naxal-operations-govt-to-deploy-10-000-crpf -troopers_808442.html. See also http://www.indiandefence.com/ forums/national-politics/22342-kanwar-yet-again-urges-army -action-naxals.html; http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/ India/20121115/2102012.html; http://articles.timesofindia .indiatimes.com/2012-06-02/india/31983397_1_s-vireesh -prabhu-gadchiroli-naxals.

  18. See Human Rights Watch, “Getting Away with Murder: 50 Years of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA),” August 2008. The report states that AFSPA’s ability to act “on suspicion” has led to thousands of disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir. Many of those who’ve disappeared are believed to be in “unmarked graves that security forces say are the burials
of unidentified militants. Human rights groups have long called for an independent investigation and forensic tests to establish the identity of those in the graves, but the government has yet to respond to that demand” (12).

  19. J. Balaji, “Soni Sori Case: HRW Wants PM to Order Impartial Probe on Torture,” Hindu, March 8, 2011, http://www.thehindu.com/news/ states/soni-sori-case-hrw-wants-pm-to-order-impartial-probe-on -torture/article2971330.ece?ref=relatedNews. Although Soni Sori has been acquitted in six of the eight cases filed against her, she remains in a Chhattisgarh jail. See Suvojit Bagchi, “Soni Sori Acquitted in a Case of Attack on Congress Leader,” Hindu, May 1, 2013, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/soni-sori-kodopi-acquitted -of-murder-charges/article4673791.ece.

  20. Aman Sethi, “High Court Stays Clearance for DB Power Coal Mine in Chhattisgarh,” Hindu, December 12, 2001, http://www.thehindu .com/todays-paper/tp-national/high-court-stays-clearance-for-db -power-coal-mine-in-chhattisgarh/article2707597.ece.

  21. Sanjib Kr Baruah, “Dam Wrong,” Hindustan Times, September 2, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Travel/ Dam-wrong/Article1-604611.aspx.

  22. “Kashmir Power Cut Protest Turns Deadly,” Aljazeera, January 3, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/01/ 201212181142597804.html.

  23. “Report Raised Fears about Proximity of Kalpasar Dam and Mithivirdi N-Project,” Indian Express, May 3, 2013, http:// www.indianexpress.com/news/-report-raised-fears-about-proximity -of-kalpsar-dam—-mithivirdi-nproject-/1110913/.

  24. Vinod K. Jose, “The Emperor Uncrowned: The Rise of Narendra Modi,” Caravan Magazine, March 1, 2012, http://www.caravanmagazine.in/print/1006.

  25. See http://www.investindholera.com/DMIC-projects.html.

  26. Maj. Gen. Dhruv Katoch et al., “Perception Management of the Indian Army,” Centre for Land Warfare Studies seminar, Delhi, February 21, 2012, http://www.claws.in/index.php?action =master&task=1092&u_id=36.

  27. Lydia Polgreen, “High Ideals and Corruption Dominate Think Festival Agenda,” New York Times, November 1, 2011, http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/high-ideals-and -corruption-dominate-think-festival-agenda/. While Tehelka held a “Summit of the Powerless” conference in 2006, initiating discussions of Naxalism and farmer suicides, the 2011 Think Fest, hosted by the same magazine, was a “glitzy and glamorous celebration” with guests including Thomas Friedman and India’s “mining barons and real estate tycoons” held “at a five-star resort . . . allegedly owned by men in jail awaiting charges involving the 2G telecommunications scam.”

  28. Raman Kirpal,“How Goa’s Illegal Ore Miners Are in League with CM Kamat,” First Post Politics, September 5, 2011, http://www .firstpost.com/politics/how-goas-illegal-ore-miners-are-in-league -with-cm-kamat-76437.html.

  29. Purnima S. Tripathi, “Battle of Bastar,” Frontline 29, no. 8 (April/May 2012), http://www.frontline.in/navigation/?type= static&page=flonnet&rdurl=fl2908/stories/20120504290803200.htm.

  30. “PIL on India Role in ‘Genocide,’” Telegraph India, March 21, 2013, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130321/jsp/nation/story _16698590.jsp#.Ud2nkuB1Pdk. Peter Cobus, “Indian Kashmir to ID Bodies from Unmarked Graves,” Voice of America, September 26, 2011, http://www.voanews.com/content/indian-kashmir-to-id -bodies-from-unmarked-graves-130632003/168028.html.

  31. Jaipur Sun, “Jaipur Lit Fest: Oprah Winfrey Charms Chaotic India,” Indian Express, January 22, 2012, http://www.indianexpress.com/ news/jaipur-lit-fest-oprah-winfrey-charms-chaotic-india/902640/.

  32. Gerard Colby, Thy Will Be Done: Conquest of the Amazon; Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (New York: Harper Collins, 1996).

  33. “Introduction: The Rockefellers,” American Experience, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/ features/introduction/rockefellers-introduction/. “Because of the ruthless war he waged to crush his competitors, Rockefeller was to many Americans the embodiment of an unjust and cruel economic system. Yet he lived a quiet and virtuous life. ‘I believe the power to make money is a gift of God,’ Rockefeller once said. ‘It is my duty to make money and even more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow men.’”

  34. Pablo Neruda, “Standard Oil Company,” in Canto General, trans. Jack Schmitt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 176.

  35. For further analysis of the Gates Foundation’s involvement in privatizing education, coupled with drastic reductions in government spending, see Jeff Bale and Sara Knopp, “Obama’s Neoliberal Agenda for Public Education,” in Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012).

  36. Joan Roelofs, “The Third Sector as a Protective Layer for Capitalism,” Monthly Review 47, no. 4 (September 1995): 16.

  37. Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2003).

  38. Eric Toussaint, Your Money or Your Life: The Tyranny of Global Finance (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005).

  39. Roelofs, “Third Sector.”

  40. Ibid.

  41. Ibid.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Erika Kinetz, “Small Loans Add Up to Lethal Debts.” Hindu, February 25, 2012 http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/small -loans-add-up-to-lethal-debts/article2932670.ece.

  44. David Ransom, “Ford Country: Building an Elite in Indonesia,” in The Trojan Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid, ed. Steve Weissman with members of the Pacific Studies Center and the North American Congress on Latin America (Palo Alto, CA: Ramparts, 1975), 93–116.

  45. Juan Gabriel Valdés, Pinochet’s Economists: The Chicago School of Economics in Chile (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

  46. Rajander Singh Negi, “Magsaysay Award: Asian Nobel, Not So Noble,” Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 34 (2008): 14–16.

  47. Narayan Lakshman,“World Bank Needs Anti-graft Policies,” Hindu, September 1, 2011, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp -international/world-bank-needs-antigraft-policies/article2416346.ece. Speaking to the Hindu, Navin Girishankar, one of the main authors of the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) study, said that “on the one hand there is a need to foster demand for good governance by helping improve the government responsiveness to pressures through greater transparency and more disclosure policies. . . . The Indian experience, including the Lokpal bills, might dovetail with this type of strategy.”

  48. Alejandra Viveros, “World Bank Announces Winners of Award for Outstanding Public Service,” April 15, 2008, http://web.worldbank.org/ WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21732141 ~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html.

  49. See Roelofs, “Third Sector.”

  50. Press Trust of India, “Infosys to Bid for UID Projects, Sees No Conflict of Interest,” Indian Express, June 27, 2009, http://www .indianexpress.com/news/infosys-to-bid-for-uid-projects-sees-no -conflict-of-interest/481849/.

  51. Justin Gillis, “Bill Gates Calls for More Accountability on Food Programs,” New York Times, February 23, 2012, http://green.blogs .nytimes.com/2012/02/23/bill-gates-calls-for-more-accountability -on-food-programs/.

  52. Robert Arnove, ed., Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980). In the essay “American Philanthropy and the Social Sciences,” Donald Fisher outlines US foundations’ role in shaping political thought through influence over university disciplines worldwide.

  53. See http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/topfunders/top100assets .html.

  54. See Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy.

  55. Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945–2006 (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2007).

  56. Devin Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965–1980 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009).

  57. The Department of Defense links to the King Center’s website and continues to play an active role in shaping how t
he United States celebrates King’s legacy. See http://www.defense.gov/News/ NewsArticle.aspx?ID=43313.

  58. See Roelofs, “Third Sector.”

  59. P. Vaidyanathan Iyer, “Dalit Inc. Ready to Show Business Can Beat Caste,” Indian Express, December 15, 2011, http://www.indianexpress .com/news/dalit-inc.-ready-to-show-business-can-beat-caste/888062/.

  60. See http://orfonline.org/cms/sites/orfonline/home.html. The ORF has also been directly involved in Modi’s ascent: of Modi’s participation in a conference hosted by Google, one ORF fellow said, “He is trying to project himself as a modern person who is keen on developmental issues and this summer offers him a platform to reach out to people of the younger generation—what we call aspirational India” (http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/google-hosts -narendra-modi-at-tech-summit/).

  61. See “Raytheon Aligns with Indian Companies to Pursue Emerging Opportunities,” November 13, 2007, http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/ index.php?s=43&item=870.

  62. Engels and Marx, Manifesto.

  CHAPTER 2: I’D RATHER NOT BE ANNA

  1. “Anna Hazare Himself Involved in Corruption, Says Congress,” Economic Times, August 14, 2011, http://articles.economictimes .indiatimes.com/2011-08-14/news/29886595_1_hind-swaraj-trust -anna-hazare-lokpal-bill. See also “Had Held Hazare Guilty of Corruption: PB Sawant,” IBNLive, August 14, 2011.

  2. Shortly after Hazare’s release from prison, the Telegraph reported that Hazare was sustained with glucose and electrolyte powder during his second “fast unto death.” Of the possible fraud, the physician who examined him, Abhijit Vaidya, offered an analysis: “I fear Hazare is being used as a tool to destabilise the government. . . . Corruption obviously needs to be fought but Hazare has never addressed other social issues such as economic inequality, extreme poverty and farmers’ suicides that are equally hurting the country.” “Secret of Fast? Hear It from a Pune Doctor,” Telegraph, August 16, 2011, http://www .telegraphindia.com/1110817/jsp/nation/story_14386100.jsp. See also “The Anna Hazare Scam,” Analytical Monthly Review, April 15, 2011, http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/amr150411.html.