l. Introduction

All nations today compete with each other to strengthen their political economy by increasing wealth and military power. While the progress of technology and increase in production and use of marketable wealth provide physical conditions for enhancing happiness and security in life, more individuals, communities, and nations face ill-fare1 and violence2. The more the quantity and variety of marketable wealth increases the more people face starvation, joblessness, homelessness, and ill health, get killed, and commit suicide. Apart from this, the means being adopted to increase wealth create violence and economic, ecological, and ethical crises. Therefore, this paper seeks to examine the political economy of the creation of wealth through violence and deprivation of the people.

ll. Reasons behind growing ill-fare in the economy.

ll.1. Wrong ends and means of economic growth.

Elevation of unlimited quantity and variety of marketable wealth as the measure of success of political economy and the means being adopted to achieve that goal are the basic reasons that create the paradox referred to above. In the past, when production was regulated by social practices to ensure the sustenance of all people, the quantity and variety of ‘marketable wealth’3 were limited. During those days life was happy and secure with limited quantity and variety of marketable goods in the community. As against this, the Market Economy today promotes the production of more marketable goods and avoids space for production and sharing of non-marketable services. This is the main reason for the growing ill-fare in the community despite the abundant supply of marketable goods.

Aggressive efforts with the help of modern technology to produce/appropriate more marketable wealth are another reason behind this situation. With the expansion and intensification of capitalistic production/appropriation strategies, encroachment on the ecology increases. The resulting natural calamities and pandemic destroy life and livelihood of many people. From the beginning of history, individuals, communities and countries have been using violence against owners of resources and human bodies (slaves and workers) to produce/appropriate more wealth. Different forms of violence used by the political economy at different stages of history are given elsewhere. Due to the wrong end and means of economic growth referred to above, the political economy today has become violence-ridden and anti-people.

ll.2. High proportion of wealth with negative utility

It was referred to above that the production/appropriation of wealth through encroachment on the ecology and on the property of other people and the human body has been violence-ridden. Wealth that helps sustenance of life and that contributes to conveniences and comforts in life are goods with positive utility and those which destroy life and property are goods with negative utility. While the production and use of the former unleash violence indirectly, the use of the latter like weapons, warplanes, liquor, and narcotics produce violence directly. It must be realised that these goods are priced very high in the market. Therefore, countries that seek more wealth and power divert more resources including technology to produce more weapons and war planes by leaving fewer resources available to produce essential goods. This raises the level of poverty. In the race to increase the value of wealth, all countries increase the proportion of goods with negative utility in their total wealth. This is evident from the fact that the wealthiest countries in the world are those that produce and export weapons and warplanes. As per the report of SIPRI, in 2020, the USA, Russia, France, and Germany exported arms to the value of $9372 billion, $3203 billion, $1995 billion and $1232 billion respectively4.

ll.3. Neglect of non-marketable wealth

In the social economy before the development of the market, marketable wealth was minimal and non-marketable wealth like love, caring, and sharing in the community was in abundance. It is the abundance of non-marketable wealth that provided welfare and avoided ill-fare in society in the past. Now, we have reached a critical stage when the availability of non-marketable wealth in society is getting eliminated. This is a big deficit humanity faces today. What is more unfortunate is that while the political economy encourages the production of marketable wealth, especially with a higher proportion of goods with negative utility, religions organised primarily for the cultivation and nurturing of non-marketable wealth very disturbingly abandon this duty and go after a marketable wealth-centric world.

ll.4. Violence-ridden Accumulation

Whereas provisioning for the sustenance of the people was the main objective of production and trade in the past, today it is accumulation. It is from the time of the introduction of money, accumulation of wealth that transformed the stationary economy with limited activities to a dynamic economy with unlimited activities has become the fulcrum around which economic activities take place. In other words, it is the accumulation that acts as the engine of economic growth. While it is inevitable for economic growth, attempts to raise the rate of accumulation have been a major source of violence by individuals, corporations and nations. Therefore, Marx5writes: “Primitive accumulation plays in political economy about the same part as original sin in theology”.

To raise the rate of accumulation, some people take away an undue share of the national wealth and income. It is with concealed or open support of the state, that people with wealth and power make aggressive accumulation. The state supports this section of the people with the justification that they would invest their wealth to produce more goods and employment in the economy. However, in their efforts to enhance profit, the investors reduce the number of workers. The allocation of more capital towards financial and speculative activities to earn higher profit further reduces the production of goods and employment. As a result, while the investing class becomes richer, the masses become poorer. This is the political economy of accumulation of capital and deprivation of the masses.

Slave labour, extortion of rent from tenants, usury, brigandage, piracy, the slave trade, and colonialism were the pre-capitalist forms of accumulation socked in violence and blood. Industrial Revolution in the 17th century introduced capitalist accumulation through the generation of ‘surplus value’ by exploiting the workers. However, capitalist accumulation through stepping up the rate of profit has proven crisis ridden. During the past 300 years, economies have faced 30 crises of different magnitude. The Great Depression of 1930s and of 2008 were the biggest crises. Each financial crisis by raising the number of jobless and homeless and by causing erosion of wealth of millions of small and medium investors in the stock and money market, helps the capitalists to enhance their accumulation. The governments, instead of helping those who lose jobs and houses as a result of the economic crisis, rush to rescue the banks by pumping in billions of dollars with the justification that it is urgently needed to restore people’s confidence in the banking system to prevent further collapse of the economy. In this way, each financial crisis works as a mechanism for the redistribution of wealth in favour of the big capitalists.

Pumping out taxpayers’ money by the governments to revive the economy provides only temporary relief. Therefore, governments help ‘post-capitalist accumulation’ through neoliberal economic policies. Privatisation of Public Sector Companies at a throwaway price, legislative support for swallowing small and medium companies by the big ones through merger and acquisition, transfer of public funds to private companies through tax concessions, transfer of forests, land, and waters to corporations for mining, industrial, recreational and fishing activities either at a low price or on long term lease for a token rent, providing and improving infrastructure facilities like airports, sea ports, high ways, electric supply, communication networks etc. at the expense of the state to reduce the cost of production and transportation of private companies, giving a huge amount of liberal loans by public sector banks to big corporations and writing off those loans and diluting labour legislations to allow the employers to extract more labour from the workers are the measures being used to help ‘post-capitalist accumulation’.

While gifting of forests, land, and waters to corporations by forcibly acquiring those from the owners / traditional users by driving away millions of people from their lives and livelihoods unleashes direct violence; other measures referred to above are embedded with concealed violence. Whereas pre-capitalist accumulation was done through open violence, capitalist accumulation (except in the Soviet Union) has been done through concealed violence. But ‘post-capitalist accumulation’ allows both concealed and open violence. Springer6holds that neoliberalism itself is a particular form of violence. What is more unfortunate is that, today, capitalists to maximise accumulation with the support of the state make use of pre-capitalist, capitalist, and post-capitalist methods of accumulation that intensify the depth and dimension of violence. When the powerful accumulate more wealth and power, many people lose their sustenance, freedom, and security.

ll.5. Ascent of money and financialisation of the economy

It was the introduction of money as a medium of exchange that radically changed the objective, functioning, and structure of political economy. The use of money as an instrument for accumulation has intensified exploitation, oppression, and widening inequality in the economy. Money which appeared as a very useful servant for humans to settle transactions has become the master today, transforming not only economic activities but also the life and outlook of the people, their values, philosophy, and ideology. Further, financialisation of the economy that transforms the economy as a casino economy while serving the billionaires to multiply their wealth turns millions of people jobless and homeless. Today, we live in a money-driven civilisation that propels death, suicide, terrorism, and military interventions.

When money became capital for earning profit through trade in goods; lending and borrowing on interest also emerged as an economic activity. The resulting expansion of banks and financial institutions paved the way for debt-driven slavery and land alienation. With the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, money has become the instrument for exploiting workers through the generation of ‘surplus value’. In fact, a major malady of money is that it destroys social relations. “Money is relational -social, political, ethical and spiritual”; writes Egom7. The economy evolved as a web of relations – relations between land, labour, capital, material resources, machines, producers, traders, and consumers on the one hand, and between people in the society on the other. With the growing role of money, all relations are transformed into monetary relations, and all values are measured in terms of money. Whereas humans and their needs were at the centre of the economy until the time of monetisation, today, the urge of ‘greedy money’ 8 to multiply becomes the fulcrum around which the economy functions. Innovative ways of making money became the fastest way to increase personal wealth. According to Engels and Marx, money is merely an instrument of capitalist exploitation, replacing all human relationships, even within the family, with the calculus ‘cash nexuses. “Money is a seductive power just because it is money. The power of money has become much greater in modern times, because, it has become interwoven with the power of the State”; writes Haan9.

Duchrow10 writes how money from its very inception was used as the end and means of wars and building empires. Money has been used as capital for the weapon industry, waging war, making military interventions, espionage, maintaining military bases and establishing and maintaining empires. With the emergence of the democratic political system, business corporations multiply their wealth by investing their money as capital to support political parties. As a result, political economy and global economic and political power structures and relations in every country are governed by the power of money.

As industrial capitalism has proven crisis-ridden and unsustainable, we have moved to the next stage namely, financial capitalism11. This brings back pre-industrial usury and rent in an elevated position. This is supported by the neoliberal and free-market doctrines of Milton Friedman of the Chicago School of Economics. Referring to the disproportionate growth of the financial sector in the economy, Furguson12 writes: “Planet finance was beginning to dwarf the Planet Earth”.

While industrial capitalism earns profit by exploiting the workers, it creates jobs and goods. As against this, finance capitalism generates profit without creating jobs and goods, but by multiplying wealth by playing games in the finance, currency, real estate, and stock markets. In fact, the financialisation of the economy as a mechanism facilitates a steep rise in the number of billionaires in each country and across the world by forcing hunger, joblessness, landlessness, and homelessness on millions of people. Along with this, the ascent of money over everything transforms the political economy and international treaties to serve the interests of the super-rich and the powerful; and creates a money-driven civilisation that abandons the values, philosophy, and ideology that used to respect and protect life and dignity of the people in the past. After the US Civil War, Abraham Lincoln dreamed of a future where “money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity and democracy will rise superior to the money power”. However, “with the victory of monetarism (and Friedman) and welfareism (and Keynes) money became the master. Central Banks with the responsibility to look after the health of money, acquired independence from elected governments whose responsibility is the health of the citizens”: writes Maira Arun13. In this regard, Furguson14writes: “ If the last four millennia had witnessed the ascent of man the thinker, we now seemed to be living through the ascent of man the banker”. Compared to its role in the past, money today is at the helm of society, economy, politics, and religions, controlling and regulating the structures, functions, relations, and thinking of people in all areas of life.

ll.6. Demise of ethics and social relations in economics

Adam Smith15 the father of economics wrote in 1776: “The first of the two objectives of political economy is to provide for the sustenance of the people”. By holding this, Smith placed the science of economics on the foundation of ethics. After a century, Alfred Marshall defined economics as ‘the science that studies human behaviour in relation to wealth’. This disturbed the thinkers of that time. Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin got angry about this transformation of economics. Ruskin who worried about people turning crazy to become rich and elevating production and distribution of wealth to the rank of social science held that happy living and, not getting rich should be the end of human endeavour. Some critics ridiculed Marshall’s economics as a “pig philosophy” and a “dismal science”.

Since the middle of the 20th century, economies have been driven with the objective of achieving a high rate of economic growth with the promise that it will promote ‘development’. However, the strategies being adopted for this intensify improvisation of the masses on the one hand, and the occurrence of economic and ecological crises on the other. Many economists raise voices against this situation and plead for a re-look at the project of ‘development’. Myrdal 16, a Nobel laurite defined development as a rise in the level of living of the masses. Sen17 another Nobel laurite conceives development as freedom. Bhaduri18argues that ‘development with dignity’ can be achieved only by breaking systematically the social barriers of discrimination and prejudices based on gander, caste, language, religion, and ethnicity. Parameswaran19 conceives ‘development’ with three ingredients: physical, social, and spiritual quality of life. Normally, spirituality is treated as something related to religion alone. Social spirituality is needed for the fullness of life in a humane community. The dissociation of ethics from economics is the reason behind the paradox of growing misery amid increase in material wealth. It is the particular set of economic policies of the state, orchestrated by economic theories based on mathematical formulations devoid of not to speak ethics, but even the fragrance of social science is at the root of the deprivation of millions of people. Unfortunately, we still rely on the same breed of economists/economic theories to resolve the problems they have created.

Economists all the time used to emphasise the role of values and relations in the social economy; and economic theory is very clear about the role of relations. For each mode of production, there is a corresponding relation of production, and it is the latter that determines who contributes what to production and who gets what from the economy. The mode of production and the technology, while producing goods also produce a set of relations in the social economy. Whereas the mode of production in traditional economies produced a set of values of cooperation, caring for others, and looking up the society above the individual; the capitalist mode of production produces the values of individualism, pure materialism and competition that discard values of love, caring and sharing in the community. Self-centered and wealth-centered values of the Market Economy work against the well-being of all.

Economics ceases to be a social science if it does not pay attention to the role of relations in society. Kurien20writes: “The economy is about people (and not merely about things, commodities, and money) and about relationships among people”. Sen21 holds the view that economics should be concerned with people. But unfortunately, mainstream economists do not provide any space for the people and relationships among them in their theories and policies. Diwan22writes:

“Human well-being does not depend on material consumption. It follows from stable family relations and a viable community… There is now ample evidence that policies targeted purely for economic growth are not only inimical to family stability but are positively destructive of family and community. Communities in all industrial societies have broken up and now there is an increasing pressure to break up the last vestige of the community”.

It is high time that we brought back ethics to the centre of economics and liberate the science of economics from the captivity of mathematical equations and reinstate it as a social science.

ll.7. Coalition of economic, political and religious powers

Power referred to as the ability to control the actions, mind-set and thinking of the people, events, property, economy, society, religion, and governance of the country is a very valuable resource that can be used either to empower or disempower the people. While all people need a certain amount of wealth and power, those who govern the economy, nations and religions need more. Therefore, people/ society delegated more power and funds to the governing authorities to enable them to protect and enhance the power and capabilities of the people through protective, promotive and punitive measures. But, when the authorities use their power given by the people for appropriating more power for themselves, instead of for serving the people better, many people are made powerless. Therefore, who holds power, how much, for what purpose and how long that determines the level of freedom and well-being of the people are crucial issues in any society.

The State must acquire power to empower the powerless and to protect freedom and rights of the powerless. Therefore, acquisition of power by the State, individuals, groups and corporations has to be audited by the society. Wealth, education/knowledge, nature of job, caste affiliation, religious and political connections etc, are the sources of power of individuals. Among these forms of power, economic and political powers are more problematic. Emergence of the Market Economy and Democracy as economic and political counterparts paved the way for the coalition of elites in the economy and politics holding control over political and economic policies of nations to serve their interests. By using modern technology, State and big players in the economy amplify their power and use it for their benefits by denying life, rights, liberty, and dignity for vast majority of the people.

From the very inception, the State has been neglecting its assigned duty to protect the rights and powers of the people. The history of ancient Greek and Roman states shows that it is by disempowering people as slaves and tenants the earliest States functioned. Later, power got centralised in the hands of despotic rulers. Even today there are authoritarian governments. Democratic governments today share part of their power with big corporations and international lending and regulating organisations like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organisation in a concealed way. These entities subjugate the nation-state and national economies for their benefit. As power is dispersed this way, people find it difficult to identify the sources of power that work against them and to organise fight against that.

It is when masters of politics and economy joined together to disempower and oppress the people, religions emerged as a countervailing force.. However, during the Dark Ages, religions everywhere functioned as superpower controlling the centres of economic and political power against the interests of the people. In Europe, under feudalism, the Church not only sub-ordinated kings but also through its teachings controlled the thinking and mindset of the people. Although the Modern Age helped States to get liberated from the control of religion, today, we find the emergence of a strong coalition of business corporations, States, and religion in many countries.

ll.8. Hegemony of the market

It is the hegemony of the Market along with all other issues referred to above that makes the wealth-centric economy intensely anti-people. To understand the hegemony of the Market, we must distinguish the Market and the Market Economy. The market that emerged over a long period as a servant to the people and the economy is a useful and unavoidable institution. Its role and contributions are so important that the social economy cannot function without it. As against this, Market Economy refers to a socio-economic and political system under the hegemony of the so-called Free Market designed, directed, and controlled by a few industrial, trading, and financial oligarchies with the sole objective of enhancing their profit. It is an unfree market where crucial decisions about what to produce, how to produce, for whom to produce, who should get what from the economy, and mobilisation, control and pricing of the resources and products are controlled by the big corporations. The Market Economy not only takes these decisions to the interests of the super-rich and the powerful, but also subjugates the political system – the parliament, the executive, the media, and even the mind-set of the judiciary to serve the interests of its masters. Therefore, the servanthood of the market and hegemonic power of the Market Economy are to be distinguished. The merit of the Market Economy is that it helps the production of more material wealth in terms of value. The main defect of the Market Economy is that it excludes not only the poor and the powerless from their life and livelihood but also the small and medium enterprises from existence. It is the power of exclusion of the Market Economy that helps big corporations multiply their wealth and use their wealth to buy the ruling and opposition political parties to protect their interests.

What is more disturbing is that, from its very inception, the global market has been engineered through flags and gunboats. Competition between the leading countries for controlling the global market was the reason behind World War l and ll. The present phase of globalised market is working with the support of militarisation. It is a project of neo-imperialism backed by militarism. Thomas Friedman, a staunch advocate of neoliberalism affirms that the so-called “Free market” is expected to work with the support of the military power of the US. He writes23: “For globalisation to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald cannot flourish without MacDonnel Douglas, the designer of the F-25. And the hidden first that keeps the world for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps”.

“Globalisation and militarisation should be seen as two sides of the same coin. On the one side, globalisation promotes the conditions that lead to unrest, inequality, conflict, and ultimately war. On the other side, globalisation fuels the means to wage war by protecting and promoting the military industries needed to produce sophisticated weaponry. The weaponry is used – or its use is threatened – to protect investments of transnational corporations and their shares”: writes Stevens 24.

Globalised hegemonic Market with the support of military power helps big corporations and powerful nations to subjugate and control national economies and nation states. The global market with international organisations like World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organisation has created an international economic order that facilitates economic growth, monetary expansion, and privatisation against the common good of the people.

It must be noted that it is in the advanced countries where the latest medical care facilities are available, both the rate of COVID-19 infection as a percentage of the total population and the rate of death as a percentage of the infected were very high. These empirical facts ought to raise the voice for abandoning the policy of commoditisation of health care and for demanding total health care as the responsibility of the State. It must be reiterated that when the procedures of health care services and availability of medicines are controlled by the pharmacy industrialists to fatten their kitty, health care services will not be accessible to the masses.

The new policy leaves medical education also to profit-motivated entrepreneurs. Many medical colleges and institutions offering medical and para-medical courses are mushrooming everywhere. Whereas the criterion for admission for students in the medical institutions run by the governments or government-funded private institutions was based on academic achievements of the students, that in the new breed of institutions is based on the money power of the parents, without considering the learning capability of the students. The adverse impacts of the services of doctors with inadequate learning skills on the fate of millions of patients are bound to be frightening.

It must be remembered that the policy of commoditisation of health care, like that of water is also aimed at opening new areas of ’post-capitalist accumulation’. To promote this sector as an area of accumulation, the governments promote not only corporate hospitals and diagnostic centres but also private medical colleges and private health insurance companies. Publicly funded insurance schemes transfer public funds directly to private hospitals and private insurance companies. As protecting the life of the people is the responsibility of the State, health care services, development of medicines, and medical education must be insulated from the influence of the Market.

lll. Conclusion

The wealth-centered economy under the hegemony of the market is anti-people and violence-ridden. It places wealth and profit above people. Therefore, those who are committed to enhancing the sustenance, freedom, and dignity of the people are bound to make search for an alternative, people-centered political economy

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Notes and References:

• Kurien C.T (2012) Wealth and Ill-fare: An Expedition into Real Life Economics, Books for Change International Publishing House, Bangalore
• Itty John M (2017) Search for Non-Violent and People-Centric Development,Globethics.net, Geneva
• There are two kinds of wealth: Marketable goods and services that are bought and sold and non-marketable services like love and care for others, social concern, civic consciousness, sense of being part of the community, etc. that are not bought and sold in the market.
• Report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Wikipedia. Org. accessed on 19.1.2021
• Marx Karl (1986) Capital Vol.l, Progressive Publishers, Moscow, (First published 1887) P.667
• Springer Simon (2015) The Violence of Neoliberalism, Paper, Department of Geography, University of Victoria.
• Egom Peter Alexander (2007) Economic Mind of God. Adione, The Equal Opportunity Publishers, Lagos.
• Duchrow Ulrich &Hinkalammest Franz (2012) Transcending Greedy Money: Interreligious Solidarity for Just Relations, Palgrave Mac Millan, New York
• Haan Roelf (1988) The Economics of Honour, WCC Publications, Geneva
• Durchrow Ulrich “The Geopolitics of Knowledge in the 21st Century”, Peoples’ Reporter, Vol.32, Issues 1, 2, 3&4, Mumbai, 2019
• Finance capitalism refers to a pattern of accumulation in which profit-making is sought increasingly through financial speculation rather than through production and trade of commodities.
• Furguson Niall (2008) The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Allan Lane, London
• Maira Arun ”The shape of Indian economic pie must change”, The Hindu, National News Paper, Kochi, 15.November 2022
• Ferguson Niall .op.cited Smith Adam (1961) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (Ed) Edwin Can, Butler & Tanner Ltd, London (First Published 1776)
• Myrdal Gunnar (1968) Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Poverty of Nations, Penguin Books, Middlesex
• Sen Amartya (2001) Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Bhaduri Amit (2005) Development with Dignity, National Book Trust of India, New Delhi
• Parameswaran M.P (2004) Fourth World (Malayalam) D. C. Books, Kottayam
• Kurien C.T (1992) The Economy: An Interpretative Introduction, Sage Publications, New Delhi
• Sen Amartya (1999) On Ethics and Economics, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
• Diwan Ramesh, “Economic Reforms, Untenable Assumptions and an Alternative” Economic and Political Weekly, Feb.24, 1996
• Friedman Thomas, New York Times, 29 March 1999
• Stevens Staples, Social Justice Magazine, Vol.27 No.4. 1999