Monday 29 April 2013

May Day Message 2013


The laborers of the world are celebrating one more May Day. I wish them all prosperity and well being.
I am not a leftist thinker; but I insist on a human face to every economic theory.
I am not a follower of Karl Marx, the great German thinker who has influenced the world less than Jesus Christ; but I am admirer of him.
I agree with full heart that this fellow was a great thinker, his economic theory is real science and his ideas will never die because ideas seldom die.

I am happy to see laborers celebrating May Day. I always have a heart for the poor and less privileged. I agree that the underprivileged has a right for a better share of world’s wealth.
This May Day deepens my concern for them. The gap between the rich and the underprivileged are widening to a frightening chasm.

Marx, the author of das capital, believed in class conflict based on economic inequalities that would determine the course of history. His dream of a proletariat dictatorship has not worked out well. The exponents of communism have fallen into the flashing prosperity of capitalism. Russia has broken up into pieces. China within the wall is implementing capitalism. Other communist or socialist countries have given up the dream.  Thanks to some small countries which still holds on the dream.

The burial place and memorial of Karl Marx in Highgate cemetery, London really demands better respect. Photographs of it are despairing. He has given the world a profound scientific theory that will never die.

The capitalist panacea for world economic problems – globalization, has grown today to a fruit bearing tree. Every tree is known by the fruit.
Unfortunately, the fruits of this tree are not promising. The world has fallen into a never before depth of economic crash. European countries are in fear of a second depression which may knell their death.
Global economy is facing an extended crisis and none of its practitioners are able to predict a new sun rise. Workers around the world are suffering from joblessness, debt and poor incomes. Laborers are more and more are unsatisfied by the capitalist economy. The middle class tastes the bitter fruits of capitalism and globalization. Money value decreases and income remain stagnant.

Where are these signs leading us to: may be to an economic doom which our think tanks are trying to avert.

Can we easily dismiss Marx’s bitter criticism that capitalism is inherently unjust and self destructive. Marx predicted that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth concentrates in the hands of a greedy few. This concentration of wealth is sure to cause economic crises and conflict between the rich and working classes. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,” Marx wrote.

Is he right? I find no reason to say ‘no’.

In USA, the working class and the middle class has realized that they are the underprivileged 99% working hard to make the 1% richer. The President of USA Barack Omaba wants to levy the rich more to fund social security measures. In France the new president, Socialist Party’s François Hollande, has proclaimed: “I don’t like the rich.” He too wants super taxes imposed on the rich. But the rich replies to his challenge by moving out of France to other capitalist nations. His critics describes the situation as: “Rather than relying on (entrepreneurs) to create the companies and jobs we need, France is hounding them away.”

The rich-poor divide is growing to a frightening level in China. Even in emerging markets like India, tension between rich and poor is becoming a primary concern for policymakers. India puts one step forward and two steps backward. Will it work or broke?

Marx could predict such an outcome. His dream may materialize in such a situation where the proletariat woke to their common class interests and overthrow the unjust capitalist system. He dreamed of a day the proletariat would replace capitalism with a new, socialist Utopia.
Marx wrote. “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.”

Today no one among the world economists is denying the fact that that the world’s laborers are increasingly impatient with their feeble prospects. Workers around the world, of the different countries, have found their common problems. In the near future, if capitalism would not come up with another magic wand, they may unite together to resolve their problems.

In this grave scenario, I wish you all a HAPPY MAY DAY

 Further reading: Ideas Never Die

Professor Jacob Abraham                                                                            

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