‘Thugocracy’ versus development
Tangalle incident a timely reminder
January 14, 2012, 4:39 pm
by Kumar David
Pecuniary corruption does not necessarily undermine the emergence of capitalism as the example of the robber barons of yore bears witness; but the sociologically otiose free reign of goons and thugs, bearing allegiance to and protected by the ruling party or regime, invariably derails the development of capitalism, especially in modern times. Capitalism emerged in one of two ways. In the cities and city states of Sixteenth Century Italy and Holland and in subsequent decades in England there emerged a class of burghers or citizens of independent means; the prototype of today’s entrepreneur. The city burghers were not in fealty to the landed classes of the countryside, nor were they incorporated into the rigidity and restrictions of the guild system by which artisans were bound. Soon the opening of overseas trade from the great ports of Venice, Antwerp and London encouraged accumulation of mercantile capital (accumulation from trade and commerce rather than manufacturing and industry which came later). This is how capitalism first took root.
Then the common lands were robbed (recall the Waste Lands Ordinance and Colebrook-Cameron reforms in 19th Century Ceylon) and the peasantry expelled, disallowing the people in the countryside a time honoured usufruct, thus creating a market for goods, and a creature that had nothing but his labour-power to sell, the working class. This is how capitalism was consolidated.
There was also another genesis. In a later period, in continental Europe, Germany and Russia, and in China, the accumulation of capital also found another route. Robber barons were an instrument of primitive accumulation through robbery and acquisition by force. Of course mercantilisms retained a role, as fascinating Chinese compradors, go-betweens connecting European merchant houses to suppliers of goods and labour, depict in the early history of Shanghai, Tsingtao and Hong Kong. But away from the colonial settlements in Asia, and in Europe till disciplined by Napoleon’s rearrangement of the European map and nearly a century later till subjected to Bismarck’s iron yoke, robber barons accumulated and readied for their future role as captains of industry. Corruption of business ethics and unbridled financial impropriety are not new, nor a product of an age of finance capital; they are congenital to capitalism.
The restoration of capitalism in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union also followed the bandit trail. In the 1990s in the Yeltsin years, state property, the common property of the people, was stolen by party and government apparatchiks who emerged as the new Russian rulers. In this they were aided and abetted by IMF and American Ivy League business schools bent on stripping national property and vesting it new oligarchic classes. Subsequently in the Putin years, corrupt and vicious, oligarchs began gouging out each others eyes and burying Russian civil society under slime. But hateful as it is there is nevertheless a historical process unfolding. It is the grubby story of the rebirth of capitalism in Russia.
The goons of UPFA politics
However none of the foregoing should be confused with the rule of the goon and the thug that UPFA politics has instituted in the last five years. The processes so far described in the outside world, nasty though they were, were also agents of historical change; midwives to a new, materially more powerful world order called capitalism. The ubiquitous political goon in today’s Sri Lanka must not be confused with such agents of socio-economic change pregnant within society. The political goons and thugs that populate the environs of UPFA polity are neither the conscious nor unconscious agents of a historical process; they are vehicles of pure political terrorism, economic vultures; and worse, they disrupt the progress of industry, commerce and the services. The UPFA’s ‘thugocracy’ is socially pernicious and it is also historically nihilistic.
Imagine an incident such as the following that we have all witnessed at firsthand or heard about reliably at second-hand. Car A, perhaps carrying a family or a group of ordinary folk, has a brush, an accident or altercation between drivers, with car B. Promptly, out of car B pour scowling heavy set types, perhaps inebriated, who thump on the bonnet and maybe yank open driver A’s door. Then conversation invariably goes like this. "Do you know who we are? I am the brother in law of such and such a Provincial Chief Minister, Junior Minister, relative of the Royal Family". This is followed by foul language indifferent to the presence of children. Or the goons may point to a fat slob in national dress squatting in the back seat of car B and demand to know: "Do you know who he is?" The answer is supplied forthwith and brags on about similar political connections or family nexus.
If the occupants of A have any sense they will bend their heads, grovel and whimper; it cares not tuppence who was right or wrong. The women in A are already screaming at sons or husbands to shut up, if any had the temerity to talk law points. The police! What police? Have you ever heard of an incident such as this where the police, having arrived more than 45 minutes later, have not grovelled before the chief political goon? Go to courts! Is the judiciary in recent times any different? True its stuffed and ceremonial costumes are more colourful than the drab grey of the policemen.
The point I am driving at is twofold. Firstly, this has become the norm whether on the roads, in club, restaurant or hotel, or even at private gatherings if you have the bad luck to cross the path or contradict an almighty UPFA politico – all of them are almighty! Secondly, and this completes my picture, this mobster behaviour, when it becomes the style and sinew of the ruling party, goes beyond loutish performances per se, it injures economic activity on a national scale.
Tourism the first casualty
I am not supportive of excessive emphasis on the expansion of tourism, though its limited and well managed contributory role as a currency earner has to be recognised. Unfortunately the government’s attitude to the expansion of tourism lacks good sense and is effusive and goes overboard into over-fulsome commitment. There are several reasons why restraint must be employed in developing tourism; emphasis must be placed on the hard economic sectors such as industry and export-led development not soft sectors, secondly tourism has cultural implications that conservatives, religious types and the sexually repressed get fidgety about; third it leads to economic losses for ordinary folk (loss of beach front land, selling of Colombo’s choice locations – maybe for 10% on the side), and fourth, what is relevant to the topic of this piece, is that tourism is very volatile. A few incidents and the market crashes.
Of course there will be one-of incidents anywhere in the world and a robust tourist industry will ride through comfortably. Countless numbers have their pockets picked on the streets of Rome and some say that pinching bottoms actually increases the flow of the nubile and the voluptuous to the eternal city. But the Italian police force and legal system are not at the beck and call of ruling party politicians. Or in the US, someone as high as the Managing Director of the IMF could not push his weight around with New York’s public prosecutor.
However, as in the Tangalle murder of a tourist and the sexual harassment of a foreign female, when political entanglement with the UPFA surfaces, and when it is alleged that there are high protective connections, the incident falls within the ambit of my discourse in this article. The peculiarity of police and official responses confirms this. That there is a breakdown of law and order in the country because of political protection afforded at high places is not news to readers; the Bharatha Lakshman killing was a recent prior incident. The point is this: In any incident involving political connection, including the Lakshman and Tangalle events, there is no confidence in the public mind at home, that justice will be done. If a similar belief spreads abroad about tourism, it will be curtains for the tourist industry. This will have a hefty economic cost because the government and private investors are pouring money into the sector.
Ruling party goons and right-hand men of people in high places are not robber barons accumulating capital by strong arm means for investment and development. No, they are vultures and parasites pure and simple contributing to the despoilment of the economy. One or two more Tangalle like incidents and tourism will dry up. The most frightening thought, however, is this: How can the government stop recurrence when it is in hock to these very goons because they are the managers of its support base? My gloomy assessment is that ‘thugocracy’ cannot be abolished as it lies at the heart of the UPFA’s political gearing and supplements the military repression exercised by the central state.
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