2011 has been a weird year. Osama finally bit the bullet,the US came within a hair's breadth of going broke and we were supposed to be in collective "raptures" , whatever that meant. But the defining event of this year has been what Niall Ferguson calls a "global temper tantrum" . At last count, citizens from the following countries had come out on the street to protest, burn stuff and generally vent their anger at anything from corruption to more primal needs like freedom: Syria, Bahrain,Egypt,Libya, Yemen,Tunisia, China,India, Greece, Portugal,France, Italy,Thailand,Spain,Russia and now the UK.Not since the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late Eighties, has the world seen such an explosion of spontaneous uprisings cutting across geographies and cultures.
If the late Eighties' revolutions signaled the end of communism, I am left wondering what the present ones mean, considering that democracy is the method of choice in most of the aforementioned countries. What form for governance is fairer than democracy? Dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, communism all have perished with some finality.
We have to realize that the thread that binds these events is economic. Even the middle-eastern uprisings were as much about a tepid economy providing no jobs and growth than it was about dictatorial abuses. Western Europe has been in the clutches of a recession so bad that economies are collapsing like nine-pins .Proud welfare-oriented societies have had no option but to cut back, leading to a visceral backlash.Russia and India have revolted against corruption in varying degrees, but one feels it has rather less to do with morality than with the realization that corruption is a serious impediment to the citizens' own financial aspirations by tarnishing the country's global image and introducing inefficiencies in the market. That would explain the significant participation of the middle class, previously apathetic, but now heirs to the treasures of economic liberalization. It seems apparent that the much touted metamorphosis of the human into the homo-economicus has now been brought to pass.We will forever more vote with our wallets.Is that better than voting for an ideology? In a way, it does transcend petty parts of our identity like race, religion and caste but it does condemn us to be less "human".
So,maybe these uprisings were against ideology based politics of either slant and a shift to more tangible outcomes and accountability. Maybe it is time for the leaders to realize that the knowledge asymmetry , through which they cling to power, has been nullified by the advent of the Internet. No longer can politicians get away by invoking the founding ideals of the Constitution and appealing to our humanity. Maybe it is time to acknowledge the rise of the homo-economicus. The tide has turned, the rebels have yelled, GenY means business...
If the late Eighties' revolutions signaled the end of communism, I am left wondering what the present ones mean, considering that democracy is the method of choice in most of the aforementioned countries. What form for governance is fairer than democracy? Dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, communism all have perished with some finality.
We have to realize that the thread that binds these events is economic. Even the middle-eastern uprisings were as much about a tepid economy providing no jobs and growth than it was about dictatorial abuses. Western Europe has been in the clutches of a recession so bad that economies are collapsing like nine-pins .Proud welfare-oriented societies have had no option but to cut back, leading to a visceral backlash.Russia and India have revolted against corruption in varying degrees, but one feels it has rather less to do with morality than with the realization that corruption is a serious impediment to the citizens' own financial aspirations by tarnishing the country's global image and introducing inefficiencies in the market. That would explain the significant participation of the middle class, previously apathetic, but now heirs to the treasures of economic liberalization. It seems apparent that the much touted metamorphosis of the human into the homo-economicus has now been brought to pass.We will forever more vote with our wallets.Is that better than voting for an ideology? In a way, it does transcend petty parts of our identity like race, religion and caste but it does condemn us to be less "human".
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| Part-politician, part-machine..fully random |
So,maybe these uprisings were against ideology based politics of either slant and a shift to more tangible outcomes and accountability. Maybe it is time for the leaders to realize that the knowledge asymmetry , through which they cling to power, has been nullified by the advent of the Internet. No longer can politicians get away by invoking the founding ideals of the Constitution and appealing to our humanity. Maybe it is time to acknowledge the rise of the homo-economicus. The tide has turned, the rebels have yelled, GenY means business...
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