Opinion What Marx Didnt Know
The odd thing capitalists do
Adam Smith. Karl Marx. Joseph Schumpeter. Thinkers who asked the big questions on capitalism,from differing and/or opposing points of view. And,basically,all questions on the political economy of capitalism till now are derivatives of their thinking. There have been no more big thinkers,not that big.
Stop. Stop. You are saying. This is a weekly column on news TV. Whats all this with Marx/Sharx? Theres a link. Its not always true that original and big questions on the political economy of capitalism are not asked any more. Sometimes news TV asks them. When you hear news TV ask those questions your response is the same as when you first pick up Marxs Das Kapital. Which is: huh?! With time and patience it is possible to understand what Marx is saying. Can you crack the news TV big questions on capitalism?
This one,for example: CNN-IBNs Face the Nation on Air Indias trade unions. The anchor posits the question,about a third of the way into the discussion: you have a situation where wages are going down and capitalists are sharing profits,that capitalists are just sharing the profits of the company when wages are going down.
Capitalists are sharing profits with whom? Smith and Marx and Schumpeter and everyone else I know say capitalists make profits. But,no,apparently,we have a situation where capitalists are sharing profits. You see what I mean BIG question.
But lets assume,as economists often do,CNN-IBN also wanted to say that we have a situation where capitalists are making profits when wages are going down. Where do we have such a situation? Air India? Lets again assume,lets pretend that AI is run by capitalists and not the sarkar. Are wages going down in AI? No. Have they gone down over any recent time frame? No. Didnt one panellist in that show point out that public sector wages in fact have outpaced inflation,quoting the Economic Survey? Yes. So,how come we have a situation where wages are going down? I dont know. I bet Smith/Marx/Schumpeter wouldnt have known either. BIG question.
CNN-IBN also said trade unions humanise the workplace by checking capitalist excesses. In fact,it said it twice,at the beginning of the show do unions check capitalist excesses or do they obstruct growth and during that bit when capitalists were revealed to have been sharing profits. Only news TV can ask whether or not unions are a check on capitalist excesses in the context of a white-collar,public sector union going on a sudden strike. There isnt a capitalist in sight in the Air India story. I know we assumed AI is a capitalist organisation earlier in this column. But we cant keep assuming that,can we?
Okay,so CNN-IBN was asking the BIG question on unions and capitalists in the context of one example of unionism. And to that end the show discussed several examples of actual capitalist organisations and union behaviour. No! It didnt! Not beyond capitalists sharing profits when wages are going down. It just asked the BIG question on capitalist excesses. Why did it ask the BIG question when it wasnt,as became apparent,actually going to talk about it? BIG question.
D. Raja said on the show,in the D. Raja style that I love,that India escaped the global recession because of,among other things,its big public sector industry. This was so gloriously illogical and such pure pleasure could have been had with it but I was too preoccupied with Capitalism 101,as brought to us by CNN-IBN.
A simpler question than what capitalism means: When theres a tragedy,when people have died,died horribly,where should news TV cameras draw the line? On Aaj Tak,after the AI crash,shots of charred bodies seemed to engender no editorial qualms at all. Some other Hindi-language broadcasters were equally prepared to push the envelope on live images of death. Who will check the excesses of news TV? For the sake of news TV,for the sake of the media in general,news TV should do it itself.
saubhik.chakrabarti@expressindia.com
Share
