Daily Archives: November 1, 2021

We've talked before about whether policymakers have overstimulated U.S. demand relative to our capacity to supply. What if it's happening at aglobalscale?

Goldman's Jeff Currie recently spoke about the reasons why commodity prices have spiked even higher this year than expected on the rebound in demand. One of the biggest factors, he said, is that populist "redistribution" policies have been "much more broad-based and global" than they expected. Latin America has moved to the left this year, Germany appears to be drifting that way post-Merkel, China has its "Common Prosperity" drive, the U.K. has its "Levelling Up" initiative.

And even in the U.S., the fiscal stimulus Biden signed into law in March was much bigger than expected; $1.9 trillion, versus the $1.1 trillion or so that analysts originally thought. Think about that--theincreasein the size of the package was greater than the entire $787 billion stimulus bill President Obama signed in 2009 to support the economy post-financial crisis.

The result has been a massive increase inrealdemand for physical goods. Demand for gasoline this summer hit not just a post-pandemic high, but anall-time high,notes Currie. Spending on goods in the U.S. alone is 20% higher than it was before the pandemic! This defines a commodities "supercycle," which, according to Currie, is "a structural rise in demand." And yes, he thinks we're in one.

You can get bull markets here and there from supply shocks (like a drop in Saudi oil production). But you can only get broad commodities supercycles from a structural increase in real demand. And this, Currie adds, can onlycome from lower-income populations, which overwhelm the world's wealthy in terms of their sheer size. Here's how he explains it:

"What do the world's rich control? Dollars. Can they create GDP? Yes. But can they create physical goods inflation? Numerically impossible. There's not enough of them. Only the world's low-income groups can create inflation and commodity bull markets and there is no exception to that. You cannot find me an exception."

Even the 1970s inflation, Currie says, can be tied back to LBJ's "Great Society" policies in the 1960s (which included Johnson's "War on Poverty" and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid). President Biden's agenda is often thought of in a similar way--but it may be that the Covid response has already supplanted the targeted spending efforts Biden had in mind.

In the U.S. today, "low-income" describes 44% of households, or some 50 million people, according to the official stats. Now add in the rest of the world, and look at what's happening in commodities--oil is at $85 a barrel now, a fresh seven-year high. Wheat is at a ten-year high. The CRB "Raw Industrials" index, covering burlap, tallow, cotton, tin, and wool, among others, is at an all-time high.

So yes, policymakers worldwide seem to have already succeeded in redistributing wealth to lower-income populations that are now driving a massive increase in physical demand. But it's a lot easier to spark a 20% increase in demand than to bring on a 20% increase in supply, especially during a pandemic. So the result is price spikes, shortages, and generally less satisfaction than you might expect.

The quicker more supply can be brought online, the sooner prices will stop surging, and the better off the population will truly be. Otherwise, price spikes themselves could cause a recession that falls hardest on the lower-income groups that redistribution was most meant to help.

See you at 1 p.m!

Kelly

Twitter: @KellyCNBC

Instagram: @realkellyevans

More:

Kelly Evans: Can the world afford populism? - CNBC

Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry once summed up Stormonts financial ideology as having two components: a left-wing spending policy alongside a right-wing taxation policy.

very problem was the fault of the Treasury not sending enough money for public services, while most politicians in Belfast boasted to constituents about how they had lowered their taxes.

The devolved administration set up after the 1998 Belfast Agreement was never designed to provide good government and some defenders of the Stormont experiment argued that in time politics would mature; having to make difficult decisions would force ministers to build cross-community alliances and to grapple with problems beyond the orange and green divide.

Such optimism has been unfulfilled. Devolution has now been back for almost two years, yet there is little evidence of any willingness to take unpopular decisions even when some politicians privately concede that they are necessary.

This week Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced his spending review a medium-term allocation of resources to public services which allows the devolved administrations to plan ahead. Stormont Finance Minister Conor Murphys response demonstrated the shallowness of his thinking about the public finances. But in truth, his mindset is shared to varying degrees across much of the Assembly chamber and in parts of the civil service.

The chancellor announced that Stormont would receive its largest budget in history, with increased spending for every one of the next three years. By 2024, the Executives budget will have risen to 15.2bn. The government said this amounted to an additional 1.6bn a year on average over the three-year spending review period.

Those figures do not include Annually Managed Expenditure which sees roughly another 10bn sent to Northern Ireland to pay for things like pensions and social security. If Northern Ireland was an independent country, it would be bankrupt because there is a multi-billion pound shortfall between what is raised in tax and what is spent on public services.

But as far as Mr Murphy is concerned, this is no cause for thankfulness. The Sinn Fein veteran said the extra money was nowhere near what is required. He disputed the claims of a 1.6bn increase in the block grant, highlighting that this did not account for the vast Covid spending over the last year and a half.

In that, he had some justification the Treasury was using Stormonts pre-pandemic budget as its baseline. Like every government, the Executive is going to face enormous bills over coming years, some of which cannot yet be foreseen although last year the Executive was struggling to spend all the money which the Treasury sent to deal with Covid, and the pandemic has shown that if there is a crisis the Treasury will provide additional funds.

However, there is a more awkward truth for Mr Murphy and many within the Stormont system. They have the ability to act out their left-wing economic ideology, but they are declining to use that ability.

Sinn Fein has long complained that Stormont does not have enough tax-raising powers, and Mr Murphy has set up an inquiry to examine the case for further fiscal devolution.

Yet, despite seeing itself as in the same economic category as Castro and Chavez, there is scant evidence that Sinn Fein would use any additional tax-raising powers to tax the rich.

Indeed, the partys one big economic idea (parked for now) has been to devolve corporation tax so that it can slash taxes for the biggest corporations. To put into context how ideologically absurd that is for a socialist party, consider that this Tory chancellor is increasing corporation tax.

For years, Sinn Fein and the DUP boasted about the taxes they had spared the people of Northern Ireland. The regional rate had been frozen year after year, water charges had been blocked, there had been a cap on the rates which the wealthiest homeowners had to pay, and so on.

The cap on rates bills is an example of how economically conservative successive administrations led by the DUP and Sinn Fein have been.

A condition of the 2006 St Andrews Agreement was that there would be a cap on rates bills, set at half a million pounds meaning that anyone with a house worth more than that sum would not pay any extra in rates. Two years after the restoration of devolution in 2007, the cap was lowered to 400,000 and it has remained there ever since.

In simple terms, that means that the poorest ratepayers subsidise the bills of the most wealthy (who include among their number some Stormont ministers and senior civil servants). The most expensive house for sale in Northern Ireland is a huge five-bedroom mansion on Malone Park, valued at 2.5 million. Its annual rates bill is listed by the PropertyPal website as being just 3,187 a year.

That is the consequence not of decisions taken by Tories in London, but by DUP and Sinn Fein finance ministers, backed by the vast majority of MLAs.

Based on the current level of rates, removing that cap would bring in about 8 million a year equating to the salaries of about 300 nurses (or 65 First or deputy First Ministers).

Most of the Executive parties doggedly opposed water charges, presenting them as a cynical attempt to over-tax the poorest in society. Yet they have the chance to set the rules as they see fit. If they want to see redistribution of wealth an ideology to which Sinn Fein and the SDLP subscribe then charges could be set for those in the biggest houses. There are arguments against that, but to claim that the Executive has no ability to raise the money it claims to need is demonstrably false.

One of the few areas in which Stormont has used its powers to raise some of the money which it says it needs is through the carrier bag levy.

But the rate was set at a paltry level 5p a bag and has never been increased (Edwin Poots is considering increasing this to 20p a bag). If it wanted, the Executive could massively increase that charge, something which would not only bring in money, but would help to protect the environment.

Stormont is also on course to hand back hundreds of millions of pounds in money to subsidise renewable heat because of its bungling over RHI first making it too generous, now making it insufficiently generous in comparison with GB.

For every 100 spent per person on comparable public services in England, the Treasury calculates that 127 is spent in Northern Ireland. There is good reason for a region like Northern Ireland receiving more money almost every UK region raises less than it spends, reflecting the financial power of London. Other parts of the country contribute in other ways. Northern Ireland, for instance, is a major food producer.

The Treasury has poured money into the Executive. Almost every time there has been a political crisis, there has been a financial reward for the parties which caused that crisis. In line with that principle, last years New Decade, New Approach deal was accompanied by an additional 1bn.

Alliance is the only major party to have opposed this populism. I recall a very senior DUP figure coming up to me many years ago after a pre-election debate in which the then Alliance leader David Ford had set out his support for water charges. The politician was ecstatic, believing that this would undermine Alliance with voters who dont want to pay anything more.

But in some ways it was easier for Alliance to make those arguments when a vote for its candidates was not going to see such policies implemented. As it grows, that may no longer be the case, and there will be a test of the unresolved economic ideology of a party whose central focus is not economic.

Its easy to demand that London sends us more and more money, but its not grown-up politics and as the cash for ash scandal demonstrated, it can have perverse outcomes.

If we want a better health service, are we prepared to pay for it both financially and in terms of unpopular but necessary decisions about centralising some services away from small hospitals? No one enjoys paying tax, but lower taxes come at a cost.

However, higher taxes do not necessarily mean better public services. Boosting public spending ultimately means taking the money from the public; that can only work if the public trust that the money will be well spent.

Having been notorious for squander and incompetence, the Executive is not best placed to convince voters to give it more of their cash.

And yet, without ever taking the responsibility for raising more of the money which they say public services need, our politicians will remain infantile and our health service, our water infrastructure, our schools and myriad other aspects on which we depend will require ever greater reform and someone will have to pay for it.

Huey Long, the 1930s governor of Louisiana, once said: One of these days the people of Louisiana are going to get good government and they arent going to like it.

One of the things which the DUP and Sinn Fein must worry about is this: If despite their relentless populism for 14 years, Stormont is deeply unpopular, how precarious would their positions be if they were to take unpopular decisions?

Read more from the original source:

Sam McBride: Childish populism at Stormont ultimately hurts the very voters they are trying to woo - Belfast Telegraph

SANTIAGO When millions of Chileans took to the streets in October 2019, after a small hike in transport fees quickly morphed into a national movement for political change, it seemed that Chiles populist moment had finally arrived. Alongside protesters demands for better healthcare and pensions were sentiments that populists around the world would recognize: A strong current of anti-elitism, demands for institutional change, and a mistrust of existing political parties. Yet one thing seemed to be missing: A strong and personalistic leader who could channel those populist inclinations and put them into practice.

That may now be changing. As Chiles November 21 election quickly approaches, the presidential race has been upended by the meteoric rise of the far-right Jos Antonio Kast, a former congressman once seen as a fringe candidate, but who now leads at least one major poll and is second in others. While polls suggest the Kast would lose in a runoff to leftist front-runner Gabriel Boric, the race has tightened substantially in recent weeks, according to Cadem. Behind Kasts rise: a backlash against politics as usual, strong rhetoric against immigrants, and his ability to channel the simmering anger of Chiles middle class. Indeed, he could be described as the true populist in the race.

Many observers had assumed a populist figure would come from the Chilean left. But Boric, a congressman who represents a coalition of forces that see themselves as representative of the spirit of the 2019 protests, has for the most part avoided descending into populism. He emphasizes the importance of respecting democratic institutions, and unlike many on the left, he is a vocal critic of the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Cuban regimes. He supported a November 2019 cross-party agreement aimed at rewriting Chiles constitution, something his Communist coalition partners rejected.

To be sure, there is a touch of populism in the campaigns fetishization of lo popular. And in a recent interview, Borics economic advisor admitted that a policy the candidate has supported (successive withdrawals from private pension funds) is bad public policy and terrible economics, but that hes doing something reasonable for someone whos in politics, which is to respond to what people want.

But does Boric really know what people want? The tattooed 35-year-old candidate is betting on Chile being as woke as he and his coalition buddies are. On a whole range of campaign issues, they engage in the language of todays progressive left. From foreign policy to education, his election platform promises to be feminist, green, anti-racist, participatory and decentralized. The constitutional convention has committed to gender neutral language and a rule forbidding denialism, which severely limits the scope of discussion. Those who deny, for example, that the 2019 protests involved systemic human rights abuses (an open question) could be subject to re-education programs (Article 45 of the Conventions Ethics Regulations states that the programs will be geared towards training in the area infringed, such as human rights, intercultural relations, gender equality, religious or spiritual diversity, or any other that is required).

Chiles efforts to make strides towards a more inclusive society should be applauded, especially if they avoid falling into us-vs-them populism or authoritarian efforts to reprogram offenders. Such efforts are also not especially unusual, as Chiles economic progress has pushed it closer towards the post-material attitudes common in Western democracies. For years now, polls have shown Chileans to be increasingly liberal on a range of values, and this is especially true among the young the kind of voters Boric hopes to attract.

However, while these values are common among highly educated young people, they are resisted by other sectors of society. Widespread access to tertiary education is relatively new in Chile, so a good part of the highly educated cohort in Chile is under 40. But many older, less educated or rural voters view progressive values not only as elitist but also morally objectionable, reflecting trends in other countries that have lurched toward populism, as Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart have noted.

And so it is that Kast has come to lead polls, four years after finishing fourth in the 2017 presidential race with just 8% of the votes. Since then, Kast founded his own party, the Republican Party, frustrated by what he saw as the failure of the right-wing UDI party to defend the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship with sufficient enthusiasm. In recent weeks he has supplanted the traditional rights chosen candidate Sebastin Sichel, who, with origins in the Christian Democratic Party, had hoped to capture disaffected centrist voters. He failed, and the traditional right returned to its natural candidate and political space: conservativism, corporatism and a dogged defense of Pinochets constitution.

But this is 2021, and this is not your grandparents pinochetismo. Kast criticizes immigration, downplays the demands of the countrys indigenous communities, and promises to combat gender ideology. His campaign promises measures to promote natural methods of contraception and to involve Christian churches in dealing with alcohol and drug addiction. On the international front, Kast, who is close to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, questions globalism and sees the United Nations as a tool of the left, often blaming it for Chiles immigration problem. He promises to withdraw Chile from the UN Human Rights Council. He also plans to build physical barriers between Chile and its northern neighbors. Kast, then, is a pretty good representative of the new, nationalist, populist right. And while not especially charismatic, he does seem to embody, far more than Boric, the anger and frustration of a middle class that feels represented neither by unresponsive parties and institutions, nor by the new, progressive Chile being celebrated in the constitutional convention.

Kasts success thus far shows that the assumptions about the 2019 protests have been, if not exactly wrong, then insufficient. More than a peaceful movement for political change, the protests were always more about anger and frustration and rejecting traditional political parties and leaderships. This why a constitutional agreement aimed at redesigning those institutions was understood to be the only way out at the time. And this is why the far right may be as close as the far left to capitalizing on the current political moment.

Funk is professor of political science at the University of Chile and a partner in Andes Risk Group, a political consultancy firm.

Any opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of Americas Quarterly or its publishers.

See the original post here:

The Rise of Jos Antonio Kast in Chile - Americas Quarterly

Suketu Mehta spoke on how journalists can bridge communication between urban planners and citizens.

Jasmine Su 12:33 am, Nov 01, 2021

Contributing Reporter

Non-fiction writer and journalist Suketu Mehta spoke on Thursday about the role of writing in urban studies as part of the Universitys Introduction to Urban Studies course.

Suketu Mehta is an associate professor of journalism at New York University and writes extensively about immigration and urban development. The talk on Thursday, titled The Secret Lives of Cities, was sponsored by the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism and hosted by architecture professor Elihu Rubin 99, who teaches Introduction to Urban Studies. The course is a series of lectures made by Yale faculty and external speakers, all from different academic disciplines, on their methods of urban studies.

So much of the conversation in urban planning is buildings talking to buildings, and they forget that there are human beings living inside and underneath these buildings, Mehta said during the talk. So where I come in is I can speak to people who are doing the planning I understand what they want to convey, and then I can render it into a story for the average educated reader.

Mehta added that far too often, urban plans are thrust down the throats of citizens, serving the interests of real estate developers as opposed to the people. This is why communication between storytellers and urban planners is crucial for cities, according to Mehta.

He gave the example of the Hudson Yards development in New York City, citing that it was designed to remind people of their poverty. Mehta said that very few consultations were made with New Yorkers about the development, and that the 7 train was extended to serve the development, making it one of the most expensive mass transit developments in New York City. This extension for Hudson Yards occurred despite ongoing needs for the trains to be extended to outer boroughs of the city, Mehta added.

The Hudson Yards development includes luxury condominiums, malls and the Vessel, a 16-story structure of staircases.

The narrative of what makes for a good city has been taken too much towards luxury condominiums and skyscraper office buildings, as if money is the only thing that a city needs, Mehta said. Its not, actually. Too many rich people coming into a city can destroy as effectively as too many poor people coming into the city.

The problem with cities today, according to Mehta, is that there is a disconnect in narration. He explained that on the one hand, there is an official narrative from urban planners and real estate developers about what a city should be. On the other hand, he continued, there are also unofficial, little stories about the people who live in those cities. A journalists job is to tell the unofficial narrative, Mehta said.

Mehta added that a journalists storytelling ability is especially important given the rise of populist leaders like Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Vladmir Putin.

There is a global war of storytelling going on right now, Mehta said. A populist is basically a gifted storyteller, like the real estate companies that advertised Hudson Yards as the gleaming symbol of New York. They are gifted at telling a false story well. The only way a populist can be fought is by telling a true story back at it, a fact-checked story back at it. And thats where journalists and writers come in. We can tell a true story better.

Journalists and writers ability to tell a true story is the reason why supporters of populist leaders fear them, according to Mehta.

The rise of populism also has deep roots in urbanization and immigration, he said. Cities, being cosmopolitan and diverse, are deeply threatening to people who enjoy individualism and small-like minded communities. The urban-rural tension gives rise to support for populism in the countryside, according to Mehta.

I think Suketus idea of locating the urban-rural divide at the core of the recent resurgence in far-right populism significantly raises the stakes of our conversations about urban issues, Tyler Lutz GRD 21 who joined the talk via Zoom, told the News.

Anoushka Ramkumar 23, a student in Rubins class, said that she was fascinated by Mehtas idea of immigration as reparation, or the view that immigration is a way to fight centuries of colonization and oppression.

Ramkumar said that she bought Mehtas book on immigration after the talk to learn more.

Mehtas book about Mumbai, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, was a Pulitzer prize finalist in 2005.

Visit link:

Pulitzer prize finalist speaks on the role of writing in urban development - Yale Daily News

CW: Violence and murder

On the afternoon of October 15th, Leigh-on-Sea was shaken by the tragic stabbing and murder of Sir David Amess.Widely regarded as one of Westminsters most admired and dedicated MPs, the outpouring of grief from across the political spectrum was profound.The ramifications of this tragedy stretch far beyond the borders of Amess Essex constituency, and after the second murder of a British MP in five years, now is the moment to reflect on how and why the rise of populism and the subsequent polarisation of politics has changed the way we treat our public servants.

Jo Coxs murder in Leeds in June 2016 shocked the nation.For the first time since the 1990s, when Ian Gow was killed by the IRA, a sitting British MP was brutally murdered for doing their job.There were 26 years between those two tragic incidents, and now British politics is left facing the second deadly attack in five years. But what steps can we possibly take to ensure that this violence ends?

There was a lot of talk across news networks and in newspapers on the following day about increased security, changes to the way in which MPs do their jobs, and upping spending on personal protection in the name of preserving democracy.In reality, the problem is far larger and harder to solve.In the last ten years, the rise of populism has seen politics become more divided, more aggressive, and ultimately more violent than ever before.

It is important to remember that this is not simply a UK problem. Donald Trumps election in 2016 marked a turning point in American and global politics alike. The success of populism helped by a rise in the use and exploitation of social media for political gain.The Capitol riots earlier this year serve as yet another reminder of how dramatically things have changed in such a short space of time: just a few years ago the idea of the US President defying the democratic process and calling on his supporters to take the country back by marching on the symbolic home of American free speech would have been impossible to comprehend.

That climate of hatred, created in the build-up to the 2016 presidential elections in the United States, has spread far and wide and it is perhaps only now that here in the UK we are seeing the true ramifications of how things have altered in our sphere.The Brexit referendum and Trumps victorious campaign have been compared many times: both used social media to give a platform to lies and exaggerations, both captured the minds of a section of society that had been ignored and underinvested in for far too long, but most importantly, both fuelled division and hatred.The goalposts moved for what was acceptable in British politics in 2016, and they havent moved back.Huge numbers of MPs today have been forced to install panic alarms and security cameras in their homes and offices in an effort to protect staff, family, and friends.These days you will struggle to find a democratically elected official who doesnt regularly receive online hate and even death threats.

The question of how to reverse the situation is a very difficult one to answer.Suggestions in recent days have often focussed on the removal of anonymity on social media.Problems exist here too:on a basic level there are plenty of platforms, such as Facebook, where anonymity doesnt exist, and people are still happy to spout abuse and hatred.Radicalisation is almost impossible to stop in person, never mind online.Beyond that, the ability to remain anonymous is also key to allowing whistle-blowers and healthy critics to come forward and voice their political opinions without fear of consequences.What the country needs is a change in tone at the very top of politics, a change from the rhetoric of hate and division and a shift back towards healthy debate.

So, what next?Where do we go from here?It is all too easy for lawmakers to sit down in interviews and call for more stringent regulation of social media and put money aside for investment in personal protection.The truth is that the change we need is far more profound.We must return to a discourse of respect and understanding.British politics is characterised by the passionate and vocal defence of our personal beliefs, something very different to the violence and division often inspired by the leaders and politicians of today.The line has been crossed now we must go back before its too late.

Image Credits: Richard Townshend / CC BY 3.0

For Cherwell, maintaining editorial independence is vital. We are run entirely by and for students. To ensure independence, we receive no funding from the University and are reliant on obtaining other income, such as advertisements. Due to the current global situation, such sources are being limited significantly and we anticipate a tough time ahead for us and fellow student journalists across the country.

So, if you can, please consider donating. We really appreciate any support youre able to provide; itll all go towards helping with our running costs. Even if you can't support us monetarily, please consider sharing articles with friends, families, colleagues - it all helps!

Thank you!

Originally posted here:

The Murder of David Amess must change the way we look at politics - Cherwell Online

In April 2000, I travelled to Dhaka with a formidable battery of my talented lieutenants from my internet venture CricketNext.com. The occasion was indeed historic. The International Cricket Council (ICC) had curated an extraordinary contest; the worlds first Asia XI versus Rest of World XI ODI. The Kargil betrayal was indeed fresh in most minds, but in an unparalleled happenstance, Pakistani and Indian players were playing on the same side. The worlds wiliest left-arm genius Wasim Akram was the captain of the Asia XI, and playing under him were Indias legends, such as Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Ajay Jadeja etc.

As someone said to me, It is surreal seeing the two neighbours who had a nasty military conflict less than a year earlier, play like a bunch of school-mates, as one collective unit (the gargantuan trolling of Indian fast bowler Mohammed Shami by right-wing zealots after Indias defeat to Pakistan in the T20 World Cup, 2021 is another story altogether).

Dhaka appeared like any capital city in South Asia; brimming with staggering aplomb, its tilted demography favouring strapping youngsters who vociferously screamed for Tendulkar, its main street a crowded marmalade, reflecting a country in a chaotic state of profligate frenzy. They welcomed us with unbridled love. They loved their cricket. They clearly idolised their Big Brother to their west, the one that had valiantly in 1971, helped give them their unique identity. Thus, when I saw the deadly attacks on Hindus in a systematic, organised manner, I was perturbed. Some things had clearly changed. After all, it has been almost two decades since that public bonhomie.

Communal template

There were over half-a-dozen Hindus killed in a brutal programme of religious targeting in Bangladesh. ISKCON has been singled out too, as per reports. As is the usual communal template, the conflagration happened at the time of an annual religious festival; this time it was the Durga Puja. The trigger for the violent aggression was a social media post that allegedly ridiculed the Koran.

The fact that cannot be denied is the tinder-box circumstance in which several societies exist today, especially those in our neighbourhood. It takes one WhatsApp instigation to create social unrest and bloodletting. Years of peaceful camaraderie can be incinerated, like their burnt homes. Hindus are a small minority of 10 per cent in Bangladesh, which has also been experiencing the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, as the former East Pakistan grapples with local extremism.

In the age of social media, it takes little to influence impressionable minds. While Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has reacted promptly, demonstrating her commitment to its secular composition, it is quite likely that the aftermath of the mayhem will linger much longer. This is unlikely to slow up overnight. Back home in India, one can already see that some of Indias ruling party cheerleaders are upping the communal temperature by reigniting a divisive debate. This hardly portends well.

Voices of outrage

On a TV show, the BJP spokesperson screamed loudly about why the opposition parties were playing minority-appeasement politics in opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act passed by the Modi government in 2019. It was palpable that the BJP would once again raise the outside infiltrators story as crucial state elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand draw closer. Expect the termites disdain to return to the mainstream. But this was being disingenuous to say the least.

For one, until the coronavirus pathogen suddenly hit India in March 2020, the country was witnessing nation-wide large, spontaneous uprisings against the brazenly discriminatory law that disallowed Muslims refugees persecuted in their home countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh) from getting sanctuary in India. Coupled with the nation-wide NRC and NPR, it was a deadly triumvirate to disenfranchise Indias largest minority population. The apprehensions were genuine. Detention centres for illegal migrants were going to be the next big infrastructure project. Polarised politics is BJPs coveted meal menu. It works magically at the hustings. Bangladesh appears to be following the same political business model.

Majoritarian populism

As the highly reprehensible attacks on Hindus show, Bangladesh could be following the recent global trend of rising majoritarian populism. Eventually, it is self-defeating. A few years ago, The Economist, considered a free-market torchbearer, had shortlisted Bangladesh among the countries of the year for its burgeoning exports, trade liberalisation, improved transparency and poverty alleviation. Bangladesh is the worlds second largest in garment merchandise exports. For four years in a row, pre-2020, GDP growth exceeded seven per cent, helping it to outperform its two bigger benchmarks, Pakistan and India.

On crucial human development indicators such as education access, infant mortality, primary healthcare, womens participation in the workforce etc. Bangladesh has registered a robust turnaround. Thus, if PM Sheikh Hasina allows sectarianism to spread, it will come at a huge social consequence and economic cost. No country can get away with manufactured social disunity for short-term political aggrandisement. It gets you. Finally.

Radicalism is the bane of fragile democracies that are also battling economic inequalities and social tensions. Nativism is retrograde even if in the short-term, it pays handsome electoral dividends. Bangladesh needs to be watchful here. It is easy for a country to lose the plot, just as a cricket team can suddenly find itself with an impossible asking rate. A civilised society is one that safeguards its minorities. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman became president in 1971, he had inspired millions with his sincere message of a secular Bangladesh. His daughter now needs to walk the talk.

The author is former spokesperson of the Congress party

(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)

Here is the original post:

Attacks on Hindus: Bangladesh could be following the recent global trend of rising majoritarian populism, - Free Press Journal

Welfare initiatives embody civil rights, whereas freebies cultivate a patron-client syndrome

A neoliberal economy encourages private capital and the market, while forcing the state to withdraw from welfare. The state is limited in taking concrete and constructive efforts to fulfil the aspirations of the people. Even as the poor perceive the state as an arbitrator of their well-being and a facilitator for their mobility in all spheres of life, todays political parties resort to unsolicited freebies to attract them. The line between welfarism and populism has blurred.

Welfare initiatives include a targeted Public Distribution System, providing social security for labourers, quality education, fair employment, affordable healthcare, decent housing, and protection from exploitation and violence. Freebies, on the other hand, are provided to attract voters to cast their vote in a particular election. They create limited private benefit for the receiver and do not contribute towards strengthening public goods/facilities.

The culture of freebies in Tamil Nadu was started during the 1967 Assembly elections. The then Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief C.N. Annadurai offered three measures of rice for 1. The practice of providing freebies was followed by subsequent Chief Ministers of both the DMK and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), who promised free TV sets, free laptops to students, free rides for women in buses, free gas cylinders and stoves, a goat and a cow for poor farmers, and so on.

Initially, the government attempted to strengthen the redistribution of resources for all. After the 1990s, Dravidian parties moved towards clientelism, narrowly focussing on electoral gains. A study by Shroff, Kumar and Reich (2015) on the DMKs health insurance scheme demonstrated that the main beneficiaries were the partys core supporters and swing voters who could be influenced easily. Worse, after 2009, fewer people accessed public health care centres.

In 2021, however, there was a qualitative difference in the manifesto of the DMK, which avoided most of the freebies except tablet devices to students studying in higher secondary schools and colleges. The manifesto reflected more of a programmatic policy intervention towards better public services than narrow private benefits in the form of freebies. But both the DMK and the AIADMK were silent on land distribution and enhancing budgetary allocation for maintenance of public infrastructure like schools, colleges, hostels and hospitals. The GSDP share for health was better under AIADMK rule compared to DMK rule, but both were below 1.5%. Tamil Nadus 2021-22 Budget shows that it has allocated around 13.3% of its total expenditure for education, which is lower than average allocation for education by all States, which is 15.8%.

When Senior Counsel Arvind P. Datar submitted his arguments in S. Subramaniam Balaji v. Govt. of Tamil Nadu (2013), which challenged the freebies of both the DMK government in 2006 and AIADMK government in 2011, he emphasised that freebies violate the constitutional mandate of extending benefits for public purpose and instead create private benefits. He asserted that the literacy rate in Tamil Nadu was around 73% and there were 234 habitations across the State with no school access whatsoever, and distribution of free consumer goods to the people having ration cards cannot be justified as public purpose. Further, distributing laptops does not serve the purpose of increasing the quality of education. According to a report by Anaivarukkum Kalvi Iyakkam (Sarva Siksha Abhiyan) in 2019, there were 3,003 government schools attended by less than 15 students. Due to lack of proper infrastructure facilities and specialised teachers, parents prefer to move their students to private schools. According to a report in this newspaper in 2019, more than 1,500 hostels for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) were in a dilapidated condition. Hence, freebies will not only depoliticise the poor and marginalised communities but also indirectly deny them their due share of state resources. Freebies drastically widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Populism encourages mediocre political critics and erases critical and rational thinking, which are important to raise pertinent questions to people in power.

Compared to other States, Tamil Nadu has made impressive strides in many development indicators such as education, healthcare (mortality rate and life expectancy) and infrastructure facilities. However, it lags behind in other aspects. According to the Tamil Nadu State Agricultural Departments publication, Salient Statistics on Agriculture, 2019, SCs, who constitute nearly 20% of Tamil Nadus population, accounted for 10% of agricultural landowners and possessed 7.8% of the farmland in the State. Even though the literacy rate is high in Tamil Nadu, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 (2015-16), only 32% of women aged 15-49 had completed 12 or more years of schooling, compared with 38% of men. The NFHS-4 showed sharp differences between SCs and Other Backward Classes in Tamil Nadu. The neonatal mortality was 12.3 for OBCs, but 17.4 for SCs. Infant mortality was 18.4 for OBCs but 23.6 for SCs. And under-five mortality was 24.8 for OBCs and 31 for SCs. The data reflect inequal access to public health infrastructure.

According to a paper by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, Explaining the contractualisation of Indias workforce (2019), the share of contract workers in Tamil Nadu increased sharply from 8.3% in 2000-01 to 20.17% in 2013-14, which shows the withdrawal of the state in providing social security, and leaving the workforce at the mercy of neoliberal market forces.

Theoretically, there is a qualitative distinction between being subjects in an authoritarian regime and being citizens in a democratic polity. Unsolicited freebies cultivate a patron-client syndrome and encourage personality cults in a democratic polity. Besides, they affect the critical faculties of citizens, particularly the poor and the marginalised. Providing freebies is to treat people like subjects, whereas citizens are entitled to constitutional guarantees. Welfare initiatives are an embodiment of civil rights, whereas unsolicited freebies show benevolence at best and apathy at worst towards the poor by the ruling parties.

Also read | Have freebies and bribes depoliticised voters?

There was a positive indication that the DMK is reconsidering unsolicited freebies/populism when it tabled a White Paper on the States Finances in the Assembly recently. Thereafter, there has been a lot of public discussion on this issue, which may lead to a reorientation of public policy in a healthy direction. Political parties and civil society should consider quality aspects in education, healthcare and employment and ensure fair distribution and redistribution of resources for the marginalised communities. We draw the publics attention and debate to the dichotomy between welfare and unsolicited freebies or populism, so that the constitutional ideal of a secular, egalitarian and democratic India can be realised.

C. Lakshmanan is Associate Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, and Convenor, Dalit Intellectual Collective, and Venkatanarayanan S. teaches at Christ University, Bengaluru

See the original post:

The need to move away from clientelism - The Hindu

To be facetious about it, they only have 12 days to save the Earth. As politicians and officials from 197 countries begin just under a fortnights work at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, you can sense a strange mixture of feelings: expectation, cynicism, fatalism, anger and fragile hope.

It will be easy to lose track of what is at stake and who is who although anyone feeling confused should recall the report issued in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its bracing conclusion: that huge environmental changes triggered by global heating are now everywhere, and avoiding a future that will be completely catastrophic demands immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in carbon emissions. The point is simple enough. But one familiar factor may well weaken the resolve of the key people at Cop26: the fact that too few politicians will arrive in Scotland bearing any mandate for serious climate action, because almost none of them have tried to get one.

Two crucial political problems define the contrast between what is required and what those in power have so far chosen to deliver. One centres on the populism and power cults that actively get in the way of climate action something evident in both the records of strongmen like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Brazils Jair Bolsonaro and Turkeys Recep Erdoan, and where our ecological emergency sits in the cultural and generational conflicts that are now bubbling up all over the world.

In the UK, the latest manifestation of the populist rights belligerent scepticism is the suggestion that we might rerun the Brexit referendum in the form of a vote on whether or not to pursue the goal of net zero carbon emissions. You also see it in those seemingly daily video clips of some or other sub-Alan Partridge TV or radio host arguing with someone from Extinction Rebellion or Insulate Britain, a ritual which feels like a new national sport.

The other impediment to action is more insidious. On both the centre-left and centre-right, there is superficial recognition of the hard yards required to do something about the climate emergency but, so far, an aversion to thinking about the huge changes to everyday life that will be necessary. We can build back greener without so much as a hair shirt in sight, says Boris Johnson.

Keir Starmer may not have uttered anything so crass, but he too seems to believe in a modest utopia of a new green economy, insulated homes, increased funding for science, and the day somehow being saved by British derring-do. Climate change is about jobs, he insists, which is partly true. But, like Johnson, he doesnt mention revolutionising what we eat and why and how we travel, or God forbid the continuing fetishisation of economic growth.

Might that be an inevitable feature of democracy? Perhaps. But in the UK, the first focus of blame should be the two-party Westminster model of politics kept in business by our stupid electoral system, and the way that it sustains political philosophies that ought to have been left behind in the 20th century.

On the right, notwithstanding Johnsons swerve into the politics of big spending and economic interventionism, Toryism remains beholden to the market, and dead against the idea of the common good shaping the lifestyles of anyone who is halfway affluent (the poor, of course, are fair game). Its contorted priorities are illustrated by the fact that the governments current leading lights managed to take us out of the European Union at a huge cost to national income and the countrys economic future. But they cannot muster anything like the same enthusiasm for risking some stability and prosperity in the interests of saving the planet.

And Labour? Here is a radical thought: given his beleaguered position and the urgency of the crisis, Starmer could conceivably go for broke, and predicate his leadership on the climate emergency, finally bringing its scale and urgency somewhere close to the heart of politics. The thought, unfortunately, would not even occur, because of what the Labour party is. Its origins lie in a world of coalmines and smokestacks. Like its sister social-democratic parties in Europe, whatever reinventions Labour has undergone since, it has a deep, sentimental attachment to an idea of the good life centred on work and the factory, and raising peoples living standards so that they can consume with the same enthusiasm as everyone else. At the most basic level, it shares the Tory idea that growth is the sine qua non of economic policy.

During the Corbyn years, some of this stuff was undoubtedly shaken up, although there were also signs of a conservatism that still runs across all wings of the party. In 2015, as he ran for the leadership, Jeremy Corbyn endorsed reopening mines in south Wales. Four years later, as Labour decisively embraced a so-called Green New Deal in preparation for the 2019 election, some of the big unions who represent gas, oil, and aviation workers insisted on 2030 being a target for significant progress rather than a non-negotiable net zero deadline.

It is worth remembering the view of the then leader of the GMB union, Tim Roache: the latter stance, he raged, would mean within a decade peoples petrol cars being confiscated. This will mean families can only take one flight every five years. Net zero carbon emissions by 2030 is utterly unachievable.

So, which way out? As a means of at least trying to reorientate our politics, a lot more people are going to have to vote for the Green party and, to maintain the sense of last-ditch urgency that Extinction Rebellion have brought to things, the case for what some people call extra-parliamentary activity feels beyond argument. Without wanting to sound overly pessimistic, the most likely outcome of all the negotiations and diplomatic theatre in Glasgow will push even more people in that direction, and their protests will bring on the usual sneers and priggishness, not least from Westminster politicians. But as ever, the people involved will have a simple answer: that if politics endlessly fails, the streets may be all you have left.

Excerpt from:

Politicians talk about net zero but not the sacrifices we must make to get there - The Guardian