“The same man who does not want to see the Government interfere in business…is the first to go to Washington to ask the Government for a prohibitory tariff.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Sri Lankans expressing their displeasure about the way the current Government has managed the economy of the country, just celebrated the fiftieth day of their campaign of ‘civil disobedience’. People usually resort to such actions when they feel that the inefficiency and/or the tyranny of their Government has exceeded their level of tolerance and they do not see a better way to get their rulers to pay attention to their grievances.
One of the main outcomes of such protests, if the protesters are genuine about the factors leading to their actions, of course, is to initiate necessary changes to avoid getting into such trouble in the future.
Economic catastrophe
Sri Lankans are experiencing an unprecedented economic catastrophe due to several reasons, main one of which certainly has been the unconcerned attitude of the citizens while the resources of the country have been mismanaged, misused, and outright robbed by the authorities who were entrusted with making decisions for the betterment of the country.
Even if expected goals are not achieved, such protests usually make people aware of the problems and what and how they would be able to contribute to the process of solving them. Some people might even come to the realisation that, had they been vigilant about what their Government was doing and acted at the initial stages of the problem they would have at least minimised the damage.
Rulers, especially if they are intoxicated by the power they have been enjoying and know that if they lose power they will not be able to defend themselves against the wrongdoings they are accused of, will do everything they can to stop such uprisings which sometimes lead to deaths and destruction ending up with one side overpowering the other.
In searching for answers to a problem one has to first clearly understand the problem and the factors which created it. One needs not be a rocket scientist to understand that the two major factors that caused the downfall of Sri Lanka. i) the wrong decisions made by the economists, involved with the Central Bank and the Treasury, ii) wrong decisions the politicians made by either appointing the wrong people to those responsible positions, or influencing their decision-making process or not paying attention to the warnings and not implementing the appropriate procedures recommended by the professionals at the right time.
Even though they look like two distinct factors, they really are the two sides of the ‘Democracy’ coin as it is used around the world today. The Allied victory of WW I in 1918 persuaded almost every country in Europe to accept the view that the world has been saved from the atrocities of dictators giving people the opportunity to enjoy democracy.
This liberation was usually done by the military taking the power out of dictators and transferring it to a Parliament. Therefore, the powers to reckon with were either the military or the hereditary rulers. Liberal democracies so achieved, essentially, became democracies of property-owners, only to be destroyed by the holders of economic power and by the political power of the newly enfranchised masses.
Property-owners
Democracy transformed from a society of property-owners, maintaining the State at their own expense, into a society containing a high proportion of property less salary-earners who regard themselves as skilled technicians rather than policy makers.
Power in the form of money took precedence over power in the form of military or territory. The history of the twenty years between WW I and II showed the great powers using the new economic weapon against one another and also against smaller powers.
Industrial revolutions made the economic power the key player of national and international politics. Politicians with traditional ideas were under the impression that the only threat to democracy was from violent protests, demonstrations and perhaps from trade unions.
However, when they overcame such resistance they were surprised at the failure of the masses to rally to the defense of their political rights. The masses, surprised and leaderless as they were, could not diagnose the nature of the disease but were able to understand the effects of the symptoms they felt.
Another factor aiding the deterioration of democratic rights has been the growth of bureaucracy as a consequence of State’s expansion due to assumption of more and more administrative and regulatory functions.
The bureaucrat has basically all but replaced Ministers as the managers of public affairs. Ministers, unless they are exceptionally industrious and extremely knowledgeable, would not have a good understanding about what is done in their name under their nominal responsibility.
This makes it even harder for the ordinary citizen to feel that he is the governor as well as the governed. To understand democracy, as it is being practiced today, the ideals such as ‘equality’ and ‘liberty’ will have to be reinterpreted in predominantly economic terms.
The ongoing struggle in Sri Lanka can also be seen as a struggle to make political rights effective over economic power. The protesters understand the danger of regimentation when it is imposed by Government though they may not have understood the extent to which their behavior and decision-making processes are regimented by the economic system.
Liberty will no longer seem important to the masses unless it relates to liberation from the economic as well as the political domination of the more fortunate.
Freedom of expression and freedom of press would also lose some of their significance so long as the most powerful instruments of publicity are in the hands of economically predominant groups.
Organised forces
In some countries socialist revolutions broke up the organised forces of labour and capital (the two key factors of production used in economic theories) and subordinated them to the State.
The privileged class of liberal democracies was keenly aware that in order to justify and preserve the rights and benefits conferred by democratic institutions, it must perform services and make personal sacrifices to maintain these institutions. Such democracies provided the essential condition of a ruling class as being profoundly conscious of its obligations as of its rights.
The protesters of current practices under the guise of democracy should be targeting social and economic equality by making the will of the ordinary citizen prevail against the organised forces of economic powers.
Citizens should be motivated to get more involved in governing their own affairs through all distinct aspects of the government.
Most of all, the citizen must realise that he is the guardian of democracy which requires him to deliver on collective obligations that come with his rights as an individual.
The current problem should be looked at as a political crisis which is, in fact, a moral crisis, whose symptoms express themselves predominantly in economic terms. Therefore, any attempt to solve it, must include remedies that can pull the country out of both political and economic hellholes it has fallen in to, concurrently.
The writer has served in the higher education sector as an academic over twenty years in the USA and fifteen years in Sri Lanka and he can be contacted at [email protected]