Political Science Department, St.Philomenas College-Mysore



AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL THEORY R.C. VermaniGitanjali Publishing House New Delhi4 First Edition 1996 Reprint 1996 Reprint 1997 Reprint 1998 Reprint 1999-2000 Reprint, 2000-2001 Reprint, 2001-2002Published by Gitanjali Publishing House 3 DDA Shopping Centre, Anand Lok, New Delhi-110049? R. C. VermaniISBN 81-85060-28-2All Rights ReservedPrinted at Mehra Offset Press, Delhi5 PREFACEPolitical theory is concerned with the theoretical explanation of political reality, namely, the phenomenon of the state. It attempts to analyse the proper form of political organization and includes account of such notions as the nature and justification of the state, the problem of political obligation, who governs and who ought to govern, relation between individual and the state, the issues of rights, liberty, equality, justice, property, democracy etc. Political theory helps us to understand these notions logically and analyse the answers which others give in dealing with political matters at a more abstract and general level. The usefulness of political theory is that it sets out to consider the problems without restricting to the factual replies. It frees us to think speculatively and idealistically.In the 20th century, the study of political theory has been dominated by the rival ideologies of liberalism and Marxism. Both are the ideologies of industrial society and have been concerned with the development of man’s capacities, desires and interests in an environment of freedom and democracy. Liberalism believes that these objectives could be achieved through the principles of individual liberty, rights, rule of law, constitutionalism, capitalism, democracy, secularism and welfare. Classical Marxism, on the other hand, remained committed to the achievement of social and collective goals through class struggle, proletarian revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, complete democratization of society and abolition of classes. However, the Western Marxist writers shifted the emphasis from political economy, struggle and revolution to the problems of superstructure, culture, philosophy, art and aesthetics etc. in both capitalist and communist societies.Of late, the method of studying political theory from a single perspective i.e. either from liberal or Marxist point of view has been found to be inadequate to grapple with the kind of issues which have come to dominate the political scene from 1960s onwards 6 such as feminism, environmentalism, ecology, community, development, subaltem movements etc. For example both liberalism and Marxisth view justice or freedom in the male dominated sphere of government and economy and ignore the freedom of traditional female sphere of house and family. Similarly, the concept of sustainable development has put a big question mark on the need for reckless industrialization whether through capitalist or socialist means. The present book deals with some of the important issues of contemporary political theory, apart from the traditional issues of state, rights, liberty, equality etc.The inspiration for writing this book continues to come from my teacher Gian Singh Sandhu who initiated me into the field of political theory. However, the immediate stimulus was provided by Prof (Mrs.) Susheela Kaushik who by revising the undergraduate courses gave me an opportunity to update my knowledge on the subject. In preparing the final text, I have drawn unmercifully from the goodwill, time, patience and expertise of a number of my academic friends and colleagues. To realise that my debt is due to them is great indeed. I am particularly thankful to Dr. N.D. Arora and Mrs. Padmini Narayanan who not only read a great part of the manuscript but also gave their critical and fruitful suggestions. I also wish to express my thanks to Dr. A.S. Narang, N.L. Madan, S.N. Talwar, Ram Bhatnagar, Vinod Sethi, N.N. Sharma, Urvashi Damija, Alia Hasan, C.R. Roy and many others whose comments enabled me to avoid many errors and improve the text. However, the final responsibility for the structuring and argument of the book are mine alone.The book would never have seen the light of the day but for the moral support of my wife Kamlesh and my two children Sabina and Sidharth with whom I had the opportunity of sharing my views on a number of topics. I am equally thankful to them. And lastly, I am thankful to the staff of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library for making available all the relevant material needed for the book.R.C. Vermani A 2/B 49C Pashchim Vihar, New Delhi-110063 Phone : 5585654 7 CONTENTSChapter 1. Political Theory—Nature and Significance 1-20What is political theory 2Nature and significance 3Major schools of political theory 10Chapter 2. What is Politics? 21-45Politics—a bird’s-eye view 25Politics—the Greek view 22Politics as the study of state 23Politics as conciliation of interests 25Politics as class struggle 32Politics as common good 38Chapter 3. Politics as the Study of Power 46-58What is politics 47Power—meaning and nature 48Modes of power in society 50Political Power 51Economic Power 52deological Power 53Chapter 4. Theories of Power in Society 59-72Power and class dominance 59Elitist theory of power 62Pluralist theory of power 64Power and gender 66Patriarchy and power 67Chapter 5. The Concept of Modern Nation-State— 73-87 Historical EvolutionFactors for the rise of nation-state 75Growth of nation-state 76Nation-state in Europe 768 Nation-state in America 80Nation-state in Asia and Africa 80Marxism and the national question 82Some recent developments 85Chapter 6. Sovereignty 88-110Historical development of the concept of sovereignty 89Legal sovereignty 91Austin’s theory of sovereignty 92Political Sovereignty 96Popular Sovereignty 99De Jure and de facto sovereignty 100Sovereignty and imperialism 102 Sovereignty and power blocs 104Sovereignty and world economy 106 Chapter 7. Theories of Citizenship 111-136What is citizenship 111Development of the idea of citizenship and factors for its growth 113Greek theory of citizenship 116Roman concept of citizenship 117Renaissance and citizenship 118Liberal theory of citizenship 119Marxism and citizenship 122Marshall’s theory of citizenship 123Citizenship and rights 126Citizenship education 129Critical evaluation 131Chapter 8. Democratic and Human Rights: Their Bases and Justification of Claims 137-164Meaning and nature of rights 137Bases of rights 140Theory of natural rights 140Theory of legal rights 143Historical theory of rights 145Moral theory of rights 147Social welfare theory of rights 148 Recent liberal-individualist theory of rights 1509 Marxist theory of rights 153 Meaning and characteristics of human rights 157UN Declaration of Human Rights 160 Justification of claims—a critique of human rights 161Chapter 9. Perspectives of State 165-207Concept of state—its characteristics 165Liberal-individualistic perspectives of state 168John Lock’s view on state 172Bentham’s view on state 175Social democratic perspective of state 179Laski’s view on state 182Libertarian view of state 186Views of Robert Nozic 187Marxist perspectives of state 191What is state 192Origin of state 192Functions of state 193Changes in Marxist perspective 196Gandhian perspective of state 201Chapter 10. Liberty 208-238Meaning of Liberty 208Development of the concept of liberty 211Negative liberty 213Positive liberty 221Marxist concept of freedom 227Problem of freedom in socialist states 234Chapter 11. Equality 239-264Equality vs inequality 239Struggle for equality 241What is equality 243Dimensions of equality 246Legal equality 246Political equality 248Economic equality 249Social equality 251Potentialities and limitations of equality 253Relation between liberty and equality 25310 Equality and justice 258Marxist notion of equality 260Chapter 12 Property 265-296Meaning and development of the concept of property 266Liberal theories of property 270Property as an absolute natural right 270Property as socially limited right 274Laski’s views on property 276Mid-20th century notion of property 281Marxist views of property 283Chapter 13. Theories of Distributive Justice 297-312Criteria for justice 398Greek and Roman concepts of justice 300Utilitarian theory of justice 302Contractarian theory of justice 304Views of John RawlsEntitlement theory of justice 308Views of Robert NozicChapter 14. Socialist Theories of Justice 313-331Marxist theory of justice 314Democratic socialism and justice 318Anarchism and justice 322Chapter 15. Feminist and Subaltern Perspectives of Justice 332-346Feminist view of Justice 333 Justice, sexual equality and discrimination 334 Justice and public vs private controversy 336Justice and ethics of sentimental care 338Subaltern view of justice 341Chapter 16. Theories of Common Good 347-361What is common good 347Liberal notion of common good 349Communitarian view of common good 351Marxism and common good 354Gandhian notion of common good 35711 Chapter 17. Theories of Democracy 362-419Development of the idea of democracy 363Meaning of democracy 366Representative democracy 369Classical-Liberal theory of democracy 369Elitist theory of democracy 377Pluralist theory of democracy 388Participatory theory of democracy 396 Marxist theory of democracy or People’s democracy 403Chapter 18. Theories of Social Change 420-433Development of the idea of social change 421Historical Materialism as a theory of social change 422What is historical materialism 422Explanation of historical materialism 423Criticism of historical materialism 425Liberalism and social change 429Karl Popper’s theory of ‘Piecemeal social engineering’ 430 Conceptual advances in the concept of social change 432Chapter 19. Theories of Development 434-469What is development 435Market model of development 442Social welfare model of development 448Socialist model of development 455Gandhian model of development 463Chapter 20. Development and Issues of Environment and Conservation, the concept of Sustainable Development 470-480Ecology and the issue of development 471Nature of ecology 473Concept of sustainable development 474Maximum sustainable society 475Frugal sustainable society 475Problems of sustainable development 478BIBLIOGRAPHY 481 48612 13 1 chapter 1 political theory: nature and significanceSystematic reflection on politics, the nature and purpose of government and political institutions, involving both to understand them and if necessary, how to change them, is quite old. Political activity is an activity concerned with the management of man’s collective life through the state. From classical period onwards, political speculation has been about: how fundamental political activity is; how it provides the groundwork for human civilization which distinguishes man from all other living creatures; and to inquire into the basic problem of ‘how to live together’ in a community because living together is necessitated by human nature and forms the core of individual life.Political theory seeks to understand, explain and analyse the political phenomena and prescribe ways and means to rectify the shortcomings. Political theory is a complex subject. This is because in the Western tradition, it is at least 2300 years old and has been attended to by philosophers, theologians, kings, economists, sociologists, popes and others. The number of political theorists is very large, and the interests and commitments of those engaged in this field have been so different that we are faced with the difficult task of answering a simple question: What is political theory? Moreover, because of the diversity and changes in the socio-economic circumstances, there have been substantial changes both in the subject matter of political theory and the methods of studying it.2 For the purpose of study, political theory is divided into distinct streams such as classical, modern, empirical etc. While the classical political theory was dominated by philosophy and dealt with the description, explanation, prescription and evaluation of the political phenomena; empirical political theory claimed to be a science and has been primarily concerned with the description and explanation of the political reality. Of late, contemporary political theory has tried to blend the theoretical and practical aspects. We shall talk in detail on this subject in the course of this chapter.WHAT IS POLITICAL THEORY?At the most general level, political theory is ‘a body of knowledge related to the phenomenon of the state’. While ‘theory’ refers to ‘a systematic knowledge’, ‘political’ refers to ‘matters of public concern’. According to David Held, political theory is a ‘network of concepts and generalizations about political life involving ideas, assumptions and statements about the nature, purpose and key features of government, state and society, and about the political capabilities of human beings’1. Andrew Hacker defines it as ‘a combination of a disinterested search for the principles of good state and good society on the one hand, and a disinterested search for knowledge of political and social reality on the other’.2 Another writer, George Catlin expresses almost the same views. He says, ‘political theory includes political science and political philosophy. While science refers to the phenomena of control in many forms over all the process of whole social field... It is concerned with means; political philosophy is concerned with the end or final value, when man asks ‘what is the national good’ or ‘what is good society’.3 Again, according to W.C. Coker, ‘When political government and its forms and activities are studied not simply as facts to be described and compared or judged in reference to their immediate and temporary effects, but as facts to be understood and appraised in relation to the constants needs, desires and opinions of men, then we have political theory’.4 We can sum up the meaning of political theory by referring to the comprehensive definition given by Gould and Kolb who say that it is ‘a sub-field of political science which includes: i) political philosophy—a moral theory of politics and a historical study of political ideas, ii) a scientific criterion, iii) a linguistic analysis of political ideas, iv) the discovery and systematic development of generalizations about political3 behaviour’.5On the basis of the above definitions, we can conclude that political theory is concerned with the study of the phenomena of the state both in philosophical as well as empirical terms. It not only involves explanation, description and prescription regarding the state and political institutions but also evaluation of their moral philosophical purpose. It is not only concerned with what the state is but also what it ought to be. According to Weinstein, political theory can be viewed as an activity which involves posing questions, developing responses to those questions and creating imaginative perspectives on the public life of human beings.6 It has been probing into questions like: nature and purpose of the state; why one should prefer a kind of state than the other; what the political organization aims at; by what criteria its ends, its methods and its achievements should be judged; what is the relation between state and the individual. Political theory has been engaged in these age old questions from Plato onwards because it is concerned with the fate of man which depends upon his ability to create a kind of political community in which rulers and ruled are united in the pursuit of common good. It is not necessary that political theory can provide answers to all questions but it can at least tell us how one should go about the solution.NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCEdistinction between political theory and political thought, political philosophy and political science.As stated above, political theory is the study of the phenomena of the state both from philosophical as well as empirical points of view. In this context, certain similar terms are also used such as political thought, political philosophy, political science. Although all of them are concerned with explaining the political phenomena, yet political theory is distinct from them. The distinction of political theory from other terms is as follows.political theory and political thoughtIt is generally believed that political thought is the general thought comprising of theories and values of all those persons or a section of the community who think and write on the day-do-day activities, policies and decisions of the state, and which has a4 bearing on our present living. These persons can be philosophers, writers, journalists, poets, political commentators etc. Political thought has no ‘fixed’ form and can be in the form of treatise, speeches, political commentaries etc. What is important about political thought is that it is ‘time bound’ since the policies and programmes of the governments change from time to time. Thus we have Greek thought or Roman thought of ancient period or the political thought of the medieval ages.7 Political theory, on the other hand, is the systematic speculation of a particular writer who talks specifically about the phenomena of the state. This speculation is based on certain hypothesis which may or may not be valid and may be open to criticism. Theory provides a model of explanation of political reality as is understood by the writer. As such there can be different political theories of the same period. Also, political theory is based on certain discipline-be it philosophy, history, economics or sociology. And lastly, since the task of theory is not only to explain the political reality but also to change it (or to resist change), political theory can be conservative, critical or revolutionary. According to Barker, while political thought is the immanent philosophy of a whole age, political theory is the speculation of a particular thinker. While political thought is implicit and immersed in the stream of vital action, political theory is explicit and may be detached from the political reality of a particular period.8Political theory and political philosophyPhilosophy is called ‘science of wisdom’—wisdom about this world, man or God. This wisdom is all-inclusive and tries to explain everything. When this wisdom is applied to the study of political phenomena or the state, it is called political philosophy. Political philosophy belongs to the category of normative political theory. It is concerned with not only explaining what ‘is’ but also what ‘ought’ to be. Political philosophy is not concerned with contemporary issues but with certain universal issues in the political life of man such as nature and purpose of the political organisation, basis of political authority, nature of rights, liberty, equality, justice etc. The distinction between political philosophy and political theory is explained by the fact that whereas a political philosopher is a political theorist, but a political theorist may not necessarily be a political philosopher.9 For example, David Easton is an eminent5 political theorist but is not considered a political philosopher. Though theory deals with the same issues as political philosophy, it can explain them both from philosophical as well as empirical points of view. In other words, while political philosophy is abstract or speculative, political theory can be both normative and empirical. A political theorist is as much interested in explaining the nature and purpose of the state as in describing the realities of political behaviour, the actual relations between state and citizens, and the role of power in the society. As has been pointed out by Arnold Bretch, philosophical explanations are theories too, but they are non-scientific.10 Political theory is concerned both with political institutions and the ideas and aspirations that form the basis of those institutions. However, we must not forget that though we can analytically distinguish between philosophy and theory, yet if political theory is separated from political philosophy, its meaning will appear distorted and it will prove barren and irrelevant. Theory must be supplemented by philosophy.political theory and political scienceAs a discipline, political science is much more comprehensive and includes different forms of speculation in politics such as political thought, political theory, political philosophy, political ideology, institutional or structural framework, comparative politics, public administration, international law and organizations etc. With the rise of political science as a separate discipline, political theory was made one of its subfields. However, when used specifically with emphasis on ‘science’ as distinct from ‘theory’, political science refers to the study of politics by the use of scientific methods in contrast to political philosophy which is free to follow intuition. ‘Political theory when opposed to political philosophy is political science’. Political science is concerned with describing and explaining the realities of political behaviour, generalizations about man and political institutions on empirical evidence, and the role of power in the society. Political theory, on the other hand, is not only concerned about the behavioural study of the political phenomena from empirical point of view but also prescribing the goals which states, governments, societies and citizens ought to pursue. Political theory also aims to generalize about the right conduct in the political life and about the legitimate use of power.11Thus political theory is neither pure thought, nor philosophy,6 nor science. While it draws heavily from all of them, yet it is distinct from them. Contemporary political theory is trying to attempt a synthesis between political philosophy and political science.characteristics of political theoryPolitical theory is an intellectual and moral creation of man. Generally it is the speculation of a single individual who is attempting to offer us a theoretical explanation of the political reality i.e. the phenomena of the state. Every theory by its very nature is an explanation, built upon certain hypothesis which may be valid (or not) and which are always open to criticism. So what we find in political theory is a number of attempts made by thinkers from Plato onwards to unravel the mysteries of man’s political life. They have given so many modes of explanations which may or may not convince us but to which we cannot pass any final judgement. Political theory is largely an attempt to seek the truth as the thinker sees it and it is usually expressed through a treatise such as Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, Hobb’es’ Leviathan, or Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.Secondly, political theory contains an explanation of man, society and history. It probes the nature of man and society: how a society is made up and how it works; what are the important elements; what are the sources of conflict in the society and how they can be resolved.Thirdly, political theory is discipline based. It means that though the phenomena which the theorist seeks to explain remains the same i.e. the state, the writer may be a philosopher, historian, economist, theologian or a sociologist. Thus we are confronted by a variety of political theories, each distinguished by a discipline on which it is based.Fourthly, political theory not only comprehends and explains the social and political reality but is also actively engaged in hastening the process of history. The task of political theory is not only to understand and explain but also to device ways and means to change the society. As Laski put it, the task is not merely one of description of what it is but also a prescription of what ought to be.12 Thus political theory recommends agencies of action as well as means of reform, revolution or conservation. It contains programmes that embody both ends and means. Political7 theory plays a double role: to understand society and to suggest how to remove the imperfections.And lastly, political theory also includes political ideology. Ideology in simple language means ‘a system of beliefs, values and ideals by which people allow themselves to be governed’. We find a number of ideologies in the modern world such as liberalism, Marxism, socialism etc. All political theories from Plato to date reflect a distinct ideology of the writer. Political theory in the form of political ideology includes a system of political values, institutions and practices which a society has adopted as its ideal. For example, all political theories adopted by Western Europe and America have been dominated by liberalism and the theories accepted by China and erstwhile USSR were influenced by a particular brand of Marxism. Each brand of theory or ideology in this sense claims for itself the attributes of universality and compels others to accept it, leading to what is generally known as ‘ideological conflicts’.In short, political theory is associated with the explanation and evaluation of the political phenomena and this phenomena can be examined as a statement of ideas and ideals, as an agent of socio-economic change, and as an ideology.issues in political theoryThe nature of political theory can also be understood from the kind of issues it has been grappling with during the long span of more than 2300 years. Different political issues have been dominant in different epochs. Classical political theory was primarily concerned with the search for a perfect political order. As such it analysed the basic issues of political theory such as the nature and purpose of the state, basis of political authority, the problem of political obligation and political disobedience. It was more concerned with what the state ought to be i.e. the ideal state. The rise of modern nation-state and the industrial revolution gave birth to a new kind of society, economy and polity. Modern political theory starts from individualism and made liberty of the individual as the basic issue. Hence it was concerned with issues like rights, liberty, equality, property and justice for the individual, how to create a state based upon individual consent, and a right to change the government. At one time, it also became important to explain the8 interrelation between one concept and the other such as liberty and equality, justice and liberty, equality and property. The empirical political theory, particularly after the second world war, shifted the emphasis from concepts to the political behaviour of man. It invented a number new issues largely borrowed from other social sciences. Some of the important issue of empirical political theory were authority, legitimacy, elite, party, group, political system, political culture etc.During the last twenty years, quite a number of different issues have come to dominate the scene of political theory. With the resurgence of value-based political theory, there is once again an emphasis on the issues of freedom, equality and justice. Apart from them, some new issues have come to dominate the scene such as feminism, environmentalism, ecology, community, issue concerning development, subalteranism etc. These are the issues which have been engaging the attention of political theorists today. We shall touch upon these issues in the relevant chapters in this book. Moreover traditional picture of studying the issues from a single perspective i.e. either from liberal or Marxist point of view, is also changing. Though the method was not wrong but today it is found inadequate. To give an example, both liberalism and Marxism have viewed justice or freedom in the male dominated sphere of government and economy and ignored the freedom of the traditional female spheres of home and family. An adequate theory of sexual equality will involve considerations that simply are not addressed in the traditional right or left debates. Similarly, communitarians have also exposed the weakness of single perspective approach. Recent political theory is trying to redefine the issues of liberty, equality and justice in the context of ultimate values of common good.15significanceThe significance of political theory can be derived from the purpose it serves or supposed to serve and the task performed by it. Political theory is a form of all embracing system of values which a society adopts as its ideal with a view to understand the political reality and, if necessary, to change it. It involves speculation at higher level about the nature of good life, the political institutions appropriate for its realization, to what end the state is directed and how it should be constituted to achieve those ends. The9 significance of political theory lies in providing the moral criteria that ought to be used to judge the ethical worth of a political state and to propose alternative political arrangements and practices likely to meet the moral standards. The importance of political theory lies in providing i) a description of the political phenomena, ii) a non-scientific (based upon philosophy or religion) or a scientific (based upon empirical studies) explanation, iii) proposals for the selection of political goals and political action, and iv) moral judgement. Examples of such a political theory can be found in Plato’s Republic, or Rawls’ A Theory of Justice or Nozic’s Anarchy, State and Utopia.As mentioned earlier, the fundamental question facing human beings has been ‘how to live together’. Politics is an activity engaged with the management of the collective affairs of society. The significance of theory lies in evolving various doctrines and approaches regarding the nature and purpose of the state, the bases of political authority, vision of an ideal state, best form of government, relations between the state and the individual and basic issues such as rights, liberty, equality, property, justice etc. Again what has become important in our times is to explain the inter-relation between one concept and another such as the relationship between liberty and equality, equality and property, justice and property. This is as important as peace, order, harmony-stability and unity in the society. In fact peace and harmony in the society very much depends upon how we interpret and implement the values of liberty, equality and justice etc.Contemporary states face a number of problems such as poverty, over-population, corruption, racial and ethnic tensions, environment pollution etc., conflicts among individuals, groups as well as nations. The task of political theory is to study and analyse more profoundly than others, the immediate and potential problems of political life of the society and to supply the practical politician with an alternative course of action, the consequences of which have been fully thought of. According to David Held, the task of political theorist is really demanding because in the absence of systematic study, there is a danger that politics will be left to the ignorant and self-seeking people who only want to pursue it as ‘power.13In short, the significance of political theory lies in the fact that it provides systematic thinking about the nature and purpose of10 state and government. It helps us to establish a correlation between ideals and the socio-political phenomena. It makes the individual aware of his rights and duties in the society. It helps us to understand the nature or’ the socio-economic system and its problems like poverty, violence, corruption, ethnicity etc. Since the task of political theory is not only to understand and explain the social reality but also to change it, political theory helps us to evolve ways and means to change society either through reform or revolution. When political theory performs its function well, it is one of the most important weapons of struggle for the advancement of humanity. To imbube people with correct theories may make them choose their goals and means correctly so as to avoid the roads that end in disappointment.14MAJOR SCHOOLS OF POLITICAL THEORYAs mentioned above, there is considerable diversity in political theory. Political theory in the western world is a continuous dialogue extended over time. Broadly speaking, although there is more or less a continuity regarding the subject matter of political theory, yet the approaches to its study have been changing during the past 2000 years. We shall now consider some major schools which have helped in the development of certain key concepts of political theory. These are:?i. Classical Political Theory?ii. Liberal Political Theory?iii. Marxist Political Theory?iv. Empirical-Scientific Political Theory?v. Contemporary Political Theoryclassical political theoryClassical political theory starts from 6th century B.C. and covers the political ideas of a large number of Greek, Roman and Christian thinkers and philosophers. Plato and Aristotle are the two great giants of the classical period who had enormous influence in their own times and on later thinking. Classical political theory included i) politics, ii) the idea of theory, and iii) the practice of philosophy. Politics referred to participation in the public affairs, theory referred to the systematic knowledge gained through observation, and philosophy referred to the quest for reliable knowledge - knowledge which would enable men to become wiser in the conduct of collective11 life. Thus political theory was a ‘systematic inquiry to acquire reliable knowledge about matters concerning public affairs’Classical political theory has certain specific characteristics. Firstly, it was dominated by philosophy. The great philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle were great because of the comprehensiveness and scope of their thought. They were more than political thinkers. The dimensions of political theory included description, explanation, prescription and evaluation. Secondly, there was no clear distinction between philosophical, theological and political issues. Political theory was not an autonomous subject as it is today. Thirdly, political theory was concerned with probing into issues, asking important questions and serving as a sort of conscience keeper of politics. Fourthly, classical tradition believed that political theory dealt with the political whole - the theory must be all-comprehensive and all-inclusive. It included ruling, warfare, religious practices, economic problems or relations between the classes and also beliefs such as God, justice, equality etc. The quest for an absolutely best form of government was also an important preoccupation of classical political theory. Fifthly, since classical tradition believed in the ultimate good, political good was a part of it. State was a part of the moral framework of man’s earthly living. State was considered as a natural institution and prior to the individual because ‘the individual when isolated is not self-sufficing and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole’. State was also an educational institution which made man a good citizen, sensitive to the recognition of law and virtue of civic obedience. The end of the state was the promotion of good life. Though there has been a debate about which comes first - the common good or the individual good, but the classical tradition believed that the common good was the good of the individuals as part and member of the society and sought by them precisely as members of society. The common good was more complete than the private good of the individual and it was this completeness ‘which determined the greater excellence of the common good’. And lastly, an important theme of classical political tradition was the search for an ideal state and the most stable system of government. Classical theorists repeatedly asked questions like: Who should rule and why; what is the best form of government? Theory was preoccupied with analysing the sources of conflict and to enunciate the principles of justice which might guide the political organization in discharging its distributive12 functions of assigning material and non-material goods. The search for an ideal state provided an invaluable means of practicing theory and of acquiring experience in its handling. The trend of an idealist state as set by classical political theory had clear reflection on later political thinking.The classical political tradition -a tradition usually considered to include eighteen or so centuries sandwiched between Plato and Machiavelli was considerably richer and more varied. But even more important differences and variations were yet to come. With Renaissance, Reformation and industrial revolution, new ideas and events shook the foundation of Western world. During this period a new school of political theory was born, which was later known as liberalism.liberal political theoryThe long spell of Plato, Aristotle, S. Augustine, Cicero and other thinkers of classical age was broken in a variety of ways after the twin revolutions of Renaissance and Reformation in Europe from 15th century onwards, coupled with the industrial revolution later on. Renaissance produced a new intellectual climate which gave birth to modern science and modern philosophy and a new political theory known as liberalism. This new political theory found classical expression in the writings of Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer and a host of other writers. Whereas classical political theory considered the moral development of individual and the evolution of the community as co-terminus, the liberal political theory developed the concept of sovereign individual. The central theme of this political theory was Individualism. It started with the belief in the absolute value of human personality and spiritual equality of all individuals and in the autonomy of individual will. Secondly, it believed in individual freedom in all spheres of life - political, economic, social, intellectual, religious etc. Freedom meant as freedom from all authority that is capable of acting arbitrarily and freedom to act in accordance with the dictates of ‘right reason’. Thirdly, it brought in the concept of individual rights - that man is ‘endowed by his creator with certain inalienable rights’ commonly known as the natural rights of ‘life, liberty and property’. Since man and his rights exist prior to the establishment of state, these cannot be bargained away when the13 state is established.Fourthly,-the new theory declared that state is not a natural institution but comes into existence by mutual consent for the sole purpose of preserving and protecting the individual rights, The relation between state and the individual is contractual and when the terms of the contract are violated, individuals not only the right but the responsibility to revolt and establish a new government. The state was not a natural institution as claimed by classical political theory but a machine devised by men for certain specific purposes such as law, order, protection, justice, and preservation of individual rights. The state is useful to man but he is the master. Social control is best secured by law rather than by command - the law which was conceived as being the product of individual will and the embodiment of reason.Fifthly, the new political theory dismissed the idea of common good and an organic community. Instead it gave the idea that ‘government that governs’ the least is the best’ and the only genuine entity is the Individual. Political theory during this period was not searching for an Ideal State or a Utopia but was preoccupied with freeing the individual from the social and economic restraints and from the tyrannical and non-representative governments. In this context, it redefined the concept of state, relations between the individual and the state, and developed the concepts of rights liberty, equality, property, justice and democracy for the individual’marxist political theoryLiberal-individualistic political theory was challenged by Marx, Engles and their subsequent followers in the later half nineteenth century by their ‘scientific socialism’. While socialism extends back far beyond Marx’s time, it was he who brought together many ideas about the ills of society and gave them a great sense of urgency and relevancy. No political theory can ignore the study of Marxist history, politics, society and economics. The knowledge of Marxism has put us in a better position to analyse the socio, economic developments. Marxism introduced a new concept of philosophy conceived as a way to the liberation of mankind. The task of knowledge, according to Marx, is not only to understand the world but also to change the material conditions of human life. He insisted that the salvation is to be found by man in this14 world itself and it laid in the revolutionary reconstitution of the present society and the establishment of a socialist society. His complaint against liberal capitalism was that it was a civilization of property, inequality and family fortune for a few and most degrading conditions for the vast number of people. Socialism was an attempt to secure the necessary, if not sufficient, conditions for the realization of emancipation of mankind. It is the establishment of a society on rational basis—a society in which ‘man shall not be exploited by man’, a society in which men will have the full opportunity to develop their potentialities and personality, a classless and stateless society in which ‘the free development of each shall be the condition for the free development of all’.Marxist political theory is a theory of social change and revolutionary reconstitution of society. In this context, Marxism consists of three inter-related elements: i) An examination and critique of the present and past societies. This is known as Dialectical materialism and historical materialism; ii) the notion of an alternative model against a society based upon exploitation and divided among classes. The new society is based on the common ownership of the means of production in which human potential will be allowed to freely develop its manifold facets. Such a society will be classless and stateless; iii) how to being about such a society’.16 Though there was a general agreement that capitalist system was unstable and crisis-ridden but the advent of socialism required a revolutionary action by the proletariat, whose growing impoverishment will lead to revolution, and establishment of a socialist state and society.The central themes of Marxist political theory are mode of production, class division, class struggle, property relations, revolution and state as an instrument of class domination. Marxism also examined the nature of rights, liberty, equality, justice and democracy but came to the conclusion that in a class divided society, they are the prerogatives of the propertied class. Real liberty and equality can be achieved only in a classless and stateless society. Thus whereas liberal political theory was associated with the establishment of modern liberal capitalist democratic state, Marxist political theory preoccupied itself with the establishment of a socialist state through revolutionary action.Marxism as the economic, social and political theory and practice originating in the works of Marx and Engles, has been enriched15 by a number of revolutionaries, philosophers, academicians and politicians. It has also been subject to a variety of interpretations. In the twentieth century, the prominent contributors to the Marxist thought have been Lenin, Bukharin, Stalin, Rose Luxemburg, Gramsci, Lukacs, Austro-Marxists, the Frankfurt school, Herbert Marcuse, the New Left theorists, Euro-communists, Mao Tse Tung and host of others. Up to the first world war, Marxism was highly deterministic and represented a philosophy of socio-political changes which culminated in the Russian revolution. However, during the inter-war period and the post-second world war, Marxism developed more as a critique of present socio-economic and cultural conditions than a philosophy of revolutionary action. Known as contemporary Marxism, it has been more concerned with the problems of superstructure, culture, art, aesthetics, ideology, alienation etc.empirical-scientific political theoryThere is another kind of political theory developed in America popularly known as the Empirical-Scientific political theory. The study of political theory through scientific method (instead of philosophical) and based upon facts (rather than on values) has long history but the credit for making significant developments in this connection goes to the American social scientists. In the early twentieth century, Max Weber, Graham Wallas and Bentley gave an empirical dimension to the study of political theory and advocated that its study should be based upon ‘facts’ only. Another writer George Catlin emphasized that the study of political theory should be integrated with other social sciences such as sociology, psychology, anthropology etc. However, it was during the inter-war period and after the second world war that a new theory was developed by the political scientists of Chicage University (known as the Chicago School) such as Charles Merrium, Harold Lasswell, Gosnell, and others like David Easton, Stuart Rice, V.O. Key and David Apter. The new political theory shifted emphasis from the study of political ideals, values and institutions to the examination of politics in the context of individual and group behaviour. The new approach advocated that the method of studying should be through the behaviour of human beings as members of political community. The task of political theory is to formulate and systemtize the concept of science of political behaviour in which emphasis is placed on empirical research than on political philosophy. A political16 theorist should clarify and criticize systems of concepts which have empirical relevance to political behaviour. According to Easton, ‘systematic theory corresponds at the level of thought to the concrete empirical political systems of daily life’.17Empirical-Scientific theory is different from the classical tradition in many respects. Firstly, the scientific theory believes that the political theory is to order, explain and predict the phenomena and not to evaluate it. Nor is it concerned with the creation of grand political Utopias. What is worth noting is that the relation with philosophy is completely severed. Political theory is meaningful to the point or degree it is verifiable. Secondly, the study of political theory should be value free; it should concern itself with ‘facts’ only. The task of theory is to analyse the present political phenomena and not with the evaluation of what is happening and what should happen. The concern of political theory should not be with ‘who rules, should rule or why?’ but with only ‘who does rule and how’. It should focus attention on the study of political behaviour of man, group and institutions irrespective of their good or bad character. Thirdly, practical theory is not only concerned with the study of the state but also with the political process. Fourthly, scientific theory does not believe in critical function, that is, it should not question the basis of the state but should be concerned with maintaining the status quo, stability, equilibrium and harmony in the society. Fifthly, it developed many new concepts borrowed from other social sciences such as power, elite, decision-making, policy-making, functioning of structures, political system, political culture etc.Because of too much stress on science, value-free politics, methods and its failure to study the pressing social and political issues, empirical political theory began to attract criticism after 1960s. The ‘Behavioural Revolution’ announced by David Easton laid less emphasis on scientific method and technique and showed greater concern for the public responsibilities of political theory, The debates in 1970s resulted in the frank admission that there are segments of human life relating to values or purposes embodied in any political structure that were either ignored or overlooked by the behavioural studies. The core issues of political theory such as liberty, equality, justice were taken up once again by John Rawls, Robert Nozic, Habermas and others which signalled once17 again the revival of normative political theory. This new revival is termed as contemporary political theory.contemporary political theorySince 1970s, there has been a revival of interest in political theory in USA, Europe and other parts of the world. At the heart of this renaissance has been the emerging clash of values on the one hand and the changes in the humanities and social sciences, on the other. Moreover, the passing away of the shadows of second world war, reemergence of Europe, and crisis in the ideologies of socialism and Marxism brought about a new fluidity in political ideologies. Whether it is Marxism or socialism, liberalism or democracy - all stand challenged and new powerful social movements are seeking to redraw the issues in political theory.During the era of domination of behaviouralism, political theory was overpowered by political science. Theory was denied the status of a legitimate form of knowledge and inquiry. Though the hold of empiricism did not last long, yet it left an enduring legacy in the development of political and social sciences particularly in North America in the form of ‘scienticism’.The encouragement for the regeneration of political theory came from many sources. While a number of thinkers (such as Thomas Kuhn) challenged the whole model of what is science, there were others who felt that there are distinctive problems of understanding the social sciences and social issues which could not be grasped by the model of a unified science. This is because of two factors: Firstly, the object of social sciences is the self-interpreting social being and different thinkers interpret the social issues differently. Secondly, political theory cannot be limited to a systematic account of politics; it must also perform its critical role, i.e., its capacity to offer an account of politics which transcends those of lay men. As a result of the great debates, a number of important innovations in the study of political theory followed. Though it is not possible to give a detailed account of these developments, a few distinctive features of the contemporary political theory can be summerized as follows:181. An important feature of empirical theory was its break with history. Contemporary political theorists believe that political theory must not be disassociated from history. Political theory has once18 again been renewed as history of political thought.2. All knowledge about human activities involves interpretation and the interpretation can lead to different conclusions. Hence the idea of political theory being neutral and value-free is wrong.3. Political understanding cannot escape the history of tradition. Knowledge is a part of the tradition and the process of understanding aspects of the world contributes to our self-understanding. However, the process of self-understanding is never complete. ‘History does not belong to us but we belong to History’. There is no final truth. As such there can be no such thing as ‘the only correct or the final’ understanding of the political phenomena. The meaning of a text on political theory is always open to further interrelations from new perspectives.4. Political theory is concerned with conceptual analysis. This involves seeing political theory as a systematic reflection upon the meaning of the key terms and concepts like sovereignty, democracy, right, liberty, justice etc.5. There is a revival of normative element. Contemporary political theory is concerned with the systematic elaboration of the underlying structure of our moral and political activities, as well as examination and reconstruction of the principal political values such as justice, liberty, common good, community living etc.6. Theory is concerned with both abstract theoretical questions and particular political issues. This is due to the belief that consideration of political concepts without detailed examination of the condition of their realization may not be able to bring out the actual meaning of the concept. Political theory should be problem-oriented and should probe issues like democracy, market, equal opportunities in such contexts. Political theory is a theoretical aspect of political science, trying to construct a theory on the basis of observation.In short, according to David Held, contemporary political theory involves four distinct tasks: Firstly, it is philosophical, i.e. it is concerned with the normative and conceptual framework; secondly, it is empirical, i.e., it is concerned with the problem of understanding and explanation of the concepts; thirdly, it is historical, i.e., it is concerned with the examination of the key concepts of political19 theory in historical context; and finally, it is strategic, i.e. it is concerned with an assessment of the feasibility of moving from where we are to where we might likely to be. It is only through the combination of these elements that the central problems of political theory can be solved.CONCLUSIONPolitical theory is a never ending dialogue. Speculation on politics will continue because it relates to the life and values by which men live and die. The goal of theory is to enhance our understanding of the social reality and create conditions for good life. In this context, both classical and empirical theories need to be synthesized. Political theory cannot be based purely either on philosophy or science. All issues raised by philosophy must be examined within modes of inquiry at empirical level. Conversely, the normative issues raised by political science cannot be evaded. For example, the meaning of justice, equality or freedom cannot be explained by science. Similarly, the problems of our times - whether they are racial and ethnic tensions and bigotry, overpopulation, unemployment, decaying cities, corruption, conflicts between the nations - are such that we need every available brain to work for their solution. While the political scientists produce more comprehensive explanation of how and why things happen in the world of politics, the task of political philosopher is to relate this knowledge with the big problems of mankind and to inquire into how these can help in enhancing liberty, equality, justice and fraternity in the society and among the peoples so as to create conditions for good life.Notes1. David Held, Political Theory and the Modern State, Polity Press, 1989, p. 5.2. Andrew Hacker, Political Theory—Philosophy, Ideology and Science, Macmillan, New York, 1969, p. vii3. George Catlin in Gould and Thursby (ed), Contemporary Political Thought. Issues in Scope, Value and Direction, Holt Rinenart and Winston. New York, 1969,4. C.W. Coker, Recent Political Thought, Appleton Century Crofts, New York, 1934, p.3.5. See ‘Political Theory’ in Gould and Kolb, A Dictionary of Social Sciences. UNESCO, N.Y.,1964 6. M.A. Weinsteiu, Systematic Political Theory. Charles E. Merrill Pub. Ohio. 1971, p.17. Frank Thakurdas, Essays in political Theory, Gitanjali Publishing House. New Delhi, p.34.8. Ernest Barker, Medieval Political Thought in F.J.C. Hearnshaw (ed) The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great Medieval Thinkers, p. 10 9. Frank Thakurdas, op. cit. p. 910. Arnold Brecht, ‘Political Theory’ in David Sills (ed), International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Macmillan and Freepress, New York. 1969, p.30911. Andrew Hacker, op. cit., p. 1-212. Quoted in Frank Thakurdas. op. cit., p. 1313. David Held, Political Theory Today. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991, p. 21.14. Anrold Brecht, Political Theory: The Foundation of Twentieth Century Political Thought. Princeton University Press, Princeton, p 1959, p. 715. See Introduction of Will Kymilicka. Contemporary Political Philosophy, OUP, Oxford, 199016. Kolakowaski. Main Currents in Marxism Vol I, Oxford University Press. Oxford, 1981.17. David Easton. Political System, Scientific Books Agency, Calcutta, 1971, p. 8918. David Held, Political Theory Today, op. cit., p. 13-21.21 CHAPTER 2 WHAT is politics?POLITICS—A BIRD’S-EYE VIEWPolitics is a word of every day use. We live in a world of growing politicization. The question—what is politics?—invokes a number of answers ranging from the most simple to the most complex. There are people who regard politics as the art of the possible, a dirty business associated with self-seeking behaviour, hypocracy or a conspiracy by which political parties seek to preserve some particular social system. On the other hand, there are others who regard politics as an activity concerned with the welfare of the masses and the development of the individual and society as a whole. For a casual observer, politics is the activities of the political parties and it is not surprising if his observations are often accompanied by such statement that ‘politics is a dirty game which gentlemen should not play‘. Often people mistrust and dislike politicians. But the terms is widely used in contexts other than that of political parties.A most useful answer is that politics is concerned with state and government. It is customary to look upon politics as arising from and concerned with the formal political institutions such as parliament, executive, judiciary, bureaucracy etc. It is considered as the science and art of government and covers the entire field of political life and behaviour. It embraces the relations between state and individual as well as the relations among the states. In this sense, politics can be domestic, national, federal, municipal, imperial or international.The vast extension of suffrage and spread of democracy have brought a complete change in political methods and tactics. Politics 22 now-a-days is different from that of the olden days. The politicians who once had to learn how to flatter kings have now to learn how to attract and persuade the electorates. Thus, participation of people in the affairs of the state, the relationship between the state and the individual, the rights of citizens, the problems of political obligations are other aspects of politics.In fact, no student of politics can avoid making his own choice of what constitutes politics. What is worth remembering is that politics is not something God given and its meaning has evolved and changed in response to the problems occurring at a particular point of time. It has been identified with state, government, collective choice to fix public priorities, class domination, public good, power etc. Hence the best way to study and understand ‘what is politics‘ is to study it systematically and bring out its dominant meanings in the long history of its evolution.POLITICS—THE GREEK VIEWThe concept of politics originates with the classical Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle who understood politics as ‘a concern with the general issues affecting the whole community‘. Plato, Aristotle and many other Greek philosophers considered the affairs of the polls as worthy of being the subject of a Master Science because they saw participation of citizens in the life of the polls as a necessary condition for human self-realization. ‘Man is a political animal and it is his nature to live in polls,‘1 wrote Aristotle. He who did not live in polls was considered ‘either God or beast‘. Secondly, politics in the Greek world enveloped the whole life of the individual—social, moral, political and economic etc. It did not make any difference between state and society. Also because the Greek city-states were small by our standards, politics did not make a difference between public and private. Practically all behaviour of citizens was regarded political in one sense or the other. Politics was all embracing. Thirdly, the purpose of politics was to enable men to live together in a community, and on a higher plane, to help them to lead a virtuous and moral life. Political life existed to achieve a concrete ethical goal i.e. the self-realization of man. Politics had no place apart from ethics. Hence, polls was considered a natural, necessary and ethical institution.23 In short, the Greek concept of politics included the study of man, society, state and ethics. It was a guide to political power, a course for civic training, a moral philosophy, a historical metaphysics, and sociology all interwoven into one.Later, with the decline of city-states and the rise of great multinational empires, the meaning of politics was reduced and became too narrow. Private concerns were separated from the public affairs and a distinction was made between political activities and those of religious, economic and military etc. Political concern became only one of the several concerns a man might have and the political realm i.e. state became one of the several communities to which a man might belong. The erstwhile monopoly and supremacy of politics over the loyalty of a citizen had to be shared, in particular, with communities of religious beliefs which entreated their members to ‘render unto Caesar (only) the things which are Caesar‘s and unto God the things which are God‘s‘.POLITICS AS THE STUDY OF THE STATEThe state as the central concept of politics has long history. For instance, according to Garner, ‘Politics begins and ends with the state‘2. Similarly, Gettel also wrote ‘Politics is the study of the state in the past, present and future‘3. Broadly speaking, state was defined as a social organization having final authority over all persons residing within a particular territory. Historically, the idea of state is bound with the emergence of nation-states as the principle mode of human organization on the world scence since the close of middle ages. Unlike Greek polls, the concept of state was not limited to small communities capable of self-sufficiency or internal political activities alone. Subjects like international law also became a part of it. The state had monopoly of coercive power and the right to obedience. To enforce its decisions, the state employed military force, police, prisons etc. However, whatever was done by the state was actually done by the government. Hence the study of the state actually became the study of government and its institutions and structures like constitution, parliament, executive, judiciary, bureaucracy. With the advance in the study of governments, different forms of governments such as monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, federalism also became a part of the study of the state. In the twentieth century, the effect of public opinion, political 24 parties and bureaucracy on governmental institutions were also included in it. ‘Modern Democracies‘ (1909) by Herman Finer, ‘Modern Governments‘ (1958) by Macgridis are the best examples of understanding politics as the study of state and government.Until the second world war, the state served as the chief organizing idea and to a modest degree, it is still an important and useful concept of politics. However, the emphasis on state as the central concept created certain problems. According to Guild and Palmer, they were mainly two: i) the concept of state appeared to be too static to allow scholars to deal adequately with certain aspects of political life. Lawyers considered state to be a state only if it possessed certain characteristics like fixed territory, government able to maintain order, and freedom from outside control. It was obvious that some political events like war, revolutions, emergence of colonies etc. required a far more flexible definition of the central concept of state in order to be treated under it. The concept appeared too much legalistic. It paid attention only to the formal aspects of politics like legislature, executive, bureaucracy and judiciary and other institutions legally established; ii) as the study of politics grew more and more conscious about its concepts and methods, the concept of state became more ambiguous. Historically, it had a number of legal definitions and philosophical connotations4. Hence, rather than attempting to seek agreement on a definition where none seemed possible, it was preferred to treat the state simply as an important aspects of politics and to look elsewhere for a unifying concept of politics.POLITICS AS DIMENSION OF SOCIAL PROCESSPolitics as the study of the state and its structures and institutions of government did not go into the heart of the matter i.e. the deep-rooted problems that are actually faced by the citizens of the state. Contemporary political scientists study politics as an interaction between man, society and polity. Politics is basically a social science and as such, it has to concentrate on some social process, which is the subject of its study. All that three divergent views of politics which we are going to discuss below regard politics as a part of the social process.Broadly speaking, politics is the sum total of all those activities and processes through which a society makes its own history and25 faces the historical challenges and demands. However, such a broad definition may include all kinds of social activities. To define the terms within limits, we can say that politics is a process of conflict (such as war, diplomacy, civil war, revolution) and cooperation (such as law and order, protection, conservation, development) among individuals and groups whose purpose is to secure values like liberty, equality, property, justice, welfare etc. and to organize and use (or abuse also) the state, government, police, military, education, religion for this purpose. Here we have used some contradictory terms like ‘conflict and cooperation‘, ‘use or abuse‘ etc. This is deliberate because different theories view the social process differently. For example, the liberal view of politics which believes in conciliation, lays more emphasis on how to resolve conflicts and maintain law and order through the cooperation of all groups and classes in the society. Marxism on the other hand, view politics as a long process of class struggle, a struggle which dominates in every field of society—whether it is economy, society, culture, beliefs, polity etc. It is a struggle which is rooted in history and which is the cause of all social changes in the society. The concept of common good wants to use politics for the promotion of happiness of the individual as a part of the community. Hence what is politics as a process depends upon the kind of activity which is the focus of study. Let us now study these views in detail.POLITICS AS CONCILIATION OF INTERESTSLiberalism views politics as conciliation of interests. Such a view of politics is associated with the rise and growth of liberalism in Western Europe and has been expounded by a number of liberal writers from seventeenth century onwards such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Bertham, J.S. Mill, T.H. Green, Laski, Barker, MacIver, J.B.D. Miller, Bernard Crick, Maurice Duverger etc. The subject and object of politics, according to this view, is not the state, sovereignty or power but Man himself, functioning as a social creature. The self-interested men while persuing their individual interests and needs are likely to clash and collide, resulting in disorder, indiscipline, insecurity, chaos, making any civilized activity impossible. Politics is a part of that social process through which such conflicts are conciliated, and law, order, protection and justice are established in the society. Since politics is one 26 aspect of man‘s social activity, it is evident that it must be considered in the social context. The analysis of politics should begin where society itself begins. Man and society are the breeding ground of politics.WHY interests clash—nature of man and societyWhy there is a clash of interests which requires conciliation. The liberal view holds that the starting point of this conflict is the nature of man. The early liberal view of man was that only the individual human being with his interests, his enterprise, his desire for happiness, his advancement and above all his reason can be the foundation of a stable society and state. The individual was seen not as a moral or social being but only as an owner of himself. Thomas Hobbes, for example, sketched an outline of man as a self-interested, egoistic, independent and atomic, though rational, individual concerned only with his self-preservation. This view was further strengthened by John Locke, Adam Smith, Bentham and Mill who also stressed the individuality and free will of man.In the late 19th century and 20 century, liberal writers like Bentley, Trumen, G.D.H. Cole, Harold Laski, MacIver drew attention to another aspect of political process. They expressed the view that society is not only composed of individuals but also of interest groups. These interest groups can be social, religious, cultural, commercial, economic and political through which man fulfils his interests and needs. However, like individuals, these groups are also based upon selfish interest and are always in competition. Hence apart from individuals, there are groups and aggregate of groups continuously in competition to advance and fulfill their own interests. For the sake of free society, such competition must be allowed to proceed, though it must not be allowed to collapse into violence and chaos as a means of fulfilling their interests.In short, individuals and groups are autonomous entities, driven by self-interest and possess a competitive nature. Even the large social groups, classes, economic and other interest groups have conflicting interests and compete in the society.NATURE of societySince individual was taken as a unit and the single human being as a natural unity, liberalism viewed society as an artificial 27 institution. It was an aggregate of individuals, a collection, a crowd persuing their own selfish interests. Hobbes compared society with a sack of corn. They are associate yet separate. Bentham also viewed society as a fictitious body, with no interest of its own apart from the interests of members composing it. It was considered a creation of individual will, based upon contract and a means to enrich individual ends5. Macpherson has termed this view of society as ‘free market society‘, a meeting place of self-interested individuals, a society based upon free will, competition and contract6.While independently persuing their various individual aims, men are likely to clash and collide. Different persons want to do the same thing or possess the same objects As a result interests, ambitions and aspirations bring them into conflict. These interests are extremely tricky to define but they result from many factors. The conflicts and clash of interests could be man vs man, groups vs group, class vs class; conflicts of affluence and poverty, conflicts which can be socio-economic, cultural, geographic, demographic etc. In short, society was seen as full of powerful and conflicting interest with no natural unity between man and society.During the later half of nineteenth century, another dimension was added to this view. This was the need for cooperation. Liberal writers like Green emphasized the social nature of man and the need to win the willing cooperation of all sections of society. Later, liberal sociologists like Max Weber and Karl Mannheim also stressed the need for cooperation, consensus, harmony, integration among the various individuals, groups and classes in the society. Their view was that men must compete, but they should also cooperate. The plurality and diversity in the society results in disagreements, conflicts and competition which need to be transformed into agreement, harmony and cooperation. The requirements of competition need cooperation.The competition among individuals and groups can be resolved through cooperation and compromise. But the question is who acts as the mediator? Who brings about the compromise? On what principles are they based? How the principles are to be determined? In short, how the paradox of conflict and cooperation is to be resolved? It is to answer these questions that we turn to politics.28 POLITICS is a means of conciliation of interestsIf man as individual is concerned with persuing his own selfish interests and society is the meeting place of conflicting and colliding interests, then politics is an activity to resolve conflicts and maintain law and order in the society. Liberalism believes that there is no automatic unity in the society and politics is an activity through which conflict is converted into cooperation and thereby, unity and harmony among competing individuals and groups is brought in the society. As Wolin writes, politics is ‘....a mode of activity that seeks to resolve conflict and promote readjustment‘. Similarly Gould writes, ‘Politics denotes those processes of human action by which conflict concerning on the one hand, the common good and on the other, the interests of groups, is carried on or settled, always involving the use of, or struggle, for power7. Politics is concerned with resolving conflicts in the society and to make clear the path for peaceful social change. The early liberal view was that society must be left free to compete and the task of politics is only to define the rules of the game. But during twentieth century, it was felt that if individuals, groups or classes are left free to compete for advantage, one section or class may accumulate greater portion of wealth, services, profit or power. Hence, politics was defined as an activity to create conditions of greater equality, social justice, as a process of resolving conflicts without destroying the underlying competitive framework. This view of politics as a process of resolving conflicts has been explained by a number of writers such as J.D.B. Miller in his book The Nature of Politics, (1965), Bernard Crick in his book In Defence of Politics (1962), Maurice Duverger in his book The Idea of Politics (1964) and Adrain Leftwich in his book What is Politics? (1984).According to Miller, politics is about disagreement or conflict and political activity is that which is intended to bring or resist change. Politics demands some disagreement and the presence of government as a means of resolving the disagreement in some direction. Politics is what it is because society is like this, because men in their social situations find themselves divided. Although they want to live in a peaceful or ordered society, they differ from one another in a variety of ways. Politics is the national reflection of disagreements among the members of society. Socially these agreements may be economic like scarcity, social groups at 29 advantages and disadvantages, countries may be endowed with unequal resources, men may be different in intelligence, skill etc. Such disagreements may produce social tensions which find many political expressions. Politics occurs because the diversities in society make themselves felt as disagreements and they need conciliation. Politics is the application of government to social situations which will not settle themselves8. Politics keeps on happening because changes in social conditions and opinions never move uniformly towards agreement but continue to generate new disagreements.A more or less similar view has been expressed by Bernard Crick. He does not agree with those who think of politics as unprogressive, unpatriotic, inefficient, mere compromise or even a sham or a conspiracy by which political parties seek to preserve some particular or peculiar social system. He rather considers politics as a moral activity, a free activity, inventive, flexible and human. He defines politics as ‘an activity by which different interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and survival of the whole community9. These conflicts when personal, create the activity called ethics, and such conflicts, when public, create politics. To renounce or destroy politics is to destroy the very thing which gives order to the pluralism and variety of civilized society, the thing which enables us to enjoy variety without suffering either anarchy or the tyrrany of single truth. To the question ‘why do certain interests have to be conciliated‘, Crick gives the answer that there is not doubt that other options are also available. The question of politics comes only when the interests have to be conciliated. Politics is needed because the problems of order can be solved better by conciliation rather than coercion or violence. Politics allows various types of power within a community to find some reasonable level of mutual tolerance and support. Thus, according to Crick, ‘political rule arises because of the problem of diversity and does not try to reduce all things to a single unity...Politics is a way of ruling divided societies without undue violence—and most societies are divided10. Conciliation is preferred to coercion among normal people. Most technological societies are divided societies and pluralistic and peaceful rule is always better than violent rule. Politics is not just a necessary evil but a 30 realistic good.Maurice Duverger has also laid stress on the integrative aspect of politics. According to him, there is every possibility of the use of violence in resolving conflicts but ‘politics is an attempt to resolve the individual and group conflicts without physical violence11.It is the use of non-violent and if need be, less violent means of resolving conflicts. If the conflicts are resolved through violence, bloodshed, weapons, then we are very far from politics. ‘Politics tries to replace fists, knives, pikes and guns with other weapons12. Politics is an activity which replaces violence by discussion, use of arms by dialogue, bullets by ballots. Politics is concerned with reconciliation of competitive interests. To create unity in diversity is the aim of politics.HOW INTERESTS ARE CONCILIATED?If politics is a process of conciliation of competing interests, the natural question is how these interested are harmonized and the society is saved from the disaster of individual actions. In other words, what are the different means which politics uses to achieve the purpose of cooperation, harmony, consensus among different interests in the society. Broadly speaking, they are i) statutory laws, ii) political institutions iii) social welfare, cultural traditions etc. Statutory laws are the final arbitration between conflicting social interests. They are the most effective means within a society and are usually backed by the fear of punishment. They include both the constitutional law, that is, the laws which govern politics, and the ordinary laws made by the parliament which define the limits within which individuals and groups are allowed to compete. Apart from the laws, during the last 300 years, liberalism has evolved many political institutions of individual and mass participation in the political process. Prominent among them are democracy, representative institutions, political participation, political parties, universal suffrage, civil and political rights including right to liberty and property, pressure groups like autonomous organizations, commercial groups, trade union organizations etc. Through participation in these groups, people are integrated into the social and political process.Again, during the twentieth century, politics has also become an instrument of social welfare. To resolve the conflicts, it intervenes 31 in the economic and social life of the individual in a positive manner. By regulating the capitalist economy and adopting certain socialist methods such as free education, health insurance, social security measures, it tries to minimize the causes of conflicts in the society. And lastly it makes use of the cultural and ideological means like education, mass media, propaganda, religion etc. to create broad consensus in the society. It encourages cooperation and harmony and the conciliation of interests in a free and open atmosphere through persuasion, dialogue and discussion.Thus we can conclude that depending upon the nature of man and society, liberalism views politics as a social process which resolves conflicts, maintains law and order, brings unity and cooperation, serves the common interest and brings about peaceful change in the society. It resolves conflicts through constitutional methods, rule of law, political dissent and political participation. At economic level, it favours right to property, liberal-capitalist economy and a welfare state.The main points of politics as conciliation of interests can be summerized as follows:?i. Politics is a part of social process through which conflicts are resolved among men, groups and classes.?ii. As a part of the social process, the study of politics begins with the study of man and society. Since man is basically selfish, egoistic, competitive and pursuing his own individual interests, and society is the place where the individuals and groups with their powers and interests compete among each other; their interests, ambitions and aspirations bring them into a state of conflict and clash.?iii.The clash of interests, if unchecked, can lead to disorder, indiscipline, insecurity, violence and chaos, making civilized life impossible.?iv. Politics is a process through which the conflicts among men, groups and classes are resolved and the path is cleared for harmony, consensus, equilibrium among different interests in the society.?v. The conflict can best be resolved through peaceful methods constitutional rule of law, democratic political institutions, political participation and formal freedom in the form of civil and political rights of the individuals.32 ?vi. The process of reconciliation is performed through the state which is an impersonal legal structure separate from the society and serving the general interests of the society as a whole.?vii. Politics is not the monopoly of a particular group or class in the society but serves the general interests of the society at large.?viii. At the economic level, conciliatory politics gives importance to market as a mechanism for coordinating diverse activities of producers and consumers. It favours right to property, mixed economy, and competition yet cooperation among different groups.?ix. On ethical side, it gives importance to four human values: Power, Respect, Well-being and Enlightenment. Power means that while the state must have enough power to control the competitive individuals and groups in the society, people should also have enough power to influence the state. Respect includes honour and respect for human rights. Well-being means employment opportunities for individuals and groups, public services, health, safety etc. And lastly, Enlightenment means how an individual learns about himself, society and the world. This includes education, information through mass media and cultural modes.POLITICS AS CLASS STRUGGLEPolitics as a form of class struggle is the hallmark of Marxism. Like the liberal view of politics, Marxism also starts from the notion of conflicting interests in the society. However, while liberalism believes that conflicts among the individuals and groups is a problem to be solved and converted into cooperation and harmony, Marxism sees conflict in a totally different perspective. Declaring that the roots of conflict in the process of fulfilling the physical and mental needs of man living in the society, it wants to study the nature and outcome of these conflicts. Again instead of resolving the conflicts, it wants to eliminate the roots of the conflicts 33 and consequently the conflicts themselves through revolutionary reconstitution of the society. However, before we talk about the Marxist notion of conflicts, let us have a look at their view of man and society.WHY THERE IS CLASS STRUGGLE—NATURE OF MAN AND SOCIETYMarxism starts from the premise that man is a social being, a biological being whose essence lies in the aggregate of social relations. Each human being is individual in the sense that social has become its aspect, a feature of his personality. He is social because all his powers are socially moulded and his creative activities satisfy the needs of others. The very existence of man presupposes mutual relations which include not only the influence of social conditions on man but also his influence on the social conditions. The development of the personality takes place in society in which each individual is an object and the subject. As Marx wrote, ‘...The individual is a social being. The manifestation of his life is a manifestation and affirmation of social life‘13. Man and society are certainly distinct but at the same time they are in unity with each other. At another place Marx writes, ‘Man is not an abstract individual squatting outside the world‘. Man is human will, the state and the society. Similarly, Swingewood writes, ‘The individual exists only as part of a whole—family, occupational group, class. Both society and the individual are to be understood and analysed from this point of view‘19. Asserting himself as a social being, man remains a personality, a personal individual, with its inmitable individuality, a social being.societyDepending upon its views of man, Marxism sees society not an aggregate of individuals or an artificial institution but a product of man‘s reciprocal action. Society is a living organism capable of change and is continuously changing. Marxism begins with the idea of human beings living in society and there is no antithesis between man and society which is to be reconciled through politics. Secondly, Marxism does not separate society from nature. Man is a part of the natural world which is the basis of real activity. The production and reproduction of material life is natural and so are the social relationships. Society is a totality of man‘s existence. Any claim of the individual on the society has to be deduced from 34 the real development of the society. Thirdly, Marxism sees society as an expression of a materialistic system governing economic relations i.e. Mode of Production. Society owes its existence in the material and mental needs of man. In order to fulfill these needs, man has to produce and hence enter into definite relations of production. The production in any society depends upon the forces of production (i.e. raw material, labour and the nature of tools and technology), and relations of production (between owners and non-owners). While production is important, more important is: who owns the raw material and the instruments of production. Since this ownership is always in a few hands, society is divided into two classes—owners and non-owners. Classes emerge on the basis of production. Historically speaking, in the classical age, these classes were masters and slaves, in feudalism, they were nobles and the peasants and in capitalism they are capitalist and the workers. And since the interests of these classes are always the opposite, there is a continuous struggle going on between them. As Marx wrote in the opening sentence of Communist Manifesto, The history of all societies hitherto is the history of class struggle‘15. Depending upon the level of productive forces and the relations of production, free-men and slaves, lord and serf, guild master and journeymen, bourgeoisie and proletariat, in other words, oppressor and the oppressed have always stood in constant opposition to one another and have carried out their struggle, which has ended either in the revolutionary reconstitution of the society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes.Thus, according the Marxist view, man is social and the society, on the basis of the ownership of the means of production, has been historically a class-divided society. This, however, does not mean that Marxism does not recognize the existence of other forms of conflicts such as ethnic, religious, national etc. within the society. But it considers these rivalries, conflicts and wars as directly or indirectly derived from or related to class conflict. In Marxism the essential primary focus in the context of society is on class division and class conflict.POLITICS IS AN INSTRUMENT OF CLASS STRUGGLEAfter analysing the nature of man and society, Marxism reached the conclusion that politics is the outcome of class struggle in the society. However, before we discuss about politics, we must be35 clear about certain fundamentals. In the Marxist theory, economics and politics are two facets of social life which are treated in their mutual inter-dependence and inseparable unity. The economic system or the mode of production is the base or the sub-structure upon which is built a super-structure of ‘politics, state, law, culture and ideology‘. Politics being a part of the super-structure is a reflection of the methods of production and other economic relations in the society and serves the interests of the economically dominant class. As Lenin put it, ‘Politics is nothing but a concentrated form of economics‘16. Secondly, Marxism denies that politics can be studied in isolation from the society. The object of politics is the ensemble of social relations. Society can be understood as a structural whole— a totality. Politics is an aspect of this whole. Political struggles and institutions arise from and can be understood only in the light of basic conflict generated at the level of forces and relations of production17. Thirdly, Marxism does not believe that politics is a permanent feature of any form of society. It is no more than a phenomena of class society. Just as there is no society per se, there is neither politics nor the state. Politics is there not much of a right but because of the class struggle in the society and is concerned with class power. And lastly, the aim political theory must be to end this class struggle.18 The task of theory is not to find a justification for politics, but to understand the process which generates and maintains politics and political institutions, and to transform society through revolutionary action in such a way that there is no need of politics.The Marxist view of politics as class struggle also starts from the notion of conflict. Whereas the liberal view believed that the conflict is among the individuals and groups, Marxism holds that the parties to the conflict are members of social aggregates i.e. classes such as slaves vs masters, feudal lord vs peasant, capitalist vs. worker. Conflict is inherent in a class-divided society and it is incapable of solution within that system.10 Secondly, and more importantly, this class conflict leads to class domination. The class which dominates over the means of production also dominates the society, culture, religion and state. Class domination is a process, a continuous endeavour to maintain, strengthen, extend and perpetuate the interests of the dominant class by suppressing and subordinating the antagonistic class20. Politics is thus nothing but an act of domination of one class over the other i.e. an act through which it36 is able to influence the nature of the economy, distribution and production, and to influence ideology, culture, morality, family and everyday life. As Marx wrote, ‘Political power, properly called, is merely the organized power of one class for the suppression of the other21.HOW DOMINATION IS EXERCISEDThe struggle for domination of one class over the other is exercised through the hold over the state machinery. It is the institution of state power, which is the focus of class struggle. According to Marxism, the state is not autonomous of wider social forces and it is in its structures that the antagonism of class society comes to a head and is concentrated. Politics is about the state because the ultimate guarantee of a particular class‘s domination lies in its monopoly of force. Any study of politics which detaches the apparatus of the state power from ‘the real foundation‘ in the forces of production can offer only a partial and one-sided insight into politics. Believing in the conflicts theory, Marxism denies that politics can resolve the conflicts which generate it. It is the product of class antagonism which can be resolved only by the reconstitution of society. The activity of politics is, by definition, an activity of domination. Politics means the absence of human liberation—a liberation that can only be achieved with the absence of politics. Since for Marxism politics is an act of domination, suppression and exploitation of one class by another, society at large cannot feel emancipated so long as politics remains.POLITICS AS REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITYAs a step towards liberation, Marxism presents another dimension of politics i.e. politics as a revolutionary activity. The antagonism between the classes can only be resolved through the revolutionary reconstitution of society. If politics is class domination, the struggle against it is also politics. Talking in the context of capitalism, Marx asserted that only industrial working class i.e. the proletariat can give a lead to this revolutionary transformation because it alone has the collective and cooperative character required to master the new forces of production and to ensure that they do not dominate those who had created them. Without any stakes in the private property, the proletariat has the historical mission to destroy it. To do it, a revolutionary seizure of political power is necessary. The 37 purpose of such a revolution will be to raise the working class to the level of ruling class and to win the battle of democracy. The working class will use this power to confiscate the property from the propertied class, socialize the means of production, and abolish the classes. The state power will be used for economic, social and cultural reorganization of society on socialist lines. Here, politics will be used to annihilate the propertied class and thereby eliminate the hidden source of class conflict. Hitherto, class struggle and politics have continued throughout history as long as human society remained divided into classes. But when the working class assumes power, it will make use of politics to end the class-division and build a classless society in which all serve society as a whole. When this process is complete, there will be no class conflict because there will be no classes with separate interests. As a result there will be no need of politics. Politics will wither away and in its place we shall have ‘an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all‘. Thus, Marxism wants to end politics by political means.In short, mode of production, class division, class conflict, and class domination are central to the Marxist view of politics. Politics is the concrete expression of the class struggle in the society. Simultaneously, the struggle against class domination and to bring about a classless society is also politics.‘ It will also mean the end of politics.The main points of politics as a form of class struggle can be summerized as follows:?i. Man is a social creature and the essence of man lies in the totality of his social relations. Man means man-in-society.?ii. Society is not an artificial institution but a living organism based upon the Mode of Production. On the basis of ownership of the means of production, society has been historically a class divided society—a society divided between owners and non-owners of the means of production, or the propertied and non-propertied classes.?iii. Because of the mutually hostile interests of the classes, the class division leads to class conflict and struggle.38 ?iv. The notion of politics as an expression of the class struggle also starts from conflict, but it is a conflict between classes and not among the individuals and groups; and this class conflict leads to class domination, i.e., the class which holds the means of production also dominates the state, religion, society and economy.?v. Politics is an act of domination of one class over the other i.e. an act through which it is able to influence the nature of economy, distribution and production and to influence ideology, culture, morality and everyday life.?vi. Being an act of domination, politics does not serve the interest of the society as a whole but remains an instrument in the hands of the dominant class to suppress and exploit the other classes. If politics is class struggle, the struggle against class domination and to bring about a classless and stateless society through revolution is also politics. For this Marxism believed in the revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat, annihilation of the propertied class, end of class struggle and establishment of socialist mode of production and socialist economy, a classless and stateless society. Thus Marxism wants to use politics as a means to eliminate politics.POLITICS AS COMMON GOODApart from the notions of politics as conciliation of interests and as class struggle and class domination, there is another notion of politics—politics as the promoter of common good. This view of politics is based on the assumption that there are certain common interests which men share as members of the community and the task of politics should be to promote and encourage those interests. Common life creates common interests which constitute the common good. Man is a social being and he comes to acquire his capacities and fulfill his needs by being a part of the larger social whole. Society is not merely an aggregate of the individuals but a community of persons with shared values, practices and institutions. The good of the individual is not independent from the good of the whole community. The end of politics should be to assist its members to achieve goodness. Politics is a means whose end and justification lies in the promotion of welfare and happiness of the individual as a part of the community.39 what is common good?The idea of politics as a means of Common Good is as old as the political theory itself. Plato and Aristotle in the Greek city-states, the political theologists of the middle ages, utilitarian liberals like Bentham and Mill, Karl Marx and his followers, positive liberals like Green, Barker, Laski in the modern age and the recently propounded communitarian school of thought and Mahatma Gandhi— all adhere to a particular notion of politics as common good. Since the concept cuts through ideologies, there has been considerable variation in the meaning of common good. For some, common good has been the dictates of reason, for others it is the will of God; still others explain it by analogy: society is like a body the parts of which must obey the whole if they are to play their proper function. Rousseau identified common good with General Will. For Marx common good could only be obtained in a classless and stateless society established through revolution. For communitarians, it is the protection of cultural traditions and shared practices. Gandhi equated common good with sarvodaya. Inspite of diversity, the concept of common good is used as an ideal to which appeal for validation of all political activities and policies should be directed. Here we shall discuss three prominent notions of politics as common good: Greek, Liberal and the Communitarian.22 The other views of common good will be dealt with in a later chapter.politics as common good—the greek viewPolitics as common good was the hallmark of Greek political thinking. Plato viewed politics as process through which men debate matters concerning the whole community and take decisions in an attempt to realize the public interest or the public good. Similarly, Aristotle also saw common good existing in nature, it was an objective thing for man. The end of polls‘, he wrote, ‘is not mere life, it was rather good life. Polis came into existence for the sake of bare means of life but it continues its existence for the sake of good life...If all communities aim at some good, the political community which is the highest of all and which embraces the rest, aims in a higher degree than any other at the highest good..The individual is for the state. The task of politics is to decide the Good‘. Plato considered ‘Justice‘ as man‘s highest good and the task of politics being the dispensation of justice. Along with this, 40 the Greek philosopher developed an organic concept of society which considered individual as a part of the community. By justice he meant ‘sticking to one‘s station‘, i.e., duty towards one‘s own work for which one is best suited. Since the social structure of polis consisted of citizens and slaves, the politics of common good was built around an ideology which justified the privileges of the citizens and the exploitation and suppression of slaves. The essence of common good was that the good of the slave laid in serving his master and the good of the master laid in serving the polis.politics as common good—the liberal viewThe liberal thinkers like Bentham and Mill believed that the good of the community consisted in the good of the members compositing it. Hence common good meant ‘maximum good of the maximum number‘. They gave the doctrine that the good of the individual could be secured only by ‘leaving him alone‘ to pursue his own happiness in his own way so long as it did not interfere with the happiness of others. Their efforts was to concentrate on special institutions and procedures like constitutions and rule of law that encourage individuals to maximize their mutual interests in some public activity. However, T.H. Green, who provided an ethical foundation to liberalism, held the view that the individual is a social being and he comes to acquire his capacities by being a part of the larger social whole. To be free, rational and moral person is to live in accordance with the common good which supplies the criterion for individual rights. Green identified common good with providing external conditions for the internal development of man. This could be done by giving rights, liberty, justice or by providing public education, factory legislation, prevention of food adulteration etc. For the sake of common good, he expected the state to regulate the economy. Another liberal writer, R.H. Tawney regarded common good as a principle of distribution. The task of politics, he held, was to redistribute the resources and regulate the economy for social purpose. The question of rights and justice are relevant only in the context of common good which is their source and foundation. In the twentieth century, common good was equated with welfare state and activities like raising the economic standard of people, providing health care, education, nutrition, human dignity and development of human personality.41 COMMON GOOD—THE COMMUNITARIAN VIEWAs a reaction to the resurgence of libertarian politics, there has been a revival of the idea of state as a political community in 1980s and ‘90s. This school of thought is known as Communitarianism and has been popularized by a number of writers such as Charles Taylor, Micheal Sandal, Walzer and others.‘23 These writers emphasize the necessity of attending to the community alongwith individual liberty and equality because they feel that the value of the community is not sufficiently recognized in the liberal-individualistic theories of politics. This community which already exists in the form of social practices, cultural traditions and shared social understandings needs respect and protection. What is worth noting is that unlike Marxism, it does not believe in rebuilding a new community by overthrowing capitalism but wants to protect what is already existing. The political theory must pay attention to the these shared practices and understandings within each society. Communitarians believe that individual is a social being, he is embedded in the community. True freedom and well being is only possible within the community and the task of politics is the good of the society as a whole and not to protect the rights of the individual alone. Common good demands that the rights of the individual should be replaced by ‘politics of common good‘. The task of politics is to encourage people to adopt a concept of good that conforms to the community‘s way of life and discouraging concept of good not acceptable to it. The concept of common good, according to communitatians should have three characteristics: i) it should build a cultural structure that provides people with meaningful options. The cultural structure should not be determined by individual or the market but by the community‘s values as a whole, ii) individual‘s judgement of the good should be replaced by the collective evaluation of the shared practices and vision of good, iii) political legitimacy should identify itself with common good.24Thus communitarians prefer a theory of politics in which the state endorses a concept of good life which is tied up with community‘s practices and traditions and in which everybody is encouraged to participate.42 The main points of politics as common good can be summerized as follows:?1.It believes that there are certain common interests which men share as member of the community and the task of politics is to promote these common interests. The idea of common good is as old as political community itself. It has been the underlying basis of all political ideas and ideologies. However, to the questions— what is common good and how it can be achieved—there is no universal answer.?2. Both Plato and Aristotle advocated that the task of politics is to take decisions regarding public good. Polis came into existence for the sake of common good. Plato equated common good with his concept of ‘Justice‘ and the task of politics being the dispensation of Justice. However, justice for him meant ‘sticking to one‘s station or duty towards one‘s own work for which he is best suited. In reality, politics as common good justified the privileges of a few masters and the exploitation of the slaves.?3. The early liberal view identified common good with the individual good. Common good meant ‘maximum good of the maximum number‘. This good could be secured by leaving the individual alone. Hence politics was an activity concerned with securing the life and property of the individual and leaving him free so that he could pursue his good in his own way. The positive liberals, however, considered man as a social being. They identified common good with providing rights, liberty and equality as well as fulfilling the common needs of the individual such as education, health care, old age pension, proper distribution of resources etc.?4. The Marxist notion of common good was quite different. It believed that so long as there is class division in the society based upon private property, politics will continue to be an instrument of domination and suppression of one class by another. Hence the idea of common good is out of question. Common good requires a kind of society based upon common ownership of the means of production. Only a revolutionary reconstitution of the society on socialist/communist lines, common ownership of the means of production, end of class division and the creation of classless society will pave the way for common good. It will be a society based upon the principle ‘from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs‘.43 ?5. Communitarians consider man as a social being and believe that true freedom of the individual is only possible in the community. The task of politics is not the good of the individual by protecting his rights but the good of the society as a whole. Politics is an activity which encourages a concept of good life which is tied up with the community‘s social understandings and in which everybody is encouraged to participate.?6. Yet another idea of common good was proposed by Gandhi and his followers. The Gandhian view of common good is known as Sarvodaya which means goodwill to all and welfare through all. The purpose of politics is to create a society based upon the principle of Samanvaya, i.e. harmony in different perspectives— be it individuals, groups, classes, institutions, ideas and ideologies. This common good can be achieved through six principles: Equanimity, non-violence, decentralization, satyagrah, synthesis and world peace. (We shall discuss this in detail in a later chapter).EVALUATIONThe idea of politics as common good is a vague concept. What is the substance of Common Good? There is a diversity of opinion about where the common good lies. It may refer to a moral good, or to the means by which to reach a goal or certain outcome. Sometimes, common good has also been used to enhance the private interests. Also there is a controversy about who will decide the common good. Is common good the will of the state, or the will of the people or some party or individual? According to Norman P. Barry, there is no such thing as ‘common interest‘25, it is merely policies which are an excuse for individual or group interests. Liberal writers like Miller believe that society show more conflict than common good, the normal political process is one of conciliation and accommodation of competiting interests and not the discovery and satisfaction of an existing common good. ‘In its most usual employment in politics, the General Interest is a fake‘26.However, inspite of criticism, the idea of public good exists because it is the urge towards agreement, towards solutions to problems by reference to some kind of good which will smoothen the difficulties and ensure harmony of various interests in the 44 society. It is a part of the general urge towards securing and reconciliating which is inseparable from life of the individual and is communicated to the life of man in society.CONCLUSIONAfter studying the concept of politics in its various forms, we can now draw a general conclusion. Politics is a phenomena found in and among all groups, institutions and societies. It is involved in all relations, institutions and structures which are engaged in the activities of production and reproduction. It is expressed in all activities of cooperation, negotiation and the struggle for the use, production and distribution of resources. Politics conditions all our social life and is at the core of development. It is about the resolutions of conflicts and an instrument of social change; it is about class struggle and class conflicts and an instrument to bring about revolutionary change in the society. It is also an instrument through which the common good of all sections of society is secured and protected. In short, it is not about government and government alone. As Leftwich writes, ‘To study politics is to study critically the history of possibilities and the possibilities of history‘27.Notes1. Aristotle, Politics, translated by J.P. Sinclair, Harmondsworth. Middlesex, Penguin Books, 1962, p. 282. J.W. Garner. Introduction to Political Science, American Book Company, New York, 1910, p. 14-153. R.G. Gettel, Political Science, p. 109.4. Guild and Palmer. Introduction to Politics, Essays and Readings. John Willy and Sons, N.Y. 1986, p. 55. Hobbes. Leviathan edited by M. Oakeshott, Oxford Blackwell, London, p. 806. C.B. Macpherson. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Oxford. University Press, London, 1962, p. 37. J.D.B. Millier, The Nature of Politics, Penguin, London, 1972, p. 178. J. Gould and W.L. Kolb, A Dictionary of Social Sciences. UNESCO, N.Y., 1964, p. 515– 5169. Bernard Crick. In Defence of Politics, Weidfeld and Nicolson. London. 1962. p. 2110. Ibid, p. 14111. Maurice Duverger, The Idea of Politics, Methuen and Co. London. 1966. p. 10612. Ibid45 13. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 96-11414. A. Swingwood. Marxism and Modern Social Theory, Macmillan, London. 1975 p. 4015. Marx and Engles, Selected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1970, p. 3516. V.I. Lenin. Collected Works. Vol xxxii, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965 p. 32,17. Leftwich, What is Politics, Blackwell, London 1984, p. 12618. C.D. Kernig, Marxism, Communism and Western Society A Comparative, Encyclopaedia. Herder and Herder. N. Y.. 1973, p. 3719. Milliband. Marxism and Politics, Oxford University Press. London, 1977. p. 1720 .Ibid, p. 1821. Marx and Engles, Collected Works, Vol VI, p. 50522. For more details on the concept of Common good, see Godin and Pettit. A Companion to Political Philosophy, Blackwell, 1994. p. 369.23. Ibid.24. Will Kymilicka, op. cit, Introduction25. Normn B. Bary ‘Public Interst‘, in Anthony Quinton‘s Political Philosophy, OUP, London, 1978.26. J.D. Miller, op. cit, p. 52-5427. Leftwich, op. cit, p. 4546 CHAPTER 3 POLITICS AS THE STUDY OF POWERApart from politics as a social process of conciliating interests, class struggle and common good, there is another equally important dimension of politics—politics as the study of power! Now-a-days, it is considered as the fundamental concept of politics It is one of the building blocks of politics, as central to it as money is to economics. Though the idea of politics as power is an old one and has been associated with the doctrine of limitless power, it is the American Political Science which has made the power approach to the study of politics respectable.For the study of politics, the use of empirical facts and study of non-formal institutions like pressure groups, public opinion, interests groups and political parties rather than philosophical basis of state and governmental institutions was propagated by Arthur Bentley, Graham Wallas, Lord Bryce, Willoughby and others at the beginning of twentieth century. However, it was the Chicago School of Political Science which, in an effort to make the study of politics scientific, made power as the essence of politics. Whereas in the classical study of politics, the focus of study was the concept of common good, in the scientific study of politics, more emphasis was laid on methods and techniques. Science was defined as the value free, empirical study of a subject based upon facts. According to the supporters of the scientific school, method of studying politics had hitherto been a part of religion, ethics, theology or patriotism and as such could not be called scientific. There writers were more influenced by value free economics, empirical sociology and behavioural psychology. After rejecting politics as the study of the state as insufficient, these writers were more concerned with finding the axis of politics and they found it in the concept 47 of power. Accordingly, they redefined politics in the context of power relations.WHAT IS POLITICSRather than focusing attention on state as an institution and the central concept of politics, the power theory takes a functional view of politics. It understands politics as the struggle for power, i.e., to share power, to influence the distribution of power, and to make authoritative decisions. Politics is concerned with questions like: how to acquire power and how to maintain it? What is the basis of power, its forms and scope? What is the object of power and how is it lost? For example, Harold Lasswell defined politics as ‘a political act performed in power perspective‘ or as ‘a power oriented behaviour with respect to the process of government within the framework of state‘‘. Another writer of power view of politics, V.O. Key writes that politics deals with ‘human relationship of super ordination and subordination, of domination and submission, of governors and governed. The study of politics is the study of these relationships of political power; the concern of practicing politicians is the acquisition and retention of power‘2. According to Max Weber, ‘Politics is the struggle to share or influence the distribution of power, whether between states or among the groups within a state‘3. Similarly, Guild and Palmer write, ‘By power we mean that politics is best understood as a relationship of power and authority‘4. Another popular writer Hans Morgentheau views politics as ‘the struggle for power‘5George Catlin in his book Systematic Politics (1962) has made power as the central subject of politics. He regards politics as the struggle for power and influence. According to him, politics is an act of will, that is, the desire to executive one‘s desire. To assert one‘s will, control over the wills of others is required and accordingly, politics becomes a conflict of wills in which each seeks to dominate by force, cajolery, persuasion, tradition or law over the wills of others. Thus securing of adjustment of other‘s will to one‘s own is the essence of politics‘6Similarly, Harold Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan in their book Power and Society (1950) also made a detailed analysis of the concept of power. They wrote that the concentration of power is perhaps the most fundamental in the whole political science – the 48 political process being the distribution and exercise of power. Lasswell quoted with approval the views of Catlin that ‘Politics is concerned with the relations of men, in association and competition, submission and control, in so far as they are not the production and consumption of some article, but to have their way with their fellows. What men seek in their political negotiations is power‘7In short, the power theory believes that the exercise of power i.e. submission to the wills of other is inevitable in modern society. Nothing whatever is accomplished without it. According to Guild and Palmer, there are two advantages of studying politics from the point of view of power. Firstly, it focuses attention on process rather than on legal abstractions of the state. The study of politics involves how power is accumulated, used and controlled in the modern society. Secondly, this approach pays greater heed to man as the basic unit of analysis. Politics becomes directly concerned with the needs, interests and goals of men that give rise to power-relationship among them and ultimately lead to a public policy‘8. Also, power does not possess moral qualities. It is neither corrupt nor good or bad, but only a relationship.POWER: MEANING AND NATUREDespite the omnipotence of power in political life, there is no widespread agreement on its meaning. The OED defines power as ‘the ability to do or act‘ and ‘control, influence, ascendancy‘. Webster Dictionary defines it as the ‘possession of control, authority, or influence over others‘. In a broad sense, power is the production of intended effects. It is the ability to get what we want. Max Weber defines it as ‘the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests9. Andrain defines it as ‘the use of resources to secure conforming conduct of others‘10. According to Guild and Palmer, power is the ‘the ability to affect or to control the decisions, behaviour, policies, values and fortunes of other‘11. Tawney identifies it with ‘the capacity of the individual or group of individual to modify the conduct of others in the manner which one desires‘12. According to Gerth and Mills, it is ‘simply the probability that men will act as another man‘s wishes. This action may rest on fear, rational calculation of advantage, lack of energy to do otherwise, loyal devotion, indiffernce or a dozen other individual motives‘13. In brief, 49 the essence of power lies in the capacity of persons or groups to get things done effectively .The term ‘Power‘ is also used interchangeably with words like force, influence, authority, control, coercion and domination. However, a distinction must be made between power and the like terms. For example, power and force are different in the sense that force is a brutal manifestation of power, it is more a symbol of physical force, threat, intimidition, blackmail, terrorization, violence etc. Power on the other hand can be latent, persuasive, ideological, monetary. Similarly, power is different from authority which is more legitimation of power through the provision of legal sanctions or traditions, historical institutions and values of the community. Also power is different from influence which is more in the nature of persuasion while power may include coercion. Control is a more comprehensive category than power. It can be legislative, executive, judicial, financial, administrative. It is equalivant to power except that it is less concentrated in the intensity of its manifestation than power.In the evolution of the concept of power, three phases are worth noting. For the behavioural political scientists, power was seen as a direct relationship i.e. a power relation in which A attempts to mould the will of B in an observable and overt way and if he succeeds, then A has power over B. Until recently, this understanding of power was dominant in political science, particularly, in U.S.A. However, over the last two decades, this concept of power has been criticized not because it is wrong but more because it is partial and one-sided. Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz argued that power is two-dimentional i.e. apart from being overt and observable, it has another hidden face. Power may be exercised indirectly and in ways that are not directly observable. For example, A can exercise power over B in a meeting not directly but indirectly by controlling the agenda and limiting the points of discussion which suits him‘14.The one- and two-dimentional views of power in their turn were challenged by another ‘three-dimensional‘ view of power by Steven Lukes. According to him, power can also be exercised by shaping others‘ beliefs about what is and what is not in their interest, i.e., by hiding their real interests and creating a false consciousness. Lukes observed that in many capitalist societies, 50 workers accept the system even though their real interest lies in radical change. They do this because they have been socialized into acceptance by dominant groups who control the processes of socialization such as educational system and mass media. Similarly, the slave who saw his lot as normal and natural or the Harijans in the Hindu society who accepted the caste system were, according to this view, unaware of their objective interests. This third dimension through which the whole economic and social system is protected is more significant than the first two‘15More recently, Michel Foucault has proposed a radical reconceptualization of ‘power‘. He focused not on the power of the people at the top of the political system - the decision-makers and the groups that influence the decision makers, but on the power relations in the system itself, as seen in the numerous forms of local power applied to citizens so as to induce conformity in their behaviour. Some forms of such power may be brutal, others manipulative. In any area of human activity there is a multiplicity of customs, traditions and pressures that collectively limit freedom of action, and now-a-days, one of the instruments of this kind of power is the accumulation and dissemination of various types of specialized knowledge, particularly knowledge of the human sciences. Thus, according to Foucault, in modern society, knowledge is itself an important form of power, giving experts a way of shaping the behaviour of others‘16.The continuing debate over the meaning and nature of power is only because power is such a central concept of politics that its meaning is often contested. Hence it is better that instead of limiting ourselves to a particular definition, we should try to understand power in its various dimensions.MODES OF POWER IN SOCIETYIn the modern society, there are mainly three modes of power through which many are controlled by a few. Although certain writers have talked of many forms of power such as power of wealth, armaments, civil authority, influence, opinion, religion, or kingly power, naked power, revolutionary power etc., yet all these forms can be reduced to three broad categories. John Galbriath has termed them as: i) Condign power or the power of punishment. It wins submission by inflicting or threatening adverse consequences, 51 ii) Compensatory power. It wins submission of others by an offer of reward, by giving something of value to those who submit to it. Today, the most important expression of compensatory power is the payment of money for the services rendered; and iii) conditioned power. This power is exercised by changing beliefs and it includes persuasion, education, culture etc. This power is central to the functioning of modern economy and polity in the capitalist and the socialist countries alike‘17. Similarly, Friedrich points out, ‘An inspection of the political scene discloses three primary forms of power: physical, economic and psychic‘18. In short the three modes of power are: Political, Economic and Ideological. Boulding has termed them as Power of Stick, Power of Deal and Power of Kiss‘19. Let us discuss these forms in detail.POLITICAL powerPolitical power is basically power of political coercion and political authority. Force is the basis of state power and although it is only a background condition in normal civilian politics, yet its presence is the essence of any political relationship. As Hague writes, ‘The stick which stays in the cupboard is the biggest stick of all‘20. Political coercion is exercised over the citizens by agents of government using force or the immediate threat of it, leaving the citizens with no real choice about their behaviour. Today direct physical coercion is the prerogative of the state. Law is a set of rules according to which the state exercises its monopoly of coercive power, declared and enforced, as the only legitimate power. It is through the use of this power that policies are made, implemented and those who disobey are punished.According to power theorists, in the normal circumstances, this force of the state is exercised through legitimate political authority, through certain designated persons and institutions in order to make and implement decisions that are binding within the prescribed areas of jurisdiction. The centre of such a power is the state and its formal institutions such as law making agency i.e. legislature, law-enforcing agency i.e. the executive, the law interpreting agency i.e. the judiciary, bureaucracy, police, military. In this context, it is concerned with the maintenance of law and order and dispensing justice through reward and punishment. Political power consists of pronouncements, commands and decisions, and if need be, use of the machine gun to produce the intended effects. It is the main 52 cause of obedience.Marx and his followers also showed considerable interest in the concept of power. However, they analysed this concept in its totality - as a complex and unique combination of political, economic and ideological dimensions. They saw it as the power of an economically dominant class to suppress and exploit the subordinate class. Marx did not regard political power as autonomous of economic power, but as deriving from definite prevailing economic relations and an attempt on the part of those wielding political power to stabilize and consolidate a particular form of economic relationship. He was categorical that those who wield political power are always in minority and the retention of power, the way it is exercised, and finally, its transfer are all determined by the changes which occur in the field of production.Thus whereas the power theorists believe in the decentralization of political power, Marxism emphasizes the unified power of a particular class.Economic PowerThe attention towards the economic and ideological aspects of power was drawn mainly by the Marxist writers. The control over the wills of the majority by minority is exercised not only by the compulsions of law and other physical coercive means but also in a more subtle manner. With economic power, the holder of political power may bring about the compliance of the masses either by giving reward or something of value to those who submit or by denying wealth, income, goods, and services to those who oppose the power wielders. It is an important source to purchase submission. Its possession gives access to the most commonplace exercise of power which is bending the wills of others by straight forward purchase. Through economic reward or punishment, those who hold economic power are able to win daily submission of work lives of millions. The power theory of politics, however, underplays the importance of economic power. While agreeing that political power is influenced by the economic, it does not give much importance to the latter. Rejecting the Marxist view of unity of political and economic power, the power theorists advocate that economic power is decentralized and there is no clear-cut class division in the society. For example, according to Galbraith, role of property, 53 though not unimportant as a source of power, has been declining in relations to other forms of power. In the modern society those who own wealth no longer use money to purchase votes, they rather contribute it to the purchase of television commercials and through this hope to win the ideological submission to their political will.The Marxist theory, on the other hand, believes in the dialectical unity of economic and political power. Classical Marxism considers economic power as the source of all other dimensions of power in the society. Those who hold economic power are also the owners of political power. Economic power, according to Marxism, consists in the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange of material goods and services in the society. The political power is the concentrated expression of the economic power but at the same time, it exerts a great retroactive influence upon the later. No class can establish its lasting economic influence without the active help and protection of political power. In this sense, political power becomes more important than economic power. But the relations between them do not remain the same. On the other hand political power also experiences a determinate influence of economic power and preserves its unity with the later. The development of classes and class antagonism leads to a greater isolation of political power from the economic power, its greater relative independence. Political power attains a greater degree of independence under capitalist society when the social character of production achieves a gigantic scale, thereby creating the material preconditions for abolishing the rule of the capitalist class. As the need for the intensified political struggle by the working class grows, the state intervention in the economic affairs increases sharply to defend the particular class interests.IDEOLOGICAL powerApart from political and economic power, there is another dimension of power known as ideological power. The Marxist writers have made a detailed study of this aspect of power. Now even the contemporary liberal writers are fully conscious about it and have made it a part of their study under the broad categories like ‘political culture‘, ‘political socialization‘, ‘political integration‘ etc. With the emergence of democracy and welfare state, and the rise in the general level of political consciousness, the control 54 over the masses through political power i.e. the power of coercion began to present certain difficulties. Hence political power was made legitimate through the process of political socialization. Briefly speaking, ideological power is a process through which the values, symbols, traditions, attitudes of the masses are learned and moulded by a minority of leaders in such a manner as to get their loyalty and obedience. It is the capacity to inspire respect, loyalty and commitment. For this purpose, the state which is a symbol of political power intervenes in the society and thereby gives stability and legitimacy to political and economic power. Liberal writers like Max Weber, Lucian Pye, Sydney Verba, Almond etc. associate ideological power with religion, education, culture, literature and history. In America, this has been called ‘the opinion business‘ or ‘the persuasion industry‘ through which the ideas, thoughts and values of the masses are moulded in a particular fashion so as not to be a threat to the wielders of political power. This is done through mass propaganda, means of education and mass media like radio, T.V., newspapers, magazines etc.An indepth study of the ideological dimension of power has been made by Marxist writers like Marx, Lenin, Gramsci, Lukacs, Althusser, Milliband, Poulantzas, Nigil Harris, Marcuse etc. According to Marxism, ideological power acts like a mediator in the context of other powers in the society. If the economic power is to transform itself into political power, it uses ideological power as a means to achieve this goal. Marxism has been very much concerned with the question: how the dominant classes in the society, in the conditions of open competition are able to secure their predominance? The answer was given by Marx in his familiar formulation: the ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas and that the reason for this was that ‘the class which is the ruling material force in society, is at the same time, its ruling intellectual force‘21. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production. Marx called ideological power as ‘false consciousness‘ and described its role as of hiding the economic factor which is the determinant factor and to make the class exploitation legitimate. These are the ideas connected with the interests of a particular class.Antonio Gramsci, another Marxist writer also made a critical 55 study of the concept of ideological power under the broad category ‘Hegemony‘ (which in simple words mean supreme leadership)22. According to him, a class maintains its dominance not only through force or coercion but also through moral and intellectual leadership with a variety of means. These means represent a basis of consent for a certain social order and consist of elements such as knowledge, education, social institutions, beliefs, values, tastes, styles, fashions etc. The role of ideological power is to convert dissent into consent. Similarly, Nicos Poulantzas writes that the function of ideological power is to secure cohesion in the society and to perpetuate the dominance of one class over the other. It consists of ideas, customs, morals etc. The system of state is composed of many apparatuses of which some have repressive role such as government, army, police and administration, and others have ideological role such as religion, trade unions, mass media like radio, TV etc.23Whereas political power is the power of physical compulsion, economic power is the power of rewards or deprivation, ideological power is the power of ideas, opinion, beliefs, culture, traditions, through which mental consciousness of the masses is controlled to produce a kind of political atmosphere convenient to the power wielders.Thus if we define politics as the study of power, this is the unity of political, economic and ideological aspects and it is through the combined use of these powers that a minority of people is able to rule over the majority.CRITICAL EVALUATIONThere is no doubt that power has become the cardinal feature of politics in recent times. The study of power has brought a transformation in the meaning of politics. Politics no longer remains the study of state or government as such; it has become the study of man and society in its widest sense including organizations like political parties, pressure groups, trade unions, business houses, family etc. In other words, the study of politics as power includes both the infrastructure and superstructure. As all these units exist and play their part in the political process, the concept of power makes the study of power quite comprehensive.However, inspite of its wide popularity, the power view of politics has been criticized by liberals, Marxists and others for a 56 number of inadequacies. Power is one of the key concepts of political theory but it is a concept on which there is notable lack of agreement both about its scientific definition and the conceptual context in which it should be placed. It is regarded as extraordinarily difficult and elusive in itself. Moreover, the substantive content of politics cannot be defined or even identified with power alone. Politics designates a wide range of activities, many of which may not be associated with the essential meaning of power alone. As has been pointed out by David Easton, ‘where political life seemed to be reduced to power struggle, noble aims which philosophers have depicted as matrix of life begin to crumble‘. The power theorists have reduced the scope of politics to dangerously narrow limits.The liberals talk of politics as a process of reconciliation of conflicts and paving the way for peaceful social change. Their argument is that power must refer to some notion of human welfare. All political actions aim at either preservation or change. When desiring to preserve, we wish to prevent a change to the worse, when desiring to change, we wish to bring something better. All political action are guided by some thought of better or worse which in turn imply some thought of good. If we accept power as a value-free concept as valid, then notions like justice, liberty, equality, democracy, progress will have to be abandoned. Such a step would be counter-productive to the humanity at large. Political life does not consist exclusively of a struggle for control; this struggle stems from and relates to conflicts and their resolution over the direction of social life and the pursuit of collective goals. The power theory fails to convince as an adequate theory of politics so long as it omits the goals with which an individual can relate himself.‘ Again the problem of contemporary political theory is not only to study the empirical aspect of struggle for power alone but more importantly how to create conditions for the proper use of power so as to maximize democracy and social justice in the society. The operation of political system should be such that no man‘s power to use his natural talents is diminished. There is need to attend to this developmental concept of power if politics is to become relevant to the contemporary needs of the society.The nature of political power has also been criticized by Marxist 57 writers. As mentioned earlier, Marxists call it as the power of a class and see a unity of political, economic and ideological power. In every society there exist two categories of people, the ruling class and the subject class—the ruling class enjoys dominant position because it possesses the major instruments of production and its political dominance is consolidated due to its hold over military forces and control over the production of ideas. Since it is power of a dominant class, it is a means of domination, exploitation and suppression of the subordinate classes.Inspite of weaknesses, the importance of power cannot be minimized. It plays major role in shaping the political phenomena. Politics cannot be studied without identifying the groups that hold power and those who are deprived of it. According to Morgentheau, the concept of power help us greatly in providing a kind of rational outline of politics, a map of the political science‘. However, it cannot serve both normative and explanatory purposes. Also, it cannot serve as a conceptual framework much less than a theory of politics. Political phenomena cannot be completely explained in terms of power exclusively.References1. Lass well and A. Kaplan. Power and Society. New Heavens. Yale University Press, 1950, p. xiv2. V.O. Key, Political Parties and Pressure Groups, NY, 1950, p. 2-33. Quoted in D. Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, London, 1979, p. 184. Guild and Palmer. Introduction to Politics, Essay and Readings, John Willy and Sons, Ny 1968, p. 5. Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, Scientific Book Agency, Calcutta 1967 p. 256. George Catlin, Systematic Politics, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1962. Chapter III7. Lasswell and Kaplan, op cit, p. xviii8. Guild and Palmer, op. cit., p. 69. Max Weber, Economy and Society, Vol I, p. 5310. Charles Andrain, Political Life and Social Change—An Introduction to Political Science, Wadsworth Publishing Co., California, p. 1970, p. 8911. Guild and Plamer, op. cit.. p. 712. R.H. Tawney, Equality, Harcourt Brace, NY, 1931 p 23013. Gerth and Mills, Character and Social Structure, Harcourt Brace, N.Y. 1953, p. 193-9558 14. Explained in David Miller (ed) Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, op. cit., p. 39815. Ibid16. Ibid17. Galbraith, The Anatomy of Power, Houghton Miffinn Company. Boston 1983, p. 4-518. CJ. Friedrich, Man and His Government. N.Y. 1963, p. 16619. K. Boulding, Three Faces of Power, Sage, London 198920. Hague, Barrop and Breslin, Comparative Government and Politics, an Introduction, Macmillan. London, 1993. p. 9-1021. Hoare and Smith, Selections from Prison Note Books of Antonio Gramsci, London 1971, p.22. Marx and Engles, The German-Ideology, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968 p. 6123. ‘The Problem of Capitalist State‘ In Robin Blackburn‘s Ideology and Social Sciences, Fontana, 1972, p. 251.59 chapter 4 theories of power in the societyApart from the forms of power, another equally important question is how power is distributed in the society, i.e. who holds power. Whereas politics as power implies a relationship, that is, it can be used by somebody against somebody else, it also implies possession— something that one has and which one may use or abuse. If politics is the control over the wills of many by a few, the question arises who are these privileged ‘few‘. There are a number of theories regarding the possession of power. We shall discuss the prominent ones. They are:?i. Power of a class ?ii. Elitist theory of power ?iii. Pluralist theory of power ?iv. Power and Gender ?v. Patriarchy and PowerPOWER AND CLASS DOMINANCEThe first answer to the question as to who holds power and how to understand the nature of power in the society was provided by Marxism. It declared that power in the society belongs to the economically dominant class. As explained above, Marxism analyses power in its totality - as a unique and complex combination of political, economic and ideological dimensions. This power belongs to the class which controls the means of production in the society and is used by it to secure and consolidate its own position, and suppress and exploit the subordinate class(s). This dominant class was described by Marx as the ‘Ruling Class‘. In Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engles wrote, ‘Political power, properly so called is merely the organized power of one class for suppressing 60 another‘. Ever since the emergence of private property, society had been divided into two antagonistic classes—the propertied and the non-propertied, and power has been the privilege of the dominant class. In Greek society, power belonged to the masters; in the feudal society, it was the domain of nobility; and in the capitalist society, it belongs to the capitalist-industrial class. Control over the means of production involves control over the political and the ideological fields as well. Although in his later writings, Marx and Engles emphasized the point that power of the state in the capitalist society was not necessarily and always just an instrument of the capitalist class, yet, in the ultimate analysis, the politics of the state encouraged industrial activity and actually enriched the bourgeois class.Marxist writers in the twentieth century have been equally concerned with analysing the nature of the class structure of the capitalist societies, changes in the nature of capitalism and how far power is an instrument of the dominant class. Though there are disagreements within Marxism and between the Marxists and the non-Marxists about the class structure of the capitalist societies and the role of politics in maintaining the class domination, there is a broad agreement that the structure of power is based upon a state which acts as an instrument to serve the interests of the ‘ruling class‘ which dominates the mode of production. Classical Marxism basing their theory on historical materialism explained that the economic base determines the political structure of the society. Changes in the society do not come from the autonomous actions of the individuals but from fundamental and objective changes in the economic base of the society. The changes and power in the society could be explained only as a result of the struggle between the contending classes. However, Gramsci, a Marxist writer in the inter-war period, added another dimension to class power and dominance. According to him, the domination of a class is achieved not only through the economic structure and coercion but also through the active consent of the non-propertied class(s). Terming it as ‘Hegemony‘, he suggested that their consent is achieved through the use of intellectual, moral and political persuasion and leadership. This may involve greater concession to the subordinate classes and political forms such as democracy which allow some degree of choice, in order to maintain overall 61 view which preserves the power of the dominant class by distorting beliefs, common sense assumptions and popular culture.1The rise of liberal-capitalist welfare state in the West after the second world war reduced the economic burden of the working class to a great extent. Marxism was faced with the question: how far the welfare state is an instrument of class power. In this context, contemporary Marxist writers have formulated a body of theory that is known as ‘the relative autonomy of the state‘. The main proponents of the theory are Ralph Milliband, Nicos Poulantzas, Claus Offe and others. The crux of their argument is that the social welfare policies have not challenged the capitalist system but have strengthened it by increasing its legitimacy in the eyes of the subordinate classes; economic growth has benefited the capitalist class much more than anyone else. In essence, economic growth is less an example of social welfare and more an example of class dominance. The Marxist writers have explicitly acknowledged the centrality of power to their analysis. As Ellen Wood says, ‘the disposition of power is at the centre of Marxist political economy‘. Similarly, Poulantzas asserts that inspite of changes, the politics still serves the interests of the ruling class even if the mechanisms of the relationship have changed. Politics still remains an act of securing conditions of capital accumulation, domination of capital and reproduction of the existing class relations. Though in the modern welfare state, a number of other classes have emerged, the two fundamental classes remain dominant. The role of the state is not to defend the interest of the economically dominant class on every specific issue but to provide for the Interst of the capital in general.2 However, in the crisis, politics must act as an instrument to defend the imperatives of the capitalist system and hence still remains an instrument of class rule and repression. Though the state has acquired autonomy, it acts as its own right against both capital and labour. Taken as a whole, it still serves the interests of the owners of the means of production. Class power depends upon politics and politics depends upon class power.Thus, inspite of autonomy, the class perspective -views the existence of the state apparatus as a necessary instrument to reproduce the conditions of class domination. If politics is the study of power, this mode of power is the power of economically dominant class in the society62 ELITIST THEORY OF POWERIn opposition to the theory of class power, the power theorists of Europe and America introduced the concept of Elite power. The essence of this theory is that power is concentrated in the hands of a small group of people in the society who take day-to-day decisions of the government. The rulers in the political system are few in number compared with the ruled. The term Elite originally meant the ‘elect‘ or the ‘best‘. Politically it means that societies are always dominated by a minority (elite), the selected few, who take major decisions within the society and who concentrate power in their own hands. The theory has its origin in the classical political ideas, but it found its contemporary expression during the interwar period in the writings of Pareto, Mosca, Michel and the sociologists and political scientists associated with American science of politics. Pareto argued that in all societies, people can be divided into (i) small governing elite and non-governing elites, and (ii) the mass of population. This small elite can consist of administrators, dictators, warriors, wealthy men, religious priests or any other group of men in the society. Though the composition of elites may change over a period of time, i.e. they continue to circulate, but they are always present. ‘History is a graveyard of aristocracy‘. He rejected the Marxist view that political power is determined by economic class structure but declared that power belonged to men who exercise political skill. And it must always be so because of two reasons: i) a minority can organize itself better, and ii) it has some attributes which are very influential in the society they live. Similarly Mosca wrote that the rule of a governing elite is ensured by its superior organization and caliber; the domination of an organized minority over the unorganized majority is inevitable. The distinguishing character of the elite is the aptitude to command and exercise political power. Michels formulated the famous rule of ‘iron law of oligarchy‘ by which he meant ‘rule of the few‘. He declared it as ‘one of the iron laws of history, from which the most democratic modern societies, and within those societies, the most advanced parties, have been unable to escape‘3 The elite rule applies to all societies irrespective of their being liberal, socialist or communist.The Elite theory claims that power in the society is the preserve of particular social groups and they hold power not only because 63 they are highly organized but also because they possess certain special qualities such as physical power, ability, skill, wealth, superior race etc. Empirical investigations of ruling elites carried out in America in 1920‘s came to the conclusion that a small number of people mainly from upper and upper middle class in the community and representing business interests were predominant in all spheres of life in the society. This elite has more power since political, economic and ideological powers are all concentrated in their hands. The nature of elites was investigated by a number of writers such as Karl Mannheim, Schumpeter, Anathony Down, Raymond Aron, Bottomore, Robert Dahl, C. Wright Mills etc. Mills, for example, in his book The Power Elite declared that three interlocking groups which dominated the ‘command power‘ in American society were the political leaders, corporate leaders and the military leaders. Most of these elites groups, thought not elected, controlled the direction of American politics. The struggle for power virtually took place among these contending elites with the result that men in authoritative roles change from time to time, but power remained within the elite groups and never percolated to the masses. Even in democratic societies, government decisions and initiative of policy lie with the elites, unrestrained by masses.Concern with the functioning of elites in politics is as old as the study of politics itself. However, the development of elite theory in the twentieth century was a reaction against Marxism and Western European socialist movements. Whereas Marxism emphasized the unified power of a particular class, the elitist theory argued that due to the separation of ownership and control of industry, such minorities were not necessarily owners of the means of production but might wield a variety of power resources. Any future society whether socialist or communist would also be subjected to minority rule. Genuine democracy was impossible in the face of elite rule. Power is not the monopoly of a particular group or a class. In understanding why elites develop, the crucial point is political and not economic. The elites are organized and the masses are not.Thus if politics is power, then this power belongs not to a particular class but to a minority of elites in the society.64 PLURALIST THEORY OF POWERIf the elite theory of power was developed as a reaction against Marxism, the pluralist notion of power emerged as a reaction against the ‘ultra realism‘ of Elitism. Whereas elitism saw power in the minority, pluralism sees power in the ‘minorities‘. Pluralism is a doctrine of diversity. It claims that power in the modern democratic societies does not belong to a single elite but to different groups and interests which compete for influence, are able to share power, and influence the decision-making at some level or the other.4A prominent theory as a model of studying politics developed in the twentieth century is known as the Interest Groap Theory. The importance of group interest was highlighted by Bentley and Truman who said that from family to nation i.e. family, peasant organizations, caste and races, political parties and organizations, —all can be classified into groups. Politics is nothing except the struggle among groups for controlling the activities of the government or influencing its decisions. This understanding of politics as an act of conflict and cooperation among various groups in society is called pluralism. It is associated with a number of names such as Maitland, Figgis, Lindsay, Barker, Laski, MacIver etc. The concept also became popular in the context of community power debates in 1950s and 1960s and continued till 1970 and 1980s in America and was expressed in the writings of Floyd Hunter, Robert Dahl and Plsby.Pluralism is a highly empirical theory based upon observable phenomena. According to the pluralists, power is ‘an ability to influence policy outcome‘. Any actual decision-making reveals that it is impossible to identify a single group or elite which dominates policy making. Decision is a complex process which involves bargaining among a plurality of individuals and groups, and the final outcome is a compromise. Rejecting both the Marxist and the Elitist notions, the pluralistic theory lays stress on the plurality of factors affecting policy outcome. The decisions arrived at may not be the best but the desired one and result of compromise and agreement among a variety of different groups. Since power is a type of influence, it does not belong to a single factor like wealth, but can be anything like ability, reputation, popularity, 65 chrisma, or general favourable position with regard to any value. Power is not simply property that can be given to one group or denied to another on the basis of social and economic position. It can be an important factor but not the only factor. Those having formal political authority such as the Parliament or the Prime Minister can be influenced by outside social groups such as trade unions, peasant organizations, mass movements. No one single group possesses power to the exclusion of others. Interests such as industrial, agricultural, businessmen and consumers, housewives, students and others balance each other in the pursuit of their own ends. Politics acts as a ‘honest broker‘ and is independent of any particular interest. The individual has his views represented in policy-making, not only through elections but also through the participatory mechanism of group politics.The pluralist notion thus emphasizes major feature of the process of government decision-making, the plurality of actors involved, the emphasis on subjective rather than objective interests and the fact that the policy outcome seldom reflects the values preferences of one single group. However, the pluralists also accept the fact that only a very small minority of the population organized into groups determines the policy in most areas. It is sufficient if the ordinary people join a group.Since 1980s, pluralists have been on defence. The emphas on decision-making has been criticized for ignoring the issues or decisions which are not raised because the power-that-be wishes to keep them off the agenda. Decision-makers may be in agreement on certain issues they should not discuss, say for example, the issue of corruption in high places. If all the major political groups do not raise the issue, then it may be difficult to take any decision inspite of the feelings of the masses. Again, many people do not participate in politics and a large number of interest groups which are not formally recognized by decision-makers, the system has nothing to offer to them. Finally, critics also allege that the pluralists understate the independent role which politicians play in shaping policy and in deciding which interests to respond to. So it is being felt now that the pluralists only capture one facet of the distribution of power in the society.66 GENDER AND POWERApart from the power of class elite and the dominant social groups, the feminist writers have drawn our attention to another kind of power in the society which is termed as power of gender i.e. domination of men as a group over women as a group. A major contribution of feminist scholars in the twentieth century has been to analyse the subordinate position of women in the society. Gender usually refers to the feminine and masculine attributes and social roles. But what is important is that this gender distinction structures every aspect of our life by constituting an unquestioned framework in terms of which society views men and women. Feminism views this gender difference as an elaborate, system of male domination and wants to make an end to this system. For them politics is a power structured relationship in which one groups of persons (i.e. women) is controlled by another group (i.e. men).There is a strong tradition that due to biological differences, men are superior to women. Women‘s natural role of wife and mother are viewed as genetically programmed, and male aggression and women passivity as harmonically produced. Feminist writers criticize this pro-gender biological evidence as fallacious. They argue that the attributes which society considers natural for women are created by social pressures and conditioning. Gender is a product of social relations of sexuality because kinship rests upon marriage. Every gender system exhibits an ideology that relies on repression by presenting gender categories as fixed.5Gender inequality is expressed in many areas of social life which include culture, ideology and discursive practices. The gender division in the home and in wage labour, the organization of state, sexuality, the structuring of violence, and many aspects of social organization contribute to the construction of unequal relations between man and woman. Though gender relations take different form in different societies, history periods, ethnic groups, social classes and generations, yet they have one thing in common - the gender relations are unequal and men are superior to women.There are three main theories of gender relations i.e. liberal, socialist and radical feminists, though a number of other perspectives have also come into existence such as black feminism, ecofeminism, materialist feminism, social feminism etc. The liberal feminists see the gender inequality and male dominance in the lack of education and political participation and representation of women. Radical feminists argue that gender differentiation is primarily a matter of gender inequality with male being the dominant gender. All aspects of women‘s life are affected by male domination. They analyse the issue of male violence towards women, men‘s abuse of women‘s sexuality and issue of reproduction. The socialist feminists 67 see gender inequality as the product of class relations. For them, man as well as capital are the beneficiary of this domination. They concentrate on how domestic labour and wage labour compel women to be subordinated by men.The focus on gender as the centre of power relations in the society set the terms of debate for most of the feminist writings after 1970s. It was argued that this gender differentiation is expressed through a number of inequalities and discriminations against women in the family and occupation, unequal educational opportunities, devaluation of their work etc., and only a transformation of social organization of gender can lead to the disappearance of sexual inequality and domination of men over women.POWER AND PATRIARCHYThis notion of gender and power manifests in the concept of Patriarchy. Patriarchy in wider definition means ‘the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women in the society‘.6 It implies that if politics is power, then this power is enjoyed by men holding all important institutions and decision-making authority in their hands and depriving women of access to such a power. Maggi Humm has defined Patriarchy as a ‘System of male authority which oppresses women through social, political and economic institutions...Patriarchy has power for man‘s great access to and mediation of the resources and rewards of authority structures inside and outside the home‘.7 According to Michael Mank, ‘Patriarchy is male domination, a system of social relations in which men as a class have power over women as a class‘. These power relations are social constructs and not biological. This power can be economic such as the right to be serviced; sexual such as marriage and motherhood; cultural such as devolution of women‘s work and achievement; ideological such as representation of women as natural biological creatures inherently different from 68 men‘. Historically, the domination of men over women has been secured in a variety of way such as i) gender indoctrination, ii) education deprivation, iii) the denial to women of knowledge of their own history, iv) by defining ‘respectability and ‘deviance‘ according to sexual activities, v) dividing women from one another, vi) by restraint and outright coercion, vii) by discrimination in access to economic resources and political power, and viii) by creating an overall ideology that women are inferior to men.8Patriarchy is a historical institution formed by men and women in the long process of their own evolution. The social roles and behaviour deemed appropriate to men and women were expressed in values, customs and laws. However, the natural and biological differences between man and woman led to the formation of social institutions and practices based upon the relations of domination of men and the subordination of women. How did this happen? A number of reasons have been advanced by feminist theories. Let us consider a few of them Early liberal writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and J.S. Mill analysed male domination in the context of liberal values of justice, equality and rights and felt that the cause of women‘s oppression was the denial of the means to develop their reason. As Wollstonecraft pointed out, the main distinguishing mark of human beings was reason. By reason she meant ‘the simple power of improvement‘.9 Similarly, the gender and the character, according to Mill, of women were not natural but the result of their lack of education. Women rarely accepted their own servitude as natural. More often, it is the unreasonable male habits that keep women in such servitude. Men, in complete ignorance, claimed that women were naturally inferior. In short, men, by depriving women of their legal, social, economic and political rights perpetuate male domination in the society.10Marxist writers, on the other hand, locate Patriarchy and male domination in the materialistic context. Marx, for example, saw patriarchy as a cover for bourgeios property interests. Oppression is premised on the class and economic relations within capitalism. Women‘s oppression is rooted in the impersonal logic of capitalist expropriation. The family, private property, division of labour, domestic labour and the position of women are due to historical 69 and economic circumstances. Engles associated the subordination of women with the origin of private property and the rise of individual family which transformed the position of women from a free and equal productive member of society to a subordinate and dependent wife. Engles termed this as ‘the world historical defeat of the female sex.‘11‘ Women were disassociated from the productive process and household management became a household service. The status of equality between sexes and their work changed into inequality and subjugation of women. Thus for Engles, the first form of exploitation can be observed in the family, namely, that the well-being of the man is maintained on the basis of the repression of the women. The majority of women do not stay with men for love, but for the economic support. Thus the subordination of women was directly related to the mode of production. In short, Marxism recognized the power of patriarchy, analysed the material basis of women‘s oppression and equated the liberation of women‘s oppression and exploitation within the overall human liberation that only a socialist revolution could bring about.‘12Another approach to the understanding of the power of patriarchy has been advanced by the Socialist Feminists. Socialist feminism analyses power of men over women in terms of class origin and patriarchal roots. They claim that patriarchy did not emerge with the origin of private property alone nor the end of private property will also bring destruction of patriarchal institutions. Patriarchy is cross cultural and cross nation, existing differently in different societies through the institutionalization of sexual hierarchy. Though not related with the origin of private property, the latter has helped in the perpetuation of patriarchy. For socialists, ‘male suprimacy and capitalism are defined as the core relations determining the oppression of women.‘13 A mutual relationship can be established between gender and class. Patriarchy and gender relations based on power and control intensified with the advent of private property but its origin are more intimate and distant. For example, in the modern capitalist societies, men and woman as workers in the labour force are exploited whereas women‘s oppression arises from her exploitation as a wage labourer and also from sexual hierarchy obtained within the society and family. So it is a double oppression. Socialist feminists have attempted to widen our understanding of the division of labour and oppression of women, and focus our 70 attention on both the productive and reproductive factors. Patriarchal power is both a combination of economic and sexual factors.Anthropological studies in the twentieth century have provided sufficient ground to develop parallel theories of male domination in the society. Another feminist group called Radical Feminists has explained that the subordination of women to the patriarchal organization in society is determined by a male hierarchical order, that enjoys both economic and political power. It is a system of social relation in which men as a class have power over women as a class because women are sexually devalued‘.14 This male domination is the religion of the entire planet and not related to the mode of production. It is the patriarchal organization which has its roots in the male biology and psychology, and not the class structure which defines women‘s‘ position in the power hierarchy. Manifested through male force and control, the patriarchal system preserves itself through marriage and family. It is a sexual system of power, rooted in biology i.e. in the women‘s reproductive role rather than in economics or history. Hence the emancipation of women from male domination lies in the destruction of the biological family as the basic social organisation and revolutionizing the reproductive technology that would free women from the biological determined oppression. However, this view has been criticized on the ground that it considers the subjugation of women as naturally determined and considers man and woman as enemies rather than complimentary to each other.Recent struggles in the status of women have enabled them to afford opportunities to exert some leverage within the system of patriarchy. Equal citizenship status, fundamental rights including political rights, no discrimination in pay between men and women, ‘ special provisions for improving their educational standards have changed the form of male domination considerably. Where women have economic power, they are able to control their lives better than otherwise. Modern technology is gradually removing most of the heavy work for which women are not physically well-equipped as men. With the latest advances in bio-technology and microbiology, birth control and small families, social reproduction may also cease to be the basis for female subordination. Again the existence of women groups and associations serve to increase the ability of women to counteract the dictates of patriarchal system. However, 71 all said and done, such reforms need to be integrated within a vast cultural revolution because the essence of patriarchy is less in the legal and social rights or economic determinism and more in the deep psychological roots of masculine psychology, thought and language.Thus if politics is power, the patriarchal theory believes that power is exercised through male domination in the society.CONCLUSIONIn analysing the holding, exercise and distribution of power, it is difficult to ascertain who actually uses resources in an effective way and the different interpretations of power - the class, elite, pluralist and patriarchal - present practical difficulties. In some cases, the various types merge into one another. Within a ruling elite, one can find several groups competing for power. In the pluralist society, analysts encounter a series of elites controlling several social groups. Against in the communist states which were based upon class power, elites could be found claiming to rule in the name of the people. And the patriarchal power cuts through all ideologies and is always present in all modes of power. Yet inspite of difficulties, the various models help us to distinguish among various power concentrations in the society. Distribution of power ranges from the hierarchical to the relatively equalitarian dimensions and each model points to the distinctive dimensions of power relationship. The elite model focus on the coercive nature of power or on the ability of the power holder to initiate policy. The pluralist model reminds us of the difference between active and potential power, the scope of different power wielders and the importance of consensual power. The class model points to the exploitative content of power whereas the patriarchal model exposes the extent of male domination in the society. Together they all provide different standards for evaluating the exercise and distribution of power within a particular society.References1. Hoare and Smith, op. cit.. p. 2632. Anathony Birch. The Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy, Routledge,1994, p. 1893. Alfred de Grazia (trans ), Robert Michael‘s First Lectures in Political Sociology, University of Minneapolis Press, Minneapolis 1949, p. 142.4. Robert Presthus, The Pluralist Framework in H. S. Kareil. Frontiers of Democracy, Random House, New York, 1970, p. 28172 5. See ‘Gender‘ in Maggi Humm, Dictionary of Feminist Theory. Harvester Wheatsheaf, NY, 19896. G. Lerner. The Creation of Patriarchy, OUP, London, 1986, p.2397. Maggi Humm, op. cit., p. 1598. Lerner, op. cit., p.213-2299. Andrewd Vincent, Modem Political Ideologies, Blackwell, Oxford. 1992. p. 17710. Ibid., p.18211. F. Engles, ‘Origin of Family, Property and State‘ in Marx &Engles, Selected Works. Progress Publishers, Moscow. 1970.12. ‘Patriarchy and Women‘s Oppression: an Examination of Marx and Engles‘ in Women‘s Oppression: Patterns and Perspectives, Shakti Books. New Delhi, 1985, p. 19713. Andrew Vincent, op. cit., p. 19814. Maggi Humm, op. cit., p. 160.73 CHAPTER 5 THE CONCEPT OF MODERN NATION- STATE—HISTORICAL EVOLUTIONThe entire world is today divided into territories known as nation-states. The nation-state is the dominant political formation of our times. It is relatively a recently development in human history. Only two hundred years ago, there were less than twenty states which could be called nation-state; today there are more than one hundred and eighty-five. The transformation has come about largely because of the doctrine of nationalism which arose in Europe after the decline of Holy Roman Empire and spread to the rest of the world during the twentieth century. In European history, the period from sixteenth century onwards is seen as the definitive emergence of the nation-states. The term ‘nation-state‘ does not denote a particular state, but refers to the specific relationship between government and people. It is a combination of two words: while the ‘state‘ refers to the legal entity possessing sovereign power and a right to govern the territory and all its inhabitants; the ‘nation‘ refers to the community of people and that the source of legitimacy of the sovereign power lies in the people who together form a nation. It is used to indicate that part of population which feels bound together by national links and claims, and on the basis of such links, a right to form a political entity, a state of its own, where it can actualize and develop its own potential. Generally speaking, nation-state is understood by certain characteristics such as national consciousness, unified territory, common ancestry, common language, history and culture, common outlook of society and a sense of community by which a particular group of population feels different from the other. Thus, 74 while ‘state‘ represents the legal constitutional aspect, ‘nation‘ is the psychological, cultural, spiritual and ideological unity which is essential for the success of any state.Since nationalism is the basis of modern state, it is necessary that before discussing the rise and growth of nation-state, we should have a brief introduction of what nationalism implies. Nationalism is a socio-political concept and, like any other concept, has taken on its meaning not only from the social context but also from the symbolic and emotional connotations. While the term nationalism has a continuity, its meaning and implications have changed with the change in society and social relations. However, two point are worth noting. First, as a social concept, it is a bond which exists among the people of particular community and second, it is a creative and powerful force. While it establishes a particular relationship, it is also a prime mover of history. In any study of nationalism, these two aspects must be included. In the broadest sense, nationalism is a bond which relates the individuals of one nation in a common Patrie. But what is a nation? History points to India, China, Arab, England, France existing as separate nations. What made them nation? Is it history, geography, religious identity, language or culture? Many nations do not have a common language or many nationalities have common language, but still do not form a single nation. Same thing can be said about religion. That is, the factors forming a nation are not always the same everywhere. Nationalism is a bond through which the people of a nation feel that there is something which binds them together and it can be distinguished from others. These factors can be economic, historical, geographical, political, cultural etc.2Historically, nationalism is the product of rise of nation-states in Europe. During its earlier phase, it was identified with the absolute monarchies of Europe. In the 18th and 19th century, it acquired an imperialist form in the struggle for colonies in Asia and Africa; in the 19th century, it associated itself with liberalism, democracy, constitutionalism and civil liberties. In the 19th and 20th century it played an important part in the reorganization of Europe, unification of Italy and Germany, liquidation of Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires. After the first world war, it acquired an aggressive and racial form in the garb of Fascism and Nazism. During the 20th century, it brought a new awakening in the Asian 75 and African countries through national liberation movements. After the second world war, inspite of the challenge posed by Marxism and internationalism, it still remains the dominant political force in the world politics.FACTORS FOR THE RISE OF NATION-STATEThe modern nation-state emerged out of the womb of medieval period and was the product of many forces and struggles. The principal factors responsible for the rise of nation-state can be enumerated as follows:?i. the individualistic climate of opinion that characterized Renaissance and Reformation;?ii. the collapse of universal authority of the church;?iii. the desire of the rising commercial classes for uniform trade regulations, abolition of feudal obstacles to trade and for creating conditions under which trade could be carried on peacefully and profitably;?iv. the desire for peace, order and security in an age marked by bloodshed, violence and intolerance;?v. the personal ambitions of monarchs who allied themselves with the rising commercial class in opposition to the more powerful feudal lords;?vi. The doctrine of territorial sovereignty, which offered the national kings the most convenient theoretical weapon with which to combat the claims of rival feudal or religious authorities. The idea of one unified legal system affording order, consistency and certainty in the governing of all social relations within a given national area made a very strong appeal.3Why nation-state became a universal form of state formation? According to Beetham, historically speaking, three factors can be ascribed to it: Economic, Military and Cultural. The concept of nation-state as it emerged after the renaissance and reformation embodied universal laws regarding administration and taxation which helped in the establishment of national markets, provided unified markets for the expansion of national industry, and helped 76 in the conquest of foreign markets. The creation of national unified economy helped in the development of a welfare state in the twentieth century. Secondly, in the military competition among the states, the nation-states proved better because of the resources of national economy. More importantly, they could rely on the allegiance of unified national army. As a result, it was better able to provide internal security and face threat against foreign aggression. Thirdly, the nation-state was able to satisfy the cultural—religious, ethnic, linguistic—demands of the people. These factors helped in consolidating the position of states and meeting the internal as well as external challenges.GROWTH OF NATION-STATEThe growth of the nation-state has not been uniform and has followed different patterns in different regions. To have a clear understanding of the phenomenon, we can study it under the following headings:4?i. Growth of nation-state in Western, Southern and Eastern Europe.?ii. Nation-state in America.?iii. Nation-state in Asia and Africa. ?iv. Marxism and the Question of Nationality.NATION-state in europe(i) As stated above, nation-state was the product of combined influence of Reformation, Renaissance and commercial revolution. The decline in the authority of the church raised the question of loyalty of the individual and by withdrawing this loyalty from the Holy Roman Empire, gave it to the monarch who was emerging as the symbol and sole representative of the nation itself. Although loyalty to the king and opposition to the rulers of other nations was not new, yet what was new was a conscious awareness of this loyalty, a belief which emerged from the unique circumstances of a struggle between monarch and the Holy Roman Empire on the one hand, and between the monarch and the feudal lords on the other. This awareness was further accentuated by the use of vernaculars instead of Latin, invention of paper and printing press, expansion of commerce and rise of commercial class, new scientific inventions, discoveries of new lands of Asia and Africa etc. These 77 happenings brought the contradictory forces of dissolution and unity into play. The authority of the Church over the peasantry began to decline and the authority of the feudal lords began to be consolidated in the hands of powerful kings. These monarchs tended to consolidate their power in areas united by common vernacular, religion, culture etc. Thus, nationality began to form into state which represented them.As a result, a new principle was introduced in history—the concept of nation-state. This concept rejected the Holy Roman Empire and supported the formation of states on the basis of nationality. Loyalty to a nation represented by a king began to emerge and exert powerful influence. The English, French, Spanish and German nationalities were there even before, but the bond had been religion. In fact, the nation-state remained dormant and incomplete as long as the Church remained a universal rather than a national institution. The breaking of the Church power and establishment of national church under the authority of the king paved the way for the nation-state. This task was initiated in England and was followed by France. There are many writers who accept a direct relation between the decline of Church and the rise of nation-state in Europe.5 Henry VII and Phillips II were absolute monarchs who destroyed feudalism and multiplicity of authority in society, and established strong centralized states. Thus there emerged a separate and independent national identity represented by a powerful king. This powerful centralized state was welcomed by the rising commercial class because it freed them from the oppressive authority of the feudal lords; and permitted them to pursue their commercial activities without hindrance. It also freed them from dual loyalty of church and state. During this phase, nation-state meant the submission of the individual to the king representing the nationality of the ruled.This period was also characterized by a new development, i.e., colonialism. It spread both in Eastern and Western directions i.e. Asia and America. The great discoveries were the achievements of adventurer individuals, supported by kings, who in turn expected financial gains. The increasing competition among the nation-states to maximize colonies led to further centralization and solidarity within the nation and intensification of the spirit of nationalism. The new colonies were not intended to be territorially subjugated 78 or ruled from abroad, but were to serve as centres of commerce in the initial phase and as source of raw material and market in the era of industrial revolution.The industrial revolution gave birth to a new economy and a new class—the capitalist class, whose interests clashed with those of absolute monarchy. As the capitalist class acquired power and influence, it sought a concomitant increase in their rights and liberties. The struggle between kings and the capitalist class was resolved through democracy. This gave a new meaning to the nation-state. Now nation-state meant not loyalty to the absolute king but to the government which gave freedom, which consulted the people, and placed real authority in their hands. Nationalism was meaningless unless it embodied liberty for the people. The establishment of representative institutions gave a new solid base to the ideology of nationalism. The spread of political consciousness accentuated individual loyalty to the state. By the end of 19th century, the alliance of democracy and nationalism was at its peak.(ii) The French revolution in the fag end of 18th century was a turning point in the rise and growth of nation-state. Here the stage shifted to central Europe. The declaration of the national assembly, rights of man, location of sovereignty in the nation, abolition of feudal legacies, confiscation of church property to meet the national debt, formation of national education policy, national flag, national anthem, and the wars fought in the glory of the nation—all these things led the nationalism of France to its pinnacle.6 In 1792, when Nepoleon began national revolutionary struggles, national consciousness was almost absent in Europe. ‘But as the national wars increased and large portions of Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Italy came under French occupation, it led to a reaction which found expression in nationalism. There was an upsurge of German nationalism. The defeat of Germany in 1806 made Fichte and Hegel the staunch enemies of France and ardent supporters of German nationalism. It led to the belief that politics cannot be ignored at the cost of philosophy. A powerful state is a must—a state which can repulse outside attack and aggression. The Nepoleonic wars helped immensely in awakening the national consciousness of the German state. Germany wanted to stand at the level of equality with England and France. The political unity based upon 79 nationality could do away with multiplicity of taxation, different prices and by removing restrictions, could help the merchant class a great deal. Thus the economic progress became the basis for political unity. Fichte held the view that the laissez-faire policy could be successful only with a centralized and unified state where the middle class was present. But in Germany, which was agricultural and where the middle class was absent, the welfare of the individual and the economic security could only be held under the auspices of the state. The ideas propounded in his book The Closed Commercial State were that of state socialism which had a profound impact on the German state.7 The concept of nation as propounded by Hegel, the state socialism of Lassale and Bismark, and the national socialism had its roots in Fichte. In Germany, the nation-state was not only a political theory but emerged as a philosophy of life. Hegel combined the state with the will of the nation. According to him, a state can protect itself and can get its recognition only through the formation of nation. He called the state as ‘the march of God on earth‘ and by giving a mystical base to the nation justified an absolute state, which was misused by Nazism in the 20th century in the name of national socialism.(iii) The formation of nation-state in Eastern Europe did not take place under a centralized authority. Right from the beginning, due to the lack of any political organization to spread national consciousness, these states were under three empires: Hapsburg, Ottoman and Asian. All these empires were unable to inculcate any national sentiment among the population. In the 19th century, the socio-economic changes in the rest of Europe had their repercussion on the Eastern parts as well. Various segments of population began to feel that from the point of view of nationality, they were not only different from the king, but that the oppressive nature of the rule was also not tolerable. The theory of self-determination of nationalities was welcomed by these people because this could help them to get rid of the autocratic regimes. Here, the struggle to get rid of the oppressive rule started in 19th century and continued in the 20 century. In the first world war, a major question was of the new nationalities which wanted to form new states of their own. The war decided in favour of nation-states. The map of Europe was redrawn. The Austro-Hungarian empire and Ottoman empire were broken. Six new states were carved out:80 Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithunia, Latavia, Istonia and Finland; six new states were extended: Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, Italy, Denmark and France. Austrian, Hungarian and Turkish empires were pruned to form states based upon nationalities. The Treaty of Paris accepted the principle of nationality as a part of universal law in Europe. The First World War recommended the idea of self-determination of nationalities to be extended to Asia and Africa.Thus we can conclude that in Europe, the rise and growth of nation-state followed three different patterns: (i) In western Europe, whose existence continued uninterrupted after the medieval ages, the absolute kings formed the nation-state; (ii) the territories of Central Europe continued to change from time to time; and (iii) in Eastern Europe, many foreign rulers had to be thrown out of Europe. This process continued up to 20th century.8NATION-STATE IN AMERICAWhile in Europe the nation-state meant a unified state on the basis of mutual freedom and its defence, it meant something different in America. The American colonies felt that all their efforts and conquests have led to the riches of the home countries. When they become conscious that they were not working for themselves but for the benefit of those who had never left their comfortable homes, they revolted. Their first slogan was ‘no taxation without representation‘ which subsequently changed into full war of independence. This resulted in the formation of new states and national identities. Out of the contradiction between national feeling and liberty, and self-interest, they were forced to severe old bonds and create new ones. Here, the nation-state meant severing old national bonds and creating new ones. This ended the colonial rule and the creation of many nation-states in the American continent.NATION-STATE IN ASIA AND AFRICAThe second world war was another important landmark in the rise and growth of nation-state. While on the one hand, it destroyed Fascism and Nazism, it also set in motion the process of national liberation movements in Asia and Africa, as a result of which many countries got independence from the imperialist powers of Europe. Such revolutionary changes played a vital role in the development of nationalism. New nations like China, India, Pakistan, 81 Egypt, Vietnam grew on the world scene which gave a new meaning to the concept of nation-state. The circumstances which gave birth to these nations were quite different from those of the West. These were the countries which were subjugated by imperialist countries like England, France, Spain, Holland etc and their economies had been exploited. Imperialist countries considered them as their private property whom they sold and pilfered. They destroyed their independence and preserved puppet governments which were too weak to do any harm to imperialism.A new form of nationalism and a new meaning of concept was born in countries like India, China and Arab lands.10 The rise of such nation-states was something which had never been witnessed in history. The new concept of nationalism which became the basis of new states derived much of its ideology and political theory from the West, but it adopted the theory to its own historical experience, its particular circumstances and to its own revolt against imperialism. The basis of the new nationalism was that it began with an instinctive and xenophobic hatred for imperialism, a hatred of its representatives, its nationals and anyone affiliated with them. It was a simple hatred against those who had occupied their land by force, exploited their riches by force, crushed their governments, enslaved their people and who did not hesitate to destroy, plunder and steal. This hatred was expressed violently in killings, destruction and assasinations such as Boxer Rebellion, as well as in peaceful, non-violent forms in India under Gandhi.11 These states were conscious of imperialism, aimed at its destruction and destruction of those accompanying evils such as conquests, oppression, enslavement, stifling of liberty, exploitation of riches and sowing of racial, regional, communal and class distinctions. At the same time, nationalism here was also a creative force which aimed at building a nation based upon the principles of liberty, independence, economic justice and national unity. It viewed national unity as a creative force which could stimulate the people to contribute their share in the national reconstruction. This unity meant two things: (i) unity of geographical parts, and (ii) unity in the diversity of religion, class, caste, communal elements etc. These states pledged to work for the welfare of all classes, castes and groups because all of them participated and contributed their lot in the struggle for freedom. From international point of view, these new states 82 opposed military bases, undue alien interference into the affairs of other states, and believed in non-alignment, apartheid and international cooperation.12However, because of the long history of colonial exploitation, economic, social and political backwardness still stalks these nations even after independence. Contemporary capitalist economic system has increased their complexities. The annual growth rate of any of these new nations is quite low. To cope up with the economic crisis, these states have been seeking the help of America, erstwhile USSR, Japan and European countries, which, in turn, is increasing their dependence on these former imperialist powers. In other words, in the name of noe-colonialism and liberalization, exploitation of these new nation-states is still continuing. This is a dangerous development for these nascent nation-states.MARXISM AND THE NATIONAL QUESTIONThe idea of nationalism and the nation-state has a different connotation in Marxism. Marx was of the opinion that the societies were divided not on nationalities but on class basis. The purpose of the state is the protection of vested interests of the dominant class and as such, it does not represent the nationality but the class interest. Writing about his own times, Marx emphasized that although the capitalist liberal state talks of national interest, industrialization has created a new class, i.e., working class which has a universal common interest irrespective of nationality. As a result the concept of nationality is almost dead in industrialized countries.13 Extreme nationalism is an ideological means which helps in the class domination. It is a fiction created by the bourgeois class and is being used by it just as it used religion, ethics, democracy, freedom, science, art or literature. Marx declared that the working class has no nation; it has universal class interest. The salvation of the working class laid in the development of productive forces on a world scale which was not possible in the narrow sphere of nation-state. Hence, theoretically, Marx and Engles gave the idea of the abolition of nationalities which, according to them, was the creation of the middle class ideology,Inspite of this, the question of nationality was not clear in Marx and Engel‘s thinking because in the specific cases of Poland and Ireland, their views were different. Marx supported the national 83 liberation movement of Poland because it was a part of Russia which was the focus of conservative reaction in Europe. Similarly, he felt that the liberation of the oppressed nations will help in overpowering the national division and the consolidation of the working class of both oppressor and oppressed nations. The national liberation movements will also help in weakening the political, economic, military and ideological power of the ruling class and will inculcate a revolutionary ideology in the working class of the oppressed nation.14 Engles introduced the concept of ‘new historical nations‘. According to him, there were certain great historic nations in Europe like Italy, Poland, Hungry, Germany and hence the idea of unity was justified. On the other hand, there were certain minor nations with no historical importance and legacy like Romania, Czechs and Slovaks. They have been the puppets of Nepoleon or Czar. The failure of democratic revolution in Europe was largely due to the counter-revolutionary role of these nation.15 Before 1917, the radical left in Europe largely endorsed the views of Marx and Engles and opposed national separation in the name of proletarian internationalism.But some of the specific questions on the Marxist view of national question have been solved by history. In 1890, when Germany attacked France, Marx appealed to the working class of Germany that they should not support Bismark but rather revolt against him. However, the working class supported Bismark. Such appeals were repeated in first and second world wars but the working class did not agree not to enter the war and neither did the wars stopped.The national question and the question of nationalities came to the forefront after the Russian Revolution because in Russia there were a number of nationalities. Lenin understood clearly the dialectical relationship between internationalism and the right of self-determination of nationalities. He felt that only the right to scede will make possible the voluntary union and cooperation and the long term fusion between the nations.16 Similarly only the recognition by the workers‘ movement in the oppressed nations about the right of the oppressed nations to self-determination could help eliminate the hostility and suspicion of the oppressed and unite the proletariat of both nations in the international struggle against the bourgeoisie. Lenin also grasped the relationship between 84 national democratic struggle and the socialist revolution and felt that the popular masses of the oppressed nations were the allies of the conscious proletariat—a proletariat whose task was to lead the struggle.Stalin‘s solution of the problem was realistic but far away from the Marxist tradition. Stalin gave autonomy to different nationalities within the Soviet state. Each nationality could set up a state legislature and develop its language and culture. They were given equal status at the central level. The arrangements made were more administrative and formal is another matter. Gradually, the nationalities‘ were absorbed by the CPSU. But the fact remains that alongwith class, the nationalities were recognized. Stalin‘s policy of ‘socialism in one country‘ intended to make Russia as leader of world revoluuon and more and more of it became associated with the extension of Russian national interest. Particularly during the second world war, the national sentiment was given a free hand. The heroes of Czarist Russia became the heroes of Soviet Union.17 Russia became the prime mover in the international communist movement seeking to advance its own interest through aggressive policy in which nationalism was a major force. In fact the proportion of revolution by increasing the power of Russia was the inevitable reason of the failure of the communist parties to bring it about themselves in the Eastern Europe. Moreover, a natural result of the war was the awakening of national consciousness of all the communist countries. Hence communist party of one nation had to oppose the communist party of the other in the national interest and in this context the international aspect of the proletarian revolution became almost dead. The quarrel between the communist parties of Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia on the question of Macedonia was a clear example. In Asia, modern nationalism and Marxist socialism came to the forefront almost simultaneously. For example, after the revolution in China and Vietnam, there was a unique combination of nationalism and communism. The border disputes between China and Russia and China and Vietnam were only a manifestation of the national sentiments. More recently the disintegration of Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have proved that the ethnic, religious and other identities are more dominant than the ‘class loyalty‘. The bloodshed in Croatia, armed clashes between Russians and local nationalists in Georgia 85 and Moldavia prove beyond point that the national question, far from being resolved, has become more menacing. The ethnic majorities are everywhere getting more bellicose and the minorities feel more insecure. And in a number of erstwhile communist countries and under-developed nations, it is leading to process of drift towards disintegration, anarchy and violence. Instead of being a bond of unity, nationalism has become the cause of disunity.18SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTSSince 1945, three developments have affected the nation-state which have been pointing to different directions.19 These can be termed as: Consolidation, Disintegration and Globalization. Firstly, there has been a dramatic consolidation of the trend, started in the 19th century, for the nation-state to be the main source of political authority. The domination of the nation-state as the most powerful form of political organization has been extended by the virtual end of colonial empires. There were only 51 states in 1945, whereas they were 185 in 1992. Moreover, the power of the national governments in many new states, though shaky in the beginning, has been consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the third world countries like Zaire, Nigeria, Malaysia, Pakistan. The coming up of India illustrates one of the great virtues of the nation-state as a form of organization which can secure mass compliance of policies with only a minimum of coercion.The second development relates to ethnic resurgence. Along with consolidation of nation-state, there has been a revival of minority nationalist movements claiming measures of autonomy within the state or independence from it. Such conflicting trends have increased since 1970s when United Kingdom saw the growth of nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, France experienced demands for measures of cultural autonomy from groups in Brittany and Corsica, Quebecois nationalists wanted independence from Canada. More recently, India and Sri Lanka are also facing the problem of Kashmir and Tamil nationalists respectively leading to certain amount of bloodshed in both cases. After the disintegration of USSR and the East European communist bloc, the ethnic resurgence has spread like an infection. The rise of separatist and ethnic agitations is partly due to the ‘loss‘ of group identity of certain minorities, and partly due to the fact that the principle of 86 state creation since the second world, war had nothing to do with Self-determination. The creation of new nation-states was more because of the forces of decolonization, revolution or intervention by outside powers. Decolonization meant creation of an independent state out of the existing areas of colonial administration, without any reference to their inhabitants. The result was that soon after independence, tensions developed between the component parts of the independence movements (examples India, Algeria, Arabs). Again the intervention of outside powers had been obviously non-nationalistic. The split of Soviet Union into its constituent parts and disintegration of Yugoslavia have shown that these states were imperfectly integrated.The third development relates to the process of globalization. During the last two decades, the world has become highly interdependent. Today, the nation-state has to operate in an interdependent world. Information, money, weapons, technology, pollution, values, radiation, food, computers, drugs, diseases, data— all flow rapidly around the globe, giving the individual nation-states more opportunities but also posing more threats to their identity. Simultaneously, the role of international and supernational organization such as U.N.O., World Bank, International Monetary Fund, GATT and Non-governmental organizations is increasing by leaps and bounds. The implications for the nation-state are profound. We can no longer examine politics within states as though they bear no connection to politics between states. The two have become overwhelmingly interrelated. In this connection, the past two decades have seen the emergence of a good deal of speculation about the possible transmutation of the nation-state system into some kind of new world order. Numerous academicians and politicians have drawn attention to the development of global interdependence. However, according to Birch, much of the speculation is based upon wishful thinking rather than upon observed developments in international organizations. The dominance of the nation-state in contemporary politics remains a fact though it does not mean that this dominance will remain for all eternity.20 Similarly, Rod Hague maintains that national sovereign state remains a potent symbol inspite of highly interdependent world.21 On the other hand, Hobsbawm predicts that the future is not going to be contained within the limits of ‘nation-states‘ either politically, 87 economically, culturally or linguistically. It will be supranational. It will see nation-states or nations being resisting, adapting or being absorbed or dislocated by the new supernational restructuring of the globe.22 We shall talk more about these developments in the context of sovereignty in the next chapter.References1. Munif al Razzaz, The Evolution of the Meaning of Nationalism, Doubleday &Co. New York, 1963, p. 4/7.2. Ibid., p.9.3. Hallowell, Main Currents in Modern in Political Thought, Holt, Rinehart and Winstan, N.Y., 1950, p. 61.4. For more details, see Razzaz, op. cit., Chapters 3 to 6.5. Ibid., Also see Hans Kohn. The Idea of Nationalism, Macmillan, 1956, Chapter V The Emergence of Nationalism; and Hughseton Watson, Nations and States, Methuen, London. 1977, Chapter 26. Hans Kohn, Ibid., p. 130-33.7. Hallowell, op. cit., p. 568.8. See Gregor MacLennan, David Held, Stuart Hall, The Idea of State, Open University Press. Milton Keyes, 1984.9. Razzaz,‘op. cit, p. 1810. Ibid., p. 54.11. Ibid., p. 55-56.12. Y. Zhukov and Others. The Third World—Problems and Prospects, Moscow, p.223-34.13. Karl Marx, The German Ideology, Moscow. 1964, p. 76.14. Macheal Lowi. Marxism and National Question, in New Left Review. 1976, p. 137.15. Ibid.16. Lenin, ‘The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination . Selected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, p. 157-66.17. Hallowell, op. cit., p. 578.18. Shyam Nath, Times of India, 28 June‘ 199219. Anthony Birch, op. cit., p. 22-2720. Ibid. P 2621. Rod Hague and others, op. cit., p. 9722. E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992. p. 19188 CHAPTER 6 SOVEREIGNTYToday‘s states are sovereign states. According to the legal notion of state, sovereignty is one of the essential elements of the state. It is the possession of sovereignty which distinguishes the state from other human institutions. The word sovereignty is derived from the word ‘superniis‘ which means supreme. That is, in every state there is an ultimate and final authority against which there is no appeal. For the survival of any state, unity is an important element i.e., the population of the state must obey the commands of one and only one authority. The authority to whom people owe their allegiance must not be divided. Sovereignty represents this unity and indivisibility of authority. This authority is expected to be supreme both in internal and external matters.There is not much controversy about the definition of sovereignty among the Western political thinkers. In its essentials, it is the supreme power in the society—an absolute power which is above all individuals, groups, classes, class-interests and institutions, and a power which controls and regulates all of them. In contemporary society, this supreme power is possessed by the state. Many political thinkers have defined the term sovereignty. According to Bodin, it is ‘the supreme power over citizens and subjects, unrestrained by law‘. According to Grotius, ‘sovereignty is the supreme political power vested in him whose acts are not subject to any other and whose will cannot be over-ridden‘. Blackstone defines it as ‘the supreme, irresistible, absolute uncontrolled authority in which the jura summi imperil reside‘. According to Pollock, ‘sovereignty is that power which is neither temporary nor delegated, nor subject to particular rules which it cannot alter, nor answerable to any other power on earth‘. W. Wilson‘s view of the term is ‘the daily 89 operative power of framing and giving efficacy to the laws‘. According to Willoughby, sovereignty is ‘the supreme will of the state‘. Soltau describes it as the exercise of ‘final legal coercive power of the state‘. Many other writers such as Jellinek, Burger‘ Laski, Austin, Duguit, Gettel, Gilchrist, Garner etc. have also defined sovereignty almost on the same lines.Sovereignty has two aspects: Internal and External. While internal sovereignty means the ability of the state to make and enforce laws binding upon the inhabitants within its territory, the external sovereignty is the recognition in international law that a state has jurisdiction over a territory. It means that the state is answerable for that jurisdiction in relation to other states. External sovereignty matters because all states claim the right to regulate the relationship between their country and the rest of the world. In fact, external sovereignty grows even more important as the world becomes more interdependent. To claim external sovereignty means to warn the other states to ‘keep off. However, as we shall see below, no state has full control over events today either inside or outside its borders, though this does not annul their claim to sovereignty.HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF SOVEREIGNTYThe notion of sovereignty as the supreme power on a definite territory is modern and its emergence is connected with the rise of modern nation-state. It does not, however, mean that the ancient and medieval ages were unaware of the idea of sovereignty. What is important is that the particular sense in which sovereignty is used was never emphasized in the past, even though the modern notion had its roots in the past. According to Lord Bryce, the idea of sovereignty emerged from the complex material of ancient traditions, it was specifically enunciated and applied by the absolute monarchs of the early modern period, and it has been repeatedly interpreted since 1688 with the rise of modern democratic state.The Geeks had their self-sufficient communities and were aware not only of the supreme authority of the king, but also that of the whole community. They talked of law as their master. The classification of constitutions by Aristotle was based upon the supreme authority in the hands of one, few or many. During Roman period, people were regarded as the supreme authority and the 90 magistrates exercised this imperium only because the people willed them to do so. But the immediate roots of sovereignty are in the medieval period and feudal system. In the hierarchy of feudalism, each feudal gradation holder was a suzerain in his domain and sovereignty meant overlordship. The sovereign was synoymous‘ with the finality of authority. With the dawn of modern nation-states when the power of the feudal lords was broken, the kings became sovereign.Secondly, we also find the glimpses of sovereignty in the religious hierarchies of middle ages. According to Lord Bryce, the chiefs of the religious monastries were also called sovereign. Along with the rise of the supreme power of the Pope, there also emerged the idea of the supreme power of the king. When the Popes were all powerful, the authority of the kings became merely its shadow. Kings of England, France, Spain were subordinate to the Pope. But during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when, as a result of Renaissance and Reformation, the authority of the Pope began to decline, this vacuum was filled by the kings who increased their power tremendously. With the rise of nation-state, these kings began to be called monarchs. There was no dearth of supporters of such kings. Machiavelli and Marcilius of Pauda supported the powerful kings. Bodin and Thomas Hobbes gave a theoretical basis to this absolute power which was interpreted and reinterpreted by the subsequent political thinkers. Whereas Hobbes expounded what we call as the ‘legal‘ view of sovereignty, which was later sophisticated by Bentham and Austin, his successor John Locke drew attention to another sovereign power—the power of the parliament and the power behind the Parliament i.e. the community. This was later defined as Political sovereignty. Rousseau gave the theory of Popular sovereignty through his concept of General Will. The legal view of sovereignty was fiercely attacked in the 20th century by the supporters of Pluralist theory of sovereignty such as Laski, MacIver, Barker and others. Liberalism defined sovereignty as the legitimate power of the state to resolve conflicts, bring unity in the society, establish law and order and make way for peaceful social change. Marxism, on the other hand, considered sovereignty as the class power of the state and like state, believed in the abolition of the concept of sovereignty under communism. 91 LEGAL SOVEREIGNTYThe legal view of sovereignty was propounded by Bodin and Hobbes and was developed by Bentham and Austin. During the sixteenth century, Bodin found in the monarch of France an absolutism to which the people could look for protection and who was a means and source of unity of French state. The king was seen as the author and dispenser of law and there was no need of invoking the help of God in establishing his power. It was already an established fact. Various factors had contributed towards this phenomenon such as the loss of power of the Pope, crumbling of the feudal structure of society and a new spirit fostered by Renaissance which proved destructive to the old ideals.3 Bodin made use of these tendencies and developed a theory of sovereignty as ‘the supreme power over citizens and the subjects unrestrained by law‘. It was absolute and the source of law, but not bound by it. Sovereignty was perpetual, indivisible and imprescritible, so that it could become a uniting factor of the commonwealth. The sovereign was the sole arbiter of peace and war, appointed magistrates and final court of appeal, author of all laws and issue coinage etc. However, though above law, Bodin did not consider the sovereign above all laws. He was still subjected to the laws of God, laws of nature and that of nations. Bodin thus recognized certain limitations. In fact Bodin confused the purely juristic view of sovereignty with moral and political considerations.Thomas Hobbes made the most logical and comprehensive exposition of sovereignty in which there was no place for ethics. In the social contract theory which he propounded in his book Leviathan, the sovereign is not a party to the contract and the individuals give all their powers unconditionally to the former. The sovereign is made not only absolute but also irresponsible, not bound by any law, human or divine. His will is law because he, in his person, represents the people also. For the purpose of law, the legal omnipotence of the sovereign is beyond question. According to Hobbes, the sovereign power is essential in every state, it is indivisible, unlimited and illimitable. This is because without sovereign, there would be no order or good government. The church should ever remain its servant, neither an equal partner nor master. The sovereign knows no limits, he is absolute, omnipotent, omnicompetent, permanent, universal and inalienable. A limited 92 sovereign is a contradiction in term.After Hobbes, the concept of sovereignty was interpreted according to time and circumstances until it was given concrete shape by Bentham. Bentham defined sovereignty in terms of supreme law-making power. He emphasized that the source of law is not natural law but the sovereign.AUSTIN‘S THEORY OF SOVEREIGNTYThe perfect theory of legal sovereignty was formulated by John Austin (1832). He was an English jurist. There is no place for history or morality in his analysis. In his book Lectures on Jurisprudence, he writes, ‘If a determinate human superior, not in the habit of obedience to a like superior, receives habitual obedience from the bulk of society, then (hat determinate human superior is sovereign and that society (including the human superior) is political and independent...Law is the command of sovereign, a command given by a superior to an inferior. All members of the society are dependent upon him. Sovereign is the maker of all direct and indirect laws.‘4The above passage of Austin can be explained as follows:1. For the purpose of sovereignty, there has to be a determinate human superior in the society. No general will or the laws of nature have any bearing on the concept of sovereignty. The sovereign must be definite and visible so that people can recognize in him the supreme power of protection. For the purpose of law, an unmistakable personality is essential. He must be human; no God and His power is associated with the state. Human law is the subject of state activity.2. The definite human superior must not be in the habit of obeying a like superior. Sovereign power must not be in a condition in which it has to abide by the decision or order of any other power. Sovereign must also receive a sort of permanent obedience from the majority of those over whom he rules. The temporary acquisition of power does not make a man sovereign because nowhere the people habitually obey him. Sovereignty not only involves submission of the many but also its permanence. It has to be habitual, continuous and regular.3. The power of the sovereign is legally unlimited and absolute.93 The sovereign cannot be forced to act in a certain way by any command except his own. He draws his own limits.4. Sovereign power is a unity. It is inalienable and indivisible. It is inalienable, i.e., if the sovereign authority parts with his sovereignty, it cannot of its own resume it. It is indivisible, i.e., it cannot be divided between two or more persons or body of persons acting separately, for if so, one would be limited in some way by the other. Which would be a superior power and, therefore, the real sovereign? Division of sovereignty is the destruction of sovereignty.5. Law is the command of the sovereign. It is a command obliging the subjects to do or refrain from doing certain acts; failure to do so is penalty. The sovereign himself is not limited by any positive law because he himself is the creator. Within the law, as Hobbes pointed out earlier, there is nothing like unjust command. The sovereign being unlimited, he has the legal right to will whatever he may happen to desire.6. In short, Austin‘s theory has three-fold implication: (a) state is a legal order in which there is a definite authority acting as the ultimate source of power; (b) its authority is unlimited. It may act wisely or unwisely, honestly or dishonestly, ethically or unethically. For the purposes of legal theory, the character of the state is unimportant; (c) command is the essence of sovereignty. Sovereignty is absolute, all-comprehensive, permanent, exclusive, inalienable and indivisible element of the state.CRITICISM AND EVALUATIONWithin the narrow legalistic view, the Austinian theory is the correct analysis of what flows from certain definite assumptions. But these assumptions make it worthless as an explanation of modern state from political point of view. The theory can be criticised on the following grounds:1. According to Bryce, Austin‘s theory of sovereignty does not suit the modern democratic state5. Such an absolute sovereign can be found only in two types of states: in the absolute state like the Czarist state of Russia, or in a state where Parliament is absolute like that of Britain. In the modern democratic states which are ruled by constitutions and where the political authority is 94 decentralized, it is difficult to find a determinate human superior in the Austinian sense of the term. Even in the context of Britain, Austin‘s analysis was wrong because in the Parliament of England, sovereignty laid in King-in-Parliament which meant King, House of Lords and House of Commons. Again, the discovery of sovereignty in a federal state is an impossible exercise because all the authorities draw their power from the constitution and are coordinating authorities. It is very difficult to say, for example, in the context of America, whether the President is sovereign or the Congress is sovereign because both of them derive their power from the constitution. Ultimately, it is the power which can amend the constitution which can be called supreme. Although, it is difficult to find a sovereign in the Austinian sense, yet its existence cannot be denied. It is possible to find ultimate sovereign in an authority beyond which there is no appeal. According to Sir Henry Maine, the theory also does not apply to the developing and under-developed countries because the concept of law (which according to Austin is the command of the sovereign) is not fully developed in such societies.6 In these countries, most of the laws are based on customs and traditions which are the result of the common consciousness of people of which sovereign is a part and which he cannot change as and when he likes. Hence the greatest confusion and difficulty with regard to Austin‘s theory is its purely legal character and the location of sovereignty from legal point of view. This cannot be solved unless we see sovereignty in political and historical contexts.2. Austin‘s concept of law as the command of the sovereign is also open to criticism. As he says, the determinate human superior is the maker of all laws and whatever he commands is law. As far as customs and traditions are concerned, Austin said that whatever the sovereign permits is law and hence so far as they are permitted, they also form a part of the command of the sovereign. Austin‘s theory is wrong in-so-far as it considers all laws as command of the sovereign to the exclusion of all other aspects of law. Duguit says that law is binding not because it is made by the state or sovereign but because it is necessary for the attainment of social solidarity. He goes to the extent of saying that ‘it is not the state which creates the law but it is law which creates the state‘. Krabbe also discovers law in the community‘s sense of justice. Laws are built upon the general social environment and they express the 95 necessary social relations of the state at a given period of history. Austin‘s theory of law is limited to the command and does not inquire into the substance of these commands which are to be canonized as law made by the sovereign.3. The absolute and unlimited character of sovereignty has also been criticized. According to Austin, sovereignty is absolute and unlimited and any kind of limitation is contradictory in terms. However, the critics point out that every sovereign is bound by a number of political and historical limitations. No ruler is omnipotent and absolute. Every sovereign is bound—internally by the rights of the people and externally by the treaties concluded with other states. The sovereign is also bound by the customs and traditions of the community and many other influences which are collectively called ‘political sovereignty‘, (see below). Austin does not take into consideration the customary law which ‘is not created by deliberate will to organize and certainly not by the will of the state‘. Even a despot cannot issue a command which amounts to the abolition of a major social custom without raising the fear of disobedience. Externally, the sovereign is bound by the treaties concluded with other states. In this context, Austin‘s view was that the limitations on the sovereign are moral and self-willed, legally he is absolute. Austin never denied the influence of customs and conventions or the importance of international law. What he wanted to emphasize was that for the proper administration of the country, there should be concentration of power in a single authority and the bulk of society must pay habitual obedience. Moreover, the main purpose of Austin was to make a clear-cut distinction between law and morality and a formal law and custom. Inspite of the definition of the law being hard and one-sided, it was a positive improvement upon the reactionary social customs. Austin‘s novelty laid in freeing the jurisprudence from the weight of customs and traditions,4. Austin‘s theory is also criticized because it is alleged that it leads to tyranny. Austin himself was very much conscious about it but he felt—and he was right—that there can be no hierarchies in sovereignty.8 The purpose of the supremacy of laws was to reform the society through the state and not to establish the tyranny of laws. According to him, customs, traditions, conventions and divine laws are not above the man-made laws, nor are they independent 96 of it. They are all under the legal sovereign and hence subordinate to it. He never wanted that sovereign should rule the country tyrannically. As follower of Bentham, he believed in the Utilitarian idea of ‘maximum good of the maximum number.‘5. The characteristic of indivisibility of sovereignty was mainly criticized by the pluralist writers. According to Austin, sovereignty is indivisible, division of sovereignty is the destruction of sovereignty, a divided and fragmented sovereignty is a contradiction in itself. The pluralist writers, on other hand, maintain that in every society, there is a division of functions, though not of will, and without such a division, no government can conduct its affairs. Along with the legislative sovereign, there are executive and judicial sovereigns. All the three departments of the government are relatively independent of each other. In case the legislature is dissolved, judiciary being not always in session, the executive becomes the real sovereign. Moreover, pluralists challenge the supremacy of the state on the grounds that society consists of a multiplicity of associations and groups, and the state is also one of the many associations. Hence the state cannot be endowed with absolute sovereign power to the exclusion of other associations in the society. Rather, sovereignty is divisible and it must be decentralized among the various political, economic, social and cultural associations in the society.Thus we can conclude that in political theory, the chief effect of Austin‘s work was to attach an exaggerated importance to the juridical aspect of sovereignty Clarity of organization does indeed imply that responsibility should be definitely located somewhere. But the idea that government is merely a certain determinate person set apart to rule, and towards him the subjects have merely a habit of obedience is grossly inadequate to explain the part that other institutions play in politics.POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTYWhereas Hobbes was the propounder of legal sovereignty which was further clarified by Austin, John Locke‘s name is associated with Political Sovereignty. In his book Two Treatises on Government, Locke talks of three powers‘9?i. authority of the civil society which is the ultimate authority,97 ?ii. authority of the legislature, because people elect the legislature;?iii. associated with legislature, the authority of the executive.According to Locke, sovereignty lies with the government but behind it and above it, is the ultimate power of the civil society. That means sovereignty is of two kinds: one of the government and the other of the people. But both sovereigns do not function simultaneously. In ordinary circumstances, the sovereignty is exercised by the government. So long as government behaves normally, the sovereignty of the people lies dormant. But once the people realise that the representatives are misusing the authority or the trust posed in them, they can exercise that authority and can bring a change in the government. By providing the concept of political sovereignty, Locke justified the theoretical basis of Glorious Revolution that ultimately it is the people who are sovereign Legislature is sovereign in the legislative process, and representative of the people and king being a part of the legislature is supreme executive. Montesquieu also divided the powers of the government under three heads: legislative, executive and judicial, and emphasized their separation and autonomy. In the hands of Montesquieu, the idea of sovereignty became the idea of liberty and a convenient tool to attack the absolute concept of Austin.8The uniqueness of these supreme powers of government and the people is clarified in the context of Legal and Political Sovereignty. While the legal sovereignty is the supreme law-making and law-enforcing body, there is, behind it, the will of the people which is the ultimate and final source of all authority. Political sovereignty consists of all those social, economic, political, ethical forces in every community which profoundly influence the operation of its legal instrument. According to Dicey, ‘Behind the sovereign which the lawyer recognizes, there is another sovereign to whom the legal sovereign must bow...This body is political sovereign, the will of which is ultimately obeyed by the citizens of the state‘.11 Gilchrist defines it as ‘the sum total of the influences in the state which lie behind the law‘.12 According to Garner, ‘Behind the legal sovereign, however, is another power, legally unknown, unorganized, and incapable of expressing the will of the state in the form of legal command, yet withal power to whose mandates the legal sovereign will in practice bow and whose will must 98 ultimately prevail in the state. This is the political sovereign‘.13 The difficulty with political sovereignty, however, lies in its exact location. Unlike legal sovereignty, it is vague and indeterminate. Some writers identify it with the collective will of the community, some with the mass of people, with the ‘general will‘, with some public opinion, or with the physical power of that part of the people who can bring about a successful revolution. There is an element of truth in all these forces. Public opinion, decisions of the electorates or the possibility of revolution etc. influence in a big way the decisions of the legal sovereign but they are not determinate and organized like the latter.The distinction and relation between legal and political sovereignty is very important. Legal sovereignty is understood in terms of final laws—a supreme determinate person, who issues commands and enacts laws. His authority is legal and is binding upon all individuals. Violation is followed by punishment. All rights and duties in the society emante from the laws of the sovereign. Political sovereignty is the power behind the legal sovereignty. However, it cannot express the will of the state in terms of final command. It is unorganized, vague, indeterminate and, sometimes, unknown. Legal sovereign feels the weight of the political sovereign and the decisions of the former are influenced by the latter. If there is a conflict between legal and political sovereignty, it is the legal sovereign who is always right because he only expresses the will of the state. Courts recognize only the legal sovereign and its laws, inspite of the fact that political sovereign‘s will may be legitimate or justified. For a lawyer, the law passed by the Parliament is final although it may have been criticized by the people. However, the success of a good government lies in the fact that there is no conflict between the legal sovereign (what the government legislates) and the political sovereign (what the people want). If the legal sovereign respects and gives due regard to the wishes of the political sovereign, it is easier for the former to get the habitual obedience of the people. For example, the laws passed by the modern welfare state for the economic, social and cultural upliftment of the people are nothing but an attempt on the part of legal sovereign to come up to the expectations of the political sovereign. On the other hand, if the legal sovereign is not able to satisfy the people, the latter‘s anger is expressed in agitations, demonstrations, strikes, constitutional change of the government, civil war or at times, 99 violent overthrow of the government. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTYThe idea of political sovereignty was converted into Popular Sovereignty by Rousseau. According to him, sovereignty means that people are the ultimate source of all power. In the political theory of Rousseau, ‘people‘ is a geographical category. Both state and the sovereignty of the state are part of the people. ‘People‘ is able to govern itself. This quality of the ‘people‘ governing itself is expressed by Rousseau in his concept of ‘General Will‘ i.e. a particular society comes into existence only when it has some universally accepted principles of justice. These principles of justice are sovereignty‘. The individual of the ‘people‘, in hit personal capacity while sharing sovereignty is citizen, and while obeying the laws is subject. The civil society is a public personality, it is a moral and collective institution, which, while passive, is state, while active, is sovereign and in relation others is ‘power.14 The General Will is sovereign. Being the repository of common good, it only can give ultimate commands. Being a part of General Will, it is inalienable and indivisible. It is the final truth and is always right. In fact all characteristics which Hobbes attributed to Legal Sovereignty were attributed by Rousseau to Popular Sovereignty. According to Rousseau, it means three things: i) individual can attain his personality and freedom only by following the General Will, ii) Real will is the General Will, iii) General Will is the state.15The theory of popular sovereignty is very attractive because it gives all power to the people. The voice of the people is considered as the voice of God. But the difficulty is in defining what is ‘people‘. Does it means the indeterminate mass of the population or does it means the electorate. In the former sense, the indeterminate mass cannot be sovereign and in the latter sense they cannot be people. The unorganized mass, howsoever powerful, cannot be sovereign unless it assumes the form of law. In practice, the popular sovereignty has no more importance than the public opinion or the power of revolution. According to Gilchrist, popular sovereignty can be understood as ‘the power of people which includes universal adult franchise, control of the people over the representatives, and the control of the elected representatives on the national budget‘.16 According to Garner, ‘The sovereignty of the people can mean 100 nothing more than the power of the majority of the electorate in a country where a system of universal suffrage prevails‘19. Laski considers popular sovereignty as mere fiction. He writes. ‘The conception of popular sovereignty in the sense that the whole people legislating, adjudicating and administering the law is an impossible fiction‘. However, the notion of popular sovereignty does contain valuable information which is relevant in the modern democracies and welfare state. In brief, they are: i) government does not exist for its own good. It exists for the good of the people; ii) if people‘s wishes are deliberately violated, there is possibility of revolt; iii) easy means should be provided for the legal way of expressing public opinion, iv) government should be held directly responsible to the people through means such as frequent elections, local self-government, referendum, initiative, recall etc., v) government should exercise its authority directly in accordance with the law of the land and not act arbitrarily.18De Jure and De Facto SovereigntyA distinction is often made between De Jure and De Facto sovereignty. De Jure (the law) is the legal sovereign of the country. However, if the legal sovereign is removed forcibly through a civil war, an attack from outside, military coup or through revolution and he is not capable of enjoying his authority, then the sovereignty is passed on to De facto (the fact or the real) sovereign. It is not necessary that De facto sovereign is also legal sovereign. In such a situation, the person who is able to issue commands and get obedience from the people is the real sovereign. The new sovereign is not legal but is able to rule as the real ruler. Such a De facto sovereign may be a usurper king, a military general who is able to compel decision with the help of army, or a priest who may awe the people spiritually that they will obey him. We find a number of examples in history of such De facto sovereigns. After the dissolution of the long Parliament in England, Cromwell became the De facto sovereign. Napolean became the De facto sovereign after overthrowing the French Directory. By ousting Czar, Lenin and his Communist Party became the real sovereign in Russia. Similarly, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zai-ul-Haq in Pakistan became De fate sovereigns after seizing power from the legally constituted governments. The coup by the military general Rubuka against the constitutionally elected government of Dr. Bavandra 101 in Fiji is another example of the De facto sovereign. In case the De facto sovereign is able to establish his authority and is recognized legally in national and international arenas, he becomes De jure sovereign. The situation of De facto sovereign cannot last long. It is always the effort of De facto sovereign to get itself recognized as De jure sovereign as early as possible because otherwise there is every possibility of conflict between De jure and De facto sovereign.Austin had rejected the division of De jure and De facto sovereignty. Sovereign may be legal or illegal. The sovereign government may be illegal but sovereignty is absolute and it lies in the power to seek obedience. Sovereignty is the essence of the state and hence De facto sovereignty cannot be unlawful. However, the security and order of the state demands that the De facto and De jure sovereignty should rest with one authority.PROBLEMS OF EXTERNAL SOVEREIGNTYAlthough sovereignty is a multi-dimensional concept, it is probably the external concept which has captured the public imagination and dominated the academic discourse after the second world war. While internal sovereignty is the exercise of supreme authority within the boundaries of the state, external sovereignty means the legal equality of states at international level. According to Morgentheau, external sovereignty is synonymous with independence, equality and unanimity. Independence signifies the supreme authority of the individual nation-state which consists in the exclusion of authority of any other nation. Each nation is free to manage its internal and external affairs according to its discretion in-so-far as it is not limited by treaty or other limitations of international law. Equality means that if all nations have supreme authority within their territories, none can be subordinated to any other in the exercise of that authority. No nation has the right to tell any other nation what laws it should enact and enforce. Nations are subordinated to international law but not to each other. Unanimity signifies that with reference to the legislative functions, all nations are equal regardless of their size, population and power. In any international conference, the vote of Amereica or Bangla Desh is equal. The rule of unanimity declares that without consent, there is no decision. However, external sovereignty does not mean freedom 102 from legal restraints, nor is it a freedom from regulation by International law and treaties.Nevertheless, just as the state is limited by a number of factors within its boundaries, there are a number of limitations at the international level which have curtailed the capacity of modern nation-states to take independent decisions. There is a widening gap between formal rights of nation-states and the substance of those rights. Interdependence among the nation-states, and the rapid and continuing changes in the technological, industrial and financial integration have already blurred the dividing line between states and the capacity of the national governments to act unilaterally within them. Numerous problems such as military, alliances, international debt, technologically highly sophisticated wars, international trade rivalries, widespread human right abuses, nuclear proliferation, drug trafficking, ecological imbalances are overstepping the boundaries of sovereign nation-state‘20 The emergence of international organizations such as UN and European Community which have the ability to bypass national parliaments in some cases also threaten traditional ideas on sovereignty. Now, we shall discuss three major developments which have been slowly diluting the external sovereignty of modern nation-state. They are: Imperialism, Power Blocs and World Economy.SOVEREIGNTY AND IMPERIALISMIn international relations where big and small, developed and underdeveloped, rich and poor states co-exist, the concept of sovereignty appears to be confounded. The confusion is because of the fact that it is essential for a state to be sovereign both internally and externally to become a member of the international community. However, this principle of sovereignty has been violated frequently. The modem nation-states of England and Europe violated the independence and sovereignty of the underdeveloped states of Asia, America and Africa from eighteenth century onwards and the method employed for this purpose was Imperialism.The word ‘imperialism‘ is used in many senses. At the most general level, it refers to a world system of political domination and economic exploitation, defending or expanding an empire or an ideology which supports imperial ambitions. Politically, it was a complex historical process, culminating, in the early part of this 103 century, in the domination of the great part of the world either by direct conquest or by less formal military or economic pressures by a few industrialized countries of England, Europe, America and Japan. In this context, imperialism was associated with colonialism, the capitalist-economic system, and the military power politics of the industrialized countries vis-a-vis the underdeveloped countries.The rise of absolute nation-states in Europe and England was characterized by a new development known as colonialism. All these states spread both in East and West for commerce and trade from seventeenth century onwards. The fruits of these overseas expansions enabled such states to gain imperial stature and economic power. The industrial revolution which followed soon entailed a sudden expansion of productive capacity of countries like England which came to occupy a key position within the evolving world economy The decisive factor after the industrial revolution was the global monopoly over raw material and the search for markets. Such a position was secured by the conquest of overseas territories. Britain, where the industrial revolution occurred first of all, colonized a number of countries in Asian, African and American continents in eighteenth century. However, by the middle of nineteenth century, other competitors such as France, Spain, Holland etc. also caught up and surpassed her in all important domains of modern industry. By the last decades of nineteenth century, the industrialized countries of Europe and America had divided the whole world into formal colonies and ‘spheres of influence‘. As a consequence, a number of countries came under direct rule of European powers. There were some others which, while escaping direct rule, were not ruled by authorities that could be called sovereign. A number of devices were invented by European states to keep them under their influence. Examples of such devices were i) international regimes set up to administer the Egyptian debt in 1876 and the Congo Free State in 1885, ii) the protectorate system used in Africa, iii) condominium system applied in Sudan, iv) protected semi-sovereign state of North Africa, v) Mandates and Trusteeship systems.21As a result of imperialist domination, the colonial countries lost their sovereignty because these states no longer remained the supreme legal authority to give and enforce the laws within their 104 Own territories. Also they lost independence from the authority of any other nation as well as equality under international law. It were the imperial powers which exercised supreme authority, to give and enforce the laws within their territories. The economy, society and polity of these countries became a part and parcel of the imperial powers. For example, under British colonialism, while a major part of India came under direct British rule, the relations between the remaining Indian states were regulated by treaties. While guaranteeing the internal independence of these states, the treaties gave British government the right to protect them against aggression, the administration of foreign affairs and the general supervision of their internal administration. Though these governments had complete control over their territories, they were in turn controlled by British government and were not sovereign. Similarly, the Treaty of Havana of 1901 between USA and Cuba gave USA the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate to protect the life, liberty and property of the people. This provision gave USA the right to take over the Cuban government and thus destroy its sovereignty.After the second world war, a number of colonial countries got political independence and it came to be accepted in theory that each independent nation-state in the international system is sovereign in its own territory, even though in practice they do not rule effectively. This was because of two factors: i) acquisition of independence by many states, and ii) however poorly they rule, the territories of an independent state cannot in practice by ruled by another state or an international regime.But the rise of USA and USSR as the two major super powers after the second world war created a new kind of international environment which began to threaten state sovereignty in many other ways. Let us now turn to them.SOVEREIGNTY IN RELATION TO POWER BLOCSA unique feature of international politics after the second world war was the decline of England and France as the great powers and the rise of USA and USSR as the two most powerful nation-states) While USA represented the liberal democratic capitalist world, USSR assumed the leadership of the communist states 105 of Eastern Europe and China and emerged as a symbol of socialism/ communism. The Soviet-American adverse relationship had its origin in the Russian Revolution but it reached its peak after the second world war. Within a space of few years, a bipolar system of international politics emerged, organized around two super powers and with it two opposing spheres of influence. The super-power rivalry gave birth to cold war which was a deliberate attempt by both USA and USSR to divide the world into two opposite camps, and to impose bipolarity at the global scale. This period witnessed a tightening of political and military discipline within each camp, the establishment of integrated military alliances and a tendency to shift the decision-making from the nation-state to the power blocs.22The two opposing power blocs not only increased military integration in peace time but also encouraged a process of political and bureaucratic interdependence whereby the civil and military apparatuses of each state came to be associated with the objectives and priorities of other member states, particularly of the super power. Each bloc consisted of a complex network of bilateral and multilateral agreements governing the establishment and operation of military basis, the stationing of troops, combined military exercise, weapons procurement and the adoption of joint conventional and nuclear strategies. These agreements, though concluded between the sovereign nation-states, were in reality the legal instruments used by the super-powers ‘to intrude into the boundaries of other states. As a result, the security policy of the junior partners became divorced from the domestic political process. Decision-making tended to evade existing mechanisms of public accountability in both the capitalist and the communist power bloc.23.However, this does not mean that the alliances within the two blocs were fully cooperative institutions. Within NATO, military procurement was often a subject of fierce conflict between governments, reflecting divergent economic and political interests, France withdrew from NATO‘s military structure. Similarly, political dissent in countries like Czechoslovakia which provoked the application of brute force by USSR also indicated the limit of Soviet influence. But it would be entirely a mistake to conclude that sovereignty remained intact. Inspite of differences within the 106 alliance, strategic policies of each bloc were shaped primarily by the superpowers‘ interest and priorities. Most states whether aligned or even non-aligned had to define and implement their security policies in the overall context of super-power balance of power. These limitations on national freedom reflected the vast disparity in military capability of the super powers on the one hand and virtually of all other states on the other.DETENTE AND END OF POWER BLOCSHas the end of cold war and disintegration of USSR made the former alliance partners fully sovereign? According to Camillion and Fak, the answer is still in negative because the relationship between sovereignty and dominance was much more complex.24 The movement towards detente and the related decline of bipolarity is not a retreat from the internationalization of the security dilemma, much less as a reassertion of state sovereignty. The post-1945 world order was based upon two factors: International security system and integrated world economy. Although USSR has disintegrated, still the success of detente depends upon the active participation of the two super powers. Rather the declining capacity of both super powers to impose their will on their respective blocs, has provided a strong incentive for closer diplomatic collaboration and even strategic coordination between them. The detente has been interpreted as paving the way for further American-Russian control and containment of several regional conflicts and a less paralyzed UN system with an enhanced peacekeeping function.SOVEREIGNTY IN RELATION TO WORLD ECONOMYThe interconnectedness of the international system based upon power blocs and military alliances is one side of the picture. The formation of military alliances was complemented and reinforced by a number of economic organizations such as Atlantic Economic Community, Organization for European Economic Cooperation, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Asian Development Bank as well as international organizations like IMF, World Bank, GATT etc. All these formed an integral part of global capitalism. They have not only been playing dominant role in the world economy but also creating serious problems for the theory and practice of sovereignty of modern nation-states.25The nation-state today is visibly in the process of losing another 107 important function, namely, a territorially bound ‘national economy‘. As a result of the technological revolution in transport and communication and the lengthy period of free movement of factors of production over a vast area of the globe, the world has moved from the internationalization of trade in nineteenth century and internationalization of money in nineteenth and early twentieth century to internationalization of production and technology in the contemporary world economy.26 Nation-states have come to operate within global environment which they do not control but which shape the strategic options as well as policy instruments at their disposal. Since 1970s, the role of national economies has been undermined or even brought into question by a major transformation of international division of labour, whose basic units are transnational and multinational enterprises and a network of economic transactions which are outside the control of the nation-state. Much the same trend is suggested by the trans-nationalization of financial institutions and the growing pressure exerted by transnational banks for the deregulation of domestic banking and finances. From late 1980s and 1990s onwards, the deregulation ethics has engulfed the entire Western Europe, North1 America, Australia and is coming to Japan and underdeveloped countries like India and East European countries.What is important from the point of view of sovereignty is that governments formally retain the power to impose tariff regulations, flow of capital and levy exchange controls. Whether, how and to what extent power is exercised depends very much on the prevailing ideological, institutional and technologically potential climate. While the extraction of concessions from the governments such as privatization of government sector, free entry of multinationals in core sectors, and the imposition of fiscal discipline by World Bank and IMF has been most evident in the case of underdeveloped countries which are experiencing crippling debts, the trend may be said to have reached global proportions. The financial power of private institutions has assumed a decisive role and even countries like USA have ceded considerable control over its economy to foreign investors. This changed relationship between private and governmental sphere and the virtual collapse of the dividing line between domestic and external environment has put a serious limitation on state sovereignty.108 This, however, does not mean that the economic functions of the states have diminished and the vast legal administrative, military and ideological apparatus of the state is no longer powerful. The sovereign state at international level remains an important instrument but now it cannot perform its functions single-handedly. On the contrary, in both capitalist and non-capitalist states, their functions are growing inspite of a tendency to encourage private or non-state enterprises since 1990s. Quite apart from the continued importance of state direction, planning and management, the role of state as an agent of redistribution of social income through fiscal reforms and welfare measures has increased than ever before. But what is important is that the performance of these functions require the state to act in ways that weaken its sovereignty. The laws which the state enforces for economic management are less the result of its sovereign will and more a part of global compulsions.27The transnational integration of capitalist production, technological innovations and economic growth within and .among the nation-, states tend to sharpen the conflict between economic compulsions and state sovereignty. Thus we are heading towards a world economy which operates through the nation-state but is not longer subordinate to its will or sovereign jurisdiction.CONCLUSIONOn the basis of above discussion, there is a tendency to conclude that the theory of state sovereignty is slowly losing its explanatory power. This is because the traditional meaning of sovereignty projects a view of the world in which state is an independent, equal and unique entity. It considers the state as a fundamental unit of political analysis and sovereignty as the essential characteristics of political organization. However, the structure and power of the state is rapidly undergoing a substantial change. Even in the case of defence from foreign aggression, which is the fundamental function of the state, Iraq‘s aggression of Kuwait and the subsequent American retaliation under the guise of UN, highlighted how the ways in which force is used and the institutional forms through which it is deployed and managed have undergone drastic modifications. It is not merely that the states have changed, it is that the domestic and international environment, the level of technological 109 sophistication in which they operate has been so transformed as to call into question the meaning and essence of sovereignty.The concept of sovereignty is in a dilemma. While the powers of the state and their capacity to use it have increased because of technical innovations, it does not follow that they have more claim to sovereignty. With the advent of democracy, there has been a tendency to decentralize the power of the state. Even in the case of internal order and defence, an area in which the state has the monopoly to use force, the rise of ethnic minority movements, terrorism, religious fundamentalism, private military forces point to an increasing dispersal of power. Again the military options of the states are more and more influenced by the arms manufacturers, banks and other financial institutions, foreign governments, their intelligence organizations and other regional and international collective arrangements. In short, the power and authority of the state is dispersed across diverse and complex set of local, national and international institutions than is thought of by a system of sovereign states. This is not to suggest that the state sovereignty does not still constitute, at least formally, the dominant agency through which the authority is exercised, but rather to highlight the widening gap between theory and practice. However, according to Hinsley, although the theory of sovereignty has been challenged by a variety of factors in the modern democratic state, yet these developments do not meet the primary need to ensure the effective exercise of power, more so as the growing complexity of the community is serving to emphasize the importance of the state.28 If the rising needs are to be met, the only remaining recourse is to locate sovereignty in the body politic i.e. both in the community and the state together: community being the source of sovereignty and the state as the sole instrument which exercises it. In fact, far from destroying the concept of sovereignty, the modern developments necessitate its existence in the body politic as means of preserving the preconditions of effective action in the community. The recent developments have not supreseded the technical requirement that no political or legal system can function unless it possesses coercive machinery with which it can ultimately enforce compliance with the decrees of the regulating authority, and that authority whether 110 it is nominal or real is by definition is the state and it is the concept of sovereignty which authorizes and justifies, its acts.References1.Ilyas Ahmad. The First Principles of Politics, Allahabad Publishin House. Allahabad, 1957, p. 128.2. Lord Bryce, ‘The Nature of sovereignty‘ in Studies in Jurisprudence and History, 1946, Vol 3. Ilyas Ahmad, op. cit., p. 130.4. John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence (1832), Lecture VI.5. Lord Bryce, op. cit., Vol II, 89-90.6. Henry Maine, Ancient Law, London, 1918.7. La.ski, A Grammar of Politics, op. cit., p. 51.8. Garner, op. cit., p. 181. 9. Ilyas Ahamad, p. 138.10. Montesquieu Spirit of Law, Vol. I: Standard Library, London, p. 162-63.11. Dicey, Introduction to the Laws of the Constitution. Macmillan, London 1961, p. 15.12. Gilchrist, op. cit., p. 94.13. Garner, op. cit., 1. 160.14. L.W. Ward, Sovereignty, (1928), p. 44.15. Ilyas Ahmad, op. cit., p. 134.16. Gilchrist, op. cit.. p. 96.17. Garner, op. cit., p. 165.18. Ashirvadam, Political Theory, Upper India Publishing House, Lucknow, 1976, p. 205.19. Hans J. Margentheau, Politics Among Nations-The Struggle for Power.Scienufic Book Agency, Calcutta, 1967, p. 302-303.20. Joseph Carmilleri &Jim Fak, End of Sovereignty? The Politics of a Shrinking and Fragmented World. Edward Eglar, Haint 1992, p. 150. Also see ‘Sovereignty and the Global system‘ in David Held and others ‘The Idea of State‘, op. cit.21. Hinsley, Sovereignty, OUP, 1986, p. 224.22. Camillari&Flak, op. cit, p. 157.23. Ibid. p. 142-143.24. Ibid. p. 161.25. Ibid. p. 148.26. Hague and others, op cit, Chapter 5, The Nation-State in One World‘, p.101-132.27. Ibid., p. 128.28. Hinsley, op. cit, p: 222-223111 CHAPTER 7 THEORIES OF CITIZENSHIPSince the primary concern of the state is with the people, the first issue of politics is to select the principle that governs this relationship. Some rules must determine who are to be recognized as members of the state and how their membership is acquired. If membership entails certain rights and responsibilities, these must be allotted according to certain principles. The division of society into government and governed raises a number of questions regarding their mutual relations such as: what kind of persons should compose the government? are all people fit to become the rulers? what are the duties of the rulers? what rights should be extended to everybody? should discrimination be made among the citizens. All such question involve an inquiry into the nature of citizenship and the relations between those who compose a state.Citizenship has been a persistent social human need. It is as old as settled human community. It defines those who are and those who are not members of a common society. It is more than a label. According to Heater, he who has no sense of civic bond with his fellows or of some responsibility for civic welfare is not a true citizen, whatever his legal status.1 The social and political ties which hold an individual in community with his fellows is the essence of citizenship. A citizen needs to understand that his role entails status, a sense of loyality, the discharge certain duties and the enjoyment of rights not at individual leval but in relation to the state as well.WHAT IS CITIZENSHIPDuring the last 2500 years, the concept of citizenship has been invented and defined, reinvented and redefined in distinct contexts 112 such as Greek city states, Roman Republics and modern nation-state. The nature of citizenship‘, wrote Aristotle long back,‘...is a question which is often disputed, there is no general agreement on a single definition‘.2 But still the term is very common throughout the world and it is a central concept of everyday political discourse. Formally, it is a relationship between an individual and the state by which the former owes allegiance and the latter owes protection. This relationship is determined by law and recognized by international law. The citizen is a citizen only through the state. According to Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Institutions, citizenship means ‘a full and responsible membership of the state‘, In social sciences, it has been used to denote the status of individual in the development of the modern state.‘3 According to D.W. Brogan, ‘Citizenship has two aspects: i) that every citizen has the right to be consulted in the conduct of political society and the duty to contribute something to the general consultation, and ii) the reverse: the citizen who has a right to be consulted, is bound by the results of that consultation‘.4 According to Barbalet, ‘Citizenship is in the nature of a political bond. Upon it depends how fast the bond is‘. According to T.H. Marshal, citizenship is a status attached to full membership of a community, and those who possess this status are equal with respect to the rights and duties associated with it. However, since different societies attach different rights and duties to the status of citizen, there is no universal principle which determines necessary rights and duties of citizenship in general.5 Following the line of Marshal, Bryan S. Turner in his book Equality has conceptualized modern citizenship in terms of three major dimensions. They are i) Civil citizenship i.e. equality before law, personal liberty, the right to own property and freedom of speech, ii) Political citizenship i.e. political rights and access to popular institutions of political control, and iii) Social citizenship which involves a guarantee of basic level of economic and social welfare.6In brief, the crux of citizenship is participation in the political community. However, any theory of political and social participation and rights must acknowledge that the role of the state in the development of citizenship is crucial because the conditions of citizenary are determined within each state depending upon the legal provisions. Different types of political communities give rise to different forms of citizenship. Making a comparison between 113 the Greek and modern concept of citizenship, Barbalet writes that whereas for Aristotle citizenship was the privileged status of the ruling group of the city state, in the modern democratic states, the basis of citizenship is the capacity to participate in the exercise of political power through the electoral process. Participation by citizens in the modern nation-state entails legal membership of a political community based on universal adult franchise and a civil community based on the rule of law. Today, it is equated with social, economic and political equality, social welfare and a means to enhance individual liberty.7 Similarly, according to Heater, though citizenship began as a means of differentiating between inhabitants of the state, yet today it is a means of equalizing their status. The essentials of modern citizenship are political participation, social and welfare rights, communal identity and civic responsibility‘.8DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF CITIZENSHIP AND FACTORS FOR ITS GROWTHThe idea of citizenship was developed by Greek city-states, and the classical political thinkers. Because of the internal strifes between rich and poor and wars with neighbours, the problem before these societies was how to bring social peace, i.e., by giving power to a few persons or spread it more widely. While Plato gave the idea of absolute authority to the Guardians, Aristotle developed the idea of citizenship. Political authority was distinctive because it was the authority of the office holder exercised over the members of the political community. For Aristotle, citizenship was concerned with securing stable government under the law. It consisted in the capacity to govern and to be governed, as a consequence of self-discipline and education, based upon full ownership of property. He defined citizen as ‘one who has a share in the privilege of rule‘ and excluded certain categories such as slaves, aliens, women from it. In the Republican Rome and in the early imperial Rome, the idea of Roman citizenship also remained as one of privilege. Roman citizens were immune from the more humiliating forms of punishment such as crucification. But the idea of citizenship underwent a slow evolution as the nature of empire changed. The influence of jus gentium on the jus civile in the first two centuries narrowed the gulf between citizens and non-citizens. The famous decree of Caracalla in 212 extended citizenship to all subjects of the empire. However, as the proportion 114 of citizens increased, its significance declined. The participation in politics became meaningless and the magistracies ceased to have any independent influence and power. What Caracalla did by extending the citizenship to all was primarily to extend the burden of certain taxes and not to expand their political privileges and rights.9The breakdown of Greek city states and the Roman empire and intellectual ascendancy of Christianity turned philosophers‘ gaze inwards or towards the next life. Man was considered to be the citizen of the whole world, or of the City of God. Earthly citizenship was not an essential .part of good life. The revival of classical argument was done by Machiavelli who asserted that Roman freedom was preserved because of the virtues of its citizens. What citizenship contributed was self-discipline, patriotism, simple piety and a willingness to forgo private gains for the sake of public good.Reformation, renaissance and industrial revolution in Europe produced a new political and social order, as a result of which the concept of citizenship also underwent a complete transformation. Modern citizenship has a history which parallels the growth of western capitalism, industrialization, creation of propertyless working class, the formation of professional middle class and the development of science and technology. It is associated with the extension of rights to the previously excluded groups such as working class. For example, the idea of citizenship in the French Revolution was associated with the rights. The declaration of ‘Rights of Man and of the Citizens of France‘ is an important landmark in this direction. It also associated the idea of citizenship with political liberation. At the theoretical level, French Revolution was a major factor for the rise of modern citizenship because it ushered in an era of social change, political liberation and economic equality. Similarly, the fear of social revolutions in Europe led the English capitalist class to legalise the trade unions, extend the suffrage to working class and introduce social reforms.Citizenship was also promoted through warfare. To wage a war, the state requires the commitment of population and this could be brought through extension of citizenship rights. Also warfare promotes social change through mass mobilization. People come to realize that if the danger to the country is to be shared, then the resources should also be shared. The war promotes full employment 115 and tight labour market and thus labour struggles are likely to put pressure on employers and government for expansion of citizenship rights. Examples of such expansion of democratic citizenship are Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden etc. Apart from war, according to Bryan Turner, migration and egalitarian ideologies of twentieth century have also been sufficiently responsible for the growth of modern democratic citizenship. For example, modern citizenship in the American continent has to be understood in terms of the migrant nature of those societies which created a pluralistic culture and supported the struggle for citizenship rights. Moreover, the ideologies of socialism, communism, welfare state helped in the struggle for political, industrial and social rights. Of late, new social movements such as feminism and sabiteranism have been struggling to extend full citizenship rights to those who are still excluded from them.According to Heater, apart from the political needs of participation and loyalty, three major factors have been responsible for the rise of citizenship. The first was philosophical. Theories of citizenship contain assumptions and beliefs about the nature of man: that man is a political animal and that the exercise of power is legitimate only if based on the consent and sanctioned by the people. Citizenship evolved as a means of institutionalizing this basic belief. The second factor was the military needs. Every state required for its protection some kind of military service from its members and citizens were those who bore arms in defence of their city. Both the Greek and Roman citizens had this responsibility. Even during the medieval period, conferment of citizenship originated in its recruitment into the defence system. Machiavellian concept of civic virtue also depended upon an armed citizenary. The modern nation-state also universally requires, when necessary, the duty of military service of some kind from its citizens. The third factor was Economic. Theorists from Aristotle onwards were worried whether citizenship should be confined to the propertied class or should be extended to everybody. Initially, only the propertied class was given this status. Similarly, the modern state which was born in internecine war required money to pursue these conflicts and money was available only with the capitalist class. So ‘out of this alliance of the state with capital, dictated by necessity, arose the national citizen class, the bourgeoisie in the modern sense of 116 the word‘. It was only when these three factors—philosophical, military, and economic coincided that the idea of modern citizenship evolved.10THEORIES OF CITIZENSHIPAs stated above, the concept of citizenship has been invented and defined time and again depending upon the changing socio-economic and political realities. Some of the most influential theories of citizenship in its long history of development are the following.GREEK THEORIES OF CITIZENSHIPDifferent types of political communities give rise to different forms of citizenship. The idea and practice of citizenship was first thoroughly explored by Greeks philosophers, for whom participation in public life was crucial to the full and proper development of human personality. The concept was developed by Aristotle in his book Politics. He held the view that man is a political animal, that he could reach the full potential of his life and personality only by participation in the affairs of the polis. Hence the question was who could participate and who could not. For Arsitotle, citizen is a man ‘who enjoys the right‘ of sharing in deliberative or judicial office‘.11 Citizens are ‘all who share in the civic life of ruling and being ruled in turn‘,12 those who ‘must possess the knowledge and the capacity requisite for ruling as well as for being ruled, and the excellence of a citizen may be defined as consisting in ‘a knowledge of rule over freemen from both points of view‘.13 This, according to Arsistotle, calls for special abilities of character and intellect not found in all people. Some human beings he classifies as ‘slaves by nature‘. Others he considers by reason of their occupation, incapable of leading a life of virtue. Hence the conclusion was that ‘one need not class all as citizens‘. Citizens form an exclusive group. In brief citizenship contained three elements: i) A citizen is a person who performs certain functions, ii) one such function is to participate actively in the exercise of authority‘, iii) the number of persons competent to share in this is limited. Citizenship was a bond forged by the intimacy of participation of these limited number of men in public affairs. The bond was a relationship which was guarded with some jealousy by those privileged to enjoy it. It was neither a right to 117 be claimed nor a status to be conferred on anybody outside the established ranks of the class. Indeed, Greek citizenship depended less on rights which could be claimed and more on responsibilities which had to be shouldered with pride. It was a privilege and a status which was inherited. Resident foreigners, women, slaves and the peasantry of the rural environment of the city were all excluded. Only citizens were allowed to own freehold property, and they were expected to fulfill the functions of politicians, administrators, judges, jurors and soldiers. For Aristotle, citizenship was the privileged status of the ruling group of the city-state and was confined to the effective participants in the deliberation and exercise of power.However, another school of thought in the Greek period known as Stoicism had a different view of citizenship. This school was of the view that man and God are rational beings. Since all men are sons of God and because of the common attribute of reason, all men—of whatever race or social status, slave or free—are equal. For them, the only qualification necessary for citizenship was wisdom, and all men the world over and without distinction are capable of attaining this status by developing their rational faculties. Hence the concept of citizenship was open to universal application. A good citizen was that who obeyed the law, ‘the law of nature‘, which was ‘a code consisting of fundamental principles of justice emanating from divine reason and discernible by man through the exercise of that same faculty‘.14 If the man-made laws clash with the laws of nature, the latter must take precedence over the former. These two elements of Stoic citizenship—the concept of relationship of God and man, and the combination of law and nature had profound influence on the Roman and Christian ideas of citizenship, though at practical level, their concept remained hollow.ROMAN CONCEPT OF CITIZENSHIPWhereas the Greek concept of citizenship was exclusive and limited, it was left to the Roman philosophers and emperors to develop a form of citizenship which was both pragmatic and extensible in application The legally-minded and administratively adapt Romans developed a form of citizenship which was more complex, flexible and legalistic. The basic difference from the Greeks was that it was extended to the plebeians—the underprivileged aliens domiciled in Rome, traders and merchants. However, in 118 practice, the discriminations persisted. Consequently, as a result of plebian protests, the Twelve Tables were produced which remained the basis of Roman civil law for centuries. According to the Tables, citizenship entailed six privileges: i) service in the army, ii) voting in the assembly, iii) eligibility to public office, iv) legal right of action and appeal, iv) intermarriage and vi) trade with other Roman citizens.15 Citizenship opened up the possibilities of careers for which a non-citizen could be ineligible. In the fourth century, the Romans introduced three historically very significant adaptations to the basic concept of citizenship. Rome offered total incorporation of the defeated territories by conferring full Roman citizenship on its free male inhabitants. The concept of dual citizenship was also introduced. A man could become a citizen of his city as well as that of Rome. Moreover, Roman citizenship provided equality before law. Thus through this changed concept of citizenship, Romans annexed the loyalty as well as the territory of their defeated enemies and by making equality before law as the sole criterion, they eliminated race, religion or riches as the determinants of citizenship.However, gradually the republican institutions began to crumble beneath the weight of mighty empire and important differences from the constitutional theory of citizenship began to emerge. By first century B.C., class status started to become more important than the rank of citizen. Landowners and the military class were treated with more respect than poor. Emperor Caracalla in 212 extended Roman citizenship to all men within the confines of empire except the slaves. However, since in practice class had already replaced citizenship as a realistic badge of status, Caracalla‘s decree finally debased the coinage of citizenship to virtual worthlessness. As the sense of honour declined, so did the sense of civic responsibility. The code of public duty decayed and the high standards of citizenship withered away.RENAISSANCE AND CITIZENSHIPFollowing the collapse of Roman empire, the Graeco-Roman tradition of citizenship based upon tradition, law. education and requiring a concentration of loyalty towards the state, was temporarily almost lost as a political theory. This was restored only in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries after the rediscovery of Aristotle‘s political theory and Roman law and history. Notable names in this context were Machiavelli and Bodin. Machiavelli argued that the 119 best form of government, though rare, is republican in which the people, endowed with a generous measure of virtues, guide the fortunes of the state. By virtue he meant two things—i) manly and martial qualities necessary to defend the state against internal and external disorder, and ii) the essential qualities of public mindedness, probity and patriotism; the citizen must guard the state against its seizure by a tyrant. Similarly, the French philosopher Bodin in his book Six Books of the Commonwealth devoted two chapters on citizenship. He rejected definitions which emphasized eligibility for public office or enjoyment of rights and privileges. What ‘makes a man a citizen‘, he declared, ‘was the mutual obligation between subject and sovereign by which, in return for the faith and obedience rendered to him, the sovereign must do justice and give counsel, assistance, encouragement and protection to the subject‘. Legally, citizenship could be acquired by birth, adoption or enfranchisement but he rejected any equalizing function of the status, arguing that there never has been a state in which all citizens have been equal in rights and privileges. What was modern in Bodin‘s theory of citizenship was that he subjected the whole body of citizens to a single sovereign power, inspite of diversity of laws, language, customs, religion or race.16LIBERAL THEORY OF CITIZENSHIPThe foundations of modern citizenship were laid in the 17th century due to a number of new factors such as the emerging doctrine of state sovereignty, the increasingly felt need to define allegiance and rights, and the issue of the right to depose a monarch. The supporters of monarchical authority, most notably Hobbes, did not advance the concept of citizenship very far. In Leviathan, he argued that until the citizens consciously withdraw their support from the monarch, he must be deemed to act with their authority. Hence in normal circumstances, citizenship means the passive function of obedience. However, another philosopher John Locke placed much greater emphasis on the need for popular consent for the legitimation of government. By emphasizing the rights of citizens, he revolutionized political thinking. He maintained that if the state exists to protect the lives and liberties of citizens, the needs and wishes of the citizens must clearly be given high priority as an absolute right. But the question was: who were the people? Here even Locke was not a democrat; he held that effective political 120 power should be in the hands of property owning oligarchy.It was the rise of nationalism and consolidation of nation states, spread of industrialization and capitalist economy, awakening of political consciousness among the urban working class, socialist doctrines and movements during eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which helped in crystallizing the liberal theory of citizenship. The theory was advanced by utilitarians, liberal idealist and social democrats, each contributing in its own special way.The utilitarians like Bentham and Mill held that the essence of citizenship lies in individual liberty, participation and just apportionment of property. Making the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number‘ as the basic principle of citizenship also, Bentham and James Mill believed that this could be achieved politically by a democratic franchise. They held that citizens in the mass would vote for the representatives who would pursue policies beneficial to the whole community. But can the masses be trusted to act responsibly? Would the majority not misuse the freedom to the disadvantage of the minority. This was the question before J.S. Mill who struggled to reconcile the growing idea of democratic citizenship and individual liberty. He believed that since people are generally motivated by their self-interest and do not have any-developed sense of civic responsibility, mass democracy could lower the quality of life and become a threat to liberty. While it is true that people can become responsible citizens only through political participation and with a right to vote, but simultaneously it could lead to the domination of the wise and educated minority by the rude mass of people. Hence he laid a number of restrictions on the franchise with a view to enhancing the influence of superior middle class citizens and to keep the liberty intact. Mill also shared with the socialist belief that a more just distribution of the ownership of property and workers participation in the factory were essential for citizenship. This was necessary for two reasons: i) those who are industrious and hard working should not only get economic benefits but also political rights, ii) if citizenship is a pact of participation, then this sense of participation should also be reflected in the industry.For the idealist liberals like T.H. Green, citizenship was the keystone and they emphasized on the creative form of citizenship 121 which lay dormant in the potential of the state and the consciousness of the individual. The essence of citizenship according to Green lies in ‘promoting the good life for all irrespective of social class; to foster the moral nature of man and to provide a basic minimum of social welfare. The purpose of the state towards the citizens was to ‘promote‘ and ‘provide‘ an environment for good life. Three particular features of this concept of citizenship are worth mentioning: i) citizenship means positive freedom i.e. the positive capacity of the individual to develop his personality in the social context, ii) abolition of poverty by the state. No one could be a worthy citizen if his creative energies are devoted to subsistence. iii) the state must ensure a minimum level of welfare for all citizens but at the same time not intervene so forcefully as to weaken the capitalist and property system nor to lessen the individual‘s self-reliant pursuit of his freedom.17Thus liberalism expanded the area of citizenship and embraced in real terms an increasingly large proportion of population. Also it deepened the level of rights and responsibility. At practical level, a great majority of citizens gave their loyalty to the state, helped in the development of capitalist economy and even fought and died for their country. For this, mere protection of law or a. limited right to vote were not sufficient. It was increasingly felt that the state owed to its citizens measure of protection against poverty, ill health, illiteracy, unemployment etc.During twentieth century, liberalism equated citizenship with an egalitarian state. The political participation, which was restricted to the property owing males during nineteenth century, was extended to all, including women. Universal adult franchise has become a norm in all democratic countries. The economic and social rights were also extended to increasing number of population. The social concept of citizenship was accepted by a number of states such as England, America, Scandanavian countries among others, although the process has been extremely hesistant.If political participation is the test of citizenship, then spread of franchise opened the possibility of demands which the current institutions could not satisfy. Citizenship is distorted by the presence of gross economic and social inequalities. A large number of people in the democratic states are reduced to second class and third 122 class citizens. There is nothing new in this because they have always been like this. What is new is that democracy has given a consciousness to even the poor, ill-paid and unemployed that they do not enjoy their citizenship rights. The problem is universal in all countries whether rich or poor. This has led to a contradiction between political and economic-social citizenship. We shall study more about it in Marshal‘s theory of citizenship. But first let us see what Marxism to say on citizenship.MARXISM AND CITIZENSHIPThe expansion of citizenship in the modern state has been both an achievement as well as a limitation. While it declared that all persons as citizens are equal before law, yet the existence of economically unequal classes meant that the practical ability to exercise the rights was not available to all those who possessed them. In other words, the victims of the class system were unable to participate in the community of citizenship in which they had legal membership. This criticism of modern democratic citizenship has been the hallmark, of Marxist views on citizenship. Marxism has been suspicious of citizenship and considered it as being contrary to class interest of the proletariat. Since for Marxism, state is an instrument of the dominant class and is likely to wither away in the communist society, it saw citizenship as a subjective and temporary condition. Reacting to the modern democratic citizenship, which Marx called as ‘bourgeois citizenship‘, he wrote that the state in its own way abolishes distinctions based on birth, rank, education and occupation when it declares birth, rank , education and occupation to be non-political distinctions, when it proclaims that every member of the people is an equal participant in popular sovereignty regardless of these distinctions. Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education and occupation and protects the unequal conditions generated by them. Far from abolishing these factual distinctions, the state presupposes them in order to exist. Though Marx did not reject the achievements of modern liberal democratic citizenship and believed that the extension of rights has been worthwhile and a ‘big step forward‘ within the ‘prevailing scheme of things‘, yet his point was that mere political emancipation in citizenship is inadequate. Instead he advocated a general human emancipation in which people were freed from the determining power of private property and its associated institutions. Thus the 123 limitations of citizenship which arise because of the class division of society could be overcome only through a social revolution in which the class basis of inequalities in social conditions will be overthrown. With, the establishment of a classless and stateless society, there will be no need for the status of citizen since the individual will have no political institutions with which to relate, from which to claim rights, and to which to owe responsibility.However, the theory and practice of citizenship as evolved in the communist states in the twentieth century was quite different. Working on the Marxist line of thinking, Lenin in 1924 constitution banished both ‘state‘ and ‘citizen‘, and the Soviet people were identified as ‘proletariats‘, ‘peasants‘ and ‘soldiers‘. But the Stalin constitution in 1936 felt the need to restore both the state and the citizen. The constitution provided a number of rights to its citizens including the right to vote, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and inviolability of person and his home. The list also included a number of duties such as ‘observing the law, maintaining the labour discipline, honestly performing public duties, respecting the rules of the socialist community, safeguarding and strengthening, socialist property and defending the socialist fatherland. Above all, the state had the right to ‘reform the traitors and counter-reactionaries‘. A novel feature of the communist countries has been that thousands were completely stripped of their right to citizenship such as kulkas in Russia and landlords in China. They were not only disenfranchised but also exterminated. The idea of citizenship in such states placed greater emphasis on the need for a positive commitment by the individual than in the liberal democratic countries. The citizen was expected to support the state as embodied in the party or the fatherland. In tact, the absorption of Marxist doctrine has often been less in evidence than adherence to collectivist mentality, productive labour, patriotic loyalty and civic duty.18MARSHALL‘S THEORY OF CITIZENSHIPT.H. Marshal in his book Citizenship and Social Class has explained the nature of citizenship in the context of welfare state in Europe. It provides an account of the emergence of citizenship in the modern nation-state in terms of historical development of capitalist society. But contrary to Marxist conclusion, Marshal argues that as capitalism evolved into a social system and as the 124 class structure developed, the concept of citizenship also underwent transformation. From being a system of rights which supported the market system and the propertied class, it changed to a system of rights which were opposed to market and a particular class i.e. rights of the non-propertied class. Through their antagonistic relationship, citizenship and class inequality mutually contributed to change each other. The development of citizenship rights helped in the necessary integration of the working class into the capitalist society and the decline of class conflict.Marshal starts from the fact that citizenship is a status attached to full membership of a community and that those who possess this status are equal in respect of rights and duties associated with it. However, since there is no universal principle which determines necessary rights and duties of citizenship in general, different societies attach different rights and duties to the status of citizen. Talking in the context of England, he wrote that the development of the institutions of modern citizenship coincided with the rise of capitalism. As a doctrine, citizenship was the quest of the bourgeois class for greater representation in society in opposition to aristocratic privileges. Hence it undermined the customary privileges of feudal class and consolidated incipient capitalist class relations. Hence citizenship entailed legal and civil equality. The civil element of citizenship essentially laid in the rights necessary for individual freedom and the institutions most directly associated with it were the rule of law and a system of courts. However, while it undermined one set of class system (i.e. feudal), it promoted and secured a second because citizenship rights were civil rights and civil rights were those which promoted competitive market economy based upon private property. During nineteenth century, a number of political rights including the right to franchise were granted to the urban working class through the institution of bourgeois democracy to achieve some regulation of the capitalist economy. However, the full danger to the capitalist class could be avoided because the newly enfranchised working class was too inexperienced to wield political power effectively. But the working class was able to create trade unionism and through collective bargaining was able to wrest a number of concessions from the capitalist class to raise their economic and social status. Thus the collective exercise of rights by members of the working class in creating and using 125 trade unionism established ‘the claim that they, as citizens, were entitled to certain social rights‘The addition of social rights in the twentieth century made the situation more complex as well as interesting. It brought ‘citizenship and capitalist class‘ at war, because citizenship is based on the principle of equality, capitalism is based on inequality. Social citizenship attempted to reform capitalism through legislation. The gradual development of universal provisions for basic education, health and social security changed the nature of cash nexus between capital and labour. Legislation on minimum wages, hours of work, employment of children, working conditions, occupational safety and compensation of occupational accidents made the employees less vulnerable to the capitalist class. Thus the conflict between the two seemed inevitable. But the problem, according to Marshal, is more complex. Between the rival demands of capitalist class for profit and the working class for welfare, the state through positive intervention and by reformulating its taxation and expenditure policies has been able to resolve the conflict between the two. Though the creation of social citizenship has not removed the class inequalities, neither has it been able to fundamentally transform the economic basis of capitalism in terms of private appropriation of wealth—rather it has given rise to new forms of inequalities, nevertheless, it has been able to reduce certain social inequalities and especially those associated with the operation of the market. Thus citizenship has ‘imposed modifications on the class‘. But on the whole, it has created a ‘hyphenated system‘ because it combines a progressive expansion of egalitarian citizenship rights with the continuity of de factor inequalities in terms of class, status and power.19CONTRIBUTIONS MADE BY ANTHONY GIDDENSAnthony Giddens gives some other reasons for the development of the idea of citizenship. According to him, citizenship and democracy are both associated with the expansion of state sovereignty. The development of state‘s sovereignty meant increasing administrative power to supervise the subject population and to collect and store information about them. Since this could not be done through force, cooperation from other sections of the society became necessary. Hence citizenship was the result of the greater 126 reciprocity between the rulers and the ruled. Giddens calls this as ‘two way expansion of power‘ or ‘dialectics of control‘. Citizenship was bound up with the new administrative ordering of political power and the politicization of social relations and day-to-day activities which follow in its wake.2uThe pursuit of equal membership in the new political set up coloured the concept of citizenship. The struggle for citizenship took many forms but the most important has been class conflict. First, it was the conflict of the bourgeoisie against the feudal privileges, followed by the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie. The struggle between the bourgeoisie and feudalism led to the separation of the state from the economy and the establishment of civil and political rights by the state. Also democracy was adopted as a means to protect the freedom and equality of the citizens. Later, the institutional changes led to the success of the working class to gain economic rights. These struggles produced the welfare state—the modern interventionist states. According to Giddens, the social and economic rights cannot be regarded as a mere extension of civil and political rights, but are a part of an attempt to improve the worse consequences of the worker citizen‘s lack of control over his working conditions and place.Thus in Gidden‘s assessment, class conflict has been the medium of extension of citizenship rights and the basis of the creation of an insulated economy, democracy and welfare state. The state sovereignty was a critical factor in the struggle for rights and to remould citizenship. These were major historical changes. But what is important is that there is nothing inherent about them; with the change in political and economic circumstances, they can be eroded. These rights still remain fragile achievements.CITIZENSHIP AND RIGHTSThe concept of citizenship involves the concept of rights. Citizenship is both a status and a set of rights. As American Chief Justice Earl Warren declared. ‘Citizenship is man‘s basic right for it is nothing less than the right to have rights‘21 A citizen is someone who possesses rights which are denied to non-citizens and to resident aliens and foreigners. Similarly, according to Rawls, ‘The position of equal citizenship is defined by the rights and liberties required by the principle of equal liberty and the principle 127 of fair equality of opportunity. When the two principles are satisfied, all are equal citizens‘22. However, all rights are not citizenship rights. Citizenship is a status bestowed on those who are full members of a national community and citizenship rights are those which derive from and facilitate participation in this ‘common possession‘. They are rights of a person in the community of a nation-state which are ultimately secured by the state. These rights in a way impose certain limitations upon the state‘s sovereign authority, and entail certain duties from other persons. According to Marshal, the growth of citizenship has been ‘stimulated by both the struggle to win (those) rights and by their enjoyment when won‘. Examining the concept of citizenship in the context of social classes, Marshal pointed out that its unique element can be defined in terms of specific set of rights and the social institutions through which these rights are exercised. Tracing the development of the institutions of modern citizenship, Marshal writes that while capitalism created inequalities, citizenship created a status through which members shared equal rights and duties. The three elements of citizenship rights identified by Marshal are: Civil, political, and social. The civil element of citizenship is composed of rights necessary for individual freedom and institutions most directly associated with it are the rule of law and a system of courts. They include right to properly, contract, freedom of speech, religious practice, assembly and association. Moreover, they can be used to create groups, associations, corporations and movements of every kind. They are a kind of power against the state. The political aspect consists of a set of political rights such as right to take part in the elections and right to serve in bodies endowed with political authority. Such rights are associated with the parliamentary institutions. The social component of rights subsumes the right to share the social heritage. Citizenship in the twentieth century has been associated more with the development of the idea of social rights. After the second world war, the belief that the stale has a duty to ensure social justice and an adequate level of welfare for all its citizens has rapidly gained ground. The guiding principle of the policies commonly implemented has been that the state should raise funds through taxing the rich and these funds should be used for educational and health services and protecting the citizens from illness, unemployment and old age etc. If by citizenship we mean the recognition of reciprocal rights and responsibilities, 128 then the state has an obligation to provide basic welfare to its citizens. The rich have an obligation to contribute funds for social welfare and the beneficiaries of the welfare state have an obligation not to abuse these rights and services. In this sense, the provisions for welfare are unrelated to the specific status of citizenship. Heater has called this aspect of citizenship as ‘social citizenship‘. This is a belief that since all citizens are assumed to be fundamentally equal in status and dignity, none should be so depressed in economic and social conditions as to make a mockery of this assumption. Therefore, in return for the loyalty and virtuous civic conduct displayed by the citizens, the state has an obligation to smooth out any gross inequalities by a guarantee of basic standard of living in terms of income, shelter, health and education. Essential minimum standard in these areas of life should be enjoyed as a right of citizenship, irrespective of wealth, bargaining power, sex, age or race. Further, no stigma should be attached to the communal source of provisions‘ ,23Thus the modern idea of citizenship includes not only civil and political dimensions but also a social component. However, it would be imprudent to assume that the different component of rights of modern citizenship are equally guaranteed by the state. Not only are the civil and social rights founded on different principles and basis, there may exist some tension with each other. The social rights are always under a threat to be eliminated by the civil rights.In recent years, the debate over citizenship rights has broadened to include recognition to a variety of groups such as groups struggling for the rights of women and ethnic minorities, rights of children, the poor of the third world, and even rights of animals and plants. Some writers have interpreted these new social movements as shifting and widening the definition of social and political membership to encompass previously excluded and oppressed social groups. They look to an expanded set of rights to match a broader and cosmopolitan concept of citizenship. In this way rights come to define our identity as citizens of a global community. However, inspite of popularity, the belief is unfounded because the hope that they can be included in a reformed and fuller concept of citizenship rights is practically not feasible.129 CITIZENSHIP EDUCATIONAccording to Professor Janowitz, effective citizenship rests on a rigorous and viable system of civic rights and obligations. In this context citizenship education becomes very important. The training for citizenship can be traced from Plato and Aristotle onwards. The basic objective of teaching of citizenship in any state is to convey to the learner the body of knowledge, set of values, attitudes and skills which are considered necessary for the sustenance and well-being of the nation. Citizenship education seeks to gain people‘s support for the nation‘s civic culture through a variety of educational processes. The Greeks expected from its citizens to fulfill the functions of politicians, administrators, judges, jurors and soldiers on the one hand and obedience to the laws, submission to the government and a readiness to defend the state by recourse to arms on the other. During the period of Republican Rome, education became largely a family function, and the task of inculcating the characteristic Roman civic qualities into the boys fell on the fathers. The qualities were many: firmness, courage, religious reverence, self-restraint, dignity, prudence and justice. The boys were also expected to learn about the exploits of past heroes, singing suitably patriotic songs and learning by recitation the famous Twelve Tables. With the rise of modern-nation state, citizenship education was meant to foster a personal and perpetual relationship of allegiance between king and his subjects. During the eighteenth century Europe and American, it was concerned with the creation of national identity by fostering commitment to slowly evolving democratic values, national loyalty and patriotism. During nineteenth century, which was the century of nationalism, liberal democracy as well as socialism, state intervened to ensure the transmission of political values through the school system. To this end, the governments made widespread use of flags, patriotic songs and celebration of national anniversaries. The state came increasingly to take interest in the control of schools and a number of theorists argued and justified the ‘nationalization of education‘. The liberal writers like Bentham and Mill felt the general need for educational provisions. J.S. Mill was convinced that the advance of democracy depended crucially on the general spread of schooling. T.H. Green, who believed in the egalitarian form of citizenship, declared that the task of education should be to undermine 130 the class barriers and create means of bonding its citizens more tightly to the community. During twentieth century, citizenship education is more meaningfully viewed as democratic political education. Primarily political in nature, it addresses public affairs and is not directly concerned with personal or social activities. Its goal is to sustain and refine a democratic political community-a group of people who share both a commitment to certain principles such as freedom, equality, due process of law, justice, diversity, as well as involvement in governing process based on mutual consent. Here ‘we the people‘ are the ultimate source of legitimate power and authority. The subject matter of citizenship education in these countries consists of a complex inter-relationship between individual and the democratic political community, responsible participation in public affairs, formal and informal political process including critical scrutiny of public officials, institutions and political operations. In short, citizenship knowledge in these countries consists of: ?i. knowledge of and respect for public law and policy at any level. This does not mean blind and unquestioning obedience to any set of rules; it is individual‘s duty, however, to abide by laws and policies which are formulated and applied for security and well-being of the society;?ii.development of the skills and activities which go into making or changing public law and policy. The citizen must accept responsibility for effective participation in shaping or altering the rules which are required by the society at any time;?iii. acquisition of knowledge necessary for effective participation. Knowledge about public issues and problems is vital for the participatory role of citizens; voting or seeking to influence government officials on the basis of pure emotions in the absence of enlightenment about public policies is not meeting the responsibilities of effective citizenship;?iv. the knowledge and behaviour which recognize and respect equal rights and opportunities for all in a diverse and pluralistic society. It also includes knowledge and behaviour which advance the individual self-reliance and responsibility in economic and social life.131 CRITICAL EVALUATIONAccording to Heater, citizenship as a useful political concept has been so much overloaded in the twentieth century that there is a danger of its being disintegrated.24 The nature and utility of citizenship in the Greek city-state was totally different from the ways in which the concept has been realized in the modern nation-state. The concept which evolved to provide a sense of identity and community is on the verge of becoming a source of communal dissension. There are problems of disagreement over the interpretation and actualization of the idea of citizenship. More importantly, the granting of citizenship to virtually all inhabitants of the globe has given rise to a number of contradictory problems, some of which can be identified. Firstly, if citizenship means political participation, then there has been a tendency towards a low level of participation by the people in the political process. And yet if all citizens are equal, then they must have equal opportunity and motivation for participatory activity. Secondly, citizenship is distorted by the process of gross inequalities in economic and social spheres. In fact the concept of social citizenship is still an area for greater pessimism. Social equality has been achieved only in a fraction of countries. At global level, social citizenship is far from being a reality both in theory and practice. Thirdly, in underdeveloped countries where vast gaps exist between rich and poor, the benefits of citizenship are yet to reach to the low and marginal groups. These societies still cling to local, communal, religious or tribal loyalties and the sense of national cohesion is conspicuous by its absence. Fourthly, in the multicultural societies, serious tensions are emerging with regard to minority rights. And lastly the women liberation movements have put a serious question mark on the concept of citizenship because citizenship had deliberately excluded women not only from the political process but also from a number of social and economic rights.25 Let us discuss a few of these criticisms in detail.LIBERTARIAN critique of citizenshipThe modern western democratic tradition associates citizenship with the liberal version of individual rights. By 1980s, more citizens were enjoying freedoms of thought, expression, assembly and association. The state, in the name of welfare measures, intervenes positively in the life of the individual. The demands and opportunities 132 for the citizen to participate have never been greater. But of late, the reaction against this intervention has been equally powerful. There is a tendency to withdraw from civil concerns in order to pursue a private, family life and a revulsion to the need to participate democratically in order to preserve political freedom. The proponents of elite theory argue that a view of politics which gives central role to citizenship in the sense of participation is an illusion. Political power is the handiwork of elites and at the very best, the involvement of citizens is limited in choosing between the competing elites on political agenda drawn up by the elites and on the goals determined by the elites. On the other hand, libertarian writers like Hayek and Nozic leave little room for rich citizenship because they see government as empire rather than being an institutional structure serving certain common good. The duty of the citizen, they claim, is to observe certain rules of this game such as to pursue one‘s own interest and observe the rights of others. They define citizenship in terms of forbearance, i.e. as not interfering in the rights of others rather than actually participating in the realization of certain communal values through political activity and political institutions. The duty of the citizen is not to attempt for certain common good but to maintain the legal framework which secures space for them to realize their private non-civic interests. In short, they have brought the conflict between .political-social citizenship and socio-economic citizenship to the forefront once again.FEMINIST critique of citizenshipThe women liberation movements have historically been a struggle against the presumption that sexual distinction made the human female not just different but that in legal, political, social, economic and cultural terms, she is inferior to his male counterpart. Feminists have argued that women are on the whole treated as second class citizen. They are considered as a different social class—defined as a class membership of fathers and husbands. Their opinions on public issues are considered to be borrowed from fathers or husbands. They vote less than men and tend to vote the same way as their men in the family.For much of the historical time, women have been deprived of citizenship rights. As citizens they have been subject to the decisions of male political leaders. Male dominance has been used to exclude 133 women from political and economic decision-making. Women are under-represented in formal political institutions everywhere in the world whether in the legislature, executive, judiciary or bureaucracy. Political activity is primarily considered a masculine activity. Their voting right was achieved in stages even in the liberal democratic countries like England, France, America, Switzerland. In some countries they still do not have voting rights. Again women have no power over their rights and obligations. Public laws for women are made and enforced by men, whether they are property rights or rights to inheritance, obligations to their children, their education, nourishment, safety, employment selection, conditions of work etc. Marriage laws in many countries continue to place women at considerable disadvantage compared to their husbands with regard to property rights and marital status.Another feminist argument is that by making a distinction between public (participation in the political affairs) and private (mainly domestic) spheres, women are deprived of participating and control over their private existence. It is in this context that the slogan of the women liberation movements in 1970s was ‘The personal is political‘, i.e., the distinction between public and private is a political and manipulative device to perpetuate male dominance and to keep women as second class citizens.How to secure full citizenship for women? On this questions, there is great divergence of opinion within the feminist movement. The primary objective of the liberal feminists has been to bring women into full rights of democratic citizenship. The suffrage rights, more recent reforms such as participation of women on juries, equal pay, anti-discrimination legislation, reform in marriage laws, decriminalization of prostitution are seen as allowing women to become full citizens. The liberal feminists envisage a future where legal, political, social and economic rights will be achieved and women will be on equal footing with men in all spheres. This will be brought about by reason, persuasion and constitutional reforms. The family will remain but men will have equal role in domestic duties and women‘s career will not be hampered by rearing of children. This is what they call ‘civic feminism‘. Socialist feminists want to achieve this objective through expansion of free birth control, abortion, health care for women, child care centres and state recognition of domestic labour. The radical feminists go 134 a step forward and accord less significance to monogamy in order to facilitate the entrance of women into the public world with men.26SUBALTERN critique of citizenshipThe existence of politically, economically, socially and culturally inferior classes and groups in the underdeveloped countries poses a serious challenge to citizenship. By sublatern groups, we mean people of ‘inferior rank‘. The word is used for the general attribution of subordination particularly in the underdeveloped countries of South Asian ex-colonial societies irrespective of class, caste, age, gender, office or any other way. This subordination can be understood in contrast to ‘domination‘ by certain privileged groups in each and every sphere of life. Historically, property has been associated as an essential precondition of citizenship. The poor and the lower classes, because of their inability to meet this criterion, could not be considered as full citizens. Whatever relief to the poor was given was more an act of charity. Although the social citizenship rights in the modern liberal welfare states have changed the position of non-propertied classes and certain rights and services are made available to them irrespective of wealth, yet in the underdeveloped countries, citizenship still means domination of a large portion of population by a few elites. Though millions are classified as citizens in these states, only a small portion of that number can be truly said to enjoy it as a status of social dignity and source of effective rights. To the peasants and tribals scattered in villages and jungles, or the petty workers and lumpen masses huddled around megalopolitan slums and juggi jhopris, citizenship rights are meaningless. Deprivation experienced by these group is not only physical; it involves breaking down various ties of citizenship— whether it is acquisition of skills, education, access to justice or enjoyment of rights. Political consciousness, where it exists at all, is resigned acceptance of manipulation by local leaders or of sheer and utter impotence. In many states, social equality is denied as a valid test of citizenship. In short, for such people, the matter of civil, political and social citizenship still remains an act of domination rather than egalitarianism. Effective citizenship in these state in future will depend on how far these groups are integrated into the society.135 CONCLUSIONThe modern citizenship is a legacy of 2500 years of political thinking, popular pressures and educational preparations. The Greek city-states of Plato and Aristotle, Imperial Rome, renaissance, industrialization, French revolution, process of decolonization provided the most power emerging forces for the development and consolidation of the citizenship idea. At the turn of the century, we are perhaps in another period of comparable political creativity. While citizenship has been legally extended to a very large extent, a large majority of mankind has to live under regimes which have no idea of citizenship. Again how to remove poverty in societies marred by inequalities of wealth, property, income and ownership; the questions posed by unprecedented over-population and relentless destruction of nature are the problems which pose a great threat to citizenship. Hence the direction in which citizenship will evolve in the coming generations will depend on the extent to which mankind will be able to come to grips with these problems.References1. Derek Heater, Citizenship: The Civic Ideal in World History, Politics and Education. Longman. London, 1910, p.1822. Aristotle Politics (Ed Barker), Clarendon Press, 1946, p.933. Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Institutions, Vermon, Bogdanor. 19874. D.W. Brogan, Citizenship Today, quoted in Gould and Kolb, op. cit.5. T.H. Marshal Citizenship and Social Class, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1950, p. 846. Bryan Turner, Equality, Ellis Horwood Ltd.England, 1986, p. 21 7. 7. J.M. Barbalet, Citizenship, OUP, Milton Keynes. 1988, p. 28. Heater, op. cit., p. 2469. Ibid, p. 1810. Ibid, p. 161-16211. Aristotle, op. cit, p. 19512. Ibid, p. 13413. Ibid, p. 10514. Heater, op. cit. p. 1115. Ibid, p. 1616. Bodin. Six Book on Government, Blackwell, 1967, p. 2117. Ibid, p. 75.18. Ibid, p. 120-12219. For more details, see Barbalet. Bryan Turner. Heater op. cit.20. Anthony Giddens, The Nation State and Violence, A Comparative Clique ofHistorical Materialism136 21. Judegment in Perez a V. Browell case, 195822. Rawls. A Theory of Justice, op. cit., 199 23. Heater, p. 265-27224. Ibid. p. 28225. Ibid. Chapter 8 Barriers to a Holistic Concept26. Women Realities and Womens Choices—an Introduction to women Studies. OUR N.Y., 1983, p. 535137 CHAPTER 8 DEMOCRATIC AND HUMAN RIGHTS : THEIR BASES AND JUSTIFICATION OF CLAIMSOne of the important function of liberal democratic state has been to define the relation between the individual and the state. Whereas all political theories preceding liberalism had sacrificed individual at the alter of state i.e. they considered the state as an end and the individual as a means, liberalism reversed this philosophy and declared that state and society are for man i.e. they are the means for and to serve the individual ends. It emphasized the absolute moral worth of human personality and individual autonomy. As an embodiment of new individualism, liberalism advocated individual freedom as its goal—freedom from every arbitrary authority and freedom for the individual to develop his potentialities as a human being. This freedom was secured, on the one hand, by limiting the action of the state, and on the other, by defining the concepts like rights, liberty, equality, property, justice and democracy. As we have seen in the last chapter, with the rise of liberal democratic state, rights became an integral part of enlightened citizenship. The provision, enforcement and protection of rights became the criteria for judging the validity of the state. Today we talk about the rights of the individual citizens, rights of women and children, rights of ethnic groups or cultural minorities. The promulgation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 brought new idea of human rights in the western world, which over a period of time has spread to the countries of Asia and Africa and has become a subject of political debate in recent times.RIGHTS: MEANING AND NATURERights are the sum total of those opportunities which ensure 138 enrichment of human personality. They are the basic condition of good life which are recognized by the state. According to Laski, ‘Rights, in fact, are those conditions of social life without which no man can seek, in general, to be his best‘.1 T.H. Green defines rights as ‘a power of acting for one‘s own ends, secured to an individual by the community on the supposition that he contributes to the good of the community‘.2 According to Salmond, ‘A legal right...is an interest recognized and protected by the rule of law... an interest the violation of which would be a legal wrong... and respect for which is a legal duty‘3. Bosanquet defines it as ‘A right is a claim recognized by the society and enforced by the state‘. According to Barker, the development of the capacities of the personality of the individual is the ultimate purpose of the state and the final political value. The law of the state is right and possesses the quality of rightness or justice, by virtue of securing and guaranteeing to the greatest possible number of persons, the external conditions necessary for the greatest possible development of the capacities of individual personality. These secured and guaranteed conditions are called by the name rights.4On the basis of the above definitions, we can draw certain general conclusions regarding the nature of rights. Firstly, rights in their nature are the result and embodiment, in a particular person, of the general system of ‘right‘ (as distinct from wrong) on which the state and its laws are based. ‘Rights are a portion of right‘.5 Hence one cannot have rights apart from the notion of right. One cannot have secured and guaranteed rights in the legal sense of the term apart from the law which is based upon the notion of right. Rights are given on two grounds-the immediate and the ultimate. The immediate ground is that the concept of rights is the expression of the notion of right on which the legal system is based. The ultimate ground is that these rights are the conditions of achieving the ends which inspire and determine the whole system of Rights—the highest possible development of the personality of the individual. In short, rights are the demands of the individual from the society which are secured by law because they are the condition of the development of personality.Secondly regarding the sources of rights, primarily, the origin, of rights is something in the individual himself. Rights flow from the inherent fact of individual‘s own moral personality and his139 social nature. In this sense, we can say that the rights are natural or human. But we cannot stop at this point. There is another side. One cannot possess the right unless they are secured and enforced by the state. In this sense, rights have a source outside man, and the rights flow from something more than one‘s own personal nature. This is to say, the state is the immediate source of rights. Rights are never rights unless they proceed immediately from that source. Thus rights are derived from two sources: i) individual personality and the quality of being a condition of its development, and ii) state and its law, and the quality of being secured and guaranteed by the action of law.6Thirdly, the concept of rights is essentially about human relationship in the society. Hence enjoyment of rights involves respectful observance of certain fundamental cannons of social welfare. The rights are never absolute and unlimited and are governed by the social interest. They impose certain moral responsibilities on every individual. While enjoying rights, man must be aware of the similar rights of others. Individual is to enjoy rights in such a manner that he contributes to the enrichment of society. Rights and duties are co-relative. Every right carries a corresponding duty. They are like two sides of the coin. It is only in a world of duties that rights have any significance.Fourthly, rights are not a selfish claim. Rights are given equally to all individuals in the society. Whereas privileges and prerogatives are limited to a particular group, class or section of the society, rights are given to all irrespective of birth, caste, creed, economic status, religion etc.Fifthly, rights are dynamic in character. They have a tendency to grow. With the socio-economic development, new demands of individuals continue to come into existence and struggle for social recognition. Such demands which are recognized by the state through its law become rights. Right to work, right to strike, right to leisure etc are such rights which were recognized only in the twentieth century.And lastly, the great majority of rights are limited in time and space because they have a reality only in the context of a particular human society that did not exist in the past and may not exist in future. The rights possessed by the Indian people after independence 140 did not exist before and may not be the same in the next hundred years‘ time. Also the content of similar rights—say right to property-may differ from country to country. Of course, there are some rights which have universal application but how far they can be implemented is a big question mark. We shall discuss them in the section on human rights.BASES OF RIGHTSThe concept of rights emerged with the rise of modern state and out of the criticism of the old social and political order. Its tone was radical and in its ultimate employment, was revolutionary. Historically, the demand for individual rights was made by the rising commercial/middle class which was the product of industrial revolution. It became the accepted ideology of American and French revolutionaries and was expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the constitutional Bill of Rights in America and the Declaration of the Rights of Man in France. Prominent liberal writers such as Locke, Rousseau, Bentham, J.S. Mill, T.H. Green, Harold Laski, Ernest Barker and a host of others have advocated the rights of the individual on one ground or the other. In the post-war period, the concept of rights has been further expanded by John Rawls, Robert Nozic, Ronald Dworkin and others.On what basis the rights should be given to the individual? No universal answer has been provided to this question for the past three hundred years. In their long history of development, different rights have been justified on different basis. These bases are commonly known as theories of rights. The main theories are:1.. Theory of natural rights2.Theory of legal rights3.Historical theory of rights4.Idealist/Moral theory of rights5.Social welfare theory of rights6.Recent Liberal-individualistic theory of rights7.Marxist theory of rights.THEORY of natural rightsThe first theory which emerged as a justification of rights is known as theory of natural rights. Since 17th and 18th centuries, there has been a powerful opinion in the West attached to the idea 141 that man possesses certain rights ‘by nature‘, irrespective of any particular social, legal or political institutions and that these rights can be demonstrated by reason. The natural rights theory which was supported by Locke and other liberal writers, declared that all men are born with certain inherent rights. Rights inhere in individual human being rather than in society or state. ‘God gives them to his children just as he gave them arms, legs, eyes and ears. Men are placed on this earth to lead a life and they must have certain freedoms if they are to lead their life to its fullest potentiality. God not only brings men into this world but he also endows them with the innate authority to attain the best that life has to offer. Rights, according to this theory, were attributed to the individual as if they were the intrinsic property of man. Whatever rights are granted to a man as citizen of this or that state, his natural rights go with him wherever he goes.Natural rights were derived from natural law and were propagated by the social contract writers like Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. They assumed that man had certain natural rights before the origin of the state and he surrendered some of them to a superior authority, i.e., civil society, in order to safeguard the rest of them. Hobbes considered right to life as natural right. Locke declared right to life, liberty and property as the natural rights. Rousseau deemed liberty and equality as the gifts of nature. It was maintained that the individual cannot give up these rights to the state. The rights are inalienable because what nature has given to them is to last for life long. In fact, if a man seeks to give them up or is deprived of these rights, he has stripped himself of the attributes he needs to be called a man at all. A state which attempts to deprive men of their natural rights is creating a condition whereby its citizens will not be men but rather something less than human. In short, rights are inherent in the personality of man. They are inalienable, immutable, sacred from the day of his birth and are non-transferable throughout his life time. The rights belong to man independent of society and the state.CRITICISMHowever, the idea of natural rights was not accepted by the later political philosophers. Edmund Burke attacked the whole idea of speculative rights and declared that the basis of rights can only be customs and sentiments of the society. The utilitarians 142 like Bentham also rejected the whole idea of rights as prior to and against the state. Rights could only be conferred by law. In fact, the theory of natural rights had a number of weaknesses. Firstly, it was felt that if rights are attributed to the individual absolutely, we cannot resolve the conflict between man and society. For example, in a situation like famine, one man‘s right to life could be violated, by hoarding of food, by another man‘s right to property. That is, if the two equally absolute rights conflict, there is no principle upon which this can be solved. As Benn and Peter wrote, ‘Social regulation is a continuous process of adjustment between conflicting claims, and a theory of absolute rights of the individual makes the process impossible‘.7Secondly, the most obvious criticism of this theory was what is meant by ‘natural‘. For example, G.D. Ritchie found that the word ‘nature‘ was used in a multi-dimensional sense such as: nature as the whole universe, nature as the non-human part of the universe, nature as the ideal (or completed purpose), nature as the original (the incomplete), and nature as the normal or average.8 In short, the term ‘natural right‘ remained vague at the hands of various writers.Thirdly, the idea that man‘s nature demands rights was also attacked. There can be no right without a rule. Rights imply certain duties; they imply social relations on which duties can rest. Rights, in other words, are maintained by social recognition. As was pointed out by Green later on, every right must be justified in terms of ends which the community considers good and that which cannot be attained without rights. Moreover, one‘s rights are a necessary condition for the performance of certain functions in the community. Both Green and Laski related rights with useful functions in the society. The theory of natural rights was found imperfect in so far as it did not relate rights to the idea of social good or socially useful functions.9Fourthly, the latter theorists of rights repudiated the natural right theory because by divorcing individual‘s interest from the community, it separated his claim from the basis upon which rights could be justified. The theory assumed that one could have rights and obligations independent of society. This was an erroneous view because the question of rights emerges only in the society and in the context of social relationships.143 Nevertheless, the theory of natural rights was a special theory conditioned by the peculiar features of its age. It asserted the value of individual‘s enterprise, opinion and belief against the traditional and ecclesiastical authority. As theory of the rising middle class, it stressed the authority of the individual‘s conscience in the field of economy, it defended individual‘s property against authoritarian interference and served as an ideology of radical movements.LEGAL THEORY OF RIGHTSThe theory of natural rights was succeeded by legal theory of rights. The legal theory maintained that rights are not natural but the creation of the state. Only that which the law gives is right. Rights are not absolute or inherent in man, they are artificial in the sense that they become rights only when they are determined and secured by the state. We find traces of this theory in the writings of Hobbes who held that the right of every individual is that of self-preservation and this right could best be preserved by the state. But the theory was developed by legal philosophers like Bentham, Austin and other writers of the analytical school of jurisprudence. Bentham rejected the theory of natural rights which had been advanced by the early liberals and had been popular with the American and French revolutionaries. He described the theory as metaphysical, as a ‘hodge-podge‘ of confusion and absurdity. Theoretically it might place a limit upon the despotism of the majority but in actual practice, the Declaration of Right of Man did not save from death a single one of the thousand persons who had been dragged before the revolutionary tribunals of France; nor the American Bill of Rights delivered a single negro from slavery. The practical value of natural rights being very little, Bentham justified its rejection and held that all rights of man are derived from law which itself is based upon utility. He described natural rights as ‘simple non-sense upon stilts‘. Law and rights are simply two aspects of something which is essentially one: law the objective aspect and right the subjective. The legal bases of rights implies three things: (i) the state defines and lays down a bill of rights. Rights are not prior to the state but state is the source of rights; (ii) the state lays down a legal framework which guarantees rights. It is the state which enforces the enjoyment of rights; (iii) As the law creates and sustains rights, so whenever the 144 content of the law changes, the substance of rights also changes.The legal theory maintains that rights are not necessarily the creation of the state, but without recognition and protection of them by the state, they are not valid. As Wilde remarked: ‘They are enforced by the state only because they are rights; and not rights because they are enforced‘.12 Claims which are essential to the moral development of man and which are violated or ignored by the state can at best only be potential rights. They are only the basis or the grounds but not full-fledged rights.The rights granted by the state are called positive rights. In modern state, citizens enjoy positive rights, such as right to life, liberty, property, education, old age pension or other benefits provided by law. These rights are contextual i.e. they are given to the citizens of a state covered by its jurisdiction and they exist only for such time the relevant law is not withdrawn by legislation or rendered null and void by the judiciary.CRITICISMThe legal theory of rights was also found deficient by the latter writers in certain respects. Firstly, the legal theory did not cover the whole range of rights. It explained the nature of only those rights which had been given legal recognition by the state. It was incomplete because it did not tell whether that which is guaranteed is actually right or really needed recognition. The theory assumed that what is guaranteed by the state is right. Secondly, the legal theory did not take into consideration the rights of multiple associations in the society. For example, as Laski said, men enjoy rights not merely as members of the state but also as members of the society. He criticized the legal bases of rights on the ground that to limit the rights to a single source, i.e., the state, is ‘to destroy the personality of the individual and not to preserve it.‘ Thirdly, the state does not create rights but recognizes, maintains, protects and coordinates them. As Wild remarked, the rights exist whether they are recognized or not. Higher than law is our conception of right and wrong. Rights must have a foundation of right. Finally, if the state and its laws are accepted as the sole source of rights, then there is no right against the state. The liberal writers like Green and Laski recognized the need to resist the state in certain circumstances. As Laski put it, the obedience to the state is limited 145 and conditional. It is obedience to right and not might, to justice and not to authority. The material source of rights is the community‘s sense of justice and not the law. Law is nothing but the concretization of the feeling of the community.HISTORICAL THEORY OF RIGHTSAs a reaction to the rationalism of the eighteenth century, there arose a historical school of law, philosophy and jurisprudence in nineteenth century. It was a reaction against i) the paper constitution making, ii) confident disregard of traditional political institutions and conditions of time and place which characterised era of French revolution, and iii) the belief that the power of reason can work miracles in legislation. This historical school was represented by Savigny and Puchta in Germany, Sir Henry Maine and Edmund Burke in England and James Carter in the U.S.A. All of them maintained that the character of state and law is historical and so also the character of rights.According to this school, law, state and rights are neither based upon the arbitrary creation of human will nor a product of nature but a product of history. They represent the manifestation of the particular genius of particular national consciousness. For example, Puchta wrote, ‘All human Right presupposes a common consciousness as its source. A principle of Right becomes a fact by being recognized as such in the common conviction of those to whom it is applicable. Through this common consciousness of Right, as by a common language and a common religion, the members of a people are bound together in a definite union... The consciousness which permeates the members of a people in common is born with them... it constitutes a national mind...and it is the source of human and natural right, and of the convictions of Right which stir and operate in the minds of individuals.10Similarly, making a distinction between abstract rights and historically-embedded rights, Burke observed that the French revolution was based on the abstract rights of liberty, equality and fraternity applicable to all while the English revolution of 1688 was based upon the customary rights of Englishmen—the right? which Englishmen had been enjoying from the early days. Since the rights of man declared by the French Revolution were not a part of the common consciousness of the French people, even 146 after executing the King and the declaration of rights, they could not get them and the revolution turned into a dictatorship.According to this theory, it is history which is the basis of rights. Rights are the crystallization of custom, which, in the course of time, become rights. According to Ritche, ‘those rights which people think they ought to have are just those rights which they have been accustomed to have or which they have a tradition of having once possessed. Custom is the primitive law‘. Many of the so called rights when scrutinized carefully turn out to be claims which have the sanction of the ‘longest and the least broken custom.‘ On the other hand, the claims which are of quite recent growth or are not widely adopted are regarded as ‘conventions‘ and not rights.In short, rights are the crystallization of ‘historical development‘. The principles which were applicable to law could be applicable to rights. Briefly, they are: i) rights are relative to time and place and to particular people, ii) rights are to be found not by reason but in the historical process; the individual has little or no responsibility for shaping them, iii) the idea of universal individual rights should be replaced by the historical rights of Englishmen, Frenchmen or Germans, iv) reforms is impossible, it is better to allow the historical process to work without any hindrance, v) the idea of a transcendental natural order should be replaced by the idea of an order immanent in the historical process.11CRITICISMThe historical theory of rights was a protest against the natural law theorists who wanted to base laws on human reason, as well as against the analytical school of jurisprudence who wanted to restrict rights within the confines of the law of the state irrespective of the culture or traditions of society. But on the whole, the historical theory of rights provided a conservative and traditional view of history. It gave too much importance to customs and traditions. The main defect of the theory was that it did not differentiate between a right and a wrong custom. The fundamental question was that if the customs of a society made slavery, polygamy, sattee, or aparthied lawful, could they be called right. The answer is a categorical ‘no‘. Will the people have to wait for the day when the customs and traditions change so as to give a new meaning 147 to rights. If the rights are only the crystallization of custom, then any idea of reform is given a good-bye. There is no doubt that no society can break itself from the past traditions and customs but it is also true that history cannot be relied upon exclusively. The radical social transformation of society not only required a new interpretation of history as was shown later on by Marx and his followers, but also deliberate action on the part of the state and society to abolish conservative, orthodox and reactionary customs and traditions. The historical theory of rights, by tying the rights to customs, gave only a partial explanation of the basis of rights. It missed the dynamic nature of rights.MORAL THEORY OF RIGHTSAccording to this theory, rights derive their justification from a code of morality shared by the members of a community and are enforced by the conscience of the individual. Though the moral theory of rights is associated with idealism, thinkers like T.H. Green merged it with liberalism. The main supporters of this theory were Rousseau in Franc, Kant and Hegel in Germany, and Green and Bosanquet in England. The moral theory associates rights with the achievement of moral freedom of man as member of the society. According to this theory, every right is derived from one basic right right to personality. Whether it is right to life, liberty, property, education or health, they are all rooted in and are governed by the development of the personality of the individual. Rights are powers which an individual claims from the society on a moral plane and are recognized and enforced by the state through its law. The inner development of man does not depend upon the state; it is the sole concern of the individual himself. The function of the state is to help in creating the conditions in which the individual can achieve his moral freedom. Rights are thus the external conditions, recognized by the society and enforced by the state, for the moral uplift of man. Green speaks of rights as the‘ powers necessary to the fulfillment of man‘s vocation as a moral being.12 His conception of rights is different from Locke. ‘A right, on the one hand, is a claim of the individual arising out of his rational nature, to the free exercise of some faculty, and on the other hand; it. is a concession of that claim by the society, a power given by it to the individual of putting that claim into force.‘13 They are rights because there is a ‘common consciousness‘ 148 that an individual ought to have such rights. They are not natural but are ideals. Such rights vary from time to time and from place to place in accordance with the moral consciousness of the community. With the growth of moral consciousness, certain rights which were once regarded as natural lose value. Every right that an individual has is dependent on the social judgement of its compatibility with the general well-being. Ultimately, it is the well-being of the community than the humanity of the individual which determines his rights. Like Kant, Green also believed that the individual can have no rights against the state; its law must be to him of absolute authority. Because such resistance is liable to result in general anarchy and since ‘such a destruction of the state would mean a general loss of freedom‘, it is to weigh carefully the possibility of anarchy against the idea of freedom desired.Thus, according to moral theory, the basis or rights is not natural or legal but a moral value and a moral object. Rights are rooted in the personality of the individual. Rights are the conditions which help the individual to develop his personality to the highest possible extent. Since everybody in the society has a similar aim i.e., to develop his personality, it implies that rights arise only in the society and the rights of the individual are to be in harmony with those of others. In other words, rights are linked with the individual good and the common good of the society. The object of rights is not to serve the selfish interest of the individual but to help his moral upliftment. Rights are recognized by the society and enforced by the state. Apart from state and society, there is no question of rights. By relating individual good with the social good, it paved the way for the social welfare theory of rights.Like historical basis, the moral rights are also contextual rather than universal because they are limited to people who share a common code of morality. Though it is argued that all codes of morality have certain basic beliefs in common but this is disputable and difficult to establish.SOCIAL WELFARE THEORY OF RIGHTSIn the twentieth century, all basis of rights whether they were natural, legal, ideal or historical merged into a broad theory, known as ‘social welfare.‘ The concept of social welfare was recognized by positive liberal writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth165 CHAPTER 9 PERSPECTIVES OF THE STATE‘State‘ is the most commonly used and the most opaque term in the political vocabulary. One of the most important schools in the history of political thought has been associated with the study of nature and characteristics of state. Up to the first half of twentieth century, political science was concerned with the study of the state—the phenomenon of the state in its varied aspects and relationships, as distinct from family, tribe, nation and from all private associations or groups. As Garner put it, ‘Political science begins and ends with the state‘1. Garner, Gettel, Bluntchli, Gilchrist etc. have been the representatives of such a school of political thought. According to Garner, ‘The state, as a concepts of political science and public law, is a community of persons more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite portion of territory, independent or nearly so of external control and possessing an organized government to which the great body of inhabitants render habitual obedience.‘2 According to this definition, population, fixed territory, government and sovereignty are the essential elements of the state. Different from society, government, associations and the nation, the state is considered a distinct institution.CONCEPT OF STATE—ITS CHARACTERISTICSThe reality of the state‘s existence is a matter of fact hard to deny. It is with us and has been with us as far back as we can see and it is improbable that we shall not have it in future. The fact of the existence of the state is older than its name. As an authority for maintaining law, order and protection in the society, it has existed under different names in different periods. The Greek city-states used the word ‘polis‘ (from which politics is derived) while 166 in the Roman period the word res publica was used. During the medieval period, it was known as Christian Commonwealth. Strictly speaking, these are not covered by the concept ‘state‘ because they did not clearly and definitely contain in themselves the idea of stateliness, i.e., the sovereign political position of a person or a body.3 The political theory of the ancient Greece and Rome down to the last days of the middle ages was concerned mainly with the problem of finding a rightful place of the rulers admist their respective peoples. There, the emphasis was more on the duties of the people rather than the authority of the rulers. As a concept, the state came into frequent use during sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It appeared in the writings of Machiavelli Although at that time it usually referred to officials of the government or to the government itself. During the later part of eighteenth century and a large part of nineteenth century, owing largely to the efforts of the jurists, emphasis was laid on the internal sovereignty and external independence of the state. With the advent of democracy, the sovereignty of the king was replaced by the sovereignty of people. Quenlin Skinner has obeserved that the concept of state, as it developed and evolved from seventeenth century onwards, has the following characteristics4:1.The first element is the right to command obedience. Of course, the state has duties towards citizens like protection of life and property, but the emphasis of Machiavelli and Hobbes was that the state itself is a power—the central and supreme power in the land. The state has other functions but fundamentally, the state is about rule.2.Rule may take many forms such as monarchy, aristocracy, democracy. But wherever the state is sovereign, it involves the subjection of its subjects to the powers of the state, its domination over them. Even in modern democracies, where people are supposed to be sovereign, the machinery of the state does constitute a power, separate from the people.3.The concept of state entails the notion of power. This power can be exercised in different ways. Power includes the force to oblige conformity to its rules, laws and regulation. This implies both coercion and consent.4.State claims the monopoly of legitimate use of physical power within a given territory. It is essential if the state is to be sovereign that it cannot tolerate other powers within its jurisdiction.167 5.The state is a public power separate from the rulers and the ruled. Under absolutism, rulers and the state were identical and were not distinguished. The modern concept of state is not a secret private affair. It is operating in the world universally known, carrying out the force of established authority, established for all to serve the public affairs. Rulers may change, the state carries on.6.The public power is founded on those institutions which create and enforce laws such as legislature, executive, and judicial institutions. It is also founded on the bureaucratic institutions which are a part of the executive and other institutions of coersion like military and police.7.On whose side the power of the state is harnessed? This is a question which has evoked various responses. Liberal theories of the state claim that state represents the interests of the individual citizens. It provides conditions in which the life, limb and property of the individuals is protected. The interest they have in the state is to make society open to these forces, but at the same time prevent its breakdown. The pluralists recognize that the society is composed not of individuals but of groups and associations. These groups compete in the society to fulfill the interests of the individuals and a power is required to keep the competition of the groups peaceful and within the specified rules. This umpire is the state. The social democrats argue that there must be something over and above the particular interests which the state represents: the interests of the society as a whole. The state is the guardian of the common interest. The state must intervene for greater equality and social justice, without, however, destroying the competitive framework. The Marxist tradition argues that classes are fundamental groups in the society; that the interests inevitably conflict and these conflicts are generated by the very structure of the class-divided society. The power of the state will be monopolised directly by the dominant classes in society to expand, protect and advance their general interest. The libertarian philosophers in the twentieth century have once again challenged the social democratic perspective and forcefully argue for a minimal state. Again there are anarchists who want to do away with the state altogether. In fact one can 168 agree with MacIver that the ‘state has no finality, nor any ideal form‘. The perspectives of the state has been changing along with a change in the socio-economic reality and depending upon the needs and interests of a particular society at a particular juncture of history. In this chapter, we shall discuss the dominant perspectives of the state during the last 300 years.LIBERAL-INDIVIDUALISTIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE STATEThe intellectual tradition of liberalism is rooted in the historic movements of reformation, renaissance and industrial revolution in Europe and was expressed in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Bentham, James Mill, J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, T.H. Green and a host of other writers. It challenged the socio-political order based upon birth, privileges, religious fundamentalism, feudal economy and absolute power of the kings and replaced it by secularism, nationalism, free-market capitalism, consent-based state, individualism and humanism. As an ideology, it believed in change, dynamism, growth, mobility, accumulation and competition.The liberal perspective of the state has been a dynamic one i.e. it has been changing from time to time depending upon the interests and needs of the individual and society. While the early liberal view regarded the state as negative and preferred a theory of noninterference in the affairs of the individual, twentieth century liberalism is associated with the theory of welfare state. The neo-liberal theory is once again challenging the interventionist role of the state.CHARACTERISTICS OF LIBERAL-INDIVIDUALISTIC STATEThe early liberal perspective of the state was based upon individualism. It believed that the individual is the basis of all socio-economic and political systems, and all social progress depended upon the unhampered initiative of the individual. It did not see any contradiction in the self-interest of the individual and the interests of the society. Rather it viewed the liberty of the individual and the authority of the state as antithetical and declared that the freedom of the individual could be secured by limiting the sphere of state action. The goal of liberalism was to free the individual from every arbitrary and capricious authority, particularly, the authority of the state. It advocated that man is endowed with 169 certain inalienable and natural rights such as right to life, liberty and property-the rights which are not dependent upon the mercy of state or society but are inherent in the personality of man. Liberalism sought to build a theory of state based on the subjective claims of the individual rather than upon the objective reality.MECHANISTIC VIEW OF THE STATELiberalism rejected the earlier Greek view of the state as an organic community i.e. the state as a natural, necessary and ethical institution, and put forward the view of the state as a machine. The seventeenth century was the beginning of the machine age. The windmill, the pump, the printing press, the mechanism of the clock captured the imagination of early liberal writers. Even nature was regarded as a machine. The new idea of the state as a machine meant certain specific things. Firstly, it meant that the state was the result of human will. Since nature itself is a mechanism, society and state must obviously be mechanism. The artist who creates these machines is man and he who wishes to understand the state, must begin by understanding the man. Secondly, state is an artificial institution. Since state is the creation of man, it is the result of a genuine agreement on the part of the individuals, an agreement to bring law and order in the society. Man wants the state because it provides certain things which nature cannot give such as peace, order, prosperity etc. The lack of order arises not because man is bad but because he is a man. Thirdly, the state is for a specific purpose. State is not the whole society but only a special organisation of the society. Society may be a natural growth but at some stage of that growth, it created what it found necessary for its own survival, namely, the state. Fourthly, since state is created by man, it cannot be superior to the creator. It is something which exists for man and not vice versa. It creates a superior will and not superior reason. It is a regulatory power and this power is used not to create general good but to harmonize rational individual interests. The good of the individual may be interdependent, but it remains the individual good and not of the state. And lastly, like a machine, state is not something static; it is dynamic. It can change depending upon the interests and needs of man.Hobbes was the first thinker who gave the view of state as a machine. For Locke also, the state was nothing more than a device for securing the rights of the individual. The state is machine‘, 170 he wrote ‘which we create for our good and run for our purpose The utilitarians like Bentham and Mill also held that man seeks happiness, that pleasure alone is good, that the right action is that which produces the greatest happiness and the sole justification of the state is that it makes possible the greatest happiness by protecting the rights and liberty of the individual.THE BASIS OF THE STATE IS CONSENTLiberalism also rejected an earlier theory which believed that state is the result of superior physical force and that force is the basis of the state. It replaced this notion of ‘force‘ by the notion of ‘consent‘, and put forward the view that the state is the result of ‘mutual consent among the individuals‘. This meant that the individual is tied to the state because he, along with others, has made a contract with a person or a body of persons under which the person or the body of persons will receive the authority to make and enforce laws and the individual will get the guarantee of protection of his life and property. The liberal view believed that the state, if it is to be legitimate, must ultimately rest on the consent of the governed. And conversely, if the state violates the contract, the people have not only a right but a duty to resist it. Through the notion of consent, liberalism tried to safeguard the rights and liberties of the people and check the arbitrariness of the rulers. Consent was also made a precondition of the state because liberalism believed that the authority of the state was a restraint upon the individual freedom and it should be checked as far as possible.SUPREMACY OF LAWThe liberal perspective believed that social control, security and freedom could be best secured through man-made laws. Rejecting all other theories of social control, it held that law alone can command and restrain the individual and ‘government under the law‘ is the best choice. The idea of state as a legal entity was put forward by Bodin and Hobbes but was refined by Bentham and Austin who presented the state as a law-making body, as ‘a groups of persons organized for the promotion and maintenance of happiness and acting through laws towards that end‘. Law was conceived both as a product of individual will and an embodiment of reason. It was also a command as well as a restraint. Though opposed to 171 liberty, still it was necessary. Since it is the command of the sovereign, it is only when such an authority is habitually obeyed that a civil society exists. The legal state is a sovereign state and this sovereign power which acts through laws made by Parliament is the source of law. Rights, liberty, equality, democracy are all legal in character.In course of time this legal view came to be associated with the constitutional perspective. Liberalism advocated that every state must draw a constitution which should define the power and functions of the various branches of government and their inter-relations, as well as the rights of the citizens. The constitution will act as the supreme law of the land. However, the purpose of the constitutions was not to attack the sovereignty or the law but to make the best use of them by regulating and channelizing them through various departments of the government.STATE IS A NECESSARY EVILInspite of being the creation of man, liberalism saw the state in purely negative terms. It was termed as a necessary evil. It was necessary because only it could provide law, order, security of life and property, but it was an evil also because it was an enemy of human liberty. Since liberalism considered the rights and liberties of the individual as sacred, any increase in the functions of the state was seen as decrease in the liberty of the individual. Hence the state was seen as having a negative function: to provide security of life and property and leave the individual free to pursue his good in his own way. The philosophy of state as a necessary evil and the self-regulating economy left a very limited role for the government. The liberal slogan was ‘that government is the best which governs the least‘. To illustrate this point further, Adam Smith restricted the functions of the state to i) protect the society from violence and invasion, ii) protect every member of society from injustice and oppression of every other member, and iii) to erect and maintain certain public works and certain public institutions in which the individual may not be interested because it would be unprofitable7. Similarly, Willium Senior wrote, ‘The essential business of government is to afford defence, to protect the community against foreign and domestic violence and fraud‘8. Bentham reduced the task of government to security and freedom. Another writer Thomas Paine said, ‘While society in any state is a blessing, 172 government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil‘9. Herbert Spencer advocated the doctrine of ‘survival of the fittest‘ and pleaded that the state should have minimum role in the socio-economic sphere.LAISSEZ FAIRE CAPITALIST ECONOMYThe liberal perspective of the state had its roots in the laissez faire capitalist economy. The theory was derived from Adam Smith‘s Wealth of Nations and was supplemented by the works of David Ricardo, Malthus, Bentham, James Mill and others. It held private property as the sacred right of the individual-the right to freely own or dispose of, buy or sell, hire and fire, and make profits. Free trade, free contract, free economy, free market, competition were the hallmark of this theory. The liberal capitalist economy was based on the assumption that economics and politics are mutually independent. As Adam Smith wrote, ‘No two characteristics seem more inconsistent than those of trader and sovereign‘10. Similarly, Bentham also believed that in the self-regulating uncontrolled economy, the state had no role to play. The liberal perspective advocated complete economic freedom, especially freedom from government regulation. Any restraint on the profit, interest, rent, wages, salary was seen as a hindrance to economic progress. In short, in the economic sphere, the liberal-individualistic perspective gave a theory of free-market capitalism and unlimited rights to property. Thus it served as an ideology of the rising bourgeoisie.JOHN LOCKE‘S VIEWS ON THE STATELocke was an English philosopher of late seventeenth century who, along with Hobbes and Rousseau, is known for the social contract theory of the origin of state. He wrote in the context of Glorious Revolution of 1688 and we find early liberal, democratic and constitutional traits in his philosophy. Locke‘s theory of state was an attempt to adapt theory to the political form of government that was established in England after the Glorious Revolution. His theory had great historical influence. The ideas that the purpose of the state is to preserve the freedom and property of the individual and that the people have a right to change the government if it does not provide protection of life, liberty and property became the fundamental principles of liberalism. Locke‘s views on the state are contained in his book Two Treatises on Government, the 173 main points of which are as follows: STATE IS BASED ON CONSENTWe can get an idea of Locke‘s views on the state from his definition of political power as ‘a right to making laws, with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury and all this only for the public good‘11. It follow from this definition that the essence of the state lies in i) power to make laws with penalties, ii) preservation of property, iii) use of force for the enforcement of laws to be backed by the community, and iv) the exercise of power for public good. Let us discuss these points in detail to get a clear picture.The ‘use of force... to be backed by the community as a whole‘ in simple words means consent of the society. Locke‘s state is a consent state. ‘Men being...by nature all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of his estate and subject to the political power of another without his own consent‘12. He used the social contract theory of the origin of state to emphasize the fact that the government must be founded on the basis of consent. In his social contract, it is the civil society which creates a secondary power (in the form of government) to make laws with penalties for the regulation and preservation of property. The consent can be express or tacit. It can be given either directly by voting, public debate etc. or by simply continuing to live in the state and obey its laws. Conversely, if the government is unable to protect the rights of the individual, this consent can be withdrawn.STATE IS A MEANS AND INDIVIDUAL IS THE ENDLocke also believed in the mechanistic view of the state. The state is a means and not an end, it exists for the people who form it; people do not exist for it. He repeatedly asserted that the end purpose of the government is the good of the community. ‘It is a machine‘, he wrote, ‘which we create for our good and run for our purpose and it is both dangerous and unnecessary to speak of some mystical good of the state different from and independent of the lives of its individual citizens‘13. State or government is something devised by man for his good and run solely for this purpose.174 STATE IS LIMITED AND CONSTITUTIONALLocke rejected the idea of an absolute state and replaced it by a limited, constitutional state based upon rule of law. Firstly, it is limited by the laws of nature which give three basic rights—right to life liberty and property—to the individual and for the protection of which it has been established. Secondly, it is also limited in terms of functions. The state has been created for a specific job, i.e., preservation of property and its authority is confined to securing these ends. Also since it draws power from the people, it holds power in trust for the people. Thirdly, the state is also limited in its powers. According to the definition of political power, the state has the power to make laws for the regulation and preservation of property. It cannot make arbitrary laws. The political authority must rest on the established laws, promulgated and known to the people. Laws must be same for the rich and the poor. Their purpose is none other than the good of the people. They must not raise taxes on the property of the people without their consent. And lastly, legislature cannot transfer its power of making laws to anybody else. Locke‘s state becomes constitutional in the sense of being limited both in functions as well as powers.A TOLERANT STATELocke favoured a tolerant state. His justification of religious toleration constitutes an important aspect of liberal perspective of state. Taking lessons from the horrors of religious wars and how the religious feuds were making the state weak and the maintenance of peace and order difficult, Locke stressed toleration as a matter of policy and advocated religious freedom. He held the view that in view of the uncertainty and vagueness of religious speculation about the nature of deity and his relation to man, every individual should have the power to interpret the scriptures according to his own reason and live up to it. Also since the magistrate derives his power from men and not from God, his sole concern must be with what is necessary for the achievement of the ends for which the state has been established and not with the regulation of religious faith. The state has the authority to interfere in the religious affairs only if they interfere with the civil purpose of preserving peace and order.175 A NEGATIVE STATEFor Locke, the state is primarily a negative state in the sense that it is not an agency of social welfare but only a machine concerned with the protection and preservation of the rights of the individual through the promulgation of laws. It is not concerned with improving the lot of people but rather to leave them free. It is an individualistic state concerned with protection and not promotion. Its function is to lay down conditions for the use of rights and hold a check on the self-interest. It is a mechanism through which men must act as they ought to act for public good.RIGHT TO REVOLTHave the people a right to resist or overthrow a government which deprives them of their freedom or rights? Locke justifies the right of the people to revolt against the government. He asserts that government is a trust which has been set up for the fulfillment of certain objectives and if it fails to carry out these objectives, people have a right to revolt against the government and change it. Both state and sovereignty are limited by the rights of man. However, the right to revolt should not be an act of minority because the contract is the work of the major portion of people. Also so long as change is orderly, so long as a government is replaced with another much like it and the fabric of society is left undisturbed, people can change the rulers. A violent change has no sanction in Locke‘s theory of state.BENTHAM‘S VIEWS ON STATEJermy Bentham was a philosopher, jurist and social reformer of England. He is an important figure in the development of liberal thought. His writings have become classical text in philosophy, government, law, social administration and economics. His ideas formed the basis of Philosophical Radicalism and he had considerable influence on the great reforms of the Victorian period in England. His views on the state are scattered in a number of writings.THE BASIS OF THE STATE IS UTILITARIANISMIn the field of state and politics, Bentham is known as the founder of Utilitarian school. By utilitarianism, he meant ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number‘. Utilitarianism is based upon the theory of hedonism. It means that all men seek pleasure 176 and avoid pain. Pleasure is the only thing desirable in and for itself. Wealth, position, power, health even virtue itself is desired merely as a means to the ultimate end of pleasure. What gives pleasure is utility and is desirable and what gives pain does not have utility and is avoided. In the opening paragraph of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham writes: ‘Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do‘14. However, all happiness being impossible, man must seek greatest happiness in terms of quantity. Similarly, the greatest happiness of all people being impossible, we must seek the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Bentham applied the principle and method of utility to the spheres of law, politics and state in order to remove old beliefs and superstitions which not only blocked the progress of people but also contributed to their misery. Bentham accepted Locke‘s ideas regarding the state as based upon consent but justified them on the new grounds of utilitarianism. He rejected both the social contract and the natural right theories which were the hallmark of Locke‘s views on state. For Bentham, state is an instrument devised by man to satisfy his desires and reflect his will. The sole justification for it is that it provides peace, order, security and helps them to satisfy these desires. It is a means to promote happiness of the individual.STATE IS A LAW MAKING AGENCYUtility, in the context of the state, is expressed though law. It is law which unites people together and puts them on the road of utility. Bentham considered law as an important instrument of expression of utility and regarded legislation as the only device through which utility could be attained. Hence, for Bentham, the state is a law-making body. It is only through law that the state rewards or punishes so as to increase the happiness and decrease the pain. The purpose of law is to regulate the motive of self-interest. Mere morality is not sufficient and unless law comes into operation, bad things cannot be out of place.LAW AS COMMAND OF THE SOVEREIGNBentham believed in the command theory of law. For him, law is the command of the sovereign. It relates the rulers with the 177 ruled and implies obedience and in its absence punishment. The sovereign is the source of law. All men are equal in the eyes of law and all have equal rights as regards the promotion of happiness. Again since sovereignty is absolute and unlimited, hone of the acts of the state can be called illegal. It is absurd to say that sovereign authority can exceed its limits. Neither the law of nature nor the laws of reason, nor the natural rights can set a limit on the power of the state. The only limit to the sovereignty is the possibility of effective resistance by the subjects.NEGATIVE CHARACTER OF STATEInspite of the fact that the state is an instrument to promote the happiness of the individual, the character of the state remains negative. Believing that men are moved by their self-interest and everybody is the best judge of his pleasure or pain, Bentham came to the conclusion that the main function of the state was to remove all the institutional restrictions on the free action of the individual. The purpose of the state is not to foster and promote character among the people but only to restrain them from indulging in activities which affect general happiness by punishing them. To increase national wealth, means of subsistence and enjoyment, the general rule, according to Bentham is that to achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest number, ‘nothing should be done or attempted by the government‘. The motto or watchword of the government on these occasions ought to be BE QUIET. He reduced the functions of government to security and freedom. By security he meant i) civil and political liberty, and ii) protection of person and property. Freedom meant leaving the individual to pursue his own maximum enjoyment in his own way. Except security and freedom, all other functions were considered non-agenda on the part of government.15 Thus as an instrument to promote the happiness of the individual, the state is a negative state.A CONSTITUTIONAL AND DEMOCRATIC STATEBy conceiving the end of legislation as security and freedom, Bentham forsaw the needs and aspirations of modern democratic state. As compared to monarchy and aristocracy, he preferred the democratic form of government because a representative democracy could more likely, in the long run, secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number by adopting constitutional devices like, 178 suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by ballot, election of Prime Minister by Parliament, and appointment of civil servants through competitive examinations. Also he favoured democracy because he realized that there were greater chances of a comprehensive code of laws based upon the principle of utility being accepted by a democratic government. However, he was fully conscious that liberal government cannot be equated with weak government. Devices for legal limitations on sovereignty such as bill of rights, separation of powers, checks and balances were not accepted by him. He accepted the complete sovereignty of parliament except that it can be challenged only by responsible public opinion. He was ready to give voting right to the people (though with qualifications), reduce the term of the parliament, but was not ready to compromise with the sovereignty of the parliament or the tyrrany of the majority. Apart from it, he favoured unicameral legislature, vote by secret ballot, recall of public officials, civil and criminal code and prison reforms. These contributions went a long way in the development of liberal perspective of the state.CONCLUSIONThe liberal-individualistic perspective of state was highly individualistic. It gave priority to the interests, rights and liberties of the individual and believed that all social progress depended upon the unhampered initiative of the individual. It regarded the state as human institution, created by man for certain specific purposes like law and order, peace and security of life and property. It believed in the existence of certain inherent rights of the individual such as right to life, liberty and property. The guiding principle was ‘maximum possible individual freedom and minimum state action‘. This freedom of the individual could be secured by leaving him alone and allowing him to pursue his good in his own way so long as he did not interfere with the similar good of others. Hence it considered the state as a ‘necessary evil‘ and advocated the principle ‘that government is the best which governs the least‘ The government was conceived as having negative functions such as protection of the individual, his rights and freedom.The liberal perspective of laissez faire state came under heavy attack from 1850s onwards. The policy of non-interference, particularly in the economic field, led to the concentration of capital in a few hands, monopolistic control of trade and emergence179 of big industrial houses on the one hand, and the exploitation of the working class, their poor working conditions, long hours of work, lack of safety devices, mass illiteracy, ill health and unemployment on the other. This not only increased the gap between rich and poor but also created a number of socio-economic contradictions. Slowly it began to be realized that this perspective of the state was inadequate to fulfill the social, economic and political goals set out by liberalism. The humanists criticized the negative perspective of the state on moral grounds. The Utopian socialists like Robert Owen, Charles Fourier and Saint Simon criticized the capitalist order and appealed to the conscience of the capitalists to take care of the working class. Karl Marx challenged the liberal capitalist system as such and declared that the salvation of the working class laid in the overthrow of the liberal-capitalist state as such. Thus, in order to meet the challenge of the working class, to check the economic crises, unemployment and the rising tide of socialist ideology, liberalism revised its perspective about the state. Over a period of hundred years, the laissez faire liberal perspective of the state changed to social democratic welfare state.SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PERSPECTIVE OF THE STATEThe social democratic perspective of the state emerged out of the re-examination of the nature and functions of the state, the nature of liberty, relation between state and economy, and between liberty and authority. It also involved the question of individual human nature and its relation to society. The revision is also known as a step towards positive liberalism and was carried out by J.S. Mill, T.H. Green, D.G. Ritchie in the nineteenth century and Hobson, Hobhouse, Lindsay, Barker, G.D.H. Cole, Laski, Keynes, MacIver, Galbriath and others in the present century.The initiative in this direction was taken by J.S. Mill who viewed the state in positive terms. He regarded the state as a product of human will and not based upon self-interest. As a student of Bentham, though Mill held state interference in the affairs of the individual as opposed to liberty, yet he realized that such an interference could be justified in certain cases because in the struggle for existence, men do not start from the basis of equality. Land, industry and knowledge being the monopoly of a small minority, the state can interfere to remove these inequalities if they become intolerable for the masses. On these grounds, he 180 justified state action in controlling the monopolies, fixing working hours in the industries, improving working conditions and maintaining public health, public education etc. T.H. Green went a step further and declared that the heart of liberalism was the idea of social good. The self is a social self and freedom is as much individual as it is social. The function of the state is not to leave the individual alone but to remove, through positive action, many of the obstacles in the development of the personality of the individual such as ignorance, lack of education, poverty, unhealthy sanitary conditions etc.During twentieth century, liberalism came to be associated with ‘equality of opportunity‘. Whereas for Mill and Green, the problem was how to reconcile the individual and social interests, in the first quarter of twentieth century, the problem was how to reconcile capitalism and socialism. And liberalism achieved this by enlarging the conception of liberty as well as functions of the state. Moreover, the first world war, the communist revolution in Russia, rise of Fascism, and the world economic depression brought great upheavals in the economic, social and political conditions of the people. These developments resulted in the theoretical justification for the extension and enlargement of state action for the promotion of social good. The extension of state control, though exercised strictly through democratic means, was believed to be not a threat to liberty; rather it was the only effective way of enlarging it and making its meaning real for the society as a whole. Schemes of social welfare through state control which eventually led to a planned economy, self-government in industry, social security, limitation on property right and such other measures found expression in the writings of R.H. Tawney, Harold Laski, J.M. Keynes, R.M. MacIver, John Galbriath and many others.For example, Laski viewed the state as an organization for enabling the mass of men to realize social good on the largest possible scale. Similarly, J.M. Keynes argued that to save liberalism and capitalism, the ‘state should control the capitalist economy‘ and that investment, profit, taxation, wages are the state subjects.16 Another writer, John Galbraith wrote that the liberal state should get rid of the old classical wisdom (i.e. of laissez faire state) and adopt socialist measures for the welfare of the capitalist society.17Thus the liberal perspective of the state which emerged out of 181 the above developments is known as the social democratic welfare state. It was believed to be a kind of state which through welfare measures want to bring harmony, balance and equilibrium among different groups in the society; through positive interference wants to build a regulated capitalist economy based upon economic planning; welfare measures for the working class such as improved working conditions, social security, health, education; and maintain a democratic political order in which the rights and liberties of the people will be assured and peoples‘ participation in the political process is guarantied.The main characteristics of the social democratic perspective of the state can be enumerated as follows:1.The social democratic perspective of the state continues to have faith in the autonomy, rights and liberties of the individual but considers man as a part of the social whole. It believes that the liberties of the individual must be reconciled with social good.2.All restraints on the freedom of the individual are not evil. Rather, they are its guarantee. Freedom through compulsion though paradoxical, is justified and practically valid. Only on this ground the social and welfare legislation could be justified.3.The state is positive in character. It is capable of performing socially useful functions on a mass scale. It is an instrument for the development of human personality and can be used by the people to further their common interest, to ameliorate their conditions under which they live and work. Apart from internal and external security, it can be equally used for social and economic security. In other words, the sphere of state activity is not limited to the police and military functions but also includes the maintenance of a minimum standard of living for the whole community i.e. in respect of wage rates, employment, upbringing of children, prevention of destitution, conservation and economic utilization of natural resources, development of facilities for education, promotion of industrial, agricultural, commercial and financial development.4.The state must be a democratic and responsible state. It must possess democratic institutions such as written constitution, representative government, universal adult franchise, guarantee of civil and political liberties, party organization etc. A state which believes in welfare but is not democratic cannot be regarded a liberal state. On this ground, the liberal perspective excluded the communist states of USSR and East European countries from the category of social democratic states.182 5.The state operates within the framework of regulated market economy. Though unlike the laissez faire capitalist economy, the social democratic state believes that unrestricted operation of the market has proved dangerous both for the individual and the economy, still, it does not want to abolish the capitalist economy. Rather it wants to streamline it in the overall interest of the society through economic and social reforms, improving the conditions of the working class and taking measures to contain poverty, illiteracy, unemployment etc. It believes that economic insecurities are caused by social forces and could be avoided by purposeful social action. In short, it wants to rectify the evils of capitalist system through ‘mixed economy‘ or ‘managed economy‘.6.The state is an eternal and permanent institution of society. It does not belong to a particular class. It tries to intervene positively and reshape the economy in such a manner that a minimum of social living is created for all citizens irrespective of their status and class in the society.HAROLD LASKI‘S VIEW ON STATELaski inherited a genuine liberal tradition and aimed at an effective restatement of it for the present generation. The Marxian influence gave Laski‘s writings a predominantly socialist colour. He remained a supporter of the liberal tradition but thoroughly criticized it for its inadequacies. He is considered as the most representative thinker of his age whose writings reflected the stress and strain of every important phase of political change during the inter-war period.The character of the modern state, according to Laski, is determined largely by forces such as the rise of property of the working class and the class consciousness which has been generated by the industrial revolution. Concepts of an earlier age like liberty and laissez faire have to be revised and broadened in the light of new economic reality so as to be true in the present context. His views on the state were based upon the revision of key concepts of classical liberalism. These are scattered in his books such as A183 Grammer of Politics, An Introduction to Politics, The State in Theory and Practice, The Rise of European Liberalism etc. His view on the state can be summerized as follows.BELIEF IN POSITIVE INTERVENTIONIST STATELaski‘s views on the state have two recurring themes: i) the business of the state is to promote the common good, and ii) fundamental rights are the condition of freedom and their guarantee, alone defines the character of democratic state. Like T.H. Green, Laski believed that state is an organization for enabling the mass of men to realize social good on the largest possible scale. It is an association to protect the interests of men as citizens. It is an agent of the society, a coordinating agency or a public service corporation. He was fully convinced that the enlightened self-interest and open competition cannot establish a well-ordered society. His notion of state rests upon a frank abandonment of the principle of laissez faire and non-interference. He writes, ‘laissez faire as a systematic principle ended with the outbreak of the first world war in 1914...The problem in the modern state, in fact, is not whether government intervention is desirable. The truth is that the intervention is essential and the problem is simply of methods whereby it can bear maximum fruit. For, to leave to the unfettered play of economic forces the supply of those needs by the satisfaction of which we live is ‘to maintain a society empty of all moral principles and as such a society more surely moves to disaster than at any period in history‘.FUNCTIONS OF THE STATEThe social good of the individual can be realized through the positive intervention of the state. According to Laski, with the availability of voting rights and increase in the overall consciousness of the people, the state cannot leave the individual alone but must become an instrument for securing the general welfare on the largest scale possible. Enumerating the functions of the state, Laski writes that apart from defence and police, the control over the industry, social legislation including functions such as education and insurance against sickness and unemployment, encouragement to scientific research, regulation of system of currency and taxation, maintenance of a system of courts are some of the other functions which the state must perform.18 The individual is associated with 184 the state in one form or the other and whatever be the character of the state, he would like to secure himself against the inevitable costs of life. Hence facilities against sickness and old age, the cost of education, fixation of wages and working hours in industries, giving free meals to school children etc.—all these are required to be provided in such a way that the cost of humanity is brought down to the lowest possible limit. According to Laski, ‘state insurance becomes as obvious as a state post office or a state police force‘19. The state is morally bound to provide, what he calls, ‘Civic minimum‘ i.e., work, shelter, cloth and employment. The state must continuously justify itself through its performance. We obey the state not because what it is but what it can become.DEMOCRATIC WELFARE STATEFor achieving the objective of social welfare, Laski rejected both the classical liberal laissez faire capitalism as well as Marxism and advocated a policy of rapid transformation to democratic socialism. He emphasized the need for a planned reconstruction of the economy, making it conform to the minimal economic needs of the community. And he contended that the chief agency of this transformation is the state. In this context, he regarded the state less as an instrument of class exploitation and more as an agency of the community whose collective authority must be utilized towards this end.Laski put forward the idea of social planning as a way of achieving economic freedom for the vast majority of the people. Unless the state takes over ownership and control of leading industries and rationally organizes the process of production so as to make a more equitable distribution of the material goods and eliminate the unjust privileges of the rich, neither freedom nor democracy could be assured. Thus in Laski‘s scheme of things, control over the industry is very significant. The state should control the industry or the industry would control the state‘20, he writes. The control is necessary from consumer‘s as well as producers‘ point of view. Laski divided the commodities needed by the citizens into three categories: (i) commodities without which life is impossible and which require continuous access; (ii) commodities which do not destroy life but may destroy that which gives flavour of beauty and comfort, (iii) commodities the need of which is not universal but which supply a genuine quality to a portion of mankind. On 185 the first group of commodities, Laski desires immediate control of the state through nationalization. Such industries should be operated not for profit but for use. There must be maximum of continuity in the services they afford with stringent regulation on production, selling price and distribution. On the second group of commodities, the state can intervene to impose forms and standards. In the third category, the intervention may be necessary to impose standards in wages, hours of work, economic security etc. On the whole, Laski is of the opinion that in any national schemes of industry, the ownership of the means of production should be vested in the state. Industry exists for the benefit of the community and the surplus value created by it belongs to the community. State regulation is desirable for the worker to secure for him the minimum rights essential as a human being and for the consumer to secure for him continuity of supply, reasonable price and quality. In short Laski declared that unless the acquisitivenss of capitalist class is restricted (which is possible when the state controls over the ownership of the major industries), neither equality nor freedom will be possible for the common man.PLANNED DEMOCRACYAccording to Laski, the purpose of the state being the social good, it must have a broad base for consultation and sharing of responsibility. This is possible through planned democracy because this is the only path to the realization of equality, security and positive freedom At political level, it means extending opportunities to the individual to take an equally efficient part in the management of public affairs. At institutional level, democracy imply a constitutional state, representative government, rule of law, independent judiciary, universal adult franchise and decentralization of political authority. In this context, Laski was a strong advocate of democratic rights and civil liberties. He said that the state must be based on a system of equal rights. The larger the system of rights, the more democratic its character. Rights guarantee an equal share of political power and also put restrictions on political power. Moreover rights imply liberty and liberty implies equality.At economic level, democracy implies transformation of capitalism to planned economy without any radical disruption and with the consent of the citizens. While on the one hand, it means 186 nationalization of key industries by the state, on the other hand, it means extending economic rights to the working class such as right to work, adequate wages, reasonable hours of work, participation in the industry and assuring a minimum standard of living. The only way of assuring freedom of the individual is to bring this transformation through the consent of the people. Once the fear of want and insecurity have been eliminated and the opportunities for participation have been offered to workers, a sense of liberation will follow.Thus Laski views the state as a social democratic welfare state. It is a state which exists to promote social good. This social good can be achieved, by positive interference by the state in the economic, social and cultural affairs of the individual with a view to ensure a civil minimum to each and every member of the society, and by democratic methods of participation and consent and ensuring the rights and liberties of the people.CONCLUSIONThe social democratic perspective conceives the state as positive, interventionist, democratic and welfare state. It is a state which has evolved from the laissez fare state by a process of increased interference in the operation in the market economy at various levels and gradually regulating the power of the capital. It considers the state as a welfare state, capable of performing socially useful functions, and creating conditions for good life. In the overall interest of the society, the state can check the individual capitalist; through economic and social reforms, it can help in reducing poverty, illiteracy, unemployment etc. The institutional arrangements for achieving the individual good are democracy, representative government, constitutionalism, parliamentary methods, universal adult franchise, party organization etc. The state coordinates different interests and classes in the society. It does not belong to a particular class but to the society as a whole.LIBERTARIAN VIEW OF THE STATEWHAT IS LIBERTARIANISMWith the rise of liberalism as a theory of welfare state, its functions increased manifold. It was during this transformation that the state acquired its present all-pervasive form. However, 187 the fight for the classical liberal laissez faire perspective of the state was not given up easily. After the second world war, an important contribution to the theory of liberalism was made by theorists whose allegiance lay with the early classical rather than welfare liberalism. Prominent among them have been F.A. Hayek, Karl Popper, Talmon, Milton Friedman, I. Berlin, M. Rothbard, Robert Nozic. This new movement which became popular in USA and England after 1960s is known by the name Libertarianism. Etymologically, libertarianism means free will or free advocacy of liberty. It is the most radical form of individualism and advocates pure capitalist economy as the surest expression and defence of individuality. In political theory, it answers once again the fundamental question i.e. what are the legitimate functions of the state—in a radical way. There are two branches within libertarianism known as anarchists and the ‘minarchists‘. The anarchist group believes that all government is illegitimate and even the night watchman state is too extensive. The other group is critical of the social welfare state and wants to go back to the minimal state. Holding the liberty of individual as sacroscant, they assert that the welfare measures can lead to a collectivist state.PLEA FOR A MINIMAL STATEAs stated above, libertarianism arose as a reaction against the social welfare state. Hayek in his book The Road to Serfdom (1944) warned that the adoption of welfare/socialist policies would bring totalitarian government in the long run. Any tolerable future for the western civilization would demand that the socialist ideas be abandoned and the classical liberalism may be restored once again. Like early liberals, he considered the state as the greatest enemy and any interference with the right to private property as an assault upon the rights of the individual. On the economic side, Milton Friedman suggested that competitive capitalism promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other. He laid stress on individualism. To the freeman, the country is a collection of individuals who compose it. It is on the lines of J.S. Mill: the great advances of civilization...were the product of individual genius of strongly held minority view, of a social climate permitting variety and diversity. The economic life is composed in the same way as individuals each pursuing his own interest, yet also 188 cooperating to produce general benefits‘22. Another writer, Ralf Dahrendorf complained that the welfare state produces the iron cage of bureaucratic bondage and to a great extent repeated the traditional liberal attitude of suspicion towards the government and the state. He wrote. ‘There is no such thing as benevolent government. Government is an unfortunate necessity...It is always and by definition liable to encroach upon the individual liberties. More than that, there is a need for less government‘23.VIEWS OF ROBERT NOZICThe libertarian movement received large scale academic attention with the appearance of Robert Nozic‘s Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), in which he developed a more powerful definition of the libertarian view of minimal state. Nozic talks about the state in the context of individual rights. Following the tradition of John Locke, Nozic speaks of prior and inalienable rights of the individual possessed independent of society. He says that rights are the property of the individual and are so strong and far reaching that they raise a number of basic questions such as: what, if anything, the state may do? how much room do individual rights leave for the state? what is the nature of the state? what are its legitimate functions? and what is its justification?The state, according to Nozic, should be a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contract and so on. Any more extensive state will violate person‘s right not to be forced to do certain things and as such would be unjustified. ‘The minimal state is inspiring as well‘ as right.‘ What is important is that the state must not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, and prohibit activities of people for their own good or protection.Since Nozic strongly believes in the rights of the individuals, he seriously considers the anarchists‘ claim that the monopoly of use of force by the stae may violate individual‘s rights and hence the state is immoral. Against this claim, Nozic argues that the state will arise from anarchy even though no one intends this. Individuals in the state of nature (as explained by Locke) would find it in their interest to allow a ‘dominant protective agency‘ to emerge which would have de facto monopoly of force and could 189 constitute a ‘state like entity‘. The formation of such an entity, if done in an appropriate way, may violate no one‘s rights, i.e., if it does not goes beyond its legitimate power of protection, justice and defence.Justifying the minimal state, he categorically asserts that liberty must get absolute precedence over equality. He opposed the policies of progressive taxation and positive discrimination and asserts that realization of liberty should not be inhibited by the policies of the government in providing public health care, education or minimum standard of living. He argues that those who own wealth may voluntarily adopt some redistribution measures but there should be no compulsory redistribution by the state because it may transgress the liberty of those who have property. For Nozic, the state is no more than a night-watchman, protecting the inviolable rights of the citizens.Nozic does not agree with the egalitarian view of John Rawls that a person is not the privileged possessor of his skills and talents and the rewards accruing out of them; that a person capable of amassing more wealth than others because of his superior talent has no automatic right to retain his wealth; that the skills and labour are the common assets of the society as a whole, and that they should be distributed in such a way as to help the poorest of the poor. He says that the welfare notion which advocates that it is the society which allocates the resources is not only wrong but illegitimate because there is no such thing as ‘society‘ except in the minimal sense of being an aggregate of individuals. ‘There are only individual people with their own individual lives,‘21 and society is no more than the sum of its individual components. State intervention means appropriation of both ‘one‘s resources and one‘s self26. According to Nozic, ‘Seizing the results of someone‘s labour is equivalent to seizing hours from him and directing him to carry on various activities. If people force you to do certain work or unrewarded work, for a certain period of time, they decide what you are to do and what purpose your work is to serve apart from your decisions. This process whereby they take this decision from you makes them a part-owner of you; it gives them a property right in you‘27. Thus the welfare state is a threat to liberty and independence of the individual because individual is the sole owner of himself and his talents.190 How far the non-interventionist, minimal and market dominated concept of libertarian state is justified? Nozic‘s views are based on certain inalienable rights of the individual, possessed independent of society. However, a feature of the modern state is that it has recognized a range of individual rights which were not recognized by ancient Greek or medieval society. Rights are socially and historically constituted. In fact, the rights which Nozic defends are actually those rights which were historically specific to market and were defined and constituted in the context of capitalist relations. They are neither natural nor prior to the state. Secondly, if the resource allocation is to be done by the market, it cannot be equal because in the capitalist society, the market also privileges some groups over others within the system of production and exchange. Hence, the ideal of a free and sovereign individual choosing what to do with his resources is a myth.Now the question is why libertarians offer a view so different from the liberal-welfare theory of state. According to David Miller, this is for two reasons: i) libertarianism maintains an extremely strong doctrine of individual rights, particularly the right of, individuals to acquire and hold property. Their concept of property, rights and freedom excluded welfarism because the claim to these rights require compulsory labour of some on behalf of others, and (ii) libertarianism believes that the operation of an unrestricted system of laissez faire capitalism is the most desirable social system. People unfettered by the state compulsions would be likely to establish this sort of economic system, and it is all for the best that they can do.CONCLUSIONLibertarianism is an attempt to revive the liberal-individualistic theory of the state. It arose as a reaction against the social welfare and collectivist states. It believes in the non-interventionist, minimal state. It believes in the inalienable rights of the individual, particularly right to acquire and hold property and an unrestricted system of laissez faire capitalism as the most desirable social system. Whereas the liberal welfare notion believes that the rights of the people can only be secured by an interventionist state, libertarians believe that intervention is an attack on fundamental freedoms and rights of the individual. The wave of liberalization and privatization of 191 the economy and withdrawal of the state from welfare measures are the off-shoots of the libertarian perspective of the state.MARXIST PERSPECTIVES OF THE STATEAs we have seen above, the liberal perspectives consider the state as a human association concerned with the maintenance of law, order, peace and security, and to serve the common interests of the society. Liberalism considers the state as a welfare state. The state represents the society as a whole, and stands above the particular interests, partial groups and classes. Its main function is to see that the competition between groups, interests and classes remains orderly and that the ‘national interest‘ is not impaired in the process. In short, state is the linchpin of the whole social system.When we come to the Marxist perspectives of state, we find that Marxism categorically rejects the liberal view of the state. The rejection is based upon the Marxist view of society as a class society—a society where the interests of different classes are fundamentally opposite and always at odds. The state in such a society, instead of being the common trustee of the whole society, becomes an essential means of class domination. The purpose of the state, Marxism claims, is to safeguard the existing order and to suppress the resistance of other classes. The emergence of the state consisted in the formation of a special public authority having army, police, prisons and various other institutions of coercion. In a society based upon private ownership of the means of production, the state is always an instrument of exploitation, a dictatorship of a special kind for the suppression of the exploited masses. Marxism regards the state as an institution whose function is to maintain and defend class domination and exploitation. The task of Marxist theory of revolution, which Marx held to be the inevitable outcome of the class struggle, is to establish a new society based upon a new economic order. This will be done by the proletariat by controlling the state power. The object of proletarian revolution is not to establish class rule but to abolish private property, reconstruct the economic system on the socialist basis and to establish a classless society. Thus the classical Marxist theory of state is also a guide to establishing a classless society where the state becomes a superfluous organ. Contemporary Marxist writers have different 192 views on the nature of state which we shall discuss in the course of this chapter. The Marxist perspectives of state can he studied in the context of their views on the definition, origin, function and nature of the state.WHAT IS STATEOn the question of state, Marx himself never attempted a systematic analysis although his views and those of Engles‘ are expressed in various writings. Against Hegel‘s claim that state is an embodiment of society‘s general interest and standing above particular interests, Marx proclaimed that the state does not stand for the general interest but defends only the class interests of property. The view of state as an instrument of the ruling class because of its ownership and control of the means of production remains fundamental throughout Marx and Engles. The most famous formulation of the Marxist notion of state occurs in the Communist Menifesto: ‘The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie‘29. Similarly, Engles wrote, ‘The state, as a rule, is the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of state, becomes also the politically dominant class and thus acquires a new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed classes‘30 Lenin, in his book State and Revolution echoed the same views. ‘The State‘, according to him, ‘is a machine for maintaining the rule of one class over the other. It has always been a coercive apparatus, which stood outside the society and consisted of groups of people engaged in ruling. Whenever we talk of state, we talk of a group of persons in the society who ruled, who commanded, who dominated and who in order to maintain their power, possessed an apparatus of physical coercion, an apparatus of violence.31 Human emancipation can never be achieved so long as state exists in the society. Hence, Marxism calls for the abolition of state through the revolutionary transformation of economic and social order and the establishment of a classless and stateless society.ORIGIN OF STATEThe class nature of the state is made more clear by Engles through his theory of origin of the state. According to him, the state has not existed from eternity. There have been societies that 193 did without it, which had no idea of the state and its power. It was only at a particular juncture of history when the society was divided into propertied and non-propertied classes that the state became a necessity in order to protect the interests of the propertied class and keep the conflicts arising out of property in check. ‘The state‘, Engles writes ‘is a product of society at certain stage of development, it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms and classes with conflicting economic interests might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power seemingly standing above society that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of order, and this power arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is known as state‘.32Making a distinction between state and other forms of social organizations, Engles wrote that the state had three special features: i) it divided its subjects according to territory, ii) it established a public power which consisted of armed men and other coercive institutions like prison, and iii) to maintain public power, it began to levy taxes on the population. Having public power and right to levy taxes, the state began to stand, though an organ of society, above the society‘33. Also, since the state arose in the midst of conflict of classes, it is as a rule ‘the state of the most powerful economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, also became the politically dominant class and thus acquired new means of holding down and exploiting an oppressed class. On the basis of historical analysis, Engles reached the conclusion that though the state had assumed many forms such as monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, yet it has remained a tool of the ruling classes for oppressing the propertyless class.FUNCTIONS OF THE STATESince the state is an instrument of a class and serves the interests of the dominant class or classes in the society, the role and functions of the state also depends upon the nature and purpose of the ruling classes. In other words, the functions of the state in the capitalist society can never be the same as that of the socialist society. Moreover, since Marxism wants to abolish the state altogether 194 through the proletarian revolution, we have to bear in mind that Marxism talks about the functions of a state which has to come to an end one day. In fact, Marxism makes use of the state for building a new socialist society.FUNCTIONS AND ROLE OF THE STATE IN THE CAPITALIST SOCIETYThe class domination in the capitalist states is perpetuated primarily through three kind of functions: political, techno-economic and ideological‘34. The political functions are mainly coercive and repressive, and are embodied in law, police, military, judiciary etc. The state is always a major participant in the class struggle. It resolves and contains the conflicts and also defines the terms on which the conflicts occur in order to help a particular class. The so called law and order is applied to a particular class. Another important function of the state is to protect the interests of property from depredation. While the state may appear to be independent of class struggle, the order it maintains and the order it serves is the order of the capitalist class. Although the state performs a number of welfare functions like health, education etc, yet these activities do not tamper with the fundamental principle of capitalist property. The state assumes that profits are legitimate and the ownership of the means of production is justified. Major economic decisions are still in the hands of private individuals. In matters of wages, prices, profits, the prerogative remains with the management. The ideological functions are not directly performed by the state. They are performed by religion, education, family, legal system, trade unions, means of communication such as press, radio, TV, culture, literature, arts etc. But the state remains the ultimate sanctioning agency of these activities. As a result, these agencies express the power of the dominant class. On the whole, all these functions are political because their purpose is to maintain the unity of the capitalist society based upon class domination. From the point of view of the subordinate classes, the functions of the state help in the perpetuation of class division, class struggle and capitalist exploitation and alienation. Such a situation can be changed only through revolution and the establishment of a socialist state and society.FUNCTIONS IN A SOCIALIST SOCIETYMarxism makes use of the institution of state for building a195 socialist society. The state, established after the revolution by the proletariat, will also be a class state but whose purpose will be to abolish classes and class conflict, and with the abolition of classes to wither away itself. The functions of the state in the socialist society will be: i) establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DP), ii) destruction of the capitalist mode of production, iii) establishment of a socialist mode of production and socialist society, and iv) to wither away.The first task after the revolution will be the establishment of dictatorship of the proletariat so that the power of the state could be utilized to suppress the bourgeois class, reorganize the economy, alter people‘s psychology and go over to the communist society. Secondly, the aim of the Marxist theory of revolution and DP is to expropriate the expropriators, to end the class division and class struggle. For this, the citadels of capitalism will have to be attacked. So the task of the DP will be to smash the capitalist system. It is necessary to strip the bourgeoisie of its property because so long as it controls the productive process, it remains the ruling class. Those capitalists who put up struggle must be killed, imprisoned or exiled, those who surrender join the proletariat. As Marx wrote, ‘with the changes in economic foundation, the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. Only if private property is abolished at the root can law and politics, religion, philosophy and literature—the whole pattern of the capitalist culture be changed. All these functions will be performed by DP. Political repression and dictatorship will be necessary during this period because as Marx wrote, ‘we are dealing with a society not as it has developed on its own but as it emerges from the capitalist society and which is in every aspect tainted economically, morally, intellectually with the hereditary disease of the old society from those womb it is emerging‘. The task of the socialist revolution is to destroy private property and place the productive process from private control to the public control‘36Thirdly, the socialist state is concerned with the establishment of a socialist society. This will be achieved through economic and socio-cultural transformation. At economic level, it will mean the establishment of socialist mode of production by concentrating all instruments of production in the hands of the state, centralization of credit in the hands of the state, centralization of the means of 196 communication and transport, extension of factories and instruments of production, establishment of industrial armies, increase in production through planned economy, and equal obligation of all to work. Labour will be rewarded according to work. Differences in wealth will exist but they will not lead to exploitation. At socio-cultural level, the socialist society will be achieved by imparting scientific education which will be combined with industrial production. Also the proletarian state will establish social equality which will be devoid of discriminations based upon caste, region, language, religion or nationality. In the new society, higher level of cultural, spiritual and communal needs would grow in importance. In short, the purpose of DP is to extend and complete, the socialist revolution, build an entirely different economic and social system, ridding the society of its exploiting classes, rear a new force of intelligentsia and work a revolution in peoples‘ mind.Fourthly, with the end of class division and class struggle, the state will enter a new phase of its development. It will create prerequisites for its own withering away. As the society becomes equalitarian, there will be no ruling class as there will be no private property. Coercion and power will cease to exist. Everyone will now be worker and society will constitute a single class which means no class at all. With the end of class struggle, the dominant role of the state will come to an end.In short, the function of DP is to abolish the class struggle and build a socialist economy, society and culture, march towards communism and create conditions for its own withering away.CHANGES IN THE MARXIST PERSPECTIVEWhile classical Marxism focused on economic theory and politics of class struggle, post-war Marxism has been more concerned with the problems of superstructure, culture, art, aesthetics, ideology etc. Marxist writers have written extensively on the nature of capitalist society and state, the problem of socialist transformation, problems of bureaucracy and authoritarianism etc. This contemporary Marxism is represented by Karl Korsch, Lukacs, Gramsci, Caudwell, Thomson, Frankfurt School, Structuralist Marxism, New Left, Euro communism etc.The Marxist perspective of state has also been revised by a number of Western Marxist writers. What is new in their approaches 197 is that state and politics have taken primacy that they did not have in the past. The new theories of state represent a significant step towards revising the class perspective, social change theory and political strategies. In fact, the class perspective theory of the state has come a long way since Marx, Engles and Lenin. Although one can find much in the writings of Marx, still it is fair to say that Marxist writers have developed a political theory that was incomplete in Marx‘s works. In the contemporary Marxism, two characteristics have come out very clearly:i.They are generally opposed to Leninist view of the state as an instrument of a class. It is held that this instrumentalist view is not the only one in Marx and Marxist tradition but a part of the Bolshevic experience. Moreover, it has created a number of contradictions. The state, instead of withering away, became stronger in the name of dictatorship of the proletariat. The use of unprecedented coercion in building socialism left few socialists in any doubt that state, democracy and freedom are issues which, though go alongside, are above the particular set of economic relations.ii.They have challenged the idea of universal theory of state and replaced it with a call for specific historical analysis. Though there is such a thing as capitalist state, yet the functions in each capitalist slate vary according to the historical conditions in which it is situated, the nature of class struggle and the structure of production. Who rules the slate is an important question but few current writers claim that the ruling class controls the state. Most of them argue that the class nature of the state is expressed through the structure of capitalist development, and the control of the stale by the dominant class is contested in the political apparatus by the subordinate classes and social movements.‘7 Democracy is the growth of subordinate class power in the state apparatus as well in the institutions of civil society. These arc victories of improved material conditions, extension of suffrage, increased workers‘ control, growth of working class parties etc. Some of the twentieth century perspectives of the Marxist theory of state are as follows.198 GRAMSCI‘s PERSPECTIVE OF STATEGramsci, a noted Italian Marxist, viewed the state as ‘the entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance bull manages to win the active consent of those over whom it rules‘28. Gramsci‘s views pose the state as a key to understanding the acceptance by the subordinate classes of a class society. This acceptance is the result of the capitalist class ‘hegemony‘, and the state as an ideological apparatus which helps to legitimize this hegemony is a part of it. This hegemony is a synthesis of consent and coercion and it is located in the state in the form of political hegemony. In building a consensus for capitalist development, the crucial responsibility is placed on the intellectuals for this legitimation function both inside and outside the state. Hence according to Gramsci, the principle feature of the state is not economic but hegemonic. Revolutionary politics is a struggle against this hegemonic rule including the development, as part of that struggle, of a counter hegemony based upon working class values and culture.THE STRUCTURALIST PERSPECTIVEThe ‘structuralism‘ of Louis Althusser and early writings of Poulantzas consider the form of capitalist state as determined by the class relations inherent in the capitalist mode of production. Making a distinction between ‘repressive state apparatus‘ and ‘ideological state apparatus‘, he said that the class nature of the state is structured by economic relations outside the state. The ideological apparatuses such as trade unions, churches, schools etc. are the important sites of class struggle. At one and the same lime, state is relatively autonomous from the economic relations in order to fulfill its class role and is also the site where the dominant capitalist groups organize the competitive factions of 199 the capitalist class into class unity (hegemony). Here state and politics are that of the dominant class in establishing and maintaining its hegemony over the subordinate groups; the dominant fraction of the ruling group through the state must create and extend capitalist hegemony over an inherently antagonistic working class. The state and politics are crucial factors for hegemonic rule. The class struggle is relegated to the civil society; the state and politics are arenas of the capitalist class factions attempting to mediate that struggle.POULANTZAS‘S VIEWS ON STATENicos Poulantzas. another Marxist writer argues that the capitalist state itself is an arena of class conflict and that whereas the state is shaped by social class relations, it is also contested and is, therefore, the product of class struggle within the society.‘39 Politics is not simply the organization of class power through the state by dominant capitalist class groups and the use of that power to manipulate and repress subordinate groups, it is also the site of organized conflicts by mass movements to influence state politics, gain control of the state apparatus as well as control of the political apparatus outside the state. He views the state as the product of the fundamental character of the capitalist society i.e. class struggle, and hence a class state. But it is a state that necessarily includes the demands of the working class. The capitalist state rather than independent from the dominant capitalist class is relatively autonomous from it. This means that the dominant class is a conscious class and attempts to influence and control the state as an object of its socio-economic power; but at the same time, because of the existence of class struggle, the state must appear to be autonomous from the dominant class power in order to retain its legitimacy as a class state. The state must appear independent of the capitalist class and each worker must appear to have the same political power as each individual capitalist. Even as the relative autonomy of the state is necessary for its legitimacy as an authority above class struggle, the autonomy creates the contradiction of bringing the class struggle into the political apparatus and creates the possibility of subordinate classes and groups taking over the state apparatus, thereby interfering with the class reproduction fabric of the capitalist state. In this class struggle view, class relations inside and outside the state both emerge from straggle for material gains and are shaped by them. Such relations describe the nature of society and the role of the state in it‘40Thus, in the recent theories of the state, according to Marxist writers, it is the state and not the mode of production that should and will be the principal focus of struggle. This is not simply the result of a world wide tendency for the state to become increasingly involved in the economy. The primacy of politics reflected as much the reality of the Soviet experience and of the capitalist 200 hegemony, as the relative absence of a theory of state in traditional Marxism.41 Moreover, the Marxist theory of state has moved increasingly towards the position that political struggle, for the transition to socialism must essentially be democratic in the sense of counting on the experience of parliamentary and electoral struggles with social movements, workers‘ control and other forms of direct democracy. Extending democracy into new forms and breaking the capitalist social relations through them is a dramatic change from the traditional Marxist-Leninist ‘smash the state‘ strategy, and reflects the post-war history. These theories represent a significant step towards revising the class perspective of the state.NATURE OF STATE1.The Marxist perspective believes that the state is neither a natural, moral, divine institution nor it is the result of social contract. It is the product of specific circumstances at a particular juncture of history when society was divided into classes. The state is the result of class struggle and concerned with the exploitation of one class by another.2.State is essentially an instrument in the hands of the ruling class. By ruling class is meant the class which owns and controls the material and ideological apparatuses of the society, and which, as a result, becomes the controller, administrator and determinant of the state apparatus.3.The state tries to keep the class struggle in check by resolving the conflicts and bringing harmony among the classes but it cannot end the class struggle. Historically, inspite of different forms of state, there has been no difference in the class character of the state.4.State is not an eternal institution. There have been societies without the state, and if by changing the mode of production, the classes are abolished in the society, there will be no need of the state.5.Since the state is a class state, its role and functions vary in the capitalist and the socialist societies. In the capitalist society, the state performs its political, techno-economic and ideological functions in order to defend the interests of the dominant capitalist class and to keep the subordinate classes under check. The purpose of the socialist state, established after the proletarian revolution, is to defend the revolution, destroy the capitalist mode of production and capitalist culture, establish the socialist mode of production, socialist system of education and culture, and thereby abolish the class division and class struggle.201 6.To establish a classless society, it is essential to establish a working class state which can be brought about only by overthrowing the bourgeois state through revolution. Whereas the bourgeois state requires to be smashed, the socialist state will ‘wither away‘. This is the basic difference between ‘abolition‘ and ‘withering away‘ of the state.7.Inspite of the fact that state is a class state, it enjoys a high degree of autonomy and independence in the manner of its operation as a class state and must have autonomy if it is to act like one. The notion of the relative autonomy of the state forms an important part of recent Marxist writings on the nature of the state. This autonomy was acknowledged by Marx and Engles in the states where the executive power dominated over all other elements of the state system i.e. the absolute state or the Bonapartist state or the Bismarkian state. However, the concept has been systematized in the context of contemporary capitalist state by Marxist writers like Gramsci, Althusser, Poulantzas etc. However, the autonomy does not reduce the class character of the state; on the contrary the relative autonomy makes it possible for the state to play its class role in an appropriate and flexible manner.GANDHI‘S PERSPECTIVE OF THE STATEFrom liberal and Marxist perspectives of the state when we come to the Gandhian perspective, we find a wholly different approach to the understanding politics and state. Though by training Gandhi was neither a philosopher nor a political thinker, yet during the course of his struggle against British empire, he evolved his unique views on man, society, economy, state, a moral code and a technique of action known as non-violence. He brought idealism into the realm of politics and demonstrated its viability. Although his inspiration derived mainly from strong indigenous roots, yet he equally drew upon humanist and radical strands in the Western thought. From this synthesis he evolved a pattern of thought and a programme of political action which was uniquely his own.202 PHILOSOPHICAL BASISGandhi‘s political and moral thought is based upon a simple metaphysics. For him the universe is regulated by a supreme intelligence or the principle which he called Truth or God. It is embodied in all living beings, above all in Man, in the form of self-conscious soul or spirit. The spirit constitutes man‘s essence. Since all men share in divine essence, they are ultimately one. They are not merely equal but also identical. Since they have a spark of divinity in them, man is inherently good and the discovery and cultivation of this goodness is man‘s purpose in this earthly life—a realization of true self through self-discipline and ahimsa. In other words, there is not only the perfectibility of human self, but also an inherent urge in man to achieve it. The social and political life of man ought to be guided by the knowledge and the light of that goodness or virtue. The life of the individual is the life of discovery of this vital truth, no matter how heavy the odds and complexities of institutions that he may be surrounded by. So deeply was he convinced about the perfectibility of man that he declared that the good and truth alone will triumph and falsehood will fade and fall away like autumn leaves. In the search of this truth and goodness, the knowledge and acceptance of evils (evil is that which kills the divine spark in man)—whether social, economic or political—and correcting and curing them were the challenges to the creative best in man. It is in this context that his view on Indian social structure, religion, untouchability, property, industrialization, politics or state can be understood.CRITICISM OF THE MODERN STATELike many other Indian leaders, Gandhi had great difficulty in accepting the modern liberal capitalist state. He took great pains to point out the imperfections and dangers of modern state and sought to cut it to size by propounding a social theory where the state largely loses its deceptive luster and turns into a necessity. He did not consider the state more than a mechanical arrangement superimposed on the nation. It was impersonal, ruling by rules, functioning more or less like a machine with no human beings apparently in charge of it or accepting responsibility for its action‘42. He viewed political power of the state not as an end in itself but as one of the means enabling the people to better their condition in every department of life. Secondly, he was critical of the state 203 which emerged out of industrial revolution because it is based upon coercion. The state represents an organization based upon force. It manifests its coercive power through compulsion and exploitation of the individual in the society. For him, state was nothing but ‘institutionalized violence‘. It can never be weaned away from violence to which it owes its existence. Since Gandhi believed in non-violence, he wanted to divest the state of its title to force-monopoly. Thirdly, another objection to the state according to Gandhi was its all-pervasive controlling authority arising from the fact that it has become an inevitable ally of industrialization about which he had moral reservations. Fourthly, according to Gandhi the individual has a soul but the state is a soulless machine. It demoralizes and dehumanizes man. Rather than allowing themselves to run their lives, it encourages them to let it take all decisions. Thus the state stood above and lorded over the society. He looked upon any increase in the power of the state with fear and believed in the freedom of the individual. As he wrote, ‘I look upon an increase in the power of the state with the greatest fear because although apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does great harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the root of all progress. State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form‘43.Thus for these and other reasons, Gandhi concluded that state by its very nature was incompatible with man‘s moral and spiritual nature. Since man is Atman or soul and state is a soulless machine, the two simply cannot coexist. And if man is really concerned with his moral stature, he must find an alternate way of structuring his organized life.However, inspite of modern state being imperfect, Gandhi did not reject state action when it advanced the welfare of the people. While believing that the less the state governs the better, he held that there are certain things which cannot be done without political power‘. Gandhi rejected neither state nor politics per se. It meant both activities by the state and against the state. As it is, state, its authority and apparatus are necessary part of man‘s civilized life. Hence obedience to authority and respect for law is a necessary civic virtue. But the grounds for obedience must continually be examined. The state and its commands have validity if they conform to an accepted moral standards. If the state violates the dignity of 204 man as a moral being or obstructs the free development of the personality of the individual, the individual has a right and duty to disobey. But the resistance must be non-violent and the resister must be prepared spiritually to pay the penality for disobedience. The means must be consistent with ends. Moral ends demand moral means.VISION OF AN IDEAL STATESince state in its present form represents violence, speaks in the language of compulsion, saps initiative and self-help, it dehumanizes man. However, if it is not to hinder individual growth, it ought to be so organized that its activities employ as little coercion as possible and that as large area of human life as possible is left to voluntary efforts. Gandhi was interested in bringing down existing structure of political system based upon violence and exploitation and replace it with a system based upon the willing cooperation of each individual working for the good of man through non-violent methods. As an alternative view of state, Gandhi talks of a non-state polity. Ideally, he preferred ‘an enlightened anarchy‘ under which socially responsible and morally disciplined men and women never harm one another and do not need any polity. But since it was not possible, Gandhi opted for as ‘ordered anarchy‘ in which citizens enjoy maximum freedom consistent with minimum necessary order 44. It will be a state in which sovereignty belongs to everyone who is his own ruler.Such an ‘ordered anarchy‘ has three elements: Non-violent state through village republics, Swaraj and Ramraj. A truly non-violent state is composed of small self-governing and relatively self-sufficient village communities relying largely on moral and social pressure. Such communities will have their own political structures in the form of panchayat. Consisting of 5 persons elected by all adults of the village between the age of 18 to 50, panchayat would have legislative, executive and judicial powers and largely rely on its moral authority and the pressure of public opinion to ensure order and harmony. Gandhi hoped that the village community, over a period of time, would build up a ‘strong sense of local strength and solidarity, encourage social responsibility and spirit of cooperation and act as a nursery of civic virtues‘.Beyond the self sufficient villages, the community would be 205 organized in terms of ‘expanding circles‘. The villages would be grouped into talukas, the latter into districts, these into provinces and so on, each governed by representatives elected by its constituent units. Each tier of government would enjoy considerable autonomy and a strong sense of community. Each province would be free to draw up its own constitution to suit local requirements and in conformity with that of the country as a whole. The central government would have enough authority to hold them together but not enough to dominate them. Such a polity would not need vast bureaucracy because much of the decision-making would be decentralized. It will not need police because crime is bound to be minimal in a state where no one starved and everyone enjoyed face to face relations with his fellow citizens.The political decentralization is combined with economic decentralization. Gandhi strongly believed that concentration of economic power created the capitalist class which was exploiting the talent and resources available in the society. And exploitation being at the root of all violence, Gandhi built his economic ideas in such a manner that avoid exploitation of man by man. At village level, economic decentralization meant the establishment of cottage and small scale industries and universal use of khadi. Side by side, Gandhi was not against large scale or mass production. He was not against big machines per se but he was against the use of machines to exploit the individual. He did not oppose mass scale production as such but did oppose mass scale production by factories and not by the masses. Here he introduced his theory of trusteeship. The theme of trusteeship rests on the belief that capitalist and landlord would transfer the accumulated wealth into a trust for the common use of the society. He appealed to the moral conscience of the propertied class for creating a conducive atmosphere in favour of trusteeship. He put forth his theory on the assumption that economic power should be in the hands of the community wherein each member is responsible to produce his needs and own wealth and property of the community for the welfare of the society. In this connection, non-possession and bread labour were two other features of his economic theory. ‘Non-possession‘ meant not having food or anything thing beyond immediate needs and ‘bread-labour‘ meant that every man should labour with his body for his food and clothing. Thus the crux of his economic ideas was that 206 every person in the society should lead a simple life and limit himself to the basic necessities of life, everybody should work with his own body to fulfill his needs and the economic power should be decentralized so as to become a means of greatest welfare of the people.By Swaraj, Gandhi meant ‘self-rule‘ or true democracy. He insisted that only a polity based upon the principle of small village communities was true democracy. Democracy was based on the recognition of the fundamental fact that men are fully capable of regulating personal and common affairs and are the source of all political power. True democracy means organizing the polity in such a manner that people remain in full charge of them and are never dominated by or at the mercy of their government. Democracy is not only an arrangement of offices or institutions, rules or procedure but a way of life, developing and actualizing power of the people.It is only when there is political, economic and moral swaraj or self-rule that Ramrajya can arrive. Ramrajya symbolized for Gandhi the victory of the forces of good over the forces of evil. As stated in the beginning, his concern was for the life of the individual and Ramrajya was a kind of state which gave full scope to the creative and fraternal best in man. It is a state which is based on the denial of power and renunciation of the use of force, which involves love and goodwill, and is guided by the moral sense of its members.References1. Garner, op. cit., p. 142. Ibid. p. 523. N.D. Arora, Theory of State, Social Science Research Publications. New Delhi, 1983, p. 74. Quoted in Gregor MacLennan, David Held. Stuart Hall, The Idea of State, op. cit., p. 575. N.D. Arora, op. cit., see chapter on Locke6. C.L. Waper, Political Thought, English University Press, London, p. 94-957. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Cannaris Edition, London, 1906 p. 233-468. N.W. Senior, Political Economy, 2nd Editing, 1850. p 1769. Thomas Paine, Quoted in A.J. Nock Our Enemy the Stale, Caldwell, 1950, p. 35-3610. Adam Smith, op. cit., p. 304207 11. Waper, op. cit., p. 1912. John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Hafner Publishing Co.. N.Y p. 7513. Waper, op. cit., p. 7514. Jermy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1879, p. 3315. Ibid., p. 34-3516. J.M. Keynes, The End of Laissez Faire, 1926, p. 192-9617. J.K. Galbriath, The New Industrial State, Penguin, 1969, p. 1418. Harold Laski, The State in Theory and Practice, 1935, p. 22-2319. Laski, Grammer of Politics, p. 52820. Ibid, p. 10921. See ‘Libertarianism‘ in David Miller (Ed) The Blackweit Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, op. cit.22. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1962, p. 523. R. Dahenrendrof, Quoted in Anthony Arblaster, Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism, Blackwell, Oxforf, 1984, p. 1024. Robert Nozic, Anarchy. State and Utopia, Blackwell, N.Y. 1974, p. ix25. Ibid26. Ibid27. Ibid28. David Miller, op.cit., p. 29029. Marx and Engles, Selected Works, Moscow, 1967, 1 p. 3730. F. Engles, The Origin of Family Propert and State, Ibid, p. 57831. Lenin, ‘State and Revolution‘ in Selected Works, Progress Publishers Moscow, 1970, p. 267-6832. Engles, op. cit., p. 57633. Ibid. p. 57834. R. Milliband, Marxism and Politics, OUP, Oxford p. 9035. Karl Marx in Preface to ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy‘ in Selected Works, po cit., p. 18236. Andrew Hacker. Political Theory, op. cit., p. 55537. M. Carnoy. State and Political Theory, Princeton University Press, 1970, p. 25438. Ibid, p. 539. Ibid., p. 6-740. Ibid., p. 145-4741. Ibid., p. 942. Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi‘s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination, Macmillan Press, Houndmills, 1989, p. 11043. Richard Fox, Gandhi Utopia-Experiment with calture, Beacon Press, Boston, 1989, p. 37-6044. Bhikhu Parekh, op. cit., p. 112208 CHAPTER 10 LIBERTYThe concept of liberty has been at the heart of liberalism. It recognizes liberty as one of the fundamental social values. The main slogan of liberalism right from its inception, has been liberty i.e. freedom from any authority that is capable of acting capriciously or arbitrarily and freedom of the individual to develop all of his potentialities as a human being. The achieve liberty of the individual and to challenge the absolute authority of the state, liberalism demanded liberty in every field of life—personal, social, economic, political, religious, intellectual etc. Theories of political obligation, justice, democracy, rights all include a presupposition of the concept of liberty. Political thinkers in the liberal tradition have been asking themselves and answering questions about the nature and proper limits of liberty. The appeal to the idea of liberty has been so powerful in the Western political tradition that both the supporters and the critics of liberty have agreed to its centrality.MEANING OF LIBERTYInspite of being the essence of liberalism, liberty has been the most vague and ambiguous but all the more prized and contested concept. The term has meant different things to different people. Its derivative word liber which means ‘free‘ explains nothing. What do we mean by liberty? or to put it differently, what kind of things constitute restrictions upon or the denial of liberty? Does liberty involve not being hindered for doing whatever we can do or whatever we might wish to do? Certainly it is necessary to have some restraint on freedom. But political thinkers have disagreed about what restrictions should be on individual liberty even when they mean the same thing for the same term. Caudwell is right209 when he says that ‘liberty is a concept about whose nature men have quarreled perhaps more than about any other‘.1 Similarly, Pelczynski & Gray writes. ‘Writers of the liberal tradition have made liberty the central concept but each of them conceive liberty in his own way. It is a bold historian of ideas who will venture to say that Hobbes and Kant, say, shared a common view of liberty simply applying it differently.‘2 For example, according to Hobbes, ‘By liberty is understood...absence of external impediments, which impediments may oft take part of man‘s power to do what he would do‘3. Rousseau maintained that liberty consists in the obedience of General Will. For Hegel, liberty is obedience to the law. According to J.S. Mill, ‘The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it‘4. Laski writes about liberty as ‘the absence of restraints upon the existence of those social conditions which in modern civilization are a necessary guarantee of individual happiness‘5. Macpherson describes liberty as ‘living life to the fullest‘. The Marxist tradition interpreted liberty as (i) liberation from the coercive social apparatus and institutions, and (ii) to establish an atmosphere in which man could build a world according to the needs of humanity.At one stage of history, the thought concerning liberty looked at it as ‘absence of restraints‘ in the free competition of men involved in achieving ‘the other satisfactions of life‘. In this context liberty meant ‘an atmosphere where the law is silent and where state interference is the least‘. But soon this contradiction was removed and liberty was made to stand on a wider perspective. With the change in the circumstances, attention was drawn to the means which the state or the social institutions could provide and which were considered necessary for the attainment of liberty. This led to a comprehensive conception of the nature of liberty but still it could not get rid itself of the old conception completely. We refer to these two stages in the development of liberty as ‘negative‘ and ‘positive‘ liberty.To put the concept of liberty in proper perspective, we can better understand it in the context of the problems inherent in it. They are (i) nature of liberty, (ii) institutions to safeguard liberty, and (iii) hinderances to achieve liberty. Early liberalism talked of 210 liberty as individual liberty i.e., freedom of every person to do whatever he likes to advance his personal happiness and welfare. Every person works for his own happiness and struggles for it. Early liberals were fighting against the medieval orthodoxy, feudalism, ignorance and a society based on privileges and they felt that only by individual initiative could these hindrances be challenged and overcome. They paid little attention to the hindrances in the way of humanity. They believed that once the society is rid of these absolute powers of feudal kings, people can find way for their individual happiness. For the achievement of this liberty, they were in favour of all those institutions which could express political, economic and cultural aspirations of man. Hence they emphasized representative government, rule of law, political rights, separation of powers, independence of judiciary as the ways and means to attain liberty.(ii) Later, political parties were accepted as one of the important means to defend liberty. In the field of liberty, the major contribution of liberalism was the rule of law, constitutionalism and the Bill of rights. The rights and liberties granted by modern state are not only the legacy of liberalism but have also become the conditions of liberty. The liberal institutions are the means to safeguard liberty of the ‘people‘. Unfortunately in almost all the liberal countries, the number of such ‘people‘ is very small. This is the main defect of liberalism which socialism has attempted to remove.(iii) The Marxist notion of liberty is materialistic. It talks of liberty as ‘the hindrances in the path of liberty‘. According to this view, the hindrances in the path of liberty are not only the absolute and dictatorial political institutions, the removal of which will provide liberty, but also much more dangerous problems such as war, poverty, ignorance, disease, hunger, escapism, alienation etc. To remove these hindrances, individual initiative is not sufficient; it requires efforts on the part of humanity as a whole. In this collective initiative, it is possible that some people may lose their individual liberty which liberalism considers as sacred. Thus both liberalism and Marxism have been unable to solve this contradiction of liberty—the former wants to stick to individual initiative while the latter emphasizes the collective effort. The solution lies in the synthesis of the two.211 What is the quality of life which we are living? This is the basic question concerning the liberty today. Man does not spend his life, he wants to live it to the fullest. The contemporary notions of liberty revolves around this assertion.DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF LIBERTYIn the history of western political tradition, liberty has been understood as a ‘free and happy atmosphere‘ for human life. When the Greek city-states compared their democratic states with other eastern dictatorships, they had this aspect in mind. For the Greek statesman Pericles, freedom meant ‘advancement and political activity for full citizen.‘ For Greeks, liberty meant participation in the affairs of the state or society. However, Socrates and Plato did not accept the notion of individual liberty against the society or the state. During the medieval period, liberty was associated with the liberty of the ‘soul‘ and was deemed to lie in salvation. Christianity ruled out the question of liberty on this earth.It was only after the great movements viz. Reformation, Renaissance and the commercial industrial revolution in Europe and the rise of the modern state that the question of individual liberty came to the forefront. The demand for liberty was raised by the rising commercial class who was fighting against the absolutist, religious, political order represented by the kings, feudal lords and papacy. In its rising phase, liberty was highly individualistic. It was regarded as liberty ‘from the state‘. Early liberal writers saw the state as an ‘evil‘ and a hindrance to the free development of the individual, and held that the liberty of the individual could be increased only by minimizing the functions of the state. For example, the English liberalism from John Locke to J.S. Mill is an urgent demand for political liberty. For Locke, the main problem was the defence and establishment of liberty. He invoked the doctrine of natural law and natural rights to preserve the liberty of the individual against the exercise of arbitrary authority. Through his social contract, he reduced the functions of the state to the minimum i.e. preservation of the rights of individual such as rights to life, liberty and property. He made these rights prior to the state and justified the existence of the state only for the sake of protection of these rights. Similarly, David Hume wrote that ‘liberty is the perfection of all societies‘6 which is one of the dual needs of man as a political animal; the other being peace and order. Physiocrats 212 like Adam Smith advocated economic freedom—especially freedom from governmental regulations in the economic affairs. Liberty is inseparable, the Physiocrats taught, from property and the preservation of property is the primary duty of the state. ‘The social laws established by the Supreme Being prescribe only the preservation of the right of property; and that of liberty which is inseparable from it‘. As a concrete step towards political liberty, Bentham advocated universal suffrage, annual parliaments, elections by ballot, abolition of monarchy, freedom of opinion and press etc. Behind his plea for the responsibility of the rulers to the ruled, and the right of the ruled to resist and change when power is abused was his insistence that the end of the government is to ensure security and liberty. J.S. Mill gave utmost importance to liberty of thought, speech, conscience, association. He tried to reconcile liberty of individual with the authority in a democratic society. If democracy is to be a stable form of government, then, Mill contended, that ‘liberty as a concept has to be defined and ensured, for liberty is the life breath of the individual—the clue to his individuality‘7.The nineteenth century was an age of transition—the transition from negative phase of liberalism to positive one. It was also an age which consciously groped towards finding the meaning of liberty and of defining its meaning and securing its end. The idea of liberty as ‘freedom from the state which ended up in individualism was central to the theory of Locke, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham and Mill and other classical economists and philosophical radicals. The idea of ‘liberty through the state‘, of the enjoyment of certain equal opportunities received attention in the writings of Green, Bosanquel. Hobhouse, Laski, Barker etc.Green viewed both the individual and the liberty in the social context. He related individual good with the social good and redefined freedom as conforming to the common good. For Bosanquet, liberty meant ‘freedom to‘—i.e., conditions necessary for free and full development of the human self, which every state must ensure. The positive liberals like Lindsay, Barker, Laski, Russell confirmed the notion of liberty expounded by Green. In the twentieth century, the state was considered a source and a condition of liberty. ‘The state in brief is at best an adjuster, a coordinator, and the authority it exercises is morally valid only if it seeks to promote liberty‘10.213 Another important development was to integrate socialism as an element of liberal creed. In particular, it meant reinterpreting the term ‘economic liberty‘. The extension of state control was not considered as a threat to liberty, it was the only effective means of enlarging it and making its meaning real for not a section but for as many members of the community as possible. Exponents of positive liberty justified the widening area of governmental control and the freedom secured through the state in sectors where the impact of an exploitative economy denied to a considerable section of the community opportunities for free self-development.TWO CONCEPTS OF LIBERTYThe history of the idea of liberty is characterized by shifting emphasis. As Rockow put it: The changing conception of the doctrine of liberty from Adam Smith to Hobhouse offers the best way to the understanding of the evolution of political thought during the past century and a half‘11. This shifting emphasis has been marked by a change from a negative to a positive concept of liberty i.e. from liberty as ‘silence of laws‘ to freedom as ‘the presence of socio-economic and political conditions‘. Let us consider these concepts in detail.NEGATIVE LIBERTYThe concept of liberty as emerged from the theory and practice of early liberalism is known as Negative Liberty. This conception found classical expression in the writings of John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Herbert Spencer, Bentham and J.S. Mill. Michel Oakeshott, I. Berlin, Milton Friedman, Hennali Arendt, F.A. Hayek and Robert Nozic are the 20th century supporters of this conception of liberty.Early liberalism was closely associated with the philosophy of individualism. It regarded each individual as self-subsistent unit and society as a collection of isolated units, self-contained, self-satisfied and self-willed. The individual and his interests were regarded as a fundamental category and liberty was interpreted as the removal of all constraints which had been imposed upon the individual against his will. Hence liberty was defined in the simplest terms as ‘absence of restraints‘. The absence of restraints—economic, political, religious, moral—was regarded as a pre-condition for liberty of the individual. In the political sphere it meant a restraint 214 upon the arbitrary authority of the state; non-interference of the state in the economic and social affairs of the society; that state is best which governs the least. In the economic field, it meant a policy of laissez faire; the state should refrain from any interference with the economy since such interference could not but be an arbitrary and unnecessary interference with the laws of natural order. ‘Let things alone‘ because the economic world is self-regulating. At personal level, it meant that each individual should be given liberty with regard to his personal affairs, and the state as well as society should not interfere with it. There is no conflict between personal liberty and social interest and only by serving personal interest can the individual serve the social interest. In the good of the individual lies the good of the society.Hobbes defined liberty as ‘dependent on the silence of law‘. With Locke also, the sovereign coercive power was considered suspect and it is law which must restrain it like all other arbitrariness. Law and liberty were not incompatible and the purpose of the law is to preserve and enlarge freedom. He wrote for the end of law is not to abolish or to restrain but to preserve and enlarge freedom, for in all states of created being; where there is no law, there is no freedom.‘12 Benjamin Constant declared that at the very least, the liberty of religion, opinion, expression, property must be guaranteed against arbitrary invasion. Montesquieu defined liberty as the ‘right to which the law permits‘13. It must, however, be mentioned, here that in eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when liberty was safeguarded by the institutional devices of law, the law was relatively static, little positive action was demanded from government and there was no occasion for a legislature in almost constant session busily making laws. Parliament was represented by satisfied propertied classes and it could be relied upon in general to interfere ‘little enough with people going about their daily life. The views on negative liberty were expressed by a number of thinkers but it classical exponent was J.S. Mill.J.S. Mill on libertyJ.S. Mill‘s famous essay On Liberty (1859), which has long been held to be the finest and the most moving essay on liberty is a powerful and an eloquent plea for liberty of thought, liberty of expression and liberty of action. He understood by liberty as not 215 merely non-interference of the state but also of the pressures of the society, public opinion and conventions in the affairs of the individual.In championing the cause of liberty, Mill had a broad goal in mind: the Greek ideal of self-development. The liberty he sought to defend was the liberty of the individual to develop, enrich and expand his personality. As such it is not surprising that he pleads that the individual should be left free to realise his own interests the way he likes provided he does not interfere with the similar freedom of others. He defines liberty as ‘pursuing our own good in our own way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it‘.14 So defined, liberty is a means to an end, the end being one‘s own good. He further writes, ‘The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is of right absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign,...the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of the civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others‘.15Mill was writing in an age of emerging democracy when ‘the extending suffrage conferred a measure of power on classes which had something to gain from legal interference in daily affairs‘.16 It was being accepted that the state had a legitimate and positive role to promote the welfare of the people. Mill had, however, reservations about democracy based on a fully democratic franchise and extended only conditional support to it. He maintained that phrases like ‘self-government‘ or ‘power of the people‘ do not express the truth. The ‘will of the people‘ practically meant the will of the most numerous and the most active part of the people, i.e., the majority. It may lead to ‘tyranny of the majority‘ where the liberty of the minority may vanish. He maintained that the advent of democracy does not mean that majority may take away the liberty of the minority. Hence liberty of the individual needed protection from the democratic state. Similarly, Mill reminded those who were willing to repress the individual liberty for the sake of strong state that the worth of the state is no more than the worth of the individuals composing it. He writes, ‘A state which dwarfs its men in order that they may be more docile instruments 216 on its hands even for beneficial purposes will find that with small men no great things can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail nothing for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work smoothly, it has preferred to banish‘.17Just as Mills explodes the illusion that the evolution of government from tyranny to popular self-rule automatically solves the problem of liberty, he argued that social tyranny may be more formidable than many kinds of political oppressions because social tyranny leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating more into the details of life.‘18 Protection against political tyranny was not enough; it must be supplemented by protection against the tyranny of prevailing opinion and feeling. Unless absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment—scientific, moral and theological—is guaranteed, a society is not completely free. His famous dictum was ‘If all mankind minus one were of one opinion and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power would be justified in silencing mankind‘. Silencing an unorthodox opinion is not only wrong but harmful because it robs mankind of an opportunity to become acquainted with ideas that may possibly be true, or partly true. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. He based freedom of opinion and expression on three grounds: (i) any opinion we silence may be true, (ii) though the silenced opinion may be erroneous, it may be partly true and because the prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely the complete truth, it is only by the collusion of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied, (iii) even if the prevailing opinion may be completely true, it will inevitably become a dogma, prejudice and formula unless it is exposed to the challenge of free discussion.19Regarding freedom of action, Mill divided the activities of the individual into two parts: self-regarding and other-regarding. The self-regarding action may include those matters which affect the individual himself, having no concern with others. While the individual was to be free in doing those things which affected himself alone, his independence was restricted in those cases which had a bearing on others. Society has no right to use force or 217 compulsion in regard to matters which affect the individual alone and have no concern to others. In the self-regarding functions Mill included (i) the inward domain of consciousness demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense, liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral or theological; (ii) liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing a plan of our life to suit our own character of doing things without impediments from other fellow creatures so long as we do not harm others; (iii) liberty of combination among individuals; freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others.20Mill understood that the issue of liberty was closely related to the larger question of social power and organization. Bred in the Benthamite tradition, his faith in the laissez faire tradition was stronger. However, as time went on, Mill gradually abandoned the purely dogmatic position of laissez faire economic liberalism and adopted a position of caution and selective interference by the state in the economic affairs of the society. But even here he was categorical that the decision between capitalism and socialism would be ultimately based upon one chief consideration: ‘which of the two systems is consistent with the greatest amount of liberty‘.On the whole, Mill‘s argument rested upon a negative concept of freedom. He objected to social control over what he regarded as the self-regarding activities of the individual because he considered all restraints as evil. According to him, the individual is not responsible to the society for his actions in so far as they concern the interest of no person than himself. He believed that social progress depended upon giving to each individual the fullest opportunity for the free development of his personality. He was convinced that human personality can develop and expand only in an atmosphere of freedom. From it, it necessarily follows that freedom consists in the absence of restraints, the best thing for the individual is that he would be left to ‘pursue his good in his own way‘.Although the artificial division between self-regarding and others-regarding functions of the individual was not accepted by the latter generation of liberal writers like Green, Hobhouse, Lindsay, Laski, Barker etc., the importance of Mill laid in his emphasis on the fact that social and political progress depended largely on the 218 potentialities of the individual and his tree choice. Mill was fully convinced that any increase in the power of the state, irrespective of its form, was antithetical to the liberty of the individual and the most valuable element in human life was spontaneous choice. Anything which is done by a compulsory power diminishes the scope of that choice and this infringes liberty. Similarly, his plea for freedom of speech, thought and expression became fundamental tenets of liberal philosophy.20TH century exponents of negative libertyAlthough the concept of negative liberty was replaced by positive liberty in the twentieth century, yet it has been revived by a number of writers such as Oakeshott, I. Berlin, Cranston, Milton Friedman, Robert Nozic and others in the twentieth century. Oakeshott writes, ‘Rights are liberties and therefore arise not from law but from the silence of law‘.21 Berlin opines that the defence of liberty consists in the negative sense as warding off interference. Every plea for civil liberties and individual rights, every protest against the encroachment of public authority of the mass hypnosis of custom or organized propaganda springs from this individualistic, and much disputed, conception of man.22 Berlin would agree with Mill, Constant and de Tocqueville that ‘no society is free unless it is governed by two principles: i) no power but only right can be regarded as absolute so that people can refuse to behave inhumanly, ii) there are frontiers drawn within which men should be inviolable. Berlin describes liberty as ‘absence of coercion‘. To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom. Negative liberty is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others. He writes ‘by being free in this sense (negative) I mean not being interfered by others. The wider the area of non-interference, the wider my freedom‘.23 In the context of negative liberty, Berlin maintains that there is no relationship between liberty and democracy, nor is it related to justice or equality. ‘Liberty is liberty nor equality or fairness or justice or culture or human happiness or a quiet conscience. If I curtail or loose my freedom.. .this may be compensated for by a gain in justice or in happiness or in peace, but the loss remains‘. Again, there is a difference between liberty and the conditions of liberty. In the name of welfare and justice, the redistribution of property could be seen as redistribution of freedom. Justice or common good are not identical with freedom though 219 they may be closely related.Similarly, Milton Friedman in his boon Capitalism and Freedom writes that liberty means, ‘the absence of coercion of a man by his fellowmen‘ and feels that state interference in the economic matters is harmful to the economic liberty of the people. By economic liberty he means the availability of free market capitalist economy. The libertarian writers have also defined liberty as absence of ‘any social and legal constraint‘. Robert Nozic identifies liberty with the natural right to self-ownership. The limits of legitimate liberty are set by our natural rights and they are best understood in the propriety sense. Although they believe in the equal rights of self-ownership but do not defend this by an appeal to equality. They favour equal liberties because they believe in freedom and since each individual can be free, hence he should be free. Again, like Friedman, the libertarians also believe that only a free capitalist market economy and non-interference of the state in the affairs of the individual can enhance liberty.characteristics of negative libertyOn the basis of above discussion, the concept of negative liberty can be summerized as follows:1. Negative liberty represents the early liberal assumption regarding man, society and the state. The view is based on the autonomy of individual will, rationality and goodness of man. Only the individual knows what is best for him. For the development of his personality, he requires certain freedoms from arbitrary authorities which can act against his will. Negative liberty restricts the idea of freedom to the individual and his person and sees both society and the state as anti-thesis. It does not touch the social aspect of individual liberty. The proponents of negative liberty are so much sensitive to the interference that they see both state and society as repressive institutions.2. Freedom is absence of restraints. It is ‘liberty from‘ as distinct from ‘liberty to‘. Hobbes describes it as ‘silence of laws‘, Berlin defines it as ‘absence of coercion‘, Milton Friedman terms it as ‘absence of coercion of man by state, society or his fellowmen‘, Flew defines it as absence of ‘social and legal constraints‘. According to Nozic, it is a natural right of ‘self-ownership‘.220 3. Absence of restraints has very wide meaning. Restraints can be political, economic, civil, personal etc. In political sphere, liberty means restraint upon the arbitrary authority of the state as well as minimum interference of the state in the affairs of the individual; at economic level, it means free-trade, laissez faire capitalist economy, and an unlimited right to property; at civil level, it means absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment; at personal level, it means an area of personal affairs where individual can take decisions without any interference of state or society.4. The laws of the state cannot take away liberty but can only regulate it. Since liberty is liberty from the state, the latter can guarantee it by restricting itself to the minimal functions. Law and liberty are antithetical.5. Liberty is not identical with democracy, nor with equality or justice. The quest for justice or equality can jeopardize liberty.6. There is a distinction between liberty and the liberty of action. Liberty is simply the absence of coercive interference by the state or society or other individuals and no more than that.objections to negative libertyUsually, three kinds of objections are leveled against this negative concept of liberty: Philosophical, Moral and Economic. At philosophical level, critics hold that utilitarians and other classical liberals are mistaken about human nature. Man is not as selfish or rational as is projected by them. The history of man is not a history of isolated individuals coming together to form a civil society; rather, man has lived in communities and is a social animal. His most important values are socially determined and social laws which uphold these values are not necessarily a restriction upon the liberty of the individual. Morally speaking, freedom is not freedom to do what the individual likes but to do what is morally right. Moral norms are not against freedom, rather they exist to ensure the right use of freedom. At Economic level, negative liberty becomes meaningless. It interprets economic liberty as laissez faire i.e. to leave the economy to the natural forces of demand and supply and free competition. It does not see it as ‘economic security‘ or ‘freedom from want‘. The free and open competition leads to the concentration of property in a few hands and exploitation of the vast majority. Negative liberty is virtually identified with 221 the protection of property and leaves the poorer section without the ability to take advantage of the opportunities which are legally open to them. Thus historically, the concept of negative liberty not only proved dangerous but also incomplete and inadequate. This was challenged not only by Marx who maintained that liberty cannot be attained along with private property; but also by the liberal writers themselves who became conscious of its inadequacies. The liberal thinkers from Green onwards made a conscious attempt to reinterpret liberty resulting in a different notion of liberty known as positive liberty.POSITIVE LIBERTYThe positive conception of liberty associates liberty with society, socio-economic conditions, rights, equality and justice. It was based upon the changed conception of the individual and the state which emerged out of a critique of negative liberalism by the socialist and liberal writers alike. This change was reflected in the thinking of T.H. Green. Bonsanquet, Hobhouse, Lindsay, Laski, Barker and MacIver. C.B. Macpherson, I. Berlin, John Rawls are the contemporary supporters of this notion of liberty.A thorough-going revision of liberalism which started in the fag end of nineteenth century revealed that liberalism could not be placed permanently on the narrow foundations of individualism. The new outlook believed that central to liberal philosophy is the idea of general good (against the individual good) or common well-being which is capable of being shared by everyone. The standard of liberty could not be individual alone or the minimum restrictions on the free choice because free choice is exercised in a situation, and sometimes situations are such that they reduce choice to a mockery. Choice may be formally unlimited but informally restricted. To provide a crippled with an artificial leg or an ignorant man with education, or an unemployed man with job-all count as positive extensions of freedom. Just to say that there is no restriction on the crippled to get an artificial leg, or an ignorant man education is an incomplete interpretation of liberty. Choice means opportunity and opportunity means a society that provides the political, economic and social structure to make the choice effective. Liberty is as much social as it is an individual conception and it refers at once to ‘a quality of society and quality of person that make up that society. As Green pointed out, freedom 222 is not absence of restraints but ‘the positive power of doing and enjoying something worth doing or enjoying and that too something which we do or enjoy in common with others‘.26 Liberty is the positive power of pursuing those ideals and objectives which the goodwill presents to itself: it is the ‘liberation of all the power of man for the social good‘. It implied not merely a legal but an actual possibility of ‘developing human capacities, a genuinely increased power on the part of the individual to share in the goods which the society has produced and an enlarged ability to contribute to the common good‘.Similarly, according to Bosanquet, liberty depends on (i) the nature of the individual and (ii) the nature of liberty. The individual is a part of the social whole and can be considered only in the social context. Individuality has social roots. Liberty is the essential quality of human life because it is a condition of an individual‘s being himself, ‘to be one‘s self. It is the absence of external constraints for the internal development of the personality of the individual. For Bosanquet, negative view of liberty means merely freedom from constraints, whereas positive liberty means not only freedom from but ‘freedom to‘,—conditions necessary for free and full development of the self, which the state must ensure. The positive concept includes the negative one since it represents a greater area of activity and more extensive self-choice of self-determination.27views of H.J. laskiThe most comprehensive views on positive liberty were expressed by Harold J. Laski in his book A Grammer of Politics. His views can be discussed on three premises: (i) nature of liberty (ii) kinds of liberty, and (iii) safeguards to liberty.1. Nature of LibertyExplaining the meaning of liberty, Laski writes that ‘liberty is the eager maintenance of that atmosphere in which men have an opportunity to be their best selves. Liberty is the product of rights. Liberty is positive thing. It does not merely mean the absence of restraints‘.28 Liberty is not absence of restraints because all conduct is social conduct and whatever one does, he does it as a member of the society. Hence liberty involves in its nature restraints.223 Regulations is the consequence of gregariousness because man cannot live without rules. What is important is that rules should embody the experience of the community: they should be built upon the wills of those whom they affect: However, liberty is not merely obedience to rule. What each of us desires in life is room for our personal initiative in things that add to our moral stature. What is destructive of our freedom is a system of prohibitions which limit the initiative implied therein.Laski relates liberty to the availability of opportunities. He writes ‘Freedoms are therefore opportunities which history has shown to be essential to the development of personality‘.29 In this context, liberty is inseparable from rights because rights demarcate the area of opportunities to be essential to the development. Laski does not want to leave liberty to the mercy of the state because ‘liberty is never real unless the government can be called to account and it should always be called to account whenever it invades rights. The various aspects of liberty are related to this situation‘.302. Kinds of LibertyThe three kinds of liberty which Laski talks about are (i) Private Liberty (ii) Political Liberty, and (iii) Economic Liberty. Private Liberty refers to ‘the opportunity to exercise freedom of choice in those areas of life where the results of one‘s efforts affect the individual in the isolation with which the individual is surrounded.‘31 Religion is the best example of this kind of liberty. Private liberty is negative because it is that aspect of which the substance is mainly personal to man‘s life. In the modern state, Laski feels that invasion of private liberty is more subtle. Private liberty may be denied when the poor citizens are unable to secure adequate legal protection from the court. In short, private liberty is ‘an opportunity to be fully himself in the private relations of life‘.32Political liberty means the power to be active in the affairs of the state.‘33 Political liberty, to be real, requires two essential conditions: (i) proper education to a point where one can express oneself in an intelligible manner, (ii) provision of honest and straightforward news, which alone can be a reliable guide or ground for political judgement. Distortion of news based upon propaganda prompts a distorted judgement and only a reliable supply of news is the basis of freedom.224 Economic liberty means ‘security and the opportunity to find reasonable significance in the earning of one‘s daily bread‘.34 It means freedom from the constant fear of unemployment and insufficiency which saps the whole strength of the individual personality. A man must be safeguarded from the wants of tomorrow. Economic liberty also implies democracy in industry. It means two things: (i) the industrial government is subject to the system of rights which are obtained to the citizens, and (ii) the industrial direction must be of a character that makes it the rule of laws made by cooperation and not by compulsion. A system built upon fear is incompatible with liberty.3. Safeguards of LibertyLaski believes that freedom will not be achieved for the masses without special guarantees. He mentions three conditions for the realization of liberty. Firstly, Laski feels that freedom cannot exist in the presence of special privileges. The presence of privileges leads to frustration and the loss of creativity, as a result of which people lose the ability to realize their own good. As he writes, ‘Special privilege is incompatible with freedom because the latter quality belongs to all alike in their character as human beings‘.3;i Liberty is possible only on the condition of equality. Secondly, positive liberty can be enjoyed only in the presence of rights. There cannot be liberty where the right of some depends upon the pleasure of others.‘34 Presence of rights means the absence from the social organisation of those uncertainties which result in social loss and are deliberately planned by the individuals. Thirdly, the government must be responsible to the people. The incidence of state action should be unbiased. Here the maintenance of rights assumes so vast an importance that they become the guarantee of a minimum bias. They give the minimum assurance that the state power will not be perverted to the use of some few.contemporary writers on positive libertyIn recent times, positive liberty has been the subject of study of many liberal writers like 1. Berlin, Macpherson, John Gray, John Rawls among others. Berlin, in his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, conceives of negative liberty as merely the absence of direct political and social interference in the affairs of the individual. His positive liberty, however is not so narrowly conceived. It225 requires the absence of other impediments as well because positive liberty is nothing but ‘the absence of all humanly imposed impediments.‘31 He writes that positive liberty is derived from the wish on the part of the individual to be his ‘own master, to be self-directed, to be moved by his own conscious purposes. to act and decide rather than to be acted upon and decided upon by others.‘38 Positive liberty is the liberty ‘to act as a fully human being.‘ There are three concepts merged into one in Berlin‘s idea of positive liberty: (i) liberty is individual self-direction or self-mastery: (ii) liberty is coercion by those who have attained self-mastery over those who do not yet know it; (iii) liberty is the democratic concept as a share in the controlling authority.Macpherson in his book Democratic Theory defines positive liberty as ‘a man‘s power in the developmental sense‘.39 Developmental power means ‘man‘s ability to use and develop his capacities.‘ It means removing impediments to gain access to the means of life and labour. The measure of liberty is the absence of the extractive power and the increase in the developmental power of the individual.According to John Gray, ‘The political content of the positive view of liberty is that if certain resources, power or amenities are needed for self-realization to be effectively achievable, then having these resources must be considered a part of freedom itself‘.40 It is on this basis that modern liberalism has developed the welfare state as a freedom enhancing institution. It signifies primarily and centrally having the. resources and opportunities to act so as to make the best of one‘s life.Again Rawls argues that, ‘The demand that liberty be maximized (or equalized) is given a definite content only when liberty is decomposed into a set of basic liberties such as freedom of speech, association or movement, occupation and life style etc. The content of basic freedoms is not fixed but embodies the conditions necessary in a given historical circumstance of growth and exercise of power of autonomy, thought and action.‘41characteristics of positive libertyOn the basis of the above discussion, we can summarize the concept of positive liberty as follows:226 1.Liberty is essential for man‘s material and moral development. Like justice and equality, it is not an empty social idea floating in the air, but drives its specific content and meaning from a particular social and historical millieu in which it has to be understood. In the present context, it is not absence of restraints but a positive condition for free and full development of the individual in the society.2.All restraints are not evil. Positive liberty affirmed that restraints in some contexts are not antagonistic to liberty but its guarantee. Freedom through compulsion, however paradoxical it may appear, is justifiable and practically valid. On this ground, it justified the extension of social and welfare legislation.3.At the core of this concept of liberty lies the fact that there can be no liberty without equality or unless there is some measure of economy equality. Liberty becomes real when it is rooted in equality. Equality provides the basis on which liberty comes to acquire a positive meaning.4.Rights are necessary conditions of liberty. It is equally related to justice and morality.5.The state is not an enemy of liberty but its best promoter. The duty of the state is not to leave the individual alone but, through positive action, create conditions and opportunities for the realization of liberty. ,6.Liberty implies participation, autonomy, creativity, development, self-determination and social support for the goals of individual.CONCLUSIONOn the basis of the above discussion, it seems that what is the true meaning of liberty can never be resolved. This is because of two factors: (i) liberty is so universally regarded as desirable that people will go to any extent to show that their liberty is the only real one, and (ii) there are philosophical differences. The negative liberals believe that the essence of man is that he is an autonomous being, master of values and an end in himself, whereas positive liberals hold that the essence of man lies in his being a social animal, deriving his values and ends from the community to which he belongs. However, if we want to understand the true meaning 227 of liberty, we shall be mistaken if we were to commit ourselves to one aspect of liberty to the exclusion of the other. It would be certainly wrong to exclude the negative concept of liberty because this is how the terms was used in its initial stage and will continue to be used in everyday speech. The case against negative liberty is that it is not wrong or undersirable but that it is insufficient as a guide to the various meanings that liberty has acquired in modern times. The concept of positive liberty is a complex one because the nature of positive freedoms to be granted to the citizens and the kind of community needed to be built may be interpreted differently by different thinkers. But still it is an essential requirement of the modern state; liberty cannot be left to be decided by the market forces.According to Birch, the advocates of negative liberty would be more realistic if they acknowledge that democratic self-government is a kind of collective freedom. Also they should realize that extending the capacities and abilities of human beings tend to extend the value of freedom as well. Similarly, the advocates of positive freedom should also acknowledge that a large measure of negative freedom is an essential prerequisite of the individual and liberty cannot necessarily be imposed from the top. The negative and positive aspects represent two kinds of liberty. In real world of political practice, an individual wants some of both, and if both sides make these concessions, the arguments would be more realistic in understanding the meaning and significance of liberty.41(A)MARXIST CONCEPT OF FREEDOMThroughout the period of history, class struggle has always taken the form of struggle for freedom—for specific freedoms which people fought to retain or saw the possibility of winning. Such freedoms have been traditionally of two types: negative and positive i.e. ‘freedom from‘ and ‘freedom to‘. People seek to free themselves from the specific impositions and restrictions on their activities and to win the conditions in which they are free to do specific things. In the process of class struggle, people have managed to free themselves from the specific forms of oppression and to win specific rights. However, the fact remains that the exploited classes never won freedom from exploitation and the rights of the exploiters continued. The great contribution of Marx and Marxism228 has been to demonstrate how private property in the means of production had robbed the great mass of the working class of their freedom, and to work out the theoretical foundations of how to win back freedom. The Marxist concept of freedom can be discussed on the following lines:1.Meaning of Freedom.2.A critique of the bourgeois concept of Freedom.3.Freedom as an end of Alienation.4.Freedom as an end of Exploitation.5.Freedom as recognition of Necessity.6.Freedom as a Collectivist Enterprise.meaning of freedomAccording to the standard liberal view, freedom is the absence of restraints or coercion. Marxism, on the other hand, has been a heir to a wider and richer view of freedom originating from such sources as Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant and Hegal who conceived of freedom as self-determination, self-realization, self-development, self-fulfillment and self-creativeness. Even if the concept of freedom is taken as absence of restraints, Marxism invoked wider notions of the relevant restrictions and options, and of human agencies.Marx and Marxism tended to see freedom in terms of removal of obstacles to human emancipation i.e. ‘to the manifold development of human powers and the bringing into being a form of association worthy of human nature‘.42 Notable among such obstacles, Marx pointed out, were the conditions of wage labour, ‘the conditions of their life and labour, and therewith all conditions of existence of modern society...over which the individual proletariat has no control and over which no social organization can give him control‘.43 Positively, he meant by freedom, ‘the full development of human mastery over the forces of nature and humanity‘s own nature.‘44 Echoing these views, Huberman and Sweezy write, ‘Freedom means living life to the fullest—the economic ability to satisfy the needs of the body in regard to adequate food, clothing and shelter, plus effective opportunity to cultivate the mind, develop one‘s personality and assert one‘s individuality‘.45 Similarly, Petrosyan writes, ‘Marx‘s understanding of freedom implies activity aimed at creating real conditions for the free all-round development and flowering of man‘s individuality‘.46229 Overcoming the obstacles to human emancipation is a collective enterprise and hence ‘freedom is collective in the sense that it consists of the socially co-operative and organized imposition of human control over both nature and the social conditions of production‘.47 For Marxism, the issue of individual freedom is dialectically related to the freedom of the society. True freedom is inconceivable without a free society. Such a freedom will be fully realized only by the suppression of capitalist mode of production, and replacing it with a form of association in which ‘it is the association of individuals which puts the conditions of the free development and movement of individuals under their control‘.48 It is only then that within the community has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in. all directions.A critique of the bourgeois concept of freedomIn his early writings, Marx criticized bourgeois democracy for its ambiguous interpretation of freedom as a fundamental human right. He explained that the bourgeois revolution had politically emancipated man but political emancipation does not mean total emancipation. Liberlism has wrongly equated political emancipation with human emancipation. Similarly equality had been achieved as far as the legal hurdles were concerned but the actual (i.e. economic) equality was forgotten. The masses, wages earners without property continued to be dependent upon the bourgeoisie which owned the means of production. As a result, Marx ruled out the possibility of liberty for the masses in a society based upon class division and class conflict. He pointed out that in a society based upon competitive market, man‘s relations to other men become exchange relations and quite impersonal. Men behave with each other not as human beings but as agents of market exchange, or as buyers or sellers. ‘In their economic life, they are ruled by the law of value: in their political life, men are ruled by law.‘ In such circumstances, men cannot be free. He cannot be free from religion, at best, he receives religious freedom. He cannot be free from property, at best he receives freedom to own property. He cannot be free from labour, at best he receives free labour. Instead of being free from the state, he receives political emancipation within the state. No doubt, the liberal state guarantees religious freedom, free labour, freedom to own property and political emancipation, but for the working class, it is not enough. The Marxist concept of230 freedom is absolute in the sense that man ought to be freed from all kinds of ‘alienation, necessities, oppression, exploitation and domination‘.49 Negatively speaking, it includes freedom from the market i.e. absence of man‘s domination by inhuman external forces; freedom from the material dependence (i.e. absence from domination of money power), freedom from the social division of labour; freedom from the state (in the sense of state as an instrument of a class); freedom from religion (in the sense of religion as false consciousness); freedom from labour as an objectified activity imposed upon man by economic necessity (i.e. scarcity).50 Positively, freedom denotes that man is free not from something but for something. It implies participation, autonomy, creativity, development and self-determination. It means all-round development of man. Man is, by nature, the creator of his own life as well as the circumstances in which he lives. This indicates that man is the potential subject. Though not born as subject, he may become the subject through the long process of his total (human) emancipation which implies his ‘active participation in a gradual supersession of all impediments to his human development which is an end in itself‘.51 Since for Marx, man is a social being able to change circumstances by changing himself, his concept of liberty as human development is a revolutionary one which can be achieved only by changing the material circumstances.freedom AS an end to alienationThe dehumanizing effect of capitalist society based on private ownership of property and means of production were elaborated by Marx in his concept of alienation.52 Alienation means loss of personal identity or a feeling of personal identity. As Marx wrote, private ownership of the means of production leads to alienation of man from his labour and its products. Labour becomes a commodity like any other which means that the worker himself has become a commodity and is obliged to sell himself at the market price determined by the minimum cost of maintenance. The product does not belong to him but to the man who has purchased his labour. Labour which is the life of the species, becomes only a means to individual animalized life. The social essence of man becomes a mere instrument of individual existence. Alienated labour deprives man of his species life; other human beings become alien to him, communal existence becomes impossible 231 and life is merely a systems of conflicting egoisms. Property which arises from alienated labour, becomes in turn a source of alienation. The process has its effect on the capitalist too, depriving him of his personality in a different way. As the worker is reduced to an animal condition, the capitalist is reduced to a symbol of money power. He becomes a personification of this power and his human qualities are transformed into an aspect of it. In such a situation, where labour becomes a servitude, a forced labour, a labour of self-sacrifice, there can be no freedom. An alienated man is an enslaved man, enduring torment in his productivity. ‘He develops no free physical or spiritual energy but mortifies his body and ruins his spirit‘.True freedom can be achieved only by doing away with alienation and restoring the essence of man to his existence. For this purpose, abolition of private property in the means of production and the division of labour is a must. This can only be achieved through a revolutionary transformation of society from a capitalist to a socialist/ communist one.freedom from exploitationLike liberalism, Marxism also believes that freedom implies absence of restraints. However, it disagrees with liberalism regarding the quality of restraints that it wants to throw off and which the liberal ideology is quite content to accept. According to Marxism apart from the restraints of law and the state, there are restraints of long hours of work, arduous, dull and unrewarding job, lack of good food and living conditions and above all constraint of finding work. Again there are constraints imposed by lack of education. Liberalism believed that by controlling the power of rulers to dictate to the citizens, freedom will be achieved. But even after gaining political freedom, we have to face the constraints of productive relations and the imposition of economic slavery on the working class. Marx and Engles believed that only by socializing the means of production, can the individual enjoy a freedom which he had never enjoyed i.e., freedom from exploitation of labour.The essential element of freedom is: ‘in making itself the master of all the means of production in order to use them in accordance with a social plan, society puts an end to the former subjection of men to their own means of production.‘ This will be giving ‘each 232 individual the opportunity to development and exercise all his faculties physical and mental in all directions‘. ‘The realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production.‘53 Marx and Engles considered freedom a goal worth striving for and which could be realized only ob the basis of social ownership of the means of production. It consisted in each individual enjoying equally the possibility to develop and exercise all his faculties and to engage in that development of human energy which is an end in itself. The necessary condition for this is something which could only be realized by social action—the fullest development of social production on the basis of social ownership of the means of production and planning, overcoming the crippling effects of division of labour, abolishing all exploitation of man by man and reducing to the minimum the hours of necessary labour for each individual and the individual energy expended to them.‘ Hence it is only by the institution of socialism that men can make a real beginning for the achievement of a free society. To achieve such a freedom, not only more effective forms of democratic control of rulers be introduced but social relations must also be changed.freedom AS recognition of necessityAccording to Marx and Engles, man makes himself free by his control and use of material conditions for his own purpose. The achievement of freedom depends on understanding and mastering the necessities of material existence. As Engles said. ‘Freedom is the recognition of necessity‘. Writing in the context of Hegel, Engles wrote ‘To him, freedom is the recognition of necessity. Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not understood. Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence of natural law, but in the knowledge of these laws and to make them work towards definite ends. Freedom of the will, therefore, means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with real knowledge of the subject. Freedom consists in the control of ourselves and over external nature which is founded on knowledge of natural necessity, it is therefore, necessarily a product of historical development‘. Necessities exist in nature and society in the shape of objective laws. These can be the law of gravity, laws of mode of production, 233 laws of private property, laws regarding the development of society etc. Until we know the laws of nature, existing and acting independently of and outside our mind, it makes us the slave of blind necessity. But once we come to know these laws, we become the masters of nature. Thus freedom is based on the knowledge of necessity or objective laws and in the possibility of making them work towards definite ends. At the dawn of history, man being unable to grasp the mysteries of nature, was a slave of unknown nature and hence unfree. The more man learned the objective laws, the more conscious and free became his activity. Apart from nature, man‘s freedom is also restricted by his dependence on social forces which dominate him under certain historical conditions. In a society divided into classes, the social relations stand opposed to people and dominate them. In this context, freedom lies in understanding the laws of capitalist development, destroy the class antagonism and free people from the social oppression. In the course of building socialism/communism, the conditions of life which hitherto dominated people as alien elemental forces come under man‘s control. ‘A leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom takes place‘. Thus freedom begins where necessity ends.freedom as a collectivistic enterpriseMarxism takes a collectivistic concept of freedom. In order to make the individual free, one has to free a large social entity (a class, nation or mankind). Again, freedom of all cannot but be based on freedom of each individual. The dialectic of the individual and the social is an inseparable part of the Marxist concept of freedom. Thus the right to liberty has to be deduced from the association of man with man rather than from the separation of man from man; from a life in the political community where man considers himself a communal being rather than from life in civil society where man considers himself as a private individual. Since man is a social being, and his human essence is his communal essence, he may become a social being only in and through the community. It will be a community based on common sentiments, interests, intentions, ideas and values, a community where classes have been abolished, which is co-operative in spirit, where power has been transformed into authority, a community which rests upon mutual aid, assistance and solidarity and which is based 234 upon self-government and self-management‘. Men must be stripped of possessive liberal individualism before they enter the realm of freedom. But this has to happen much earlier that one would assume and the instrument is revolution. As Marx put it. ‘Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution. The revolution is necessary not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can succeed in getting itself rid of all the much of ages and become fitted to found society anew‘. Thus to become emancipated, man has first to be changed and re-educated through a revolution (or through praxis) which is the means to both the classless society and the alteration of man.Thus freedom is associated with Marxist humanism. Its understanding is much wider than the liberal notion of freedom. It analyses freedom in the context of free society which is a communist society. It associates freedom not with the ‘absence of restraints‘ but with the absence of alienation, exploitation, domination and necessities. Freedom for all will be possible only in a communist society. In the light of the ideal which Marx conceived of a society formed on all- round development human beings living in harmony and concrete freedom, both the liberal freedom of the selfish man and the legal freedoms of bourgeois democracy become superfluous.PROBLEM OF FREEDOM IN SOCIALIST STATESThe Marxist concept of freedom may be accepted at philosophical level but it could hardly be acceptable as a political concept. As has been pointed out by Selucky, Lenin failed to understand properly Marx‘s famous passage in the third volume of Das Capital dealing with the realm of freedom as well as Engles‘ notion in AntiDuhring, concerning the ‘kingdom of necessity‘ and the ‘kingdom of freedom‘. Since the ‘realm of freedom‘ can only consist in socialised men, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interaction with nature, and bringing them under common control‘, and the ‘kingdom of freedom‘ can only consist in that ‘the whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now come under the domination and control of man‘, freedom in this broader philosophical sense235 presupposes the end of the state as an organization superimposed upon the society. But it is true only for this kind of freedom, and not for freedom in the political sense. Therefore, when Lenin repeated Engles‘ dictum ‘while the state exists there can be no freedom‘ and ‘when there is freedom, there will be no state‘ he confused the two absolutely different concepts. If we see the concept of freedom politically, then the maximum freedom which one may reasonably pursue in politics is the freedom of choice in given circumstances. Lenin‘s doctrine of Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the concept of the party as the vanguard of the proletariat were used, after the revolution, to justify the proclamation of one party rule and the absence of any democracy in the Party itself. It turned into an autocratic regime which was perfected by Stalin. Rosa Luxemburg protested against the suppression of freedom in the name of the theory of revolution, prohibition of rival workers‘ parties, the supersession of freedom of press etc. Under Stalin, democracy and freedom of choice gave way completely. The Party ideologues assumed that the abolition of private property in the means of production had given rise to the identity of the interests of the people and the Party.In the standard Soviet text books on Dialectic Materialism, freedom was defined as ‘an insight into necessity.‘ The formula ‘insight into necessity‘ raises an important point with regard to freedom because liberation from dependence on the nature cannot be understood unless we understand its essential law. However, this freedom could not be confused with concrete human liberty. An alternative was found in 1936 when USSR Constitution was promulgated which proclaimed to guarantee democratic freedoms to all soviet citizens and also included a comprehensive list of rights. However, all these rights and liberties were subordinated to the monopoly of the communist party which was made the vanguard of the people. The party was invested with the monopoly of leadership. Non-political rights were insufficiently guarded because the constitution lacked the independence. After the death of Stalin, some jurists endeavoured to introduce a greater measure of security under law. However, in Soviet philosophy of law, personal rights were subordinated to the rights of the community. Instead of freedom of choice, the socialist states stressed on conformity which created the problem of dissidence and labour camps.236 The problem of freedom became the subject of growing discussion in all socialist countries from 1970s onwards. Critical Marxists like Kolakowaski, Selucky, Stojanovic and dissidents like Solzehnitsyn, Roy Medevedev attacked the orthodox doctrine of party and state chiefly basing their argument on Marx‘s early works. For example, Medevedev wrote that sixty years after the revolution, when all the enemies of the revolution had been annihilated, there should be relaxation in the political system. In this context, he demanded the establishment of political parties apart from the communist party, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of press, democratization of the party structure etc. These were the basic conditions for protecting freedom. Again, the rise of Solidarity under the leadership of Walesa in Poland clearly proved beyond doubt that the state and the Communist Party alone did not represent the will and interests of the community as a whole. The fall of USSR and the rejection of communist rule by the East European countries in 1989 proved that the state sponsored freedom is not necessarily compatible with the freedom of the individual.CONCLUSIONWe can conclude with the views of Steven Lukes that there is no inherent link between freedom and private property or egoism. However limited may be the character of bourgeois freedoms, it does not make them less genuine. It is a mistake to think that the exposure of bourgeois freedoms essentially leads to the conclusion that they are illusionary. In their zeal to prove that liberal freedom is nothing except the freedom to accumulate private property, Marxism precludes other more valuable freedoms like freedom of thought and expression, freedom to dissent etc. In practice, by its failure to call liberal freedoms as freedom, Marxism legalized their wholesale suppression and denial, all in the name of freedom.54References1. C. Caudwell. ‘A Study in Bourgeois Illusion—Liberty‘ in The Concept of Freedom, London. 1965, p. 51.2. Pelczynski and Gray, Concept of Liberty in Political Phillosophy, The Athlene Press, London, 1984, P.l-2.3. Hobbes, Levaithan, op. cit.4. J.S. Mill, Three Essays—Liberty, Oxford University Press, London 1975.5. Laski, Libertv in the Modern State, George Allen and Unwin. 1961 p. 42.237 6. David Hume. Defence of English Revolution: Political Essays, New York. 1951. p. 42.7. Frank Thankurdas, Recent English Political Theory, The Minerva Associates, Calcutta, 1972, p. 14.8. B. Bosanquet. The Philosophical Theory of the State, Macmillan &Co.. London 1920. p. 128.9. Laski, No. 5, p.85.10. Thankurdas, No. 7, p.20.11. Lewis Rockow Contemporary English Political Thought in England, Leonard Pearson, London, 1925, p. 211,12. Locke. Second Treatise on Government, Thomas P. Peardon ed., New York 1952, p. 32.13. Montesqueiu, Spirit of the Laws, Book XI, Chapter III.14. J.S. Mill, no.4. p. 18.15. Ibid.16. Benn and Peter‘s, Social Principles and the Democratic Stale, op. cit., p. 213.17. Mill, On Liberty, Watts &Co., London. 1948, p. 143-44.18. Quoted in Ebenstein. Great Political Thinkers, op. cit., p. 531.19. Ibid., p. 532.20. Mill, no. 17, p. 14-15.21. Oakeshott, no. 3, p.22. I Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty, OUP. Oxford, 1969, p. 128.23. Quoted in Macpherson, Democratic Theory, op. cit., p. 97.24. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago. 1962, p. 13.25. Laski. No. 5, p. 51.26. T.H. Green, ‘Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract‘ Quoted in Bullock and Shock. The Liberal Tradition, op. cit., p. 180.27. B. Boasanquet, no. 8, p. 128.28. Laski. A Graimner of Politics, op. cit., P.14229. Ibid., p. 144.30. Ibid., p. 146.31. Ibid., p. 146. 32. Ibid.33. Ibid.34. Ibid., p. 147.35. Ibid., P. 149.50.36. Ibid.37. Berlin, op. cit., p. 131.38. Ibid.39. Macpherson, op. cit... p. 105.40. John Gray, Liberalism, Open University Press, Edinburg, 1986, p. 57-58.41. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, op. cit., p. 210.-205. 4U. 41A. Anthony Birch, op. cit. p., p. 111-112238 42. Bottomore,i4 Dictionary of Marxist Thought, op. cit., p. 146.43. Marx. ‘German Ideology‘, in Collected Works, Vol. II. p. 6.44. Marx. Grundriwe. Penguin. Harmondsworth. 1973. p. 488,45. Huberman and Sweezy. Introduction to Socialism, Progressive Book Depot. Bhopal. 1969. p. 76.46. Petrosjan. Humanism: Its Philosophical, Ethical and Social Aspects, Progress Publisher, Moscow. 1977, p. 90.47. Bottomore. no. 42, p. 146.48. Marx and Engles. German Ideology, Vol. p. 6.49. Racloslav Selucky, Marxism, Socialism and Freedom, op. cit., p. 145-46.50. Ibid., p. 146-47.51. Ibid., p. 148.52. For more details on the concept of alienation see Marx‘s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Progreas Publishers, Marcaf, 197053. Cornforth. The Open Philosophy and the Open Society, op. cit., p. 317.54. S. Lukes, Power: A Radical View. Macmillan, London. 1974, p. 147239 CHAPTER 11 EQUALITYOf all the basic concepts of social, economic, moral and political philosophy, none is more confusing and baffling than the concept of equality because it figures in all other concepts like justice, liberty, rights, property etc. During the last two thousands years, many dimensions of the concept of equality have been elaborated by Greeks, Stoics, Christian fathers who separately and collectively stressed on its one or the other aspect. Under the impact of liberalism and Marxism, equality acquired an altogether different connotation. According to Barker, ‘equality is a Protean notion: it changes its shape and assumes new forms with a ready facility‘.1Equality is essentially a modern and progressive concept and the value of equality can be taken as a criterion of radical social change. The debate about equality has gone on for centuries. A feature of modern societies is that they are committed to the principle of equality and they no longer regard inequality as naturally justifiable or divinely ordained. Though in practice, they continue to be unequal, but this inequality is not regarded as inevitable. Under the conditions of modern state, it is ‘inequality which requires justification and not equality‘. The principle of equality enunciated by the American and French revolutions has become the central plank of all modem forms of social change and the social movements for the reorganization of societies.EQUALITY VS INEQUALITYThe demand for equality has always been against the prevailing inequalities of the times. The existence of social inequalities is probably as old as human society and the debate about the nature and causes of inequalities is an ancient topic of political philosophy. 240 In classical Greece, Aristotle in his book Politics distinguished three social classes and noted the significant difference between citizens and slaves, men and women in terms of rational and civic capacities. Participation in the Polis was restricted to the citizens only. Similarly, in our Hindu society, according to the classical text, the society was divided into four categories: Brahmin, Kshatrya, Vaishya and Shudras. All right and duties were based upon this classification. The medieval feudalism had legal privileges based upon status and birth which were supported by Christianity. Such examples can be extended but the point is simply this that various forms of inequalities have existed in all known societies. Different types of inequalities have been long enduring, giving rise to the notion that inequality is inevitable in social relations. In fact the pre-eighteenth century teachings argued that men were naturally unequal and that there was a natural human hierarchy. Different ideologies justified inequality on grounds of superior race, ancestry, age, sex, religion, military strength, culture, wealth and knowledge.Under feudalism, the society was divided into three estates: clergy, nobility and the common masses. The first two enjoyed all rights and the third estate had only duties. During this period these social inequalities got legal recognition. Legal privileges meant only for clergy and the aristocracy were widely acclaimed. Even in modern societies, there is a continuity of inequality despite the new ideology of equality as the basis of citizenship. Inequality is universal, endemic and resistant to social policies aimed at bringing about a substantial measure of equality. It is prevalent not only in the capitalist societies where there is a massive inequality of wealth and income but has been equally present in socialist societies where there has been considerable redistribution of wealth and regulation of economic market.According to Turner, inequality is multidimensional and the elimination of one aspect of inequality often leads to the exaggeration of other aspects of social, political and cultural inequalities. In fact, all human societies are characterized by some form of social inequalities in terms of class, status, power and gender.Hence while studying the concept of equality, this contradiction between equality as a general value of modern society and inequalities at practical level and a fact of all human societies must be kept in mind.241 STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITYIf inequality has been a universal phenomenon, protest against the inequalities based upon privileges and birth had also been voiced right from their emergence. Thus in the history of Western political ideas, the doctrine of equality is practically as old as its opposite. After the death of Aristotle in 22 BC, the most prominent star in the Greek philosophy was Zeno who founded the Stoic School and supported equality among men. The Stoics concluded that all human beings possess reason and thereby all mankind is differentiated from other animals and is united.2 On this account, the concept of humanity does not admit of degree. As such all men are equal as men. The stoic philosophers gave the idea of universal brotherhood and they were opposed to slavery. The promulgation of the ‘law of the people by the Roman empire was another way in which the Romans attempted to give effect to the principle that all men are equal and as an extension to that, they conferred citizenship both on the individuals and the entire communities. The climax reached in 212 A.D. when the notable-edict of Emperior Caracalla conferred citizenship of Rome upon all free inhabitants of the empire. The trend initiated by Greeks and Romans was continued by the preachers of Christianity. St Paul said to Gelatians, ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female, for yea are all one in Jesus Christ ‘3 From fifth century to the end of fourteenth century, the demand for equality was a cry against serfdom, medieval gradations of rank and hereditary nobility, and the equality for career opportunities in the Church. From 15th to 17th century, the cry for equality was against the landowners‘ status and religious intolerance and was raised by puritans, levellers, doctrine of natural rights and John Locke. The struggles for equality did take place but equality in the modern sense of the term was missing.From the mid-seventeenth century, mankind advanced towards equality in a notable sense. The movements of Renaissance and Reformation raised powerful voice against the legal privileges of the clergy and nobility based upon birth and demanded equality by birth. It was the seventeenth century exponents of natural law who postulated equality as a natural state for all men which finally created the theoretical basis for the political realization of the equalitarian concept. Henceforth, the affirmation that all men are 242 born equal was to figure in the manifestos all over the world. The revolutions in Britain in 1649 and 1688, in USA in 1776 and in France in 1789 made right to equality by birth as their central plank. ‘Men are born free and equal and they are free and equal in their rights‘.John Locke talked of ‘a state of perfect equality‘4; Jefferson pronounced the self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal‘. The declaration of 1793 proclaimed that ‘Governments are institutions to guarantee to men the enjoyment of their natural and imprescritible rights. The rights are equality, liberty, security and property. By nature and before the law, all men are equal‘.5 During this phase, the demand for equality coincided with the abolition of special privileges of the nobility and the achievement of political and legal equality with the nobility. It meant only juristic equality i.e. all men are born equal and they are equal before law. Whether it was England, France or America, the issue at stake in the context of equality was not economic or social but only uniformity of legal rights. As stated earlier, since the demand for equality was primarily raised by the rising middle/bourgeois class which had acquired wealth but lacked legal status, and which was anxious to achieve political and legal equality with the nobility, the demand for legal equality served its purpose well.The main precipitating cause for equality in the nineteenth century was undoubtedly economic. The economic and social dimensions of equality which emerged during this phase were the results of the conflicts and struggles between the capitalist/industrial/feudal classes on the one hand and the workers and peasants on the other. The laissez faire policy of the state in the economic affairs created wide economic disparities in the society. As a result, along with legal equality, demand for economic and social equality was raised by liberal, socialist and Marxist writers alike such as J.S. Mill, T.H. Green, Babeuf, Karl Marx etc. Simultaneously, the demand for political equality also grew stronger. The movement to broaden the franchise was an offshoot of the industrial revolution which increased the social power of the urban middle class and converted a large section of the population into factory workers. The reforms Acts of 1832, 1876 and 1884 in Britain were steps towards political equality.243 In the twentieth century, the demand for equality became more insistent. Today it has become the sin qua non for the socio-economic mobility typical of highly industrial societies. The national liberation movements against imperialism and colonialism, movements against aparthied, socialist revolutions in Russia, China and East European countries brought the issue of equality into the forefront. The Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 extended the recognition of equality, which had hitherto been accepted as the aim of all strata of industrialized countries, to the people of the third world countries who had been discriminated against, thus contributing to the eventual emergence of an international society based upon socio-economic equality.WHAT IS EQUALITYWhile equality is one of the many concepts (others being rights, liberty, justice etc), it is a crucial one in a world in when so many differences exist among men. Every modern political constitution has some notion of human equality inscribed as fundamental law and every political theory of any importance has contributed to the nature and feasibility of socio-economic equality. However it is as difficult to define it clearly as it is to achieve it politically. The concept of equality can be understood not in an abstract manner but only relatively and in the concrete context. Equality is not identity of treatment or reward. There can be no ultimate identity of treatment so long as men are different in wants, capacities and needs. As Laski wrote, ‘the purpose of society would be frustrated at the outset if the nature of a mathematician met an identical response with that to the nature of a bricklayer‘. Inequalities gifted by nature are an inescapable fact and it has to be accepted in the society. Injustice arises as much from treating unequals equally as from treating equals unequally.However, to attribute all differences in capacities and temperament to natural endowment is to ignore the reality. Apart from natural inequalities, there are inequalities created by the society—based upon birth, wealth, knowledge, religion etc. Claims for equality have always been negative denying the propriety of certain existing socio-economic inequalities. When liberalism urged that all men are equal by birth, it meant to challenge the privileged position of nobility and aristocracy in the society. Similarly, when it was244 urged that all men are entitled to vote by reason of equality by birth, it meant to challenge a property-owning franchise. The Declaration of the Rights of Man explicitly recognized that superior talent and qualities of character are proper ground for distinction of wealth, honour and power. During the twentieth century, we have been dismantling an educational and social system in which opportunities for advancement depended on the family means and replacing it with one that makes skill in passing examinations one of the principal criteria. Thus, out of context, equality is an empty framework for a social ideal. It is concrete only when particularized. The movement of history is not towards greater equality because as fast as we eliminate one inequality, we create a new one: the difference being that the one we discard is unjustifiable while the one we create seems reasonable. Social, political, educational and other equalities are always in need of re-enforcement and reinterpretation by each new generation. The idea of equality constantly erodes the foundations of every status quo.Like liberty, equality can also be understood in its negative and positive aspects. Ever since the rise of the idea of equality, it has been engaged in dismantling certain privileges whether they were feudal, social, economic etc. Hence negatively, equality was associated with ‘the end of such privileges‘. Positively, it meant ‘the availability of opportunity‘ so that everybody could have equal chance to develop his personality. Explaining the meaning of equality in this context, Laski writes that equality means:i.Absence of special privileges. It means that the will of one is equal to the will of any other. It implies equality of rights.ii.That adequate opportunities are laid open to all. It depends upon the training that is offered to the citizens. For the power that ultimately counts in society is the power to utilize knowledge; and disparities of education result, above all, in disparities in the ability to use that power. Opportunity should be given to everyone to realize the implications of his personality.iii.All must have access to social benefits and no one should be restricted on any ground. The inequalities by birth or because of parent and hereditary causes are unreasonable.5iv.Absence of economic and social exploitation.245 Similarly. Barker writes that the idea of equality is a derivative value—derivative from the supreme value of the development of personality—in each alike and equally but in each along its own different line and of its own separate motion. According to him, ‘The principle of equality, accordingly, means that whatever conditions are guaranteed to me in the form of rights shall also and in the same measure be guaranteed to others and that whatever rights are given to others shall also be given to me‘. According to Raphael, ‘The right to equality proper...is a right to the equal satisfaction of basic human needs, including the need to develop and use capacities which are specifically human‘.8 According (o E.F. Carritt, ‘Equality is just to treat men as equal until some reason, other than preference, such as need, capacity or desert, has been shown to the contrary‘.9 Recently, Bryan Turner in his book Equality10 has given a comprehensive meaning of equality which includes the following:1.Fundamental equality of persons2.Equality of opportunity3.Equality of condition where there is an attempt to make the conditions of life equal for relevant social groups4.Equality of outcome or result.The first kind of equality is common to cultural, religious and moral traditions typically expressed in statements such as ‘all are equal in the eyes of God‘. This is concerned with the quality of ‘men as men‘, something called ‘human nature‘, ‘human dignity‘ ‘personality‘, ‘soul‘ by virtue of which they must be treated as fundamentally equal. Equality of opportunity means that access to important social institutions should be open to all on universalistic grounds, especially by achievement and talent. The debate about equal opportunities is specially important in the development of modern educational institutions where promotion and attainment are in theory based upon merit. In order to have equality of opportunity in any significant content, it is essential to guarantee equality of condition i.e. all competitors in the race should start from the same point with appropriate handicaps.The most radical notion of equality is the equality of results. A programme of equality of results would seek to transform inequalities at the beginning into social equalities at conclusion. Social programmes of positive discrimination in favour of disadvantaged246 (i.e. scheduled caste, scheduled tribes, women, children, handicapped etc) are meant to compensate for significant inequality of condition in order to bring about a meaningful equality of opportunity to secure equality of results.VARIOUS DIMENSIONS OF EQUALITYEquality is a multi-dimensional concept. The need for equality is felt in different fields of social life. Accordingly, the different dimensions are:1.Legal equality2.Political equality3.Economic equality4.Social equalityLEGAL EQUALITYClassical liberalism, when it was fighting against feudal and religious privileges, held that equal distribution of opportunities required merely the equal allocation of basic rights of life, liberty property. If legal privileges are abolished and legal rights are protected, no obstacles will stand in the way of one‘s pursuit for happiness. It meant two things: Rule of law and Equality of law. Rule of law means that the law is sovereign and no person, no matter how great he is or thinks he is, can declare himself above law because that would be tantamount to arbitrary rule. Equality before law means that law guarantees freedom and equality to each citizen. This is popularly explained as Equality before Law and Equal Protection of Law.Equality before law: It consists in ‘equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary law courts‘.11 It means that amongst equals the law should be equal and should be equally administered and that ‘like should be treated alike‘. In other words, the law is not to make any distinction between rich and poor, feudal lord or peasant, capitalist or worker. In the eyes of law, all are equal.Equality before law implies equality of rights and duties in law i.e. equal protection of life and limb of everyone under the law and equal penalties on everyone violating them.12 However, since law creates classes with special rights and duties such as landlord, vs tenant, police vs people, member of parliament vs judges etc., 247 in such circumstance, differences in rights are inevitable.Equality before law also implies equality in the actual administration of laws.13 Inspite of the fact that people may be equal before law, the judges may be corrupt or biased. Equality before law must ensure that the judges are free from political pressures, free from corruption, bias etc. The inequality in the application of law may also arise if poor men are kept from the cost of a legal action; if a rich man can force a settlement on less favourable terms than a poor opponent would get in court by threatening to carry the cause to appeal.Equal protection of law: Equality before law does not mean absolute equality. While the law will not make any distinction between the people, equal protection means that on grounds of reasonable circumstances, certain discriminations can be made. The law, in certain special circumstances can make rational discriminations. It means ‘equal laws for equals and unequal laws for unequals‘. This can be understood very well in the context of Indian constitution where the law, while not recognizing any distinction based upon birth, caste, creed or religion, does accept certain rational discrimination like reservation of posts for scheduled castes and tribes; reservation of seats or special queues for ladies; concessions given to students in railway journeys. Such discrimination based upon backwardness, sex, ability etc are considered rational discrimination. In such cases, law protects the people by unequal rather than equal application.Talking about legal equality, J.R. Lucas writes that equality before law does not necessarily mean that the law will treat all alike, but rather determines that law will be within the reach of everybody. In other words, nobody will be small enough that he cannot take the shelter of law and nobody will be big enough that he will not be accountable to law. It means that anybody can ask for the help of courts, everybody is bound to obey its orders., and the courts will also take decisions impartially. Equality before law means equal subjection to law and equal protection of law.However, legal equality becomes meaningless in the absence of equal opportunities to get justice. In the liberal societies, people need both time and money to have justice to protect their equality. All may possess equal rights but all do not have an equal power to 248 vindicate those rights, so long as the vindication demands expenditure and so long as some are more able than others to meet the expenditure demanded. Thus in actual operation of the courts, as distinct from the rule of law of the land, inequality still prevails, though it is steadily being diminished by reforms in their operation.14POLITICAL EQUALITYWhile some thinkers have advocated the equalization of political power through direct democracy, it is generally assumed that political power is universally distributed and that political equality can only mean ‘right to participate in the political process‘. Political equality is associated with democratic institutions like suffrage, representation and majority rule. Early liberals did not include political rights among the basic rights to be given to all; they wanted that only wealth should replace birth as the criterion for franchise. Extending franchise to the propertied class was considered an egalitarian demand directed against the privileged nobility. Talking about political equality, Lipson writes, ‘Normally and customarily, many had always been governed by few for the benefit of the few...Humanity as a general rule has lived under regimes of inequality and privilege. The bases of inequality in political matters have been knowledge (Plato), religion and God (monarchy), birth (aristocracy) money (Plutocracy), colour (South Africa), race (Hitler), elite (Pareto, Michel, Mosca) etc.15 The demand for political equality, against all these, is ‘one-man-one-vote‘. This is the basic principle of political equality which has now found unqualified acceptance in nearly all countries of the world. The principle is expressed in the right to vote, the right to stand for elections, to hold public office and no distinction on the basis of caste, colour, sex, religion, language etc. According to Laski, political equality means that the authority which exerts that power must be subjected to the rules of democratic governance.16 However, in recent years, we have begun to realize that the principle of political equality is not as simple as the liberal meaning conveys. If the word political means the ability and skill to influence others which an individual exercises in controlling, managing and arranging things according to his will or to the will of the party to which he may belong, obviously, we cannot say that everyone is politically equal. In modern times, functioning of the government has become very complex and real political power vests in bureaucracy, police and 249 army over whom people have virtually no control. The elite theory of democracy discourages the participation of the people in political affairs.17 Again, how much we may harp about political equality, the prime minister or the party boss of this or that party can never be said to be politically equal. Political equality and political power are distinct categories. There are many constraints put upon the common man to get his voice heard and the multiplicity of factors which include different abilities, the ability to assert oneself and above all the differentiation imposed by the maladjusted property system. However, the merit of the political equality lies in recognizing the basic truth that if men are equal in law, then there should be equality amongst them regarding the right of governance.ECONOMIC EQUALITYThe twentieth century has witnessed a sharpening of concern for the economic aspect of equality and the means of securing it, either within the framework of the liberal system or by establishing a socialist society. Rapid industrialization brought about an increasing awareness that equality of opportunity cannot be achieved by the ‘majestic equality of the law which forbids rich and poor alike to steal bread or to sleep under bridges‘. Equality of opportunity does not only presuppose the equal allotment of certain rights but also requires application of another rule of distribution: equality of the satisfaction of certain basic needs. It means privileges for the economically underprivileged. As Tawney wrote ‘Equality of opportunity is not simply a matter of legal equality. Its existence depends not merely on the absence of disabilities but the presence of abilities. It obtains insofar as, and only insofar as each member of the community, whatever his birth or occupation, or social position, possesses in fact and not merely in form, equal chances of using to the full his natural endowments of physique, of character and of intelligence.‘18Early liberals meant by economic equality as equality of choosing one‘s trade or profession irrespective of his caste, creed or economic status. It was also understood as freedom of contract or that everybody is equal insofar as the contractual obligations are concerned. Many a time it was also understood as equalization of wealth and income. However, all these meanings were considered insufficient. Explaining the economic equality, Rousseau wrote ‘By equality, we should understand not that the degree of power and riches be absolutely 250 identical for everybody, but that no citizen be wealthy enough to buy another and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself‘.19 Economic equality is concerned with the apportionment of goods. To bring the poor to the general starting line, law must compensate them for those initial disadvantages by means of social legislation and social services such as minimum wages, tax exemption, unemployment benefits, free public schooling, scholarship etc.According to Laski, economic equality is most largely a problem in proportion.20 It means that the things without which life is meaningless must be accessible to all without distinction in degree or kind. All men must eat and drink and obtain shelter. Equality involves, up to the margin of sufficiency, identity of response to primary needs. The equal satisfaction of basic needs as a precondition for equality of opportunity does require economic equality i.e. reduction of extreme inequalities in the distribution of commodities.Economic equality is two-fold: (i) it is a matter of status and (ii) it is a matter of property and income.21 The matter of status raises the issue whether the state should seek to turn the industrial production into something like a ‘partnership of equals‘ and should introduce a system under which the directing and managing elements stand on an equal footing. With regard to property and income the issue is what methods the state should seek to correct inequality in their distribution. The liberal state through its policy of mixed economy, methods of differential taxation, regulation and raising the wages by methods of social expenditure, and other welfare services has been making corrections in the wide disparities of wealth. The state taxes the rich to provide welfare to the poor. While liberal sociologists like Dahrendorf, Raymond Aron, Lipset feel that through the extension of welfare services to all strata of society and redistribution of income and wealth through progressive taxation, the state has been able to lessen economic disparity and assure satisfaction of basic needs of all, Galbraith has gone to the extent of declaring that economic inequality has ceased to be an issue in men‘s minds in the Western democracies.22However, the liberal socialists feel that, inspite of the fact that state action has resulted in greater diffusion of property, the permanent ownership of capital resources and the disparity between rich and poor continues and is ‘still greater‘. State action ‘only 251 touches the fringe of the problem of finding a general system of its more equitable distribution‘.23 The state has yet to grapple with the problem of finding a general system of profit sharing.SOCIAL EQUALITYSocial equality is concerned with equality of opportunity for every individual for the development of his personality. It means abolition of all kinds of discriminations based upon caste, creed, religion, language, race, sex, education etc. The cardinal question which confronts us today is how the state and its laws should go to promote equality of different castes, classes and races, emancipation of women so far as equality in property and voting rights is concerned, and equality of right of admission to educational institutions. Equality of race and colour denies that the class whose cause it champions is not inferior to any. Inferiority implies two considerations: (i) the refusal to extend the principle of equal consideration to the class in question such as the negroes, blacks in South Africa, jews etc., and (ii) to prove the inferiority by means of dubious biological evidence that some races are superior than others.24The case for equality of sexes can be understood as (i) that inspite of physical and psychological difference between men and women, there is no evidence that women are in general inferior to man in intelligence, business capacity, soundness of judgements etc, and that discrimination resting on such assumed inferiorities is misplaced; (ii) the admitted differences will not support discrimination between the sexes in respect of voting rights, entry to profession, educational opportunities, levels of remuneration etc. Thus ‘equal pay for equal work‘ means that men and women should be paid equally if they work equally well; (ii) there are admitted biological and psychological differences in the functions within the family.25 A mother is expected to occupy herself with house and children, a father with earning the family living. But this does not justify elevating the husband to the position of a lord and master, nor the complete sacrifice of woman‘s personality to the demands of the family. The emancipation of women has to be expressed itself not only in law and economics but also in changes in conventional marital relations. For example many husbands now recognize that the domestic burden carried by mothers 252 of families in previous generations was out of all proportions to the difference in function implied by the difference in sex. Their readiness to share the household functions and the baby minding is a sign of a practical extension of the principle of equal consideration.Social equality also depends upon openness of educational institutions on an equal basis to facilitate social mobility. This is a field where extreme inequalities prevail. In almost all the liberal countries, education has been very much organized on the lines of social classes and educational opportunities are very much associated with wealth and position. There are different kinds of schools serving different social strata of society such as the elite, middle classes, lower middle class and the poor masses. In the prestigious schools where children of the affluent section of the society receive their education, the boys are encouraged to regard themselves as one of the ruling classes whether in the field of politics, administration or business. On the other hand, an elementary school education, mostly run by the government, is always and still remains a cheap education. An elementary book is a cheap book adopted to the needs and powers of the children of a certain section of society who are supposed not to require the same kind of education as the children of parents who have more money. Even if the elementary school boy, in today‘s changed circumstances, is not taught that the world is divided by God into rich who are to rule, and the poor who are to be ruled, the circumstances in which he is put provide ample proof of it. He is taught in unhealthy buildings, deficiency of playing fields, school libraries and laboratory facilities for practical work, shortage of books, non-availability of teachers, lack of funds etc. The opportunities for the children of the poor masses are rationed like bread.26Moreover, public opinion is so much convinced by the influence of a long standing traditions of educational inequality that they have accepted it a social fact. Equality of educational opportunity is still largely only a paper realization. The inequality in educational opportunity could only be eliminated if the society becomes unstratified or the school system is totally undifferentiated. Neither outcome appears likely in the liberal countries and the present inequality in education and occupations will persist.253 POTENTIALITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF EQUALITYThere has been a continuous debate whether adequate equality has been achieved in liberal countries. To a considerable extent, the problem of equality in the liberal societies boils down to the complex relationship between politics and economics. Although people are more equal socially than they were before the advent of the welfare state in the twentieth century, yet basic inequality in terms of power, prestige and wealth continues. While the liberal democratic state preaches public principles of impartiality and open government, it allows inequality in the economic sphere associated with capitalism. The liberal-capitalist society generates massive inequalities in the distribution of wealth both through inheritance and personal achievements in the occupational field. At the industrial level, people experience a society which is economically unequal while the political stage suggests that democracy is open, free and equal especially at the level of opportunity. The government, being a welfare state, cannot ignore the welfare and redistribution of resources, but at the same time, it has to pay attention to the requirements of tree capitalist economy. The socialist state (see Marxist view of equality) have tried To solve this dilemma but the results have not been encouraging.Recently, American political sociologists like Talcott Parson, Kingley David, E.M. Wilburt have declared that inequality is a necessary condition of all social organisations. Instead of worrying about the origin of inequality and social classes, they have attempted to demonstrate that social differentiation and stratification are indispensable to the very existence of the social structure. Each society has functional norms which promote the kind of inequality to be desirable. However, since the history of the idea of equality has been, to a considerable extent intermittent and sometimes violent, it is desirable that the debate over equality should be an unending one with every new resolution a beginning for a new one.RELATION BETWEEN LIBERTY AND EQUALITYThe relation between liberty and equality has been one of the interesting controversies of liberalism. The root of the controversy is: Are liberty and equality opposed to each other or are they complimentary to each other. In the modern constitutions we find 254 a frequent association of both liberty and equality in the list of fundamental rights. But they have not always been the same. The English liberal tradition seemed to place more emphasis on liberty while the French tradition had always sought to secure recognition of the principle of equality. Historically speaking, early negative liberalism preferred liberty to equality. It held preservation of liberty in the sense of ‘absence of restraints‘ as the principle function of the state and any concession for equality beyond ‘equality before law‘ was deemed as exceeding the proper scope of the functions of state. Positive liberalism as developed in the twentieth century takes the opposite view. It considers equality as something good and basic to liberty. It holds both the attainment of liberty and equality as complimentary to each other.LIBERTY AND EQUALITY—OPPOSED TO EACH OTHERLiberty and equality as opposed to each other has been an important current of early liberalism. Classical liberalism gave so much importance to liberty that equality became a slave of it. It believed that liberty is natural and so is inequality. So by nature liberty and equality are opposed to each other. Early liberal thinkers like Locke, Adam Smith. Bentham, James Mill, Tocqueville felt that there should be minimum of restrictions on the liberty of the individual. Liberalism during this era was based upon the concept of free market and open competition among the egoistic rational individuals and it believed that the outcome of economic competition, though unequal, is benevolent and progressive. This legitimization of inequality had a strong emphasis on and commitment to the doctrine of individualism. At political level, it asserted that there is a necessary contradiction between liberty and equality. Whereas liberty is associated with the individual, equality is concerned with social intervention. Hence any attempt to remove inequality involves considerable social and political intervention to equalise conditions and to remove existing privileges. However this intervention must interfere with the individual and his private exercise of freedom. Early liberals believed that no individual will voluntarily give up wealth and privileges in an unequal society and as a result, programmes of social equalization must interfere with the democratic rights of the individual. Only the individual is fully able to know and express his peculiar needs and interests; it is inappropriate for the state or some other body to interfere in 255 the life and liberty of the private citizens. Liberty, choice and money were closely intervowen in early liberalism. The wealth of the rich also constituted their liberty and that in being coerced to part away with their wealth meant a double enchroachment of their freedom.In the twentieth century, the theory has been supported by Bagehot, May Stephen, Hayek, Milton Friedman, Mosca, Pareto etc. They believe that given the financial and social inequalities, a political programme to secure social equality of conditions or equality of outcome would require massive social and political regulation by the stae resulting in totalitarian and authoritarian regime. According to Hayek, ‘From the fact that people are very different, it follows that if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. The equality before law which freedom requires leads to material inequality. The desire of making people more alike in their conditions cannot be accepted in a free society and is a justification for further and discriminatory coercion‘.27 Similarly Keith Joseph writes, ‘The pursuit of equality has in practice led to inequality and tyranny is not a mere accident‘. In other words, the price of significant equality would be political despotism which would subordinate individual talent and achievements. In the name of equality, the state unnecessarily increases its powers and restricts the rights and liberties of the people‘Radical equality of persons and outcome requires a totalitarian system of regulation. However, even this is no guarantee to equality. In practice, the so called authoritarian regimes have never achieved total regulation. Since human beings are averse to absolute regimentation, some degree of inequality of outcome appears inevitable despite all social and political attempts to eradicate such inequalities. Hence regardless of ideology, the achievement of equality is a problem.The supporters of the elite theory of democracy believe that people are politically unequal and to save democracy and liberty from mobocracy, it is essential that only elites (i.e. individuals and groups who are superior and hence unequal) should participate in the political process. In other words, to retain political liberty, inequality and not equality is the basis of liberty.256 In short, liberty and equality are incomputable; liberalism stands for liberty; equality is desirable only before law; political equality should be limited to right to vote and election of elites; social and economic equality, insofar as it increases the powers of state, is a threat to liberty.LIBERTY AND EQUALITY AS COMPLIMENTARY TO EACH OTHERThe early liberal argument that equality and liberty are mutually exclusive assumed an inevitable conflict between personal interest and social requirements. But this dichotomy of individual versus society proved false historically. The demand for economic and social equality raised in the nineteenth century by the socialists and positive liberals made equality the prime requirement of liberty. Positive liberals maintained that liberty and equality are complimentary to each other and the state was assigned the task of correcting the social and economic imbalances through legislation and regulations. The main supporters of this viewpoint are Rousseau, Maitland, T.H. Green, Hobhouse, Lindsay, R.H. Tawney, Barker, Laski etc.Positive liberalism saw the individual as a social being whose personal desires could be satisfied in the context of a cooperative social relationship and in a social environment. It interpreted liberty as ‘equality of opportunity‘ which meant that opportunity should be given to everyone to realize the ‘implications of his personality.‘ to provide such opportunity, deliberate social restraints need to be placed upon the individual freedom. As Tawney wrote, The liberty of the weak depends upon the restraint of the strong and that of the poor upon the restraint of the rich. Everyman should have this liberty and no more to do up to others as he would that they should to do him‘28 Liberty demands that none should be placed at the mercy of others. By securing opportunities for all to be their best selves, liberty makes equality real. Without liberty, equality lapses into dull uniformity.Without the satisfaction of economic needs, liberty cannot be realised. In a society of economically unequals, gross inequalities make liberty a privilege of the few. As Laski wrote. ‘An interest in liberty begins when men have ceased to be overwhelmed by the problem of sheer existence; it is when they have a chance of leisure, economic sufficiency and leisure for thought, these are 257 the primary conditions of the free man‘.29 Equality which aims to put an end to gross inequalities of wealth and power is the true basis of liberty. Wherever there is inequality, liberty is thwarted. To quote Tawney again, ‘A large measure of equality far from inimical to liberty, is essential to it. A society which permits gross inequalities cannot secure political or civil liberty. Where there are rich and poor, educated and uneducated, we find masters and servants‘.30 Inequality of wealth results in the division of society between rich and poor where the rich use their wealth to capture power and use it for their selfish ends. Likewise if there is social inequality, people cannot enjoy liberty. For example, the untouchables, scheduled castes and tribes who are both socially and economically unequal cannot enjoy liberty. Similarly, equality in justice is a primary condition for the attainment of civil freedom but the inability of the poor to employ skillful lawyers becomes a fatal bar to get justice. Thus as Pollard writes, ‘There is only one solution to liberty and it lies in equality. Liberty without equality can degenerate into a license of the few.‘Positive liberals did not agree with the view that state regulation in the economic and social spheres will lead to authoritarianism. On the other hand, as Hobhouse wrote, the state has been driven by the manifest teachings of experience that liberty without equality is a name of ‘noble sound and squalid results‘. Rightly understood, the welfare legislation appears not as an infringement of the two distinct ideals of liberty and equality but a necessary means of their fulfillment. The social legislation in the field of unemployment, health insurance, old age pension, free education, increase in the general amenities etc. have gone a long way to reduce the inequalities in the society. Rather the limits of improvement in this direction of greater equalization is yet to be reached. Both equality and liberty are complementary and one is not complete without the other. Both have a common end: the promotion of individual personality and the spontaneous development of his personality. In this context both liberty and equality complement and supplement each other. Without liberty, there can be no equality and without equality there can be no liberty. Both have to be reconciled. As Deane writes, ‘Liberty and equality are not in conflict or even separate but are different facets of the same ideal... indeed since they are identical, there can be no problem of law or to what 258 extent they are or can be related; this is surely the nearest; if not the most satisfactory solution ever devised for a perennial problem of political philosophy‘.34 Similarly, Gans writes...‘there is no inherent conflict between liberty and equality. The society we must create should provide enough equality to permit everyone the liberty to control his or her own life as much as possible without inflicting undue inequality on other‘.35However, inspite of reconciliation between liberty and equality, even positive liberalism prefers liberty to equality. For example Barker writes that whatever claims be made in the name of equality it cannot be viewed in isolation for the principle stands by the principles of liberty and fraternity. But still there are reasons for thinking that liberty matters even more than equality. It is greater because it is more closely connected with the supreme value of personality than the spontaneous development of its capacities. It is greater because the cause of liberty unites men together in something which each and all can possess, while the cause of equality, exclusively pressed, may make them sink into jealousy of supposed forms of invidious difference and produce division rather than unity‘.36 Equality, if pressed to the point of uniformity, would defeat its own purpose, ‘the subject will become the master and the word is turned topsy turvy‘EQUALITY AND JUSTICELike liberty, the relation between equality and justice is also a controversial one. As we have seen above, what we find in society is not equality but a number of inequalities both natural and man-made, such as inequalities of age, sex, ability, education, social status, wealth, opportunities etc. Inequalities of wealth and social status lead to inequalities of power and dependence, and subordination of many to the will of the few. Historically speaking, such inequalities have not only been justified but also perpetuated. The Greek philosophy of justice as explained by Plato was based upon birth and caste. Early liberalism while championing the cause of legal and political equality did not bother about the economic and social inequalities resulting from freedom of contract, open competition and private property.However, with the advent of socio-economic equality, the struggle against the prevailing inequalities became an important element 259 of justice. Today equality is invoked by every theory of justice in one form or the other. Justice demands that politics should operate to produce equality of opportunity, equality of treatment, uniform distribution of goods and services, one-man one-vote etc. Again only by applying the principle of equality before law and equal protection of law, one can be sure that his case will be treated at par with others. Equality thus becomes central to the theory of justice.No discussion of the relationship between equality and justice would be complete without talking about John Rawls who has attempted to outline a social theory of justice which would reconcile the liberal theories of rights and liberties with social egalitarian conception of economic and social equality. According to him, a just society would involve the maximization of equal basic liberties where liberty of one person would not conflict with the liberty of others. Also he outlines a set of proposals which would establish a sense of justness with respect to social and economic inequalities. These inequalities, according to him should be so arranged that i) they contribute to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged in the society, and ii) the offices and positions should be open to all under conditions of equality of opportunity. His general conception of justice is that all essential social goods should be distributed equally among all unless an unequal distribution of these goods would be to the advantage of the least favoured members of society. In simple words, it means that the inequality above the income median is socially desirable from the point of view of justice only when it helps to reduce the inequalities which exist below the median. Equality is desirable because the principle of justice based on equality brings an increasing benefit to all members of society, especially the least favoured. But it must be noted that Rawls does not rule out inequalities altogether in case they serve, for example, as incentives, creating a greater stock of goods for redistribution to the least advantaged.The relationship between equality and justice can also be understood at more abstract and fundamental level, namely, the ideal of equality not in the sense of equal distribution but as ‘treating people as equals‘. Justice demands that, at least at theoretical level, governments treat its citizens with equal consideration. Each citizen is entitled to equal concern and respect. According to 260 Kymlicka, this more basic notion of equality is found in Nozic‘s libertarianism as well as in Marx‘s communism. While libertarians believe that equality means equal right over one‘s labour and property, the Marxists take it as equality of income and wealth. Any theory which claims that some people are not entitled to equal consideration from the government, or if it is claimed that certain kind of people just do not matter as much as others, then most people in the modern world would reject that theory immediately.38 In this context, Dworkin has gone to the extent of saying that every plausible political theory has the same ultimate value, which is equality, and that ‘each person matters equally‘ is at the heart of all contemporary theories of justice.39MARXIST NOTION OF EQUALITYIn the Marxist-Leninist philosophy, equality is defined as ‘abolition of classes and equal social status for all‘.37 It denotes identical conditions of people in the society, but having different contexts in different historical epochs and among different classes. In the liberal society, equality has been taken as equality before law while the exploitation of man by man, economic and political inequality and the actual absence of rights for the working people remain intact. Liberal theory proceeds from the right of every man to own private property but the main thing i.e. relations to the means of production is not taken into account. Marxism proceeds from the premise that whether it is economic equality i.e. in the sphere of production, distribution and consumption of material wealth; political equality i.e. classes, national or international relations; or cultural equality i.e. in the sphere of production, distrition and consumption of cultural values—all of them are impossible without the abolition of private ownership of the means production and liquidation of exploiting classes.38 ‘We want to abolish classes and in this sense we are for equality‘ wrote Marx. Similarly Engles wrote that the demand for equality has either been the spontaneous reaction against the crying social inequalities, against the contracts between rich and poor, feudal lords and the serfs, slaves and masters, the surffiters and the starving; or the demand has arisen as a reaction against the bourgeois demand for equality and serving as an agitational means in order to stir up the working class against the capitalists. In both cases, the demand is for the abolition of classes.39 In the same vein, Lenin felt that 261 only the abolition of classes will achieve social equality and help promote the all round development of human personality.Just as the bourgeois demand for equality was made in relation to feudalism, the same demand is made by the proletariat against the capitalist class. For the proletariat, equality means (i) abolition of the private ownership of the means of production; (ii) end of human exploitation, (iii) elimination of classes, and (iv) eradication of all political and cultural discrimination against the proletariat. The socialization of the means of production must precede the universal obligation to work and equality of pay regardless of age, sex or nationality, though wages may be according to the quality and quantity of work. Marx emphatically rejected the possibility of establishing equality between men in the sense of equality of physical and mental capacities; for him, the aim was not leveling but an enhancement and differentiation of personal needs. Marx claimed that only by collectivizing the means of production and by material incentives would the productive forces be developed to a point where every human need is finally satisfied in a fair measure.The question of establishing equality in the socialist/communist societies came to the forefront after the Russian Revolution. During the phase of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Lenin declared that the socialist system retains some elements of social inequalities owing, among other things, to the inadequate development of material production, the survival of substantial distribution between mental and physical labour, between town and country. Political inequality must also operate to the detriment of the former class of exploiters for whom there would neither be democracy or rights. This is because classes as such would not be entirely abolished despite class antagonism. After collectivization, Stalin claimed that the economic antithesis and social gaps between industrial workers and the peasants were decreasing and becoming blurred. Classes still existed but they were now harmonious and they tended to draw closer prior to the formation of a classless society. All citizens had the same political rights; all enjoyed electoral franchise and eligibility for getting elected to the Soviets. On the other hand, there could be no equality for the non-conformists or equal opportunities for the potential opposition—an aspect which was criticized by Rosa Luxemburg after the revolution.262 The Constitution of USSR established equality of rights of Soviet citizens in all spheres of economic, cultural, social and political life. During the early years after the revolution, the policies of the Communist Party were extremely tilted towards equality. Examples of this trend were: virtually equal remuneration for all types of work, equal ration, equalization of property, abolition of ranks and titles etc. However, subsequently, when industrialization was launched, the demands of technology necessitated the training and employment of skilled labour and specialization. This in course of time led to the emergence of a new class of intelligentsia with the result that several scientists, artists, leading party functionaries, senior government officials sometimes earned 20-30 times higher salary than the ordinary workers. The end of 1930s saw the establishment of a class structure which was highly differentiated.The extreme inequalities of the Stalin era were largely overcome by raising the minimum wages, socialization of the means of production, uniform wage fixing, a relatively standardized supply of consumer goods etc. Similarly social and political control over process of basic foodstuffs, fares, rents etc. helped greatly in achieving economic equality. Difference in status and income was also mitigated by the welfare facilities and services available to all citizens such as free medical care, creches, day nurseries etc. Considerable progress was achieved in the equality of women. Again, all the tuition fees were abolished in 1956 in the educational establishment. A systematic large scale development and promotion of educational facilities enable, at least in law, any soviet citizen to receive education suited to his needs and ability.However, the political field offered a different picture. The system of government remaind centralized and authoritarian and the whole apparatus continued to be controlled by the politbureau of the CPSU. This group virtually controlled the means of production and distribution of national resources, formulated ideological policy and manipulated public opinion through strict control over press, radio, television etc. This prevented the masses from being becoming fully aware of the prevailing inequalities and its implications.In the Western liberal societies, where equality is constitutionally guaranteed as a political and legal principle, one‘s attitude towards its acceptance or its opposition is tolerated as an expression of 263 ideological opinion. Toleration of the most diverse opinion is essential to the political principle of equality. When comparing the extent to which such a demand has been met in the liberal or in the communist regimes on the soviet model, one finds that the latter lagged far behind.To invoke an ideal society in the name of equality when in practice intensifying inequality in the form of repression of those who are unequal—whether through the Dictatorship of the Proletariat or by some other authoritarian regime—is so out of keeping with the normal trend of industrial society that one is compelled to question the principles of economic and social equality propounded by Marxism and practised in the erstwhile communist states.References1. Ernest Barker. Principles of Social and Political Theory, op. cit., p. 151.2. Leslie Lipson. The Great Issues in Politics, op. cit., p. 11.3. Epistle to the Galatians. 3:28.4. John Locke. Second Treatise on Civil government, Chapter 2. Everyman‘s Library, London, p. 118.5. Quoted in Lipson. op. cit.. p. 116.6. Laski, A Grammer of Politics, op. cit.. p. 153-59.7. Barker, op. cit., p. 151.8. D.D. Raphel, Problems of Political Philosophy, 1970, p. 192.9. quoted in Benn and Peters, op. cit., p. 377.10. Bryan Turner, Equality. Ellis Howood, London 1916. p.11. A.V. Dicey, Law of Constitution. 9th ed. by E.C.S. Wade. 1941. p. 202.12. Benn and Peters, p. 123-24.13. Ibid. p. 126.14. Barker, op. cit., pi 153.15. Lipson. op. cit.. pi 84/16. Laski. op. cit.. p. 163.17. See The Elite Theon od Democracy. Chapter 17.18. R.H. Tawney, Equality, p. 103-4.19. Rouseau, Social Contract.. George Allen & Unwin, London, 1924.20. Laski. op. cit., p. 158.21. Barker, op. cit.. p. 15522. Galbraith. The Anatomy of Power, op. cit., p. 35.23. H.J. Cans, More. Equality, New York, 1973, p. 37.24. Benn and Peters, op. cit., p. 117.25. Ibid.26. See Tawney. op. cit., and Barker . op. cit.. p. 153-54.264 27. F.A. Hayek, The Coiixlitiiion of Liberty. Chicago, 1960, p. 87.28. Tawney. op., cit.. p.29. Laski, Liberty in the Modem State, op. cit., p. 16-17.30. Tawney, op, cit., p. 186.31. Barker, op. cit., p. 156.32. A.F. Pollard. The Evolution of Parliament.33. Hobhouse, Democracy and Reaction, London, 1904. p.2]9.34. Deane, The Politicla Ideas of Harold Laski, 1955, p. 40.35. HJ. Cans. op. cit., p. 33.36. Barker, op. cit., p. 159-60.37. I. Frolov, Dictionary of Philosophy, op. cit., p. 128.38. Ibid.39. Engles, Anti-Duhring. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 132-33.265 chapter 12 propertyRights, liberty and equality are associated in one form or the other with property. Property is a vital social institution affecting the social, economic and political life of the community. It is the creation of social recognition and economic evolution bearing political consequences. Property is not only a concept of economics but is rooted in the very foundations of the political system. Extreme inequalities in the distribution of property have been and will be the causes of political revolutions. Modern liberal democratic states guarantee property as a fundamental right. Property is not a thing but a right which is extended over things. The essence of property is in the relations among men arising out of the relations to things. According to Renner, ‘property in modern conditions has been a means of control over other people‘s life and labour.‘1To the question ‘why property‘? a number of possible answers can be given. Firstly, property has the quality of satisfying human wants. It acts as a means to fulfill the basic requirements of food, clothing and shelter and other material and mental requirements. In this sense, property is the condition of existence. Secondly, property gives security and allows the individual to turn his attention to developing the finer aspects of his personality. It gives the owner a link with posterity. With property goes the law of inheritance which allows a man to pass on to his children that which he earned and owned in his life time. Thirdly, property brings social status and prestige. Property can beget itself, and therefore, can be employed for social exploitation. Property can purchase human labour which is creator of property. Here property acts as power in the form of control over the means of production and factories,266 as profit, interest, rent, dividend and unearned incomes. Considering that political power is the handmaid of economy power, the state becomes an instrument to protect the will and purpose of those who own property.2 In this context, property does not act as a means to satisfy material needs or secure the future but as a means of domination and exploitation. According to Tawney, the greater part of modern property which is held is not for use or enjoyment but for acquisition and power.3 It establishes definite relations between property owners and non-owners, and creates many socio-economic and political problems like poverty, illiteracy, ill-health, unemployment, inequality, class division, class struggle etc. The evil effects of property were seen not only by the socialist/ communists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but also in the classical age by Plato, Cynics, Seneca and the Christian thinkers. Property has become a bone of contention not only now but for the last 200 years at least since the French Revolution. Extensive inequalities in the distribution of property have been and continue to be a subject of intense debate.MEANING AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF PROPERTYIn the modern society, the idea of property is very much associated with the development of capitalism and commodity production in the western world. Property in the common usage is based upon the idea of ‘private ownership‘ which confers upon the individual the right to use and dispose of things in the most absolute manner. When we talk of property, ‘We talk of private property defined as a right i.e. an enforceable claim of an individual—natural or artificial—to use some benefits of something (like land, capital, labour power and other commodities) or to some revenue from the position he holds in political society, and the right to exclude others from that benefit.‘4 According to Richard T. Ely, ‘By property we mean an exclusive right to control an economic good. By public property, we mean the exclusive right of a political unit— city, state, nation etc.—to control an economic good. Property is not a thing but a right which extends over things. In short, property is the right and not the object over which the right extends. The essence of property is the relation among men arising out of their relations to things‘.5 The essence of property is always the right to exclude others. In law, ‘control of property means control of 267 matter and it becomes control over human beings. Domination over things is also imperious over our fellow human beings‘.6As an institution, property may be described as a set of rights and obligations which define the relations among individuals or groups in respect of their control over material things (or persons treated as things). According to Macpherson, as an institution, ‘Property and any particular system of property is a man-made device which establishes certain relations between people‘.7 Like all such devices, its maintenance requires the consent of bulk of people, positive support of the leading classes and the belief that the institution serves some purpose or fulfils some need. As needs change, new theories are developed to justify it and the institution itself is changed by political action.Property has found justification right from ancient times. Property in the earlier societies was in the form of individual, family or community right over land. It was criticized by Plato as incompatible with the good life of the ruling classes because it i) diminishes the area of goodness; ii) starves men of natural and proper pleasure; and iii) increases rather than decreases discord. However, it was defended by Aristotle who talked about two kinds of property: i) where things are held in common, and ii) where all things are held privately. He found private property as essential for the full use of human faculties and to make a more efficient use of human faculties and resources.8 Similarly, Kautilya in his Arthshastra wrote, ‘wealth and wealth alone is important in as much as charity and desire depend upon wealth for their realization‘.9 Early Christianity denigrated property but it was defended by Augustine as a punishment and partial remedy for the original sin. Thomas Aquinas justified it as in accordance with natural law and the later medieval and reformation writers defended it by the doctrine of stewardship. In 1302, John of Paris came to argue that property was a means to enable the clergy to do their spiritual functions and, therefore, there was nothing wrong in their owing property. In all these controversies, the chief problem was property as ‘private property‘—property as an exclusive, though a limited, individual right over land and goods. Christian ideas gave rise to a conception of property in which the aim was to synthesize personal right with social duty. Theologians explained that man is entitled to acquire things as property, assuming that private property is a guarantee 268 to personal freedom and of popular use being made of things. At the same time a person acquiring property must bear in mind that in the interest of the community, the rich men should share his surplus of wealth.10In the early period, the theorists and the law were also acquainted with the idea of common property. Common property in the form of public parks, temples, markets, streets, common lands was held to be an ideal and recognized as existing along with private property. Bodin, the first great early modern political theorist, while making a strong case for private property held that there must also be some common property without which there could be no sense of community and hence no viable state. Bodin held the opinion that the right to property is rooted in the law of nature. Property is the basis of family and family is the foundation of state. Right to property limits the sovereignty of the state. The state cannot impose taxation without the consent of the Estates and that people cannot be deprived of the property ‘without just cause‘. Though recognizing that no cause of revolution is more important that ‘excessive wealth of the few and extreme poverty of the many‘, he was strongly opposed to the equality of property. Machiavelli also warned the prince that men would sooner forget the murder of their parents than the loss of their property.MODERN IDEA OF PROPERTYProperty in the modern sense is usually equated with private property—‘the right of an individual or a corporate entity to exclude others from some use or benefit of something‘.11 The notion that property is only private property is the result of the development of the new relations of the emerging capitalist society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to Macpherson, the modern notion of property had the following characteristics as compared to all previous notions, of property:1. After the industrial revolution more and more land and resources became private property. Property became a right and not a thing—an individual right unlimited in amount, unconditional to the performance of social functions and freely transferable. The right to property became an absolute individual right because (a) it was a right to dispose of or alienate or use; and (b) it was a right not conditional to the owner‘s performance of any 269 social function;2. In the feudal times, the great bulk of property was in land and a man‘s property was generally limited to certain use of it. Land was not freely disposable. The property was in the form of right in land and the right to revenue which was provided by such things as monopolies granted by the state, tax farming rights and incumbency of various political and ecclesiastical offices. It was a right to revenue. The modern notion of property changed this limited right to unlimited right and a right in land which became a freely marketable commodity. The industrial revolution made another kind of property important—property in capital goods, shares of joint stock companies, and urban real estates. From the seventeenth century onwards, property was seen as a right to ownership rather than a right to revenue;3. Property was associated with labour. It was considered as a reward of one‘s labour. The justification of property was that it gave incentive to labour. Ability and labour are the personal property of man and private property is the result of this labour which should rightfully belong to its owner. Since his labour was his own, so was the land with which he had mixed his labour and the capital which he had accumulated by means of labour. Almost all the liberal writers supported the labour justification of property.12The above characteristics were fundamental to the liberal concept of property expounded by writers such as John Locke, Adam Smith, Bentham, James Mill, J.S. Mill etc. Such a concept of property paved the way for the development of capitalism and industrialization. However, it was little suited to overcome social abuses. On the basis of this conception, unlimited free competition was propagated which encouraged one-sided concentration of economic power and separated poor and rich into classes. This led the socialists and Marxists to demand abolition of private property.A number of reformists in the twentieth century demanded widespread distribution of property in order to counteract the growth of dependence and abuse of power. The champions of reforms laid greater emphasis on state as the agency for redistribution of property and their ideas have been adopted as the guiding principles in the various property systems in the world today. Inspite of differences, both the socialists and the liberal reformists agree that to achieve 270 widespread distribution of property, they must take the help of the state.LIBERAL THEORIES OF PROPERTYThe liberal concept of property is largely the invention of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was a peculiar capitalist concept in consonance with the requirements of competitive capitalist market society. The foundation of this concept was laid by John Locke and the theory was supported by Adam Smith, Bentham, James Mill, J.S. Mill, Blackstone, Hegel etc. With the maturity of capitalism and its criticism by the socialists from the latter half of nineteenth century onwards, this concept of property began to change. Property began to be associated with social responsibility. This was expressed in the writings of Hobhouse, R.H. Tawney, Harold Laski etc. In contemporary western societies, according to Macpherson, property is increasingly seen once again as a right to revenue and for most people, this must now be a right to earn an income. Thus, under liberalism, two themes of property can be distinguished: i) Property as an absolute right, and ii) Property as a limited social right.PROPERTY AS AN ABSOLUTE RIGHTAccording to Macpherson, the essence of the early liberal theory of property is that (i) it is an individual right, (ii) it is an enforceable claim by the state, and (iii) it is a right and not a thing.13 According Aylmer ‘the early idea of property is associated with absolute ownership‘.14 John Locke, the founder of liberalism, defended private property with two related questions: why private property at all and how those who have acquired private property can justify their privileged position. He laid a series of justifications for property and all of them had one single direction: property ownership is necessary if men are to have the wherewithal to lead good life.Locke‘s assertion and justification of a natural individual right to property is central to his theory of civil society and government. He writes, ‘The great and chief aim, therefore, of men‘s uniting into commonwealth and putting themselves under government is the preservation of property‘.15 He begins with the premise that God has put men on this earth and given them reason to make use of the earth‘s resources. The appropriate means of making use of 271 them is to develop them so that man can sustain life. The best way to accomplish this is to allow individuals to come into possession of the land and material so that they will have the means and incentive to turn earth into usable commodities. ‘Every man has property in his person‘.16 The labour of his body and the work of his hand are properly his and whatever a man removes out of its natural state with which he has mixed his labour, he makes it his property. But Locke put three limitations (i) the man may appropriate only as much as leaves enough for others because each man has a right to his preservation; (ii) only as much property may be appropriated as can be made use of; nothing is made by God for man to spoil or destroy, (iii) the rightful appropriation is limited to the amount a man can procure with his own labour. However, as Locke develops the idea of property, the limited right is converted into an unlimited right. First, the limitation of spoilage is transcended by the introduction of money. Gold and silver do not spoil and may, therefore, be rightfully accumulated unlimitedly. Secondly, more appropriation leaving not enough for others was justified on the plea that greater productivity of the appropriated land more than makes up for the lack of the land available to others. While saying that God gave the world to all men in common, Locke also says that ‘He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational‘. In other words, the industriousness of the individual and his initiative and imagination can justify unequal and unlimited accumulation of property. The third condition is removed by his statement that ‘every man has property in his own person‘. For Locke, a man‘s labour is unquestionably his own property that he may freely sell it for wages. A freeman may sell to another ‘for a certain time, the service he undertakes to do in exchange for wages he is to receive‘. The labour thus sold becomes the property of the buyer who is then entitled to appropriate the produce of that labour. Thus starting from the assumption that the earth and its fruits had originally been given to mankind for their common use, he erased one by one all the disabilities with which unlimited right of capitalist appropriation had hitherto been handicapped.172. Property is political as well as economic and Locke gives it a place in his theory of social contract. The right to property is natural and prior to government. Government has beer, constituted to protect the right to property. Even if the government is dissolved 272 or abolished, the right remains with each individual. Again, the contract does not require that property holders be equal. After the formation of state and society, the government gave legal recognition not only to property but also to the pattern of property distribution which existed prior to the contract.183. Property is justified because it is going to emerge in society whether we like it or not. According to Locke men like material comfort and security and will be found to bend their efforts in the direction of enriching themselves. Not all men have such a will or ability but there are enough such individuals in the society to establish and maintain this institution in any society. In other words, there is an acquisitive element in human nature which will lead men to acquire and make use of property.19Thus Locke defended private property on the grounds of individual efforts and initiative; he protected the productive capacities of a new system of commercial and industrial capitalism against restrictive traditions of a repressive state. By making labour as the bases property and the source of value, Locke heralded the rise of new political economy and a new class to power.Locke aimed to design a property institution consistent with man‘s natural rights, an ambition in which he was followed by more than one contemporary philosophers. Adam Smith evaluated forms of property with reference to their contribution to the efficient market. Even Bentham who did not like the theory of natural rights and replaced it with utility, justified property as a reward of one‘s labour. Security of enjoyment of the fruits of one‘s labour was the reason for property: Without property in the fruits and in the means of labour, no one would have an incentive to labour and utility cannot be maximized. ‘Each portion of wealth has a corresponding portion of happiness‘. Similarly Mill wrote, ‘The institution of property when limited to its essential elements, consisted in the recognition, in each person, of a right to the exclusive disposal of what he or she have produced by their own exertion, or received either by gift or by fair agreement, without force or fraud, from those who produced it. The foundation of whole is the right of producers to what they themselves have produced‘.20 Similarly, Green wrote that ‘the rationale of property, in short, requires that everyone who will conform to the positive conditions of possessing it viz. labour, and the negative condition 273 viz respect for it as possessed by others should, so far as social arrangements can make him so, be a possessor of property himself, and of such property as will at least enable him to develop a sense of responsibility, as distinct from mere property in the immediate necessities of life.‘21In short the early liberal theory of property had the following characteristics:1. Property was identified with private property (i.e. a right to exclude others from certain benefits). It was a right of the individual. Locke defended this right as natural whereas Bentham defended it on the basis of utility.2. Property was associated with a right to material things rather than a right to revenue. It was an exclusive, inalienable, absolute and unlimited right to earn, keep or dispose of property. Property meant ownership.3. Property was equated with liberty. Early liberalism believed that no man is fully free unless he possesses right to property in something. Property is the means whereby he develops his personality by impressing it upon his external surroundings without dependence on the will of others. Property is in itself good and a legitimate aspiration for human striving.4. Property was associated with orderly, peaceful relations among individuals, good life of the citizens, autonomy of the individual, and above all with justice, efficiency and consumer‘s sovereignty.5. Property could be acquired by human labour. Individual effort and initiative provided justification for property. By making labour the title to property and the source of value, liberal theory of property translated the rise of a new class to power. The derivation of property in things from the property in one‘s labour stamped property as an exclusive right from the beginning of the liberal tradition.6. The chief function of the state was deemed to be the protection of property. Lock made protection of property as the basis of the social contract. The state must be strong enough to provide legal protection to property but not so strong as to interfere with the free decisions of the individual.274 7. Liberalism provided justification for a kind of property that was required by a competitive capitalist market society. A man‘s own labour as well as capital and land, was made such a private exclusive property as to be marketable. The concept of property as an exclusive, inalienable individual right in material things as well as one‘s own productive capacities was the creation of capitalist society.8. Right, needs, labouring capacity were all associated with property. As Mises writes. The programme of liberalism summed up in a single word should read ‘property‘ that is property in the means of production...All other demands of liberalism derive from this basic demand‘.22PROPERTY AS A SOCIALLY LIMITED RIGHTA sense of security, opportunity to develop one‘s personality, meaningful freedom—if all these are given to men of property, then what of those who do not possess it? It could well be that the owners of property enjoy security and freedom because they stand on the shoulders of propertyless to breathe a better air. The early liberal theory of property did not discuss this other side of the coin. Great things happened to the nature and form of property and its consequences on the non-propertied classes during the latter part of nineteenth century. As a result the liberal concept of property underwent a change. When the classical liberalism defended property as a sacred right, property consisted primarily of one of two types—land or tools which were used by the owners for the purpose of production and personal possessions which were the necessities or amenities of civilized existence. This kind of property was not a burden upon society but a condition of its health and efficiency and indeed of its continued existence. However, as capitalism matured, many changes were seen in the content of property. Firstly, there was a divorce of ownership and work. Ownership became passive, i.e., for those who owned property, it was not a means of work but an instrument for the acquisition of gain or the exercise of power. There was no guarantee that gains bore any relation to services performed or responsibility. Secondly, the great mass of property consisted not of personal acquisition such as household furniture nor of the owner‘s stock-in-trade but property as rights of various kinds such as land, industrial machinery 275 and plants, mines and mineral wealth, ground rents, profits, interests, shares in industrial undertakings, dividends, financial houses, business corporations, cartels, monopolies and other types of unearned incomes. Thus in reality, the greater part of property belonged to the category of property which was held not for use or enjoyment but for acquisition, for exploitation, for domination, for power and subjugation. Attention to the evil consequences of such property was drawn by the Utopian socialists and, of course, by Marx and Engles. They made a crititical analysis of the institution of property as propounded by classical liberalism. While the socialists called for a more equitable distribution of property, Marx and Engles saw it as responsible for class division and class struggle in the society and called for its abolition. (For Marxist view of property, see below). Even the liberal writers felt that property as an absolute individual right has led to the extreme concentration of wealth in a few hands and massive exploitation of the working class. The transformation of negative liberalism was also a plea for change in property from an absolute individual right to a socially limited right. The right to property was scrutinized by many liberals in the fag end of the 19th century and the 20th century and they found it inadequate with the changed nature of capitalism. They raised some fundamental questions like: It the right to property unlimited? On what grounds can the state resist or through taxation and other means interfere with this right? What is the ultimate justification of such a right? Is it a freedom to be enjoyed by a few at the expense of others? Hobson, Hobhouse, Barker, Tawney, Laski etc. pleaded for a limited right to property. Hobson called the classical doctrine of property as ‘Improperly‘. Hobhouse urged that before the specific right of unlimited property can be recognized, we must admit a general right of property with its due emphasis on social service and reward. In general, he writes, the central point in liberal economics then is the equation of social service and reward, i.e., the principle that every function of social value requires such remuneration as would serve to stimulate and maintain its effective performance‘23 Property is an individual right to have the opportunity to perform socially useful functions and what he receives from them is property. Similarly, Barker wrote that the sanctity which Locke attributed to property and was further defended by laissez faire is a right which has to be qualified and made relative to a variety of other rights.‘24 The right of acquisition 276 of property claimed as a condition of development of the capacity of one‘s personality is to be reconciled to the right of others to acquire it. In a similar vein, R.H. Tawney made a fervent plea for the abolition of those of types of private property in return for which no function is performed. Like Laski, he also related property to the socially useful functions. However, the best exposition of a limited right to property based on the reconciliation of the individual and social interest is found in the theory of Harold Laski.LASKI‘s views on propertyIn his book A Grammer of Politics, Laski has discussed the concept of property under the following headings:1.The present system of property2.Moral basis of property3.Property and effort4.Property and theory of industrial organization5.Property and the new social order.THE present system of propertyAccording to Laski, the possession of property means security. ‘The man of property is protected from the fear of starvation. He need not accept the work he does not desire.‘25 He can take leisure, indulge in artistic things, can avoid the grim routine, become an explorer. He can protect his children against the dread of want. It does not, however, necessarily mean that a man with property will possess these things but the fact remains that property creates opportunities for all such things.However, the problem is that men of property are always small. Ownership of property is not related to the performance of duties or the possession of virtue. Property controls capital, which in turn, involves the power to direct the lives of those who depend upon the application of capital in the production. Again, a regime of private property makes the state very largely an institution dominated by the owners of private property. In a political system in which the right to property is guaranteed, the propertyless do not have substantial rights. Property perpetuates division between rich and poor and separates the poor from the conditions which make possible their citizenship effective.277 Explaining the ill effects of the present system of property, Laski writes that production is carried on wastefully and without adequate plan.26 The distribution is never related to the needs or social urgency. Things are produced not for use but to acquire more profit. Property satisfies more the vanity of the rich and their lust for power and enables them to attune the will of society to their own. Profit, competition, adulteration, corruption become the hallmark of production.Laski does not agree with any of the justifications of property given by classical liberalism.27 He writes that it is held that man needs property because it provides an incentive to labour. However, the power to acquire property may defeat more incentive than it creates. The ethical justification that property is the reward of individual‘s efforts is also not convincing because in a capitalist society, it has become the reward only for that particular kind of ability which consists in the capacity to make profit. Again, if it is urged that property is the nurse of virtues essential to society such as love to one‘s family, generosity, inventiveness, energy, then the majority of mankind is unable to satisfy the impulses essential to social well-being. Even the historical argument that the progressive societies are those built upon the regime of private property is misleading because private property is not something unchanging.Thus Laski concludes that the present basis of property as an individual right is unsatisfactory. For all property depends upon the sustenance of society and its right are socially created. Rights socially created are relative to social needs. Hence if property is to be made a right, it needs reconsideration.MORAL basis of propertyAfter rejecting the traditional doctrine of property, Laski offers a new basis for the need of property in the society. He writes that as a member of society, man should have the right to control things so as to be able to be his best self. He has such a claim so as to satisfy his primary material wants, hunger, thirst, demand for shelter which are the basis for the realization of personality. These minimum claims are universal. But this right is relative to the duties performed in the society. He says, ‘If I receive it must be in order that I return.28 One must pay for one‘s existence. For 278 this, one must perform such functions as will produce the amount required for one‘s living and maintenance. No man has a moral right to property except as a return for functions performed. No man has a right to live because another has earned what suffices for his maintenance. That alone is moral which is the result of one‘s personal efforts. Thus Laski maintains that ‘those whose property is the result of ‘other men‘s effort are parasitic upon the society‘.29 They have legal rights, but because those legal rights are not born of their personal efforts, ‘they lack the moral penumbra which entitles them to respect‘.30 Laski is totally against the hereditary wealth because it produces a class which is free from legal obligation to labour. Inheritance is always justified where it means the provision of an income for widowhood and the children. In short, the only justification of property according to Laski is that (i) it is entitled to exist where it results from personal effort, and (ii) it is rational when it is the outcome of functions.THEORY of rewardIf property is the result of functions, then the question is how much income one should receive for his labour. Here Laski mentions four theories of reward, rejects the first three and propounds the fourth one. The first is the general communist theory of equality of income to all. Laski does not accept this because he says that ‘when effort is demanded of all, there seems no justice in an equal reward for unequal effort. Nor does it seem just to reward equally where needs are unequal‘.31 The second theory is that the reward should be fixed on the basis of free contract and the principles of demand and supply. But according to Laski, where parties to the contract (workers and capitalists) are not in a position of equal bargaining power, freedom of contract is meaningless.32 Nor has it moral worth because it leaves one third of the average industrial community on the verge of starvation. For them it means ‘poor health, undeveloped intelligence, miserable homes and work which can find no source of human interest‘. The third theory is that each individual may contribute to society according to his powers and be rewarded by society according to his needs. But even this principle is not acceptable to Laski because there is no criteria to judge the needs of a person. Against all these theories, Laski puts forward the principle that the reward must satisfy the two condition: (i) it should enable the individual to reach out towards his best self, and (ii) it should preserve and develop the necessary 279 functions in the society.33 We have somehow to reconcile the interests of the individual with that of the community. The needs of the citizens must be met in the degree of their importance and at the same time not impair the general productive fabric. No person can be permitted to secure remuneration except on the condition of performing work recognized as useful. Moreover in fixing the just principle of remuneration, apart from the wage that covers the cost of one‘s effort, wages also must be paid in such a manner that we attract into each socially necessary occupation a sufficiency of talent to run them adequately. The theory of reward also subsumes that ‘all alike are entitled to find the means to full life and that beyond those means differences must be required by the common good of the society.‘34 It also assumes that the haunting dread of insecurity and inadequacy which now poisons the lives of the majority must be removed.PROPERTY and industrial organizationThe right of property, to be well founded, also involves a theory of industrial organization. It must be a theory which aims at the release of personality in the industrial sphere. In this context, Laski writes that property in industry means ‘capital to be hired and a discussion of its rights is the discussion of the powers which should belong to those who loan it on hire.‘35 Working on the theory that no man is entitled to wealth he has not earned, Laski writes that no man should have capital to hire that which is not the result of his personal effort. Hereditary business enterprise has no relation to the concept of property in Laski‘s scheme of things.Industry must be made a profession i.e. it must be inspired by the principle of public purpose. It must not merely be a body of persons turning out goods for profit but a body of persons who perform certain functions at some standard of competence and at the same time protect their members from undue competition from outside. If industry is to be professionalized, Laski recommends three types of changes: (i) The owners of wealth should be changed into a person to whom a fixed dividend is paid for the use of his wealth. He must cease to be the controller of the business in which the property he owns is invested; (ii) The control of the industry should be handed over to the working class. Laski feels that industrial relations can be made creative only by making the280 exercise of authority arise naturally out of functions, (iii) social element of the industrial equation must be improved. This can be done by socializing those elements meant for the common welfare either through nationalization or through other means; introduction of standard hours of work and rates of pay in all the socialized or private industries; and throughout the field of industry insistence upon qualifications and publicity.36 By taking such measures, Laski feels that not only the ill effects of property on the working class can be avoided but the overall industrial capacity can also be improved.NEED for a new orderThus totally disagreeing with the system of private property propounded by classical liberalism, Laski writes that ‘No effort is more suspect in our time than the criticism of the existing right of property.‘37 It is wrong because it is subversive. It is futile because it is Utopian, erroneous because it is counter to eternal laws of human nature.‘38 However, the existing rights of property represent a moment in historic time. It is not something permanent and inviolate. According to Laski, property is a social fact and it is the character of social facts to change. Historically, property has assumed various forms and it is capable of further change.The present system is inadequate because it inhibits the exercise of those qualities which would enable them to live a full life. Morally, it is inadequate because it confers rights upon those who have done nothing to earn them and deprives the rest of the community to live an ample life. It is economically inadequate because it fails to distribute the wealth it creates so as to offer the necessary conditions of health and security to those who live by its process. Hence it has lost the allegiance of the vast majority. ‘Some regard it with hate, the majority with indifference. It no longer infuses the state with that idea of purposes through which alone a state can prosper.‘38Laski sees nothing wrong with the notion of private prosperity but, as he says, it must derive from personal effort organized in such a way as to involve an addition to the common welfare. It must never be so large in amount that its owner exercises power by its sheer magnitude; it must never be so small that its possessor cannot be himself at his best. The more equal its distribution, the 281 more likely is the contribution of the citizens towards social good. Regarded as a result of function, it must fall into its proper place in society.MID-20TH CENTURY CHANGES IN THE NOTION OF PROPERTYThus the twentieth century liberal notion of property rejects property as an absolute individual right and believes that the system of private property can be checked and reformed to suit contemporary requirements. It believes in a regulated economy with regulated private property. In the advanced capitalist countries, the society as a whole operates through the instruments of welfare and the welfare state is a regulated state which is very much concerned with the allocation of property. Through its policies of progressive taxation, police powers and compulsory acquisition of property for public purposes (after giving due compensation), the state has created new forms of property and distributed them widely. As Macpherson writes, ‘when the allocation of natural resources, capital and labour was being done by the market, property as an exclusive alienable individual or corporate right in things was necessary. But in the twentieth century, when the role of allocation of resources has been taken over by the state, ‘property as an exclusive individual right in things has become less necessary.39 This does not, however, mean that this kind of property is less desired by individuals or corporations, it only means that as this kind of property is less necessary to the work of allocation, it is difficult to defend it as an essence of property. The modern welfare state provides a number of amenities to remove economic hardships such as old age pension, unemployment compensation, medical care, retirement funds, welfare benefits, employment opportunities etc. Incomes have risen above the level of subsistence. Work is no longer compelled by stark need. In addition, the state also provides such things as family allowances and various free and subsidized services. Thus, in a sense, almost every one has some property in such rights. However, most people still have to work for most of their income. For them property is their right to earn an income whether self-employed or as salary earners. Today, in the advanced capitalist societies, salary earners are increasingly coming to see property as the right to a job or right to be employed. Since they are to be employed by others, it amounts to a right to access to the means of labour 282 which they do not own. This fact—that property as access to the means of labour—was seen by socialist and radicals in the nineteenth century. Today, it has become a part of the thinking of non-socialist organized labour movements. They think that the workers‘ main property is his right to a job.40To see property as a right to access to some of the existent means of labour, no matter by whom they are owned, is a considerable transformation of the concept of property. For example, Rawls has omitted private property from the basic rights of men and feels that a market socialist economy as well as a capitalist economy is compatible with liberalism.41Thus in the present context, property as a right amounts to the recognition of property as ‘right not to be excluded from the society‘s whole material output and from the access to the accumulated means of labour.‘42CONCLUSIONIn the liberal tradition from Locke to Bentham, property was seen as an exclusive, inalienable individual right over things. It meant a right to unlimited accumulation of property to the extent of treating private property as an end. Property was equated with personality, freedom and human essence, orderly and peaceful relations among the individuals. Indeed classical liberalism could be understood as a theory about the benefits of private property and the political conditions of its maintenance. The theory of property was essentially based upon three principles: (i) it was right to material means of life, (ii) it was a right to a free life, (iii) it was a right to the fruits of one‘s labour. In the later half of 19th century, as a result of the criticism of the liberal notion of property by the socialists as well as by Marx and Engles; and also because of the maturity of the capitalist economy itself, this notion of property underwent a change. In the twentieth century, with the rise of welfare state, a number of social services which were hitherto being purchased by the propertied class with their property began to be provided to the propertyless by the state. The state began to play a crucial role in the allocation of property. It became an agency to get the money through taxation and other compulsory means from the rich and distribute it in the form of social services to the poor, particularly the working class. Today, the salary and 283 wage earners consider their right to job as property. Thus in today‘s context, property is seen not as an individual right to exclude others but more as a right not to be excluded from the material resources and from an access to the means of labour. The rights to the means of life, liberty and labour can be better secured by the guarantee of access to the means of labour on equal terms.MARXIST VIEW OF PROPERTYIn Marxist social theory, the notion of property and some other related categories like ‘property relations‘, ‘forms of property‘ have a central significance. The fundamental distinction between liberalism and Marxism stems from their views on property. Whereas liberalism considered private property as a sacred right, Marxism found property as the main cause of exploitation of man by man and called for the abolition of private property and its replacement by the socialist property. Many philosophers, historians and economists have sought to bring out the content of property but it was Marx and Engles who reached the depth of the matter. Before Marx and Engles, all their predecessors whether liberals, Utopian socialists or Hegel had realized that the state of the society depended upon property. However, all of them identified property with appropriation of the material values and with property relations as reflected in the laws of ownership. They reduced the content of property to the ‘right to property‘. Marxism on the other hand, maintained that the actual economic relations among the people concerning ‘the production, and distribution of material values constitute the content of property‘.43 Property is neither a person‘s relation to a thing, nor a man‘s natural ability to appropriate objects of the external world as propounded by early liberalism, but ‘it is essentially a relation among people.‘ As a social being, man has always carried on his economic activity within the framework of this or that society, hence property should be derived from the conditions of the society‘s material life rather than from the life of the individual.‘44 For a detailed analysis of the Marxist views on property, we can study it on the following lines:1.Property and its content2.Historical nature of property3.Criticism of bourgeois property and the necessity for its abolition284 4.Nature and content of socialist property5.Socialist property—theory and practicePROPERTY and its contentProperty is the mode and form in which people appropriate material values. Property is a common word used in every day life to designate the sum total of objects or other material values in someone‘s possession. Its outward form of manifestation is the right to own. The liberal theory of property assumes that all members of society—capitalists, workers, peasants—are private property owners. It obscures the distinction between the person who owns a huge enterprise and the one who has nothing to own but can only sell his labour power. However, things in themselves are not property. In the Marxist sense, ‘property is the economic relation among the participants in social production concerning the appropriation of material values; the means of production and the products of labour.‘45 Marxism studies property as an objective relation manifesting itself in social production, as relations among people in the course of social production, that is, their relations of production. Marxism maintains that property has a direct bearing on all the participants in social production. It includes both those who appropriate and those do not appropriate. In the means of production, property determines the motive for the development of productive forces and the ultimate social goal such as what is the purpose of development, what is the goal of the owners of means of production. Such questions arise because historically speaking, the means of production have been used to advance the economic (and consequently political) interests of the owners Hence ‘property has its objective basis in the relations of production and that is crucial to the understanding of its content‘. This is so because before using the products to meet their requirements, men first have to produce it, distribute it and exchange it and only then they can consume it. In other words, man‘s appropriation of material values is first of all their relations to each other concerning the production, distribution and exchange of those material values.HISTORICAL nature of propertyMarxism challenged the commonly held liberal assumption that the bourgeois form of property is immutable and eternal. Marx and Engles held that it is the changes in the form of property 285 which mainly characterize the succession of socio-economic formations. Each social formation is identified by its particular property relations. A brief historical review of the forms of property in the means of production will show that social property in the primitive communal form was followed by private property in the slave-holding, feudal and capitalist forms. As Marx pointed out, the property relations are but ‘the legal expression‘ of the relations of production. The transition from primary historical relations to ensuing state in social development was determined by the development of the productive forces, resulting in the transition from an initial natural division of labour to the social division of labour in the form which is expressed in the division of society into classes. This was a transition from pre-class to class society. In primitive society, communal ownership of the means of production corresponded to the communal labour of primitive society. Hence property was social/communal property. In the process of historical evolution, with the development of productive forces and the social division of labour, private property arose, which took different forms.49 Under the slave owning system, private property embraced both the ownership of things and human beings. Under feudalism, production relations were ownership characterized by private ownership of the landed property and the dependence of the peasantry on the feudal lords. This was feudal or state property. The mark of production relations under capitalism is likewise private ownership of the means of production and the antagonistic opposition between the capitalists and the working class. This is called ‘bourgeois property‘. Marx and Engles examined the bourgeois form of property in detail. In Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx demonstrated that the emergence of private property was historically conditioned, that it came into being at a certain stage in the development of human society and also that it must inevitably be abolished. Under socialism which is the preparatory phase of communism, communal ownership of the means of production is the foundation of the mode of production; the collective character of the ownership of the means of production corresponds to the collective character of labour. The communist system which once prevailed in the primitive societies is taken as a proof that man is basically able to live in a morally perfect society in which greed, jealousy, avarice, deceitfulness play no part. The formula for reestablishing such a system is: abolition of private property‘.47286 CRITICISM of bourgeois property and the necessity for ITS abolitionMarxism aims at the abolition of private property and its replacement by socialist property. It postulates that private property is reprehensible morally, economically, politically and socially. Private property is the cause of exploitation of man by man. It is the product of division of labour in society. It divides society into propertied and non-propertied classes. It leads to class struggle and the domination of one class over another. It is responsible for the origin of the state which is nothing but an instrument in the hands of the propertied class to suppress the non-propertied class. Whereas for liberalism, property is a condition for the development of the personality of man, Marxism found property as a hindrance to the development of both man and society. As Aveneri writes, ‘For Marx property is not the realization of personality but its negation...Consequently, the problem is not the assurance of property to all—to Marx an inherent impossibility and immanent contradiction—but the abolition of all property relations as such.‘48 We can discuss the Marxist criticism of the capitalist property and its consequent abolition on the following lines:?(a)Property and Alienation?(b)Property and Economy?(c) Property and Class Division?(d) Property and Class Dominationproperty and alienation—moral basis for abolition of propertyThe immoral effects of private property in the context of the exposition of the capitalist economy was a major theme of Karl Marx‘s philosophy. In his early writings, he presented capitalism as a dehumanized world. He felt that we are living in an age in which the dehumanization of man, that is to say, the alienation between him and his work was growing to a climax which must end in a revolutionary transformation of society. In his book Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx raised questions like: why private property has come to have complete domination over man and has 287 become a world historical power? why property which is the creation of man, has become the master of man? why all human values are sacrificed for the sake of property? why man has got alienated from his real self and has become dehumanized? The most pernicious effect of private property according to Marx was the separation of the essence of man from his existence. This is what is known as his ‘theory of alienation‘.Alienation, in simple terms, means ‘the denial of something essential to man‘s nature.‘49 It is nothing but a process in which man deprives himself of what he truly is, i.e., of his humanity. Marx wrote that the capitalist economy starts from labour as the real source of production, yet to labour it gives nothing and to private property everything. In the capitalist mode of production the worker has to sell his labour power. Exploitation consists in selling the labour power which divests the worker of his own essence. By alienating or selling his labour, man alienates himself (i) from his labour, i.e., his essential nature; (ii) from the products of his labour, i.e. from his life activity; (iii) from his own body, the external nature, his mental life and his human life; (iv) a direct consequence of the alienation of man from the production of his labour, from his life activity and from his species life is that man is alienated from other men.‘50 In other words, the denial to the worker of his own labour, the fruits of his labour, his separation from himself, from his fellow beings and from mankind as such leads to the dehumanization of man and society. Now, the question is why this alienation and how it can be abolished so that man can be restored to his humanity.Marx associated alienation with private property and the capitalist mode of production. The purpose of the capitalist mode of production being profit, the whole productive activity is subordinated to a non-human purpose, the creation of profit. The right to property turns into its opposite: for the capitalist, it becomes the right to appropriate values created by others, for the worker, it means that his product does not belong to him. The division of labour becomes fragmentation of man himself since the purpose of his work is not to produce useful articles but to satisfy his own elementary needs. ‘Indeed, the capitalist system prefers a stupid, mechanized worker who has no human skill beyond the ability to perform the task imposed upon him.‘ The relations between men appear as relations between things rather than as directly human relations. Private property under capitalism is the product of alienated labour and wages are paid to the workers who are alienated. Private property is thus the product, the result, the necessary consequence of alienated 288 labour, of the external relations of the workers to nature and to himself.‘52Elaborating the ill-effects of the capitalist system on the working class, Marx writes that where labour is bought and sold, both labour and the worker become a commodity. In such a system the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed ‘the most wretched of commodities‘. As a result, whatever he produces does not belong to him, his products confront him as ‘strange phantom powers—independent of him and uncontrolled by him. He is related to his work as an alien object. It creates a unique contradiction. The more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates, the greater his products, the less he himself....The more the worker produces, the less he has to consume, the more value he creates, the more valueless, the more unworthy he becomes; the better formed his product, the more deformed becomes the worker, the more civilized his object, the more barbarous the worker; the more powerful labour becomes, the more powerless becomes the worker...‘53 Work no longer remains a creativity but a means of maintaining physical existence. As a result, man feels himself only freely active in his animal functions—eating, drinking, procreating or at the most in his dwelling and in his dressing up etc. In his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal‘.Describing the role of money power in the capitalist society, Marx writes,.. ‘we have to grasp the intrinsic connection between private property, greed, the separation of labour, capital and landed property; the connection of exchange and competition, of value and the devaluation of men, of monopoly and competition, etc.— the connection between this whole estrangement and the money system. By possessing the property of buying everything, money becomes the object of eminent possession. It is regarded as an omnipotent being. The extent of the power of money is the extent of the power of its possessor. ‘Money‘s properties are my—the possessor‘s—properties and essential powers.‘ Money is the supreme good and hence its possessor is good. It is the basis of truth, beauty and virtue. As Marx wrote, ‘I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid, but money is honoured and therefore its possessor is 289 good...Money besides saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am, therefore, presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things, and how then should its possessor be brainless? Money can transform fidelity into infidelity, love into hate and hate into love, virtue into vice and vice into virtue, servant into master and master into servant, idiocy into intelligence and intelligence into idiocy.‘54 All human values are lost in the race of private property and money appears as the distorting power both against the individual and society.Thus the capitalist mode of production based upon private property separates man from his human values, his labour, his products, his fellow beings and creates a world which is devoid of human essence. Both private property and the wage labour would have to be abolished, if alienation is to be dispelled. Marx envisaged the end of alienation only as a result of the abolition of private property and the totality of alienated social relations and social process which it generates. As Kolakowaski writes, ‘The essence of humanity can be restored to man by the abolition of private property, and the establishment of a communist society. Communism is another name for the transcendence of alienation—a total transformation of human existence, the recovery of man to his species essence because communism puts an end to the division of life into public and private, destroys the class system and exploitation.‘55property and economy—economic basis of abolition of propertyCapitalist private property is based upon the exploitation of wage labour. The relations of production include ‘property relations‘. Profit is the purpose of capitalist production, and it presupposes two necessary conditions: (i) some people should be able to buy the means of production (looms, spinning machines, cotton, yarn etc.), and (ii) there should be people deprived of the means of subsistence. That is, there should be owners and workers. Private capitalist property in the means of production takes the form of capital which is either in the form of machines, buildings, raw material, fuel etc., or in the form of finished goods such as fabrics, sugar etc., or also in the form of money paid as wages to the workers. The nature of production is social. However, the products created by the collective labour of the whole society is the property of the few individuals—the owners of the means of production, 290 the capitalists rather than the society as a whole. This creates a contradiction between the social nature of production and the capitalist form of appropriation. This is also the cause of periodic economic crisis of over-production. In the feudal society, a bumper crop of wheat meant more food for all whereas in the capitalist society such a crop means hunger for the workers who have also to lose their job because the wheat cannot be sold, and the following year the area under cultivation is reduced. Slumps in production lead to unemployment; unemployment means a further decline in market demand and cutback in production. As a result, no new jobs are created, the products that have been turned out of the factory are destroyed even while the jobless and their families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Finally, the stocks and commodities run out, production begins to expand again, trade develops and employment goes up ushering in a few years of prosperity. Unemployment, inequality, economic depression and recession, inflation, fall and then rise in production are the common features of capitalist economy based upon private property. Capitalist economy, according to Marxism, is thus marked by a fundamental contradiction between the boundless possibilities of production, especially under the current scientific and technical revolution, and the limited social goal of the development of the productive forces i.e., the drive for profit which curbs the efficiency of the working class.56 Having developed the productive forces on a vast scale and socialised the productive process, private capitalist property holds back the development of production and engenders deep social conflicts in the society. The only way to ensure further development of productive forces lies in abolishing the private ownership in the means of production and replacing it by socialist property.property and class division—social basis for abolitionAt the social level, private property gives rise to social inequality. Property is derived from the division of labour in social production. Property relations are class relations. The division of labour gives rise to property and the development of property leads to the division of society into antagonistic classes—the propertied class and the non-propertied class. The propertied class acquires monopoly ownership of the means of production which enables it to exploit the labour of the non-propertied class. The relations between 291 the classes do not constitute a harmonious system in which the functions of one requires and complements the functions of the other. These relations are antagonistic because the dominant classes are interested in preserving the existing class relations and thereby in preserving the property relations, while the non-propertied class is interested in changing them. Exploiters and exploited thus continue to dispute their share of social wealth as well as the methods of acquiring it. This leads to class struggle and class conflicts. This division of society into antagonistic classes and the existence of classes are connected with the emergence of property and can come to end only by its abolition.property and class domination—political basis for abolition of propertyIn a society based upon private property, the state belongs to that superstructure which is created by the productive forces of society and reflects the relations of production as defined by the class struggle. The classes which dominate the economy also dominate politics. Political relations between the classes are determined by basic stable class interests. As Marx said, in a class society, the state is ‘a committee running the affairs of the class dominating the economy, an organization which helps it to maintain and consolidate its domination and to rule the whole society.‘ The state stands guardian over the economic order which it protects with its army, legal system, police and other organs of physical and moral compulsions. In any society which is divided, as capitalist society is, into antagonistic and irreconcilable groups, the state cannot be democratic. Rights, liberty, equality, justice, though universal, become the privilege of the dominant class. Law is nothing but the will of the ruling class of the private property owners enshrined as law. There is no doubt that the exploited masses do indeed succeed in wringing out certain concessions from the ruling classes, but the real power always remains in the hands of the dominant class.Thus so long as private property exists, the development of personality of the individual is ruled out. Private property produces a society in which the moral, social, economic and political slavery of man is imminent. De-humanization does not affect one class alone, it applies to all classes, though in different degrees. The liberation of man lies in the abolition of private property and the 292 socio-economic and political system based upon it, and the establishment of a socialist/communist society. This, according to Marx, could be achieved only through a socialist revolution by overthrowing the capitalist state and the establishment of a socialist state by the working class.NATURE AND CONTENT SOCIALIST PROPERTYThe socialist revolution is designed to resolve the conflict between the social character of production and its private capitalist form of appropriation by establishing socialist relations in every sphere of social life. Socialist property is a property where ‘the means of production do not belong to a single individual but to the society as a whole‘.57 It is based upon building a system of new economic relations between people concerning the means of production. Such a system (i) gears production to meeting the requirements of all members of society; (ii) ensures balanced functioning of production; (iii) builds a socialist system of distribution on the principle of ‘From each according to his ability and to each according to his work‘; (iv) draws the masses into the management of production; (v) ensures steady growth of labour productivity; and (vi) provides jobs for every able bodied member of society, eliminating unemployment inherited from capitalism.58 Socialist property in reality means building a system of new socialist relations of production.The socialist property is based upon the socialist mode of production, the objective of which is not individual profit but social welfare and satisfaction of the material needs of the society as a whole. It signifies workers‘ direct access to the means of production. In practice it implies that all able bodied persons are guaranteed a job. The production is organized on planned development of the productive forces to meet social requirements. Since all members of the society based on the socialist property are equal in relation to the means of production, exploitation of man by man is ruled out. All workers are guaranteed economic and social rights. Distribution of consumer goods is determined by the interests of the whole society and its purpose is to promote the all-round development of every individual. Material goods under socialism are distributed in accordance with the quantity and quality of the work in social production. However, distribution of goods among the working class in accordance with the labour 293 input takes place only under socialism which is the lower phase of communism, while in the higher phase of communism, material values will be distributed according to the needs.In short, the socialist society ensures the socio-economic equality of all working people. All of them are equal in relation to the means of production; all have equal right to get a job, an equal duty to work for the society in accordance with their ability and an equal right to receive their share of social production in accordance with the quality and quantity of their labour input. The means of production are owned by the society as a whole. With the abolition of private property, classes and class struggle, the ground is prepared for the liberation of man from alienation, domination, slavery, and exploitation inherent in the system based upon private property.socialist property in theory and practiceThe question of the nature and different forms of socialist property came to the forefront after the establishment of a socialist society in USSR, China and other East European countries. Property in the means of production under socialism usually took the forms of state property and cooperative (collective forms) property. For example, in USSR, this was the property which accounted for 90 per cent of all property in the means of production. In other socialist countries also, most of the means of production held as the property of the state. The state property included all the crucial means of production in the national economy, such as the basic means of production in industry, construction, agriculture, transport and communication, banks, trading, municipal services and urban housing. Cooperative property (collective farm) was the other form of socialist social property which included collective farms, enterprises and associations serving collective farms, collective fisheries etc. In USSR, it accounted for 10 percent of the fixed production assets.Apart from the above forms of socialist property, there was another form of property known as ‘personal property.‘ Personal property exists under any mode of production. It means economic relations between people concerning the appropriation of articles of personal consumption. Personal property is different from private property. The main object of private property is the ownership of the means of production and it offers an opportunity to exploit 294 other people‘s labour, while personal property is property in articles of consumption and it cannot be used to exploit other people. It is the individually owned property of the society‘s members in earned income, savings, consumer and household goods, dwelling houses, personal transport etc. and also some means of production for running personal subsidiary farms, and doing household chores.Karl Marx regarded private property a form of power—a power which not only makes use or abuse of the instruments of production, goods and services, but also the power to exclude others from using them. Wherever property ownership in land and instruments of production by a few gives them the power to exclude others, it also gives them definite power over the personal life of the excluded individuals. There is no doubt that after the revolutions in the Soviet Union and other communist countries, the legal title to property was abolished, and all the means of production were transformed into either state property or the collective farms and cooperatives. However, critics of the socialist property pointed out that the concepts like ‘state property‘ or the ‘collective farm property‘ remained a legal fiction whose actual content depended upon how they were organized, how they functioned and how the different groups played their part in the productive process. From the beginning, in all the communist countries, the Communist Party had absolute power to deny any peasant or worker access to farm or industry, to decide what should be produced, what should be saved, how to determine the conditions of rewards of work and various other things connected with the use of farms or plants. This power of the Party was not under the control of those whom it affected. Under any system of socialization, where the institutional framework makes it possible for workers to be systematically denied access to the means of production, it is a mockery to speak of workers‘ ownership of the means of production. For all practical purpose, as Sidney Hook points out, ‘the instruments of production belonged to the Party hierarchy, giving it all the traditional privileges of ownership except the right to buy or sell and the right to disposition,‘59 Although the legal title of property had been abolished, the de facto power to deny others access to goods and services and access to the means of livelihood in effect gave those who wielded this power most of the traditional rights of ownership under classical capitalism. Under such a system, the workers could 295 be exploited more intensively, more surplus value could be extracted from them than under any legal form of ownership since the days of the industrial revolution. Thus ‘the Marxist critique of private property as a symbol of exploitation and domination could well be applied more legitimately and with greater devastation to the present day communist countries than in most of present day democratic liberal capitalist countries of the west.‘60References1. Renner ‘The Institutes of Private Law and their Functions‘ Quoted in K.K. Mathew. The Right to Equality and Property in Indian Constitution, National Publishing House, new Delhi, 1980, p. 51.2. H.M. Jain. Right to Property in Indian Constitution, Chaitanya Publishers, Allahabad, 1968, p. 2.3. R.H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society, Orient Longmans, Bombay, 1955, p. 68.4. K.K. Mathrew, note l, p. 122.5. Richard T. Ely Quoted in Ibid., P.50.6. Ibid., p. 517. C.B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory, op, cit., p. 1218. H.M. Jain, note 2, p. 2, 3.9. Kautilya, Arthashasira, trs. by R. Shamsastry, Book I, Chapter VII, p. 1210.C.D. Kerning (ed), Marxism, Communism and Western Society, Comparative Encyclopaedia, New York, 1972, Vol, VII, p, 76,11. Macpherson, op. cit.. p.123.12. Ibid., p. 126-31.13. Macpherson, Property : Mainstream and Critical Position, Toronto University Press. Toronto, p. 1-13.14. Andrew Reeves, Property. Macmillan. London, 1986, p.15. John Locke. Two Treatises on Government. Cambridge. 1960. Sec.124.16. Ibid., sec 27.17. Macpherson, Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, Oxford University Press, London, 1962, p. 199-200.18. Andrew Hacker. Political Theory, op. cit.. p. 258.19. Ibid., P. 260.20. J.S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book II, Chapter 2., Sec I.21. T.H. Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligations, sec., 221.22. Quoted in H. Marcusc Negations : Essays in Critical Theory, Beacon Press. Boston, 1969, P. 10.23. L.T. Hobhouse, The Claims of Social Justice. Allen and Unwin, London, 1949. P. 210.24. Ernest Barker. National Character and Factors in its Formation, London 1927. P. 235.296 25. Harold Laski. A Gramme? of Politics, op. cit., p.173.26. Ibid., p. 175.27. Ibid., p.177-88.28. Ibid., p. 184.29. Ibid.30. Ibid., p.185.31.Ibid., p. 190.32. Ibid., p. 191.33. Ibid.: p. 195.34. Ibid., p. 200.35. Ibid., p. 201.36. Ibid., p. 203-04.37. Ibid., p. 215-16.38. Ibid., p, 216.39. Macpherson, Democratic Theory, op, cit., 134.40. Ibid., p. 133.41. Gerald Gaus, The. Liberal Theory of Man. Croom Helms, New York, 1983. p. 236.42. Macpherson. op. note 39., p. 136.43. Maria Suvorova, and Boris Romanov, What is Property. Progress Publishers., Moscow. 1986, p. 8.44. Ibid.45. Ibid., p. 35.46. Kerning, op. cit., p. 87-88.47. Marx wrote in the Communist Menifesto. ‘The distinguish feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally but the abolition of bourgeois property‘:48. Avenari. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, op. cit.. p. 109.49. Reeves, p. 14, p. 146.50. Karl Marx. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Progress Publishers. Moscow. 1974, p. 61-70.51. Ibid. p. 286.52. Reeves, op. cit.. p, 147..53. Karl Marx. p. note 50, p. 64.54. Ibid., p. 121-23.55. Leszok Kolakowaki, Main Currents of Marxism, Vol. I, op. cit., p. 178-79.56. M. Suvoroya. note 43. p. 55.57. Ibid., p. 71.58. Ibid., p. 69-70.59. Sidney Hook, Revolution, Reform and Social, Justice, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. 197. p. 170-75.60. Ibid.297 CHAPTER 13 THEORIES OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICEJustice is the highest good of political life yet it is injustice which dominates political debates. It is easier to identify and deplore injustice than to define precisely what is just. Different ideologies have produced radically different theories of justice. Justice is kind of ultimate concept, a value to which either other values are subordinated or the value which synthesizes other political values like rights, liberties, equality and property. Thus any discussion of justice has to take into account the multi-dimensional character of the concept.Justice is a flexible terms which is stretched to fit any idea of good. The Greek philosopher Plato tried to define justice as virtue. For him justice is not to give every man his due but is based upon ‘just proportion‘ among various parts of society. As an egalitarian concept, justice is there where highest place is accorded to the value of equality. In the liberal scheme of things, justice lies in liberty. The utilitarian concept understood justice as ‘the greatest good of the greatest number.‘ Some identify justice with duty, others with the maintenance of law and order, still others with social ordering of individual rights. Some relate it with legal system and punishment. Socialists base justice upon ‘need and fundamental equality‘1.In political arguments, justice is regarded as the property of distribution of something. According to Kolb, justice is used in two senses (i) to give man his due, and (ii) setting right of wrong either by compensation or by punishment2. In the first place, justice is concerned with deciding the principles of allocation of rights and duties, material goods, security, dignity and opportunities in 298 the society. Since the distribution of goods and services is determined by historical circumstances of a particular society, the principles of justice are never absolute and keep on changing with the change in circumstances.Secondly, justice is related with the legal system and punishment. If what is due to man is because he is man, then it is natural justice. If what is due is according to certain customary rules which happen to be accepted by the community, then the justice is conventional. If the due is in virtue of a rule the breaking of which makes the breaker answerable for his action or actions to the public power, then the justice is legal.According to D.D. Raphel, justice is ‘Janus like‘ or dual faced, showing two different faces at the same time. It is legal as well as moral. It is concerned with social ordering and rights of society as much as individual right...It is conservative (looking to the past) as well as reformative (looking to the future)3. According to Gurvitch, the term justice is used in two senses: (i) it is the faithful realization of the existing laws as against any arbitrary infraction of it, and (ii) it represents the ideal element in all the law—the idea which the law tends to subserve. It is only in the latter sense that the terms can have a separable and substantial meaning. In this context, the term is understood too broadly and is seen to merge with the entire content of morality.4CRITERIA FOR JUSTICEIn the contemporary political thought, justice is regarded as a property of distribution of something. It depends upon what is the criteria for distribution of goods and services. In modern democratic societies, three criteria are usually offered, i.e. Equality, Merit and Need.5Since eighteenth century, with human equality and rights of man having been universally accepted, equality has been a fundamental presumption of the theory of justice. The demand of justice is that all men are equally deserving unless proved otherwise. Equality before law, for example, has gradually become a tenet of a reformed legal system. Similarly, economic equality in the form of egalitarianism, social equality in the form of non-discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, colour etc, and political equality in 299 the form of universal adult franchise and other political rights are considered the minimum requirements of justice. However, a belief in equality does not necessarily lead to a just society because men differ in different ways and they deserve different treatment. What equality requires is that ‘equals should be treated equally and unequal unequally‘. Nevertheless, a notion of equal treatment must reside in any theory of justice.The theory based upon merit, desert or entitlement makes a distinction between men on the basis of merit and justifies different rewards. Man‘s moral worth or intrinsic virtues and talent deserve reward and reward should be backed by his contribution to the society. Historically, the idea of merit played a progressive role in challenging the idea that people were entitled absolutely to whatever they happen to inherit or acquire—the rich their wealth and poor their poverty. With the rise of the capitalist society, merit became a major criterion for justice. A new social element was used that those who contribute most deserve the most. Merit measured by contribution is the mainstay of liberal theory of justice based upon the assumption of ‘equality of opportunity‘, the assumption that everyone has equal choice to make a contribution and so to deserve his reward.The theory of justice based upon need presupposes everyone‘s humanity and equal right to have their needs satisfied irrespective of their merit as is suggested by the socialist maxim ‘From each according to his ability and to each according to his need‘. This criterion holds that human beings a priori have equal right to respect, dignity and freedom and these can be enjoyed only if their basic needs are satisfied. But the practical question ‘what is need‘ is very vague. For example, the minimum income needed to keep an American citizen above the poverty line would make an Indian relatively rich. Similarly, good health is a universal need but the standard of medical care considered adequate varies from country to country. The system of payment according to need may be disadvantageous because the talent goes unrewarded.None of the criterion is problem free. Equality has no measure. The criterion based upon need reflects the fundamental idea of human equality and happiness at the cost of individual talent while the one based upon merit gives importance to the different worth 300 of the individuals and leaves the undeserving in the lurch. A true criterion of justice lies in the synthesis of all the three, i.e., equality, merit and need.THEORIES OF JUSTICEGREEK AND ROMAN CONCEPTS OF JUSTICEThe concept of justice has been dynamic and multi-dimensional. In every society, there is a different concept of justice. In his book Republic, Plato, the great political philosopher of Greece gave an ideal concept of justice. He conceived of justice as perfectly adopted to man‘s nature and which can be discovered by reason. He treated justice as one of the four principles of virtue, the other three being temperance, wisdom and courage. Justice was regarded as the supreme virtue, which harmonises all other virtues. According to Plato, nature has made some men philosophic and contemplative— they are nobles; others valient and aggressive such as warriors, and the rest as good workers and artisans. Justice lies in ‘sticking to one‘s station‘, i.e., duty, towards one‘s own work for which one is best suited. Again, since individual virtues are the reproduction in miniature of the virtues of the social whole, i.e., the state, one could discover the nature of justice only by studying the harmony of the state. This harmony consisted of each individual accomplishing the task which the state assigned to him. For Plato, justice meant balance and harmony that results from this.6Plato‘s disciple Aristotle modified this hierarchical concept of justice by admitting that justice implies a certain degree of equality. This equality could be based upon (i) identity of treatment, and (ii) proportionality or equivalence. Identity of treatment leads to commutative justice and the proportionality leads to distributive justice. While the distributive justice is the business of the legislature, the commutative justice is the business of the judge. Aristotle wrote that political rights, honour, wealth and goods should be allotted according to distributive justice. On the other hand, punishment should be imposed and damages paid according to commutative justice. It is related to a judiciary whose duty is to restore the middle point of equality wherever it is lacking between the parties. Holding that the supreme criterion of the good is the just mean or the equilibrium, Aristotle recognized the third aspect of justice—justice as a moving equilibrium which seeks to reconcile 301 the demands of distributive justice with that of commutative justice.7 STOICS AND ROMAN CONCEPTS OF JUSTICEFor stoics, justice could be discovered by Reason and was superior to positive law and customs. It was natural in the sense that man could see how he ought to behave. It was divine and immutable and same for all men. Positive law, to be worthy of law, must conform to it. The natural law or justice of the stoics treated all men as equal. It consisted not of the rules that are actually common to all people but rules that derive from the essential nature of man. The Roman jurists absorbed this concept into their account of law. In Justian‘s Institutes, there is a clear distinction between the law prescribed by reason and the common law of the people (jus gentium). The Institutes included three precepts of justice: (i) it is the objective expression of the right order in a recognized and enforced body of rules; (ii) it consists in living up to one‘s position and not injuring the position of another; and (iii) actually and positively respecting another‘s position and rights. All this combined with the most pragmatic meaning of justice as the faithful realization of law. The idea of natural justice was taken over by the Christian fathers and survives among European people to this day. It was increasingly assimilated into the general law of the universe.MODERN THEORIES OF JUSTICEThe secularization of justice was accomplished only after the liberating effects of Renaissance, Reformation and commercial/ industrial revolution in Europe. The harbingers of this secular concept of justice were Grotius, Pufendorf, Bodin, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant etc. Hobbes identified justice with the commanding will of the state. Locke, Rousseau and Kant associated justice with the synthesis of liberty, equality and positive law. Institutions such as feudalism, absolute monarchy and caste privileges were considered unjust and hence illegal. Justice could be realized only through the social contract which guaranteed liberty and equality.Nineteenth century Europe was witness to some rival notions of justice. Bentham and Mill through their utilitarian theory associated justice with what was conducive to the happiness of mankind. Happiness consisted in the rights and liberty of every 302 individual and with those rules and acts which affected human welfare. But they did not consider the gross inequalities arising out of capitalist property relations as unjust. Its critique was provided by Marxism (see next chapter) which related justice with the abolition of capitalist mode of production and the creation of a classless and stateless society. However, inspite of criticism, the utilitarian view of justice remained the dominant liberal view till the second world war. With the rise of welfare state in the post-second world war Europe, it was found inadequate. In this context, John Rawls‘ A Theory of Justice is a major contribution, which synthesizing liberty, equality and social welfare produced a liberal egalitarian theory of justice. The rise of libertarianism with its emphasis on free market, minimal state and absolute individual rights to freedom and property has advocated another theory of justice known as ‘Entitlement theory of Justice‘. This has been popularized by Robert Nozic in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia. Let us discuss these theories in detail.UTILITARIAN THEORY OF JUSTICEThe first comprehensive liberal notion of justice was provided by David Hume, Jermy Bentham and J.S. Mill known as the utilitarian theory of justice. Hume declared that ‘the public utility is the sole origin of justice‘. Although there were elements of utillitananism in the writings of Hume, its sustained and detailed development is found in the works of Bentham who declared that the principle of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number was the measure of right and wrong or justice and injustice‘. Utilitarianism in its simplest formulation claimed that the morally right act or just policy is that which produces the greatest happiness for the members of society. The utilitarian theory valued justice as the most important and most privileged of social utilities. In A System of Logic, Mill wrote that there must be some standard by which to determine the goodness or badness, absolute and comparative ends or objects of desire. And whatever that standard is, there can be but one...that the general principle to which all rules of practice ought to conform and the test by which they should be tried, is that conducive to the happiness of mankind‘ (Book VI, Chap. 12, Sec. 7). Justice for him, was the appropriate name for certain social utilities which are vastly important and therefore more absolute and imperative that any other. Justice is concerned with man‘s feelings that certain 303 pain producing actions of others ought to be constrained since the security of a large number of men is involved. Positively, justice was concerned with those rights without which security of men perhaps of all men would be placed in jeopardy. In brief, from utilitarian point of view, Mill associated justice with rights, the affirmation of liberty of every individual and with those rules and acts which most crucially affect human welfare.8As compared with previous theories of justice, utilitarianism had two attractions: Firstly the goals it sought to promote were not dependent upon God. The good, happiness, welfare or well-being was something that we all pursue in our own daily life. Secondly, it believed that all customs, rules, laws and actions should be tested against the standard of human improvement i.e. how far they increased the happiness of the individual. It believed in the old dictum, ‘Man is the measure of all things‘.Thus in its radical form, utilitarian theory of justice was a strong weapon against prejudices and superstitions, providing a standard and a procedure that challenged those who claimed authority in the name of morality. It identified itself with reform-minded political programmes, extension of democracy, penal reforms, welfare provisions etc. The utilitarian heritage has been profoundly influential and the liberal tradition in Anglo-American law has reflected ever since the basic view that the maximization of social welfare is the proper objective of justice.However, the theory was challenged in the twentieth century on a number of grounds and was found inadequate to the needs of liberal democratic welfare state after the second world war. Firstly, it was argued that what maximizes the total amount of happiness may differ from what maximizes the number of people whose happiness may be advanced. The utilitarian principle was a combination of two opposite principles. It threatened to oppress some members of the society in the interest of greatest good of the greatest number. It could justify sacrificing the weak and unpopular members of the community for the benefit of the majority. Secondly, the utilitarian theory also violates the principle of justice and can sanction acts which can be unjust. For example, one might imagine a state of affairs in which a maximum amount of happiness would be produced and its distribution to the maximum 304 number of people achieved by the enslavement of minority. So in principle, utilitarianism could be compatible with an unjust institution such as slavery. Similarly, critics have searched for more and more examples of morally deplorable actions which utilitarianism in principle can permit such as punishment of innocent, denial of minority rights etc. Lastly, questions were also raised about the nature of utility, its quantity, quality, whose utility etc.9 As a result it was replaced by a more comprehensive theory of justice by John Rawls.CONTRACTARIAN THEORY OF JUSTICE—VIEWS OF JOHN RAWLSThe utilitarian theory of justice was replaced by an alternate theory of justice by an American philosopher John Rawls through his now most famous book of twentieth century A Theory of Justice (1971). The book has been compared in various ways with the works of Plato, J.S. Mill and Kant. The basic objective of the book was to provide a coherent theoretical foundations for a conception of justice that could be offered in opposition to the utilitarian point of view which had been dominant in the western liberal thought since nineteenth century, and to provide a theory of justice which could meet the needs of liberal democratic welfare state as emerged in the post-war period.Rawis begins by describing justice as the first virtue of social institutions and sets out to discover what principles of justice are most defensible. In doing so, he develops a Contractarian theory of justice in the tradition of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Since for Rawls, justice is the foundation of social structure, all political and legislative decisions must take place within the limits of the principles of justice. The primary domain over which justice operates is the distribution of goods. In Rawls‘s theory, these things are called ‘Primary goods‘. They are of two types:?I. Social goods: goods that are directly distributed by social institutions such as income and wealth, opportunities and power, rights and liberties.?II. Natural goods: goods like health, intelligence, vigour, imagination, natural talents which are affected by social institutions but are not directly distributed by them.305 How such goods are distributed in a just society will depend on what principles of justice are reflected in the system of rights; law process and positions that constitute the society functioning as a political entity.As mentioned above, Rawls theory of justice is based upon the contractual view of society. The basic purpose of adopting the social contract is to show that the principles of justice which form the basic structure of society are the result of the original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their interests would accept in an initial position of equality. These principles are to regulate all further agreements. According to Kelly, the contract theory as adopted by Rawls is based upon the assumption that political and social arrangements are legitimate only if society is conceived of as a voluntary scheme of fair social cooperation in which individual are regarded as free and equal. The contract is crucial for Rawls because it provides a justification which accommodates this conception of individual as free and equal. In short, the contract, though hypothetical, serves two purposes: i) it provides a mechanism for choosing the two principles of justice, ii) it aims to show why people ought to accept the terms of association specified by the two principles.10Since the theory of justice is based upon contract, like Hobbes and Locke, Rawls also talks of a pre-social state of nature in which people would decide consensually on the form of society that they would agree to live in. His presumption is that given a chance, they will choose a society which is ‘just under the sterile conditions of impartial choice‘. He makes a number of assumptions about these individuals such as—i) all of them are mutually indifferent; as long as they satisfy their own interest, they do not suffer from envy, iii) in agreeing to form a society, they all seek to maximize satisfaction of their own interests like rights, liberty, opportunities, income or wealth, iv) they will be under a ‘veil of ignorance‘ which prevents them from knowing the full details of others‘ talents. This situation in which people find themselves is called by Rawls as ‘original position‘ in which everyone has ‘particular wisdom‘ and ‘general ignorance‘. Rawls believes that the society chosen on these impartial grounds would be a just society and the concept of justice arrived at would be ‘Justice as Fairness‘306 Based upon the above presumptions and given a chance to decide on the form of society, Rawls says that each person would seek to advance his own interest but since no one is able to distinguish himself from others, he will favour principles which allow the maximum opportunity for the pursuit of one‘s life plans to everyone. In other words, everyone will choose a kind of society which minimizes his possible losses and makes sure that even the worst of persons is not too destitute in case he turns out to be such a person. Rawls calls this the ‘maximizing principle‘, because it maximizes their minimum welfare. Of such people, no one would like to live in a slave-owning society because no one would risk becoming a slave although he may become a slave owner.Taking maximum advantage and the distribution of primary goods, Rawls says that the people would choose two principles of justice:?(i) each person to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberties compatible with similar liberties of others.?(ii) social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that both are (a) to the greatest benefit to the least advantaged, and (ii) attached lo positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.11As people consider the above two principles of justice, they may realise that conflict is possible between them. That is, it is possible that a restriction on liberty of some individuals may constitute an inequality that satisfy the second principle: it may result in an increase of goods that benefits everyone. But Rawls rules out such inequalities and declares that people will give first principle (i.e. liberty) an absolute priority over the second. Even an improvement in the welfare of everyone is an insufficient justification for inequitable abridgement of liberty. Crucial to Rawls‘ theory is the conviction that among the primary goods, self-respect is central and that a fundamental characteristic of human beings is their desire to express their nature in a free social union with others.12 He writes, ‘the basis for self-esteem in a just society is the publicly affirmed distribution of fundamental rights and liberties. Thus the two principles of justice and the priority of liberty principle are fundamental contentions of justice.307 After deciding about the principles, according to Rawls; the next step is the choice of a constitution which satisfies the principles of justice and is best designed to lead to just and effective legislation. For this, the constitution will have to protect ‘liberty of conscience and freedom of thought, liberty of the person and equal political rights‘.13 Thus at the constitutional level also, the principle of justice is subsumed into the principle of liberty. After the establishment of constitution, people have to decide about the proposed bills and policies. Legislation is largely concerned with the achievement of long term social and economic goals as well as to fulfill the principle that requires that ‘social and economic policies be aimed at maximizing the long-term expectations of the least advantaged under conditions of fair equality and opportunity‘ Thus laws favouring the privileged are excluded as unjust unless they result in benefits which accrue to the least advantaged to the maximum extent.At social and economic level, Rawls is in favour of redistributive justice. He considers the proper function of government as not only to maintain a social order but ‘the achievement of distributive justice by placing the highest social value on the need of the neediest‘. However, he does not believe in complete egalitarian distribution. He advocates privileges and inequalities—not in the utilitarian sense of maximization of social good—but in order to improve the plight of the least advantaged. This is because, according to Rawls, natural abilities and circumstances of birth foster privileges and inequalities and since such inequalities cannot be eliminated, a just society will seek to compensate for the resulting privileges by investing its resources including the abilities of the most talented in efforts assigned to improve the plight of the least fortunate. To reward those endowed with superior ability would be arbitrary justice. Justice properly understood calls not for rewarding those with, superior ability but for compensating those endowed with lesser ability. In short, justice is not an ‘ethics of reward‘ but ‘an ethics of redress‘.14Thus rising above laissez faire view of classical liberalism which believes in individual liberty but leaves the individual alone, and the highly controlled communist states that submerged the individual autonomy in the interest of social equality, Rawls propounds a theory of justice in consonance with the requirements of liberal 308 democratic welfare state. It postulates constitutional democracy which is restrained, respectable and accountable; it believes in the regulation of free economy in many ways. As he writes, ‘If law and government act effectively to keep market competitive, resources fully employed, property and wealth widely distributed over time and to maintain the appropriate social minimum, then if there is equality of opportunity underwritten by education for all, the resulting distribution will be just‘ .15EVALUATIONLike other theories, Rawls theory has also raised many questions and it is not without critics. Brian Barry has made a critical study of Rawls theory of justice and has brought out a number of objections such as: i) it is difficult to earmark the least-advantaged individuals and groups in the society, ii) what is included in the connotation of ‘self-respect‘ is not clear, and iii) the theory offers fragile principles of constitutional engineering. According to Norman P. Barry, Rawls theory is no more than a restatement of the liberal-capitalist principle and in his system, ‘the pleasure of the better off, however great, cannot compensate for the pains of the worst off. According to Macpherson, the theory presumes that any capitalist society still is a class divided society; that inequality of income will always be necessary in such a society as an incentive to efficient production. Hence in a welfare state transfer payments must be limited to an amount which will still leave one class better off than another. Rawls ignores the fact that this class inequality in the market system can lead to inequality of power as well as income and as a consequence allow one class to dominate over the other. The libertarian critics of Rawls have objected making talents and natural assets as the common pool to be distributed according to the principles of social justice. Nevertheless, inspite of objections from various quarters, Rawls theory of justice has become an important landmark in political theory.ENTITLEMENT THEORY OF JUSTICE—VIEWS OF ROBERT NOZICThe entitlement theory of justice has been advocated by libertarian writers, particularly, Robert Nozic in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia. As mentioned earlier, libertarianism as a political theory defends market freedoms and demands limitations on the use of 309 state for social welfare policies. It opposes redistributive taxation schemes to implement liberal welfare theory of socio-economic equality. It believes that redistributive taxation is inherently wrong, a violation of people‘s rights. People have a right to dispose of their goods and services freely. As Nozic put it, ‘People have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, a state and its officials may do‘16. He considers government interference as equivalent to forced labour—a violation, of our basic moral right.NOZIC‘S entitlement theoryLibertarians relate justice with the market. This is best expressed in Nozic‘s theory of entitlement. The central theme of this theory is: if we assume that everyone is entitled to the goods they currently possess (their holdings), then a just distribution is simply whatever distribution results from people‘s free exchanges- Any distribution that arises by free transfers from a just situation is itself just. For the government to tax these exchanges against anyone‘s will is unjust, even if the taxes are used to compensate for the extra cost of someone‘s undeserved natural handicap. The only legitimate taxation is to raise revenues for maintaining the background institutions needed to protect the system of free exchange i.e. the police and justice system needed to enforce people‘s free exchanges.17The entitlement theory is based upon three principles: i) The principle of transfer, i.e., whatever is justly acquired can be freely transferred, ii) The principle of just initial acquisition, i.e., how people come to own things initially which can be transferred according to the first principle, iii) principle of rectification of injustice, i.e., how to deal with acquisitions which are unjustly acquired or transferred. To give an example, if I own a plot of land, the principle of transfer tells me to engage in any transfer I wish, the principle of acquisition tells me how the plot was initially came to be owned, and the principle of rectification of justice tells me what to do if the first two principles are violated. Taken together, if people‘s current holdings are justly acquired, then, the formula of just distribution is: from each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.18310 Why Nozic‘s claim to people‘s entitlements should be accepted. According to Kymillicka, Nozic gives two arguments which are worth consideration: i) free exercise of property is more attractive, ii) property right lies in ‘self-ownership‘.The first argument, i.e., free exercise of property is more attractive, is that if we have legitimately acquired something, we have absolute property right over it. We can freely dispose of as we see fit, even though the effect of these transfers is likely to be a massively unequal distribution of income and opportunity. Given that some people are born with different natural talents, some people will be amply rewarded while those who lack marketable skill will get few rewards. Due to these undeserved differences in natural talents, some people will flourish while others will starve. These inequalities Nozic concedes are the possible results of unrestrained capitalism. But Nozic asks us to specify any initial distribution which we feel is legitimate and then argues that if free exchange results in inequalities, there is no logic in taxing the rich on the claim of distributive justice on behalf of a third party who had no claim on any holding of others before the transfer. According to Nozic, Wo one has a right to something whose realization requires certain uses of things and activities that other people have rights and entitlements over‘.19 Though he admits that it seems unfair for people to suffer undeserved inequalities in their access to the benefits of social cooperation, but the problem is that people have rights over their income.Nozic defends the entitlement theory of justice on the principle of ‘self-ownership‘. By it he means that people should be treated as ‘end-in-themselves‘. The heart of Nozic‘s theory is that ‘Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)‘. Society must respect these rights because they ‘reflect the underlying Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not merely means. They may not be sacrificed or used for the achievements of others‘ ends, without their consent‘. Because we are distinct individuals with distinct claims, there are limits to the sacrifices that can be asked of one person for the benefit of others. Libertarian society treats individuals not ‘as instruments or resources‘ but as ‘persons having individual rights with the dignity this constitutes. Treating us with respect by respecting our rights, it allows us, to choose 311 our life and to realize our ends and our conception of ourselves, in so far as we can, aided by the voluntary cooperation of other individuals possessing the same dignity‘. In short, the entitlement theory believes that: i) recognizing people as self-owners is crucial to treating people as equal, and ii) only unrestricted capitalism recognizes self-ownership.20Hence the conclusion of Nozic‘s entitlement theory justice is that ‘a minimum state, limited to the narrow function of protection against force, theft, fraud enforcement of contracts, and so on is justified, any more extensive state will violate person‘s rights not to be forced to do -certain things, and is unjustified‘. So there is no public education, no public health care, transportation, roads or parks. All of these involve the coercive taxation of some people against their will, violating the principle, ‘From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen‘.EVALUATIONAccording to Nozic, the most important right is the right over oneself — the right of self ownership. It means that ‘What one owns and what is owned are one and the same and the whole person‘. That is, if I own myself, then I own my talents and also what proceeds from my talents. Hence the demand for redistribution taxation from the talented to the disadvantaged violates self ownership. The egalitarian liberals like Rawls believe that though a person is a legitimate possessor of his talent, still talent is a matter of brute luck. Hence the right over talent does not include the right to accrue unequal rewards from the exercise of those talents. Those who are naturally disadvantaged have a claim on those with advantages. The talented only benefit from their talent if it also benefits the disadvantaged. But for Nozic, it is denial of self-ownership as well as treating people as an end in themselves. Hence it is not acceptable. Secondly, the libertarian view that liberal welfare programmes by limiting property rights unduly limit people‘s self-determination is also not accepted by the egalitarians. Redistribution programmes do restrict the self-determination of the well-off to a limited degree. But they also give real control over their lives to people who previously lacked. Liberal redistribution does not sacrifice self-determination for some other goal. Rather it aims at fair distribution of the means required for self-determination. The libertarian view allows undeserved 312 inequalities in the distribution which harm those who need help in securing those conditions. As Kymlica writes, it each person is to be treated as an end in itself, there is no reason for preferring a libertarian theory of justice to an egalitarian theory of justice.21References1. Arnold Brecht. Political Theory, Times of India press. Bombay 1970. p. 151-552. J. Gould and W.L. Kolb. A Dictionary of Social Sciences. Free Press. New York 1965, p. 3633. D.D. Raphel. Problems of Political Philosophy, Macmillan. (India) New Delhi 1977 p. 1654. George Gurvitch. ‘Justice‘ in Encylopaedia of Social Sciences. Vol VII. p. 5095. For more details, see Barbara Goodwin. Using Political Ideals. John Viley and Sons, New York 1982, p. 266-676. George Gurvitch. op. ci., p. 5107. Mill‘s Utilitarianism in EA Bill (ed) The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill, Modern Library, New York 1939p. 947-488. Crespigny and Minogue. op. cit.. p. 373-749. Ibid. p. 27110. Paul Kelly, The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls. Routledae. N.Y., 1994, p.ll11. John Rawls. A Theory of Justice, op. cit., p. 19912. Crespigny and Minogue. op. cit.. p. 28213. Rawls, op. ci., p. 19714. Kymlicka. op. cit., p. 9115. Rawls, ‘Constitutional liberty and the concept of Justice‘ in NOMOC VI, N.Y. 1963. p. 12516. Robert Nozic. Anarchy State, and Utopia. Basic Books. N.Y. 197417. Kymilica. op. cit., p. 96-9718. Robert Nozic. p. 16019. Ibid, 25-3820. Kymilica, op. cit. p 106.21. Ibid, p 107313 CHAPTER 14 SOCIALIST THEORIES OF JUSTICEThe socialist movement in nineteenth century which arose out of the criticism of capitalist society produced its own ideas of liberty, equality, justice, democracy etc. The early socialist doctrine based its criticism of economic inequalities and disorder not on the ideas of justice which seemed to them a mirage produced by the individualist preconception, but directly on the ideas of love, fraternity and happiness or of technology and prosperity. But the deepest basis of the socialist critique was the search for a more profound justice not only formal but substantial which would provide an alternative to the capitalist economic system as such. This was provided by Marx and Engles. They were not satisfied with defining justice as ‘social justice‘ alone. They held that to criticize the capitalist system as ‘unjust‘ and drawing attention towards its inequalities was not sufficient because it obscures the essential nature of the capitalist mode of production which is inherently exploitative. Hence any talk of justice in the capitalist society was an impossibility. The need was to create a just society which could be nothing short of a socialist/communist society. The fag end of nineteenth century saw the rise of another form of socialism known as evolutionary or democratic socialism. It challenged some of the basic notions of Marxism and attempted to synthesize socialism with liberalism and democracy. Consequently, its conception of justice came to be radically different from Marxism. Apart from them, there arose a number of different schools of anarchist thought (both of liberal and socialist shades) who rejected the state as the principal form of political authority and declared that social order is possible without such an authority. They found state as the symbol of injustice in the society and tried to create just societies 314 based upon individual self-regulation and freely formed groups. In this chapter, we shall discuss different perspectives of justice as enunciated by Marxism, Democratic Socialism and Anarchism.MARXIST THEORY OF JUSTICEAs stated above, justice is a dynamic and multi-dimensional concept. Considering it as a fundamental value, different theories have associated it with morality, equality, liberty, property, law, welfare etc. However, the Marxist concept of justice is totally different. Classical Marxist theory did not allow any place to justice in the analysis of the capitalist mode of production. Their theory of justice was more a critique of the liberal theories of justice rather than propounding their own theory of socialistic/ communist justice. Moreover, a number of contradictions pointed out by the Marxist writers in the liberal theories of justice have been resolved by the egalitarian theory of justice explained by John Rawls.There are two variations of Marxist thought on justice today. First, a number of Marxist writers object to the very idea of justice. They argue that the need for justice is because of some conflicts in social life which it seeks to mediate. The purpose of communism is to overcome these conflicts and hence in a communist society, there will be no need of justice. Justice is beyond communism. Second, there are other Marxist writers who share the liberal emphasis on justice. However, they discuss justice in the context of private ownership of the means of production and firmly believe that justice can be achieved only in a classless and stateless society. Private property being exploitative and alienating, justice requires socializing the means of production and the establishment of a communist society.1 Let us discuss them in MUNISM IS BEYOND JUSTICEWhile the liberal theory of Rawls claims that justice is the first principle of social institutions and a standard of other values, Marxism objects to the very idea that communism is based on the principles of justice. A number of Marxists do not emphasize justice. In this connection, they follow Marx who attacked the very idea of justice as ‘equal rights‘ or ‘fair distribution‘ because such terms obscured the underlying capitalist exploitation. For example, 315 according to Marx, since some people have greater natural talent, ‘the equal right becomes an ‘unequal right for unequal labour‘. As a result, the right to equality is in fact a right to inequality.2 Similarly, the notion of ‘just distribution‘ concentrates too much on distribution rather than on the more fundamental question of production.3 Even if the income is redistributed from those who own means of production to those who do not, we still have classes and exploitation. As a result injustice will continue. We should instead concentrate on the distribution of the ownership of the means, of production because when this is accomplished, the question of fair distribution becomes obsolete. Moreover, any attempt to rectify ‘injustice‘ on the distributive side must assume that some sort of equilibrium could be found between the irreconcilable class conflict in the capitalist society, which in fact is not possible.4 And lastly, while justice helps to resolve conflicts, it also tends to create conflicts and reduce the natural sociability of man. Hence justice is a necessary evil in the present societies, it will be a barrier to a higher form of community i.e. the communist society. It is better if people act spontaneously out of love for each other, rather than viewing themselves and others as bearer of just entitlements.The above objections point to the limitations in the way of developing any conception of justice. The heart of Marxist critique of justice is an objection to the very idea of a juridical community. Marxists believe that the question of justice arises only when we are in the circumstances of justice—circumstances which create the kind of conflicts that can only be solved by the principles of justice. These conflicting circumstances are usually because of two factors: conflicting goals and limited material resources. If we could eliminate either the conflicts between the goals or the scarcity of resources, then there would be no need for a theory of juridical equality. Marxism wants to overcome the conflicting circumstances and create a kind of community where there is identity of interests and to do away with the need for justice. The other solution is the elimination of scarcity through the creation of a communist society based on the principle of ‘to each according to his need, from each according to his capacity‘.316 COMMUNIST JUSTICENow, if justice is desirable, what would be the Marxist concept of justice? Since Marxism criticizes the early liberal as well as the egalitarian liberal views on justice, it is natural that it should be more equalizing than the liberal versions. What distinguishes Marxism from liberal egalitarian theory of justice is not only the extent to which resources should be equalized but also how the equalization of the amount of private property should be achieved. In this context, Marxism believes not in the equalization of property but in the abolition of private property. It is fundamental to Marxism that ‘there is no moral right to the private ownership and control of productive resources‘. Private ownership of the means of production should be abolished because it gives rise to wage labour relationship which is unjust and inherently exploitative and alienating Only a socialist society after the proletarian revolution, by equalizing resources in the modern industry, can create the basis of a just society.The root cause of injustice, according to Marxism, is exploitation and in the context of modern industrial society, the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist. The fundamental flaw of liberal state is that it legalizes that exploitation by allowing buying and selling of labour. According to Cohen, the Marxist argument is like this: the labourer is the only person who creates the product which has value; the capitalist receives some of the value of the product; therefore, the labourer receives less value than the value of what he creates; the capitalist receives some of the value of what the labourer creates, hence labour is exploited by the capitalist.5 Workers are forced to work for the capitalists. Since the workers do not in general own any productive assets, they can only earn a living by working for the propertied class. Hence wage-relationships are inherently exploitative.Another writer John Roemer has expanded the theory of exploitation—exploitation in the sense of unequal access to the means of production by the non-propertied class. Disenfranchised women, the unemployed, the wage-workers all suffer from injustice and the capitalists benefit from the unequal access to the means of production. Again, the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists is just one form; the worse form of exploitation is for those who are forced not to sell their labour such as women, unemployed or 317 those who lead their existence from crime, begging etc.6Moreover, it is wrong to argue that the capitalist class acquired their property through conscious savings or through their hard work or better talent. Marx clarified that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force, played the greatest part in the capitalist accumulation.7 This unjust initial acquisition falsify the argument that capitalist class is entitled to profits because they take risk in investing their capital. Rather it is the working class which faces more risk of occupational disease, unemployment, low wages, ill-health and what not. Thus so long as private property remains, the majority of the working class cannot hope of any justice.JUSTICE AND ALIENATIONIf Marxists are committed to abolishing private property, they must appeal to something other than exploitation. Here Marx introduced an ethical argument that private property and the mode of production based upon private property inhibits the development of our most important capacities. The problem with private property is that it is not only exploitative but even those who benefit from exploitation are alienated from their essential human powers. The theory argues that the resources should be distributed in such a way as to encourage the ‘realization of distinctively human potentialities and excellence‘ and to discourage ways of life which lack these excellences. Marx explained this distinctive excellence as ‘our capacity for freely creative cooperative production‘. To produce in a way that stunts this capacity is to be alienated from our true ‘species nature‘How can this be achieved? Marxists writers argue that it is best promoted by abolishing wage labour and socializing the means of production because this will ensure that each person has an effective say in how his work life is organized. Also, it will enable him to organize production so as to increase its intrinsic satisfaction rather than to increase the profits of the capitalist. Capitalism reduces our life‘s activity to a means of securing a decent living. Socialism will restore work to its rightful place, as an end in itself, as ‘life‘s prime want‘ and ensure the labour to assume this rightful place. Real justice can be achieved only in such a society.318 CONCLUSIONTo conclude, both kinds of Marxism analyse the question of justice and injustice in the context of working class. The struggle against capitalist injustice will take the form of a struggle between two increasingly hostile classes: capitalist and proletariat. Only workers are capable and willing to challenge the whole edifice of capitalist injustice. Marxist theories of justice are attempts to give the justification for this class struggle.However, it is difficult to accept this traditional Marxist view of centrality of working class to revolutionary politics. Many of the most important contemporary struggles for justice have been associated with groups which are not oppressed by wage relationship such as racial groups, immigrants, disabled, minorities, women liberation movements etc. It is increasingly becoming clear that the exploited working class and the needy groups who are in dire need of justice are not always the same.Justifying the need for justice, Kymillicka writes that justice is more than rectifying the wrongs in the society. Justice does resolves the conflicts but more that than, it also expresses the respect which is due to individuals as an end in themselves. Justice recognizes the equal standing of the members of the community through rights and entitlements which an individual can rightfully claim. But it does not force people to exercise these rights at the expense of others. Justice constitutes a form of concern that we should have for the members of the community. Hence the view that we can create a community of equals by abandoning the notions of fairness, rights and duties is not convincing.8DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM AND JUSTICEApart from Marxism, a number of other schools have also played their part in moulding socialist thought and action. Some of these aimed to supplement Marxism, some endeavoured to revise it, and still some others attempted to transform Marx‘s revolutionary doctrine into an evolutionary one. Differences centred around both as to what strategies should be adopted for the establishment of socialism and what constitutes the substance of socialism. Broadly, the socialist movement came to be divided on two lines: revolutionary communism and democratic socialism.319 As discussed earlier, Marxism aimed at the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and setting up of the dictatorship of the proletariat until the remnants of capitalist economy, society, ideology and habits of thought are liquidated. It visualized the transition from capitalism to socialist ownership as sudden and complete, with no compensation for expropriated property because the capitalist property was economically, socially and morally a means of exploitation. Hence it could never become a basis for a just society. What is important is that Marxism rejected the very notion of justice in the capitalist society and any attempt to define communism in terms of social justice or fair distribution of resources. It thought of justice as beyond communism. Justice demanded a just society which could be nothing short of a classless and stateless society established through a proletarian revolution.The democratic socialism introduced a reformist approach for the establishment of a socialist society. It challenged the basic premise of Marxism and propounded a theory of socialist transformation to be brought through peaceful reforms and working within the capitalist-liberal framework. It believed in bringing about a just society through constitutional and democratic means i.e. a new society could be established slowly, step by step, with the consent of the people. Nor did it consider the state as an instrument of class exploitation. Rather it wanted to make use of it to bring about socialist justice.Democrat socialism defined justice in the context of prevailing inequalities and unfairness of distribution of goods and resources and sought to remove them through peaceful democratic means. It deemed democrat as the basic condition, in the absence of which people will not have any control over the state or the society.Democratic socialism made two basic changes in the Marxist theory which had repercussion on their view of justice and just society. Firstly, it did not agree with the Marxist view of state as an instrument of a class and that socialism could be achieved only through revolutionary transformation. This was the result of certain historical developments which were outlined by Bernstein. According to him, the collapse of the capitalist system as envisaged by Marx was not imminent; the social conditions did not develop so acute an opposition between the classes; and the concentration of productive 320 industry did not come through. On the other hand, the factory legislation, democratization of governments at local level, freedom of trade unions, democratization of political organizations had diminished the revolutionary tendency of the working class. Secondly, socio-economic changes could be brought about peacefully, through universal suffrage, direct legislation, and civil rights. The greater security for lasting success laid in a steady advance rather than in the possibilities offered by a catastrophic crash. Socialism was seen as the logical carrying out of certain liberal principles. The struggle for socialism had to be gradualist and reformist. A just society consisted of an attempt to achieve full democracy, appropriation of the means of production by the workers through both political power and trade union pressure. The task was to struggle for particular socialist objective and not to wait for socialism to emerge fully complete from the womb of history.9In its Fabian form, democratic socialism was influenced by welfare liberalism and a number of writers tried to synthesize liberalism, democracy and socialism. It emphasized the achievement of greater social justice and a fairer distribution of economic rewards through positive state intervention. It aimed at reorganization of society by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class ownership and invest them in the community for general benefit, abolish private property and rent in land, transfer of industrial capital to the community as a whole, abolish the idle class living on the labour of others, and to bring about these changes through gradual, constitutional democratic means acceptable to the majority of people, causing no major dislocation. It considered the state and political reforms as major means to secure social justice. It equated justice with political democracy, welfare state, educational opportunities, and social justice to be developed in the context of mixed economy.10In the post-war era, democratic socialism associated justice with equality, social justice and diffusion of economic power which could be achieved through widespread ownership (rather than concentration) of industry, control in the hands of experts, recognizing the rights of the trade unions, nationalization of key industries, and a comprehensive welfare state. Even among these qualities, equality was given the highest place. Equality was made the basis of justice which could be achieved with less social tension by 321 leveling up rather than down, and the fiscal dividends of growth that would allow the better off to retain their absolute standard of living while improving the relative position of the worst off members of the society. Gradually, democratic socialism combined justice with traditional concerns of mixed economy and redistribution of wealth for greater equality and industrial decentralization.‘11Democratic socialist view of justice can be understood at three levels. At political level, justice consists of equal dispensation of political rights, democratization of political process, decentralization of political power, and consensus among the people regarding the fundamental issues. At social level, it is associated with equal opportunities for development and non-discrimination. Social justice consists in correcting the arbitrary and uneven distribution of talents and natural abilities. It also includes reformative justice such as social equality, social security, unemployment allowance, old age pension etc. At economic level, it calls for drastic economic reforms in order to correct the imbalance of property. It wants a central authority to distribute property proportionally according to its own criterion of merit such as state control over the economy, nationalization and welfare schemes for the poor. It believes that justice can be achieved through conscious design of social and economic institutions.In brief, democratic socialist view of justice can be summed up as follows:?1. Democratic socialism believes in the establishment of a socialist society through peaceful and constitutional methods. As distinct from Marxism, it wants to make use of the state to bring about a just society. Socialism is the fulfillment of liberal democracy.?2. Socialism seeks to replace capitalism by a system which aims at full employment, higher education, rising standard of living, social security, fair distribution of property and income, equality of opportunity.?3. Public ownership may take the form of nationalization of existing industries, creation of new public enterprises or consumer and producers‘ cooperatives. However, these various forms of public ownership should not be taken as an end in itself but as different means of controlling the basic industries and services on which the welfare of the community depends.322 ?4. Trade unions and organizations of producers and consumers are necessary element of a democratic society.?5. Socialist planning does not mean that all economic decisions are placed in the hands of government. Economic power should be decentralized.?6. Individual should be rewarded according to his efforts.12ANARCHISM AND JUSTICEAnarchism is a doctrine and a movement which rejects the principle of political authority and maintains that social order is possible and desirable without such an authority. Its central negative thrust is directed against the modern state: its territorial frontiers, its sovereignty, exclusive jurisdiction over people and property; its monopoly of major means of physical coercion; its system of coercive laws which override all other customs and conventions, and the idea of the nation as a paramount political community. Positively, it believes in the creation of a just society which will be a ‘natural society‘ i.e. self-regulated society of individuals and freely formed groups, in which personal freedom is at a maximum, in which material goods are fairly distributed, and the common tasks are carried out by voluntary agreement. However, there are major differences of opinion as to how these desirable aims could be achieved.WHAT IS ANARCHISMPhilosophically, Anarchism is a theory, principles and practice of anarchy. The word is derived from the Greek word, ‘an archos‘ meaning ‘without a chief or head‘ or ‘without a top authority‘. According to dictionary meanings, it means ‘lack of coercive government‘ or ‘absence of a political state‘, ‘want of authoritarian political head or leaders, institutions organizations‘. In political terms, Anarchism is against three structural components: Authority, Coercion and State. This has recently been extended to other institutional forms of authority such as church, army, law etc. All these institutions are denounced for coercing their victims, for exploiting them by extracting money or serving by threat or indoctrination.323 However, as has been pointed out by Richard Sylvan, Anarchism does not only mean as ‘absence‘ ‘lack‘ or ‘want‘ of centralized coercive forms. Certain positive characteristics are also worth mentioning. Firstly, a variety of political arrangements and organizations including governments of certain kinds are not totally rejected by anarchism. What is important is that these should not be coercive. Secondly, anarchism is also not against regulation or a positive non-coercive law and order. Anarchism does not mean disorganization, disorder, confusion, lawlessness or chaos. Thirdly, while organization or government are not entirely incompatible with anarchism, it believes in total state abolition either in its present form or in the form of ancient power structures such as empires and kingdoms.14 Any radical theory of justice must include opposition to the oppression and domination of the state and its institutions and the gross power relations.JUSTICE AND STATEFor the anarchists, state is an abomination. It deals unfairly with its subjects not by accident but unavoidably. A transformation based upon an anarchist sense of radical justice is not the one that is based upon an equalizing state or a socialist/communist state. Rather it leads away from the state altogether. A commitment to liberty lies behind the anarchist critique of the state. In their criticism, the state appears as an authority that crushes both individual and collective liberty. Since it conflicts with liberty, state authority cannot be legitimate. The anarchists find the state as an unnecessary and unjustified evil. Also the state is a device for channeling privileges and wealth to certain minorities having close links with the authorities. Societies have lived without the state. State can be replaced and it can even decay. A just society will be essentially a stateless society. The anarchists give a number of arguments for the non-justification of the state, some of which are as follows:STATE—AN UNNECESSARY EVILAccording to anarchism, state is a symbol of inequities, domination and exploitation. It is a device for the protection of wealth, property and privilege; it redistributes awards making rich richer and poor poorer. It is inherently corrupt. It is expensive and constitutes a heavy drain upon regional resources and local environments. 324 In poorer regions, it is the main cause of people‘s impoverishment and injustice. It is a major source of war, supplier of military technology and weapons. Also it is a major hurdle in satisfactory international order because of the ‘reluctance of the nation-state to surrender their powers and the danger of their being dominated by other powerful states‘.15Anarchists do not believe in any of the theories advanced for the origin of the state. Rather they argue that the state is an unnecessary evil imposed upon the people by conquest or through colonization, often using military means rather than by offering much sweetness or choice.FUNCTIONS OF STATE NO JUSTIFICATIONHistorically, the state has been justified because of its core functions such as defence and public order, taxation and money supply, for controlling and limiting such social evils as crime and corruption. However, anarchists argue that there is no guarantee that insecurity, disorder or conflicts are eliminated under the state. The state, far from limiting corruption and crime is itself a major source of them. The state structure, by virtue of its power, induces much of the evil it is supposed to remove such as crime. All anarchists agree that since the major background source of these crimes is the state and its partisan ‘law and order‘, it can never do justice to the people. In fact the state is neither necessary nor sufficient to resolve the problems of common man. There is no inherent reason why societies should not institute and regulate specialized bodies among themselves to ensure adequate maintenance or production of various types of public goods.16STATE AND BUREAUCRACYThere is an iron law of bureaucracy. States have become more and more dominated by their own bureaucracies. Democracies cease to signify popular control as bureaucracy gains more control over the state. This is the fountainnairisme that Proudhon said leads to the absorption of all local and individual life into the machinery of administrative state. Similarly, the anarchists also attack the reification of the state. The state is supposed to be an instrument rather than an end in itself but it does come to defend, through its sovereign power, its own power to act as an instrument. 325 This makes it a thing in itself that reacts hostilely to any challenge and works ceaselessly to enhance its image.17STATE CRUSHES LIBERTYAs stated above, a commitment to liberty lies behind the anarchist critique of the state. State crushes individual liberty in a multidimensional manner. At political level, state is controlled by a small number. This leads to high degree of bureaucratization, centralization, representation and reification of power. The power is contested among a small group of elites. At economic level, state promotes a particular kind of economy in which only a small number of people control the producers who constitute a much larger number. An economic system without the exploitation of producers can emerge only in a non-state society. At social level, state is an instrument of advancing only certain forms of social struggles. It functions to support the struggles of the dominant classes to realize their interests.In short, modern state is essentially flawed, howsoever it might change. Reforms will not alter the roots of those features of the state that render it vulnerable to criticism. Hence any acceptable transformation should lead away from the state altogether. No attempt to transform the state to meet the demand of radical justice would succeed.VARIETIES OF ANARCHIST JUSTICEAnarchism is essentially a modern ideology, arising after and in opposition to the modern state. During the last 200 years, several varieties of anarchism have appeared, out of which four main currents of anarchist thought can be distinguished: Individualism. Mutualism, Collectivism and Communism. However, what is worth noting is that these different forms of anarchist thought are not alternate models to build a just society but only distinct forms of strategies for achieving the goal. The different varieties represent the internal tensions and strains within the ideology as well as response to the changing social circumstances in which the ideology found itself. Inspite of rich variety, there are certain common features of the just society which hold them together. The are:?i) opposition to the oppression and domination of the state and its institutions and power relations. All want an end to the coercive and authoritarian power of the state.326 ?ii) reliance on sell-regulatory methods of organization that require little or no intervention. All are opposed to highly regulated procedures tending towards centralism or parentalism,?iii) emphasis on voluntary methods, in place of imposed methods?vi) favouring decentralization and deconcentration, rather than centralized or concentrated structures.?v) discouragement to empowerment and encouragement to depowerment.18Although each type of anarchist society will have such features, they differ in detail. They differ most radically about the economic arrangements that should prevail in a stateless society. For example, such arrangements can range from the defence of private property and free competition in the market to the advocacy of complete ownership, cooperative labour and distribution according to needs. These differences which are analysed below reflect divergence of views on the anarchist view of justice.INDIVIDUALISTIC ANARCHISMIt takes individual as the starting point and considers the ego of individual as the symbol of all that is human and the state as the symbol of all that is inhuman. The propounder of this school was Max Stirner who believed in uncompromising egosim and declared that the individual should always act as he pleases taking no notice of God, state or the moral rules. However, this branch of anarchism was advanced by American anarchists Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. The essence of their argument is that each person has an inviolable sphere of action upon which no one else must intrude, and social relationships are formed primarily through exchange and contract. Tucker enunciated the view that justice means that each person should enjoy maximum liberty compatible with an equal liberty for others, implying in particular unlimited rights to acquire and dispose of goods in the market. He attacked the state created monopolies and held that without the state, each person could exercise his right to protect his own freedom, if necessary, using the services of private protective associations. Warren advocated a system of ‘equitable commerce,327 whereby each producer working either alone or in association would exchange goods on the basis of the labour time embodied in them, using a system of labour notes‘. Taken together, all of them believed that:?i) collective form of society leads to authoritarian system. They held the system of private property and individual proprietorship as sacrosanct so long as it was the result of individual labour,?ii) the purpose of society is to preserve the sovereignty of the individual,?iii) the principle of individuality requires absolute equality of sexes, absolute equality of races and equality of labour. Anarchism must seek the extinction of interest, rent, dividend, profits except as represented by the work done.?iv) the system of democracy based upon majority decision is null and void. Any impingement upon the natural rights of the person is unjust and symbol of majority tyranny.?v) any definition of liberty begins and concludes with liberty of the weaker party. Since the laws of the state are made and enforced by the majority in the legislature, the true test of liberty is to oppose, disobey and violate such legislation.19Individual anarchism has recently been revived and now forms a part of the broader movement known as Libertarianism. However, while the early individual anarchists thought of a society of equal freedom which would modify capitalism, the libertarians support the capitalist system and often describe themselves as anarcho-capitalists.MUTUALISMThis terms was adopted by French anarchist Proudhon and his followers for an economic system which could reconcile property and communism. He was the first person to use anarchy in a non-pejorative sense, to refer to a society without government. He believed that for working men, justice meant their emancipating themselves, not by political but by economic means, through voluntary organization of their own labour. For them, ‘the abolition of exploitation of man by man and the abolition of government are one and the same thing‘. His principle was that each person must 328 possess his own means of production either singly or collectively and should be rewarded for his labour, thus eliminating profit and rent and ensuring a high degree of equality. Exchange should occur between self-governing producers through an ethical form of bargaining in which each party seeks only an equivalent for what it is offering. Integral to this scheme was the establishment of a mutual credit bank which would lend to producers, at a minimal rate of interest, covering only its costs of administration. Along with it, he envisaged a radically decentralized and pluralist social order to be linked at all levels by applying the federal principle. As he wrote, ‘it is through mutual interplay of collaborative associations and their federation, through the humanization of property by its transformation into a social function in the hands of cooperative association and finally through the counter balancing of the state by organized economic society that justice can best be apportioned‘.20COLLECTIVIST ANARCHISMThis stream of anarchism became dominant under the influence of Russian anarchist Bakunin. He held that man is a social being and possesses an instinct for freedom through self-activity within the community of equals. State (and God) are the enemies of human liberation. However, Bakunin‘s effort was to free anarchism from what he held ‘the authoritarian communism of Marx‘ and put it on the mass base. It was the anarchism of the people against the state. Collectivist anarchism is ‘a continuation of the human against the inhuman, a break with the class theory and class solutions‘21. It argued that the state claims as its victim society as a whole, the exploited mass as a whole and not just a particular class, such as workers. It favours one group over the other and breaks the solidarity of all the oppressed—whether it is the proletariat, peasantry or the lumpen-proletariat. The role of anarchism is essentially to prevent this catastrophe, and the task of socialism must be a collective one since communism is a collective need. Hence collectivists favour society against the state, the great masses against the very few. The poor masses already carry the germs of true collective life and social revolution is prefigured by their life style.In the context of justice, collectivist anarchism believed that a329 positive reappropriation of man‘s powers and potentialities could only be affected through the free association of individuals in pursuit of common purposes within a federation of free communes. They looked to a future in which organized labour had expropriated capital and each group of workers managing their own means of production. The distribution of the proceeds would be a matter of collective decision but it was generally assumed that rewards would be proportionate to labour.ANARCHO-COMMUNISMAlthough the anarchist vision of future society closely resembles that of the Marxist view of classless and stateless communist society, yet anarchists and Marxists have been at war within the socialist movement. The immediate issue was whether a socialist society could be established through the destruction of the present state as the anarchists believed or through the creation of a workers‘ state as the Marxists believed. The view that communism could be imposed only through an authoritarian state was challenged by writers like Kroptkin, Malatesta and Elisee Reclus. They argued that natural human solidarity can lead to the elimination of all property distinctions. They believed that human nature is social and people would work without material incentive once private property is abolished. They regarded communism as the highest form of social organisation and attacked private ownership along with political authority as an inherently exploitative practice. However, they stressed that communist system must be adopted voluntarily rather than imposed by force. Many of them accepted collectivist method as viable transitional arrangement until people feel sufficient solidarity to dispense with property distinctions entirely. For example Kroptkin believed that ‘Everything belongs to everyone and distribution is based upon human needs‘. He envisaged a society of the future in which each person would make use of common resources according to need. Productive work would be organized on the supply side by local communes whose task would be to identify the needs of the local people. The means of production, which have been developed during the course of centuries by all humanity, must belong to the human race as a whole. Inequality and private property can have no place in an anarchist society. Administration and control of means of production will be vested in the communes of producers. All goods thus produced would be 330 placed in a common pool from which men would draw according to the need. Communes would federate to coordinate projects such as roads and railways systems that crossed their boundaries.22The appeal of anarcho-communist justice lay perhaps in its communist goal combined with its repudiation of state as a means of exploitation.CONCLUSIONGiven the general attitude towards the state, the anarchists have been opposed to all attempts to create a just society through parliamentary means or overthrow the existing regimes and replace them with a new political body. However, many of them continued to think in terms of revolutionary transformation of society. For men like Bakunin and Kropotkin, this meant a mass revolt against the existing forms of authority and economic institutions leading to spontaneous construction, on local basic, of new forms of organization. But the role of anarchists was primarily to be educative one: they had to awaken the spirit of revolt by pointing out injustices and inculcating anti-state ideas in the masses. On the other hand, the idea of revolt was not endorsed by all anarchists. Individual anarchists have been suspicious of the threat to freedom that revolutionary organization poses, and argued that the transformation of human relationship that anarchy requires can only come about through a long period of education. Revolutions can destroy but they cannot themselves rebuild a society of future.On the whole, the anarchist ideology has never attracted large number of adherents. The anarchist view of a just society without central authority seems to run directly counter to the experience of all advanced societies, where industrialization has gone hand in hand with an enhancement of the state power. However, as a source of critical ideas for other ideologies and movements, anarchism can claim some success. Anarchism has been constantly present in the socialist thought, criticizing their centralist and statist tendencies. It has also helped the liberals to overcome their inconsistencies regarding individual freedom. Recently, it has contributed to the growth of feminism. The anarchist ideas of justice as freedom from coercion and exploitation has been extended to the relationship between man and woman. The radical wing of environment movement has also absorbed anarchist thought. All 331 these have something as common: opposition to all relations of power and a belief in direct action instead of conventional political methods. These ideas seem to be the lasting contribution of anarchism.23References1. see Will Kymillicka, Contemporary Political Philosopy, op. cit, p 160-1982. Marx and Engles, Selected Works, Vol I, Lawrence and Wishart. London. 1968. p. 3203. Ibid., p. 3214. Georges Gurvitch ‘Justice‘ in Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences Vol VII Macmillan, NY, p. 5095. G.A. Cohen, History, Labour and Freedom: Themes from Marx. OUR 1988 p 2146. J. Roemer, Free to Lose: An Introduction to Marxist Economic Philosophy. Harward University Press, Columbia 1988, p. 1307. K. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol I. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1977, p. 875-768. Kymillicka, op. cit., p. 1699. E. Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism, Viking Press, NY 1909. P. xix-III.10. G.B. Shaw, Fabian Essays, Boston, 1908 and R.H.S. Grossman. New Fabian Essays. Turnstile Press, London. 195211. David Miller, Blackwell Encyclopeadia of Political Thought, op. cit p. 484-8512. Harry Laidler, History of Socialism. Routledge and Kegan Pal, 1968. p 863-6413. Richard Sylvan. ‘Anarchism‘ in Goddin and Phillip, A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, op. cit., 1 p. 21514. Ibid., p. 216-1715. Ibid., p. 22416. Ibidp., p. 22517. Tom Bottomore. Dictionary of Marxist Thought, op. cit., p. 32418. Richard Sylvan, p. 23519. I.L. Horowitz (ed.). Anarchism, Bell, 1967, p. 48-4920. Quoted in Gurvitch, op. cit., p. 50921. Horowitz, op. cit.. p. 2122. Ibid., p. 4723. David Miller, p. 14332 CHAPTER 15 FEMINIST AND SUBALTERN PERSPECTIVES OF JUSTICEApart from the liberal, Marxist and socialist theories of justice, twentieth century has also been witness to various social protest movements against the injustices perpetuated by the domination of nations, classes, races, gender etc. Examples of such movements can be: national liberation struggles against colonial rule, peasant movements, civil right movements, feminist movements, movements concerning ecology, disarmaments etc. These movements challenged not only the institutional structures, way of life, thinking norms and moral codes but also the dominant views about history, politics and civil society. They are all linked with justice and social transformation. Such movements have been redefining the boundaries of institutional politics, have been able to produce new meanings of political and social concepts, and new forms of social life and action. In the process they have produced alternative views about liberty, equality, justice etc. These movements have played a double role. While on the one hand, they offered resistance to the encroachment on their life and world which was subordinated by systematic economic and political changes brought about by industrialization, imperialism and colonialism, on the other, they also called into question the validity of the existing patterns of life and offered alternative perspectives. In this chapter, we shall study two more notions of justice which have emerged out of such social protest movements. They are: Feminist and Subaltern notions of justice. The significance of these notions is that both see justice in the context of domination versus subordination. While the feminists view justice as an end of domination of ‘men as a class‘ over 333 ‘women as a class‘, the subalterns view it as an end of domination by the elite groups over the subordinate groups which is perpetuated through state, law, police, religion, race, property etc.FEMINIST VIEW OF JUSTICEFeminism has redefined various political concepts which according to it, are based upon the experiences, interests and perceptions of only half of the human race, i.e. men The common starting point of all feminist ideas is the belief that women are disadvantaged in comparison with men and that this disadvantage is not natural or inevitable result of biological difference but something that can be and should be challenged and changed It looks at women‘s situations and inequalities between men and women as central political issues, and provides a critique of the dominant assumptions of various political concepts like rights liberty, equality, justice etc. However, like other ideologies there are fundamental disagreements among feminist theorists about the nature of causes and cure of women‘s inequalities, subordination or oppression. There are liberal, Marxist, socialist radical and black feminists. While liberal feminism talks about equal rights and opportunities to compete with men in all fields, Marxist feminists argue that women‘s oppression is essentially a by product of class society and that full equality will only be achieved when capitalism is replaced by a classless and stateless society. Both use existing male theories and apply them to women situations. Radical feminists claim to provide a new perspective based upon women‘s own experiences and argue that the patriarchal domination is basic to women‘s subordination. The socialist feminists seek to combine the radical perspective of patriarchy with the Marxist class analysis by exploring the relationship between capitalism and patriarchy Some feminists now argue that the experiences of black women and the lower class women of the underdeveloped countries must not only be included in the feminist analysis but should be taken as the starting point of any feminist studies.Although a number of political theories share the egalitarian principle that all members of the society should be treated equally yet until very recently, all of them had defended sexual discrimination. While traditional views about sexual discrimination have been progressively abandoned, many feminists believe that 334 the principles which were developed with men‘s interests and experience in mind are incapable of adequately recognizing women‘s needs or incorporating women‘s experiences. Talking in the context of justice, it is claimed that the very emphasis on Justice is itself reflective of a male bias and any theory of justice which is responsive to the interests and experiences of women is yet to be formulated. The feminist view of justice can be examined on three broad issues: i) The nature of sexual discrimination, ii) Public versus private sphere controversy and iii) Justice and ethics of care.1JUSTICE, SEXUAL EQUALITY AND DISCRIMENATIONTill recently, political theorists believed that there was a ‘foundation in nature‘ for the confinement of women to the family and for the legal and customary subjection of women to their husbands within the family. As such restrictions on women‘s civil and political rights were justified because women by nature were found unsuitable for political and economic activities outside their home. However, contemporary political theory has abandoned this assumption of women‘s natural inferiority. It has accepted that women like men are free and equal, capable of self-determination and a sense of justice, and are free to enter Public sphere. The constitutions of all liberal as well as socialist states ensure equal rights to education, employment, political office etc.However, the feminist argument is that all these anti-discrimination laws have not brought about sexual equality which could do Justice to women as a class. Nor the domestic violence and sexual assault have been reduced. According to Mackinnon, sexual equality laws have been utterly ineffective in getting women what they need. They are still socially prevented from having reasonable physical security, self-expression, individuation minimal respect and dignity.2 This is because sex discrimination involves the arbitrary or irrational use of gender in awarding positions or benefits. According to feminists, it is because women are refused a Job even though gender has no rational relationship to the task being performed. While there is no discrimination so long as there is a genuine sexual difference which explains and justifies the differential treatment (such as having separate bathrooms for men and women), the cases of arbitrary differentiation are so common that the burden of proof rests on those who claim that sex is a relevant ground for 335 assigning benefits or positions.3 This approach which is also called ‘the difference approach‘ as the standard interpretation of sex equality law in most western countries had some success. Women were able to get access to what men had access to, such as access to employment and education, the public pursuits including academic professional and blue collar work, the military and more than nominal access to athletics. The difference approach has helped to create gender neutral access to competitions for existing social benefits and positions.However, its success was limited because it viewed sex equality in terms of ability of women to compete under gender neutral rules for the roles that men have defined. Equality could not be achieved by allowing men to build social institutions according to their interests and then ignoring the gender of the candidates when deciding who fills the roles in these institutions. According to feminist theorists, the problem is that the roles may be defined in such a way as to make men more suited to them even under gender neutral competition. Hence there is no guarantee that gender neutrality will lead to sexual equality.4 As Janet Radcliff Richard writes, ‘If a group is kept out of something for long enough, it is most overwhelmingly likely that activities of that sort will develop in a way unsuited to the excluded group‘.5 Women were kept out of many kinds of work and this resulted in the belief that the work is unsuited to them. The most obvious example is the incompatibility of most work with bearing and raising of children. If women had been fully involved in running the society from the start, they would have found a way of arranging work and child-rearing to fit each other.Thus, inspite of legal equality, injustice remains because all important roles and positions in the society are gender biased According to Mackinnon, every quality that distinguishes men from women goes in favours of men. For example, ‘man‘s physiology defines most sports, their needs define auto and health insurance coverage, their socially designed biographies define workplace expectations and successful careers patterns, their perspectives and concerns define quality in scholarship, their experiences and obsessions define merit, their objectification of life defines art, their military service defines citizenship, their presence defines 336 family, their wars and ruler ship define history, their image defines god...‘6 In short, although all social activities are legally gender neutral, yet they are unjust because the things beings pursued in a gender neutral way are based on men‘s interests and values. Women are disadvantaged not only because some favour men in awarding the job but also because the entire society systematically favours men in defining of job merit. And the more society defines positions, the less it is able to detect inequality.JUSTICE AND PUBLIC VS PRIVATE CONTROVERSYThe other issue of feminist view of justice centres around the public vs private controversy. This is related to justice in the context of family relations and can be understood in three interrelated problems: i) unequal distribution of domestic labour, ii) privacy of women, and iii) career and family.i) Mainstream political theorist had never analysed family relations in the light of standards of justice. Classical liberal theory had assumed that the family as male-headed is a biologically determined unit and that justice is only a matter of relations between families. Justice refers to the public sphere where adult men deal with adult men. Family relations were considered a private concern governed by natural instinct. The male philosophers had no interest in questioning a sexual division of labour from which they benefited. This was rationalized at the level of theory through the assumption that domestic roles are biologically fixed, based upon the assumption either in claims of women‘s inferiority or in the more recent ideology of sentimental family which claims that the emotional ties which naturally arise between mother and child is incompatible with the characteristic traits needed for social and political life. Feminist theorists deny that only men are capable of acting within the public realm. Theories of justice continue to ignore relations within the family which is assumed to be and essentially natural realm. It is assumed that natural family is male headed with the women performing the unpaid domestic and reproductive work. Feminists argue that, as a result, women are concentrated in low paying part times work which makes them economically dependent. Moreover, there remains the question of why domestic labour is not given greater public recognition. Even if men and women share unpaid domestic labour, this would hardly count as genuine sexual equality 337 because our culture devalues women‘s work or anything feminine. Injustice is present not only in the distribution of domestic work but also in its evaluation. Since the devaluation of housework is tied to the broader devaluation of women‘s work, a part of the struggle for increased respect to women will involve respect for their contribution to family. The family is, therefore, at the centre of both the cultural devaluation and economic dependence which are attached to women‘s traditional roles. The result is that men have unequal power in nearly all marriages, power is exercised in decisions concerning work, leisure, sex, consumption. It is also exercised in acts of threats and domestic violence.7 Hence the fight for injustice must go beyond public discrimination to the patterns of domestic labour and women‘s devaluation in the private sphere.ii) The other concern is the right to privacy. The feminist theories also criticize the right to privacy in family life because it becomes a hindrance to further reforms of women‘s domestic oppression. According to Mackinnon, the idea of a right to privacy has been interpreted to mean that any outside interference in the family is a violation of privacy. However, it has served to immunize the family from reforms designed to protect women‘s interests. For example, it has limited state intervention which would protect women against abuse or to empower women to sue for non-support or officially recognize the value of domestic labour. As Mackinnon points out, ‘the right to privacy reinforces the division between public and private that...keeps the private beyond public redress and depolarizes women‘s subjection within it‘. It is not a coincidence that the very things feminism regards as central to women—the very place, the body, the very relations, reproductions, the very feeling—are considered as private. Thus the legal concept of privacy has helped to preserve these institutions whereby women are deprived of their identity, autonomy, control and self-definition. This right to privacy is nothing but a right of men to be left alone to oppress women one at a time.Hence given the centrality of family in perpetuating sexual inequality, it is important from the point of view of justice that it should pay attention to the effects of family organization on women‘s lives. The family has so far been not only relegated to the private realm but has simply been ignored. And women‘s interests are 338 harmed by the failure of political theory to examine the family either in its public or private components because the gender roles associated with traditional family are in conflict with the public ideas of equal rights and resources.iii) Another important element of injustice according to feminists is that only women are presented with a choice between career and family. Any women who cannot raise children and child-rearing and simultaneously do the job is rendered economically dependent on someone who is a stable income earner. Hence in order to ensure that she acquires this support, she must become sexually attractive to men. As a result many girls do not try as hard as boys to acquire employment skills which can only be exercised by those who avoid child raising. Whereas boys pursue personal security by increasing their employment skills, girls pursue security by increasing their attractiveness to men. This leads to a cultural differentiation in which ‘muscularity‘ is associated with income earning and ‘feminity‘ with domestic service of men and nurturing of children. So men and women enter marriage with different income positions which widens during marriage as man acquires valuable job experience. Since it is hard to lead life outside the marriage, women becomes more dependent on maintaining the marriage which allow men to have greater control over it. As a result, men as a group exercise control over women‘s general life chances and individual men exercise control over economically vulnerable women within marriage. Thus injustice to women as a class results because of male domination where gender differentiation are made relevant to the distribution of benefits to the systematic disadvantage of women.JUSTICE AND ETHICS OF SENTIMENTAL CAREAn important reason given for the public-private distinction and the relegation of women to the domestic sphere is that men and women are associated with different modes of thought and feeling. Political theorists have distinguished morality on gender lines. It is believed that the task of governing and regulating social order and managing public institutions is monopolized by men because they are more rational, whereas the task of sustaining private personal relations is dominated by women because they are more sentimental, friendly and caring. In other words, justice 339 and rights are the male domain while domestic care and responsiveness belong to female norms, values, and virtues.8 These two types of moral thought are not only fundamentally different hut opposed to each other. Women‘s caring ethics are dangerous to the impartial and rational justice required for public life. The health of the public domain depends upon the exclusion of women from it.Historically, such a theory was used to justify patriarchy. Early feminists like Wollstonecraft argued that women‘s caring and sentimental notions were simply because of the fact that they were not allowed to develop their rational capacities fully. If women thought only of the men around them ignoring the general public, it was because they were prevented to accept public responsibilities. Some contemporary feminists argue that the whole tradition of distinguishing ‘masculine‘ and ‘feminine‘ morality is a cultural myth. However, there are others who argue that we should take seriously the distinct morality of women. It should be viewed as a mode of moral reasoning and a source of moral insight and not simply the artificial result of sexual inequality. Also this caring sentimental thought morality is better than the male morality, especially once we recognize that sex equality requires a breaking down of the public-private dichotomy.According to Carole Gilligan, the different notions of morality arise from different kinds of responsibilities preferred by men and women. Perhaps men and women speak in different voice not because they actually thought different but because men feel that they should be concerned with justice and rights and women feel that they should be concerned with preserving social relations.9 But the question is whether there is a care-based approach to political justice, and if there is, whether it is a superior approach. A number of feminists argue that the care ethics while initially developed in the context of private relationship has public significance and should be extended to public affairs. Any real theory of justice should make them complementary to each other. ‘Whereas the ethics of justice are concerned with learning moral principles, solving problems by seeking principles that have universal applicability and attending to rights, the ethics of care is concerned with developing moral dispositions, seeking responses that are appropriate to a particular case and attending to responsibilities 340 and relations. In other words, justice should not only concern itself with universality, respect for common humanity and claiming rights but should also take into consideration particular relationships, distinct individuality and accepting responsibilities. Thus the question of justice requires not only the redistribution of domestic-labour and a breakdown in the sharp distinction between public and domestic but should also integrate with the ethics of care. Theories of justice have so far constructed impressive edifices by refining traditional notions of fairness and responsibility. But by continuing the centuries old neglect of the basic issues of child-rearing and care for dependents, these intellectual achievements are resting on shaky grounds. Any adequate theory of justice must confront these issues in a serious manner.CONCLUSIONThe feminist view of justice is more a critique of the prevalent theories of justice based upon ‘male domination‘ and ‘women‘s devaluation‘. The subordination of women is not fundamentally a matter of irrational differentiation based upon sex but more because of male supremacy under which gender differences are made relevant to the distribution of benefits to the systematic disadvantage of women. The feminist theorists argue that since the problem steins from male domination, a real theory of justice must not only include absence of discrimination but also the presence of power. Equality should mean not only an equality of opportunity to pursue male defined roles but also an equal power to create women defined roles or androgynous roles that men and women have an equal interest in filling. The result of such empowerment could be very different from the equal opportunities to enter male dominated institutions that is favoured by contemporary sex discrimination theory.Again, acceptance of the male dominance approach would require many changes in gender relations. But what changes would it require in the theory of justice? Feminists argue that all theories of justice whether liberal or Marxist interpret equality in ways that are incapable of recognizing women‘s subordination. The struggle against sexual subordination requires us to abandon the very idea of interpreting justice in term of equality. Since women must be free to redefine social roles, their aim can be best described as 341 politics of autonomy‘ rather than ‘politics of equality‘ Making a distinction between the two, Elizabeth Gross writes, ‘whereas struggle for equality implies an acceptance of given standard and a conformity to their expectations and requirements, struggle for autonomy implies the right to reject such standards and create new ones‘.10 The argument for women‘s autonomy appeals to rather than conflict with the deeper idea of moral equality because it asserts that women‘s interests and experiences should be equally important in shaping social life. Equality in this sense means individual‘s having equal value as human being.SUBALTERN VIEW OF JUSTICEThe word subaltern means ‘of inferior rank‘. It is used for the general attribute of subordination particularly in the context of erstwhile colonial societies of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and is expressed in terms of class, caste, age, gender, office or any other way. Subordination cannot be understood except as one of the constitutive terms in a linear relationship of which the other is domination. Subaltern groups are always subject to the activity of the dominant group, even when they rebel or rise up .11 The method of dominance can be law, police, bureaucracy money power, caste, religion, custom etc.Subalteranism is a view of history, society and politics from below. The coming of colonialism led to a number of conflicts between imperialist powers and most sections of the colonized societies on the one hand, and among various groups and classes within the colony itself. Colonial rule and its accompanying commercialization strengthened the penetration of rural and tribal areas by outsiders from the plains such as moneylenders, traders, land-grabbers and contractors. Forest zones were tightened for revenue purposes. Attempts were made to monopolize forest wealth through curbs on the use of timber and grazing facilities More importantly, colonial legal concept of property as absolute private property eroded the traditional joint ownership of land and sharpened tensions within the peasant and tribal societies. Peoples‘ response to these changes were expressed through occasional violent outbursts They were direct movements of resistance against exploitation by dikus, moneylenders, zamidars and the colonial law and state.12 For example, talking in the context of India. Katheleen Gough 342 writes that there were more than 77 peasant uprisings involving violence before the idea of national movement took root in India.13 These struggles changed the living conditions of the subordinate groups, their consciousness and their views about colonial rule and its law, liberty or justice. While the mainstream history covered the activities of western educated intelligentsia who led the national liberation movement, there exists considerable anthropological and sociological literature in the form of studies of tribes, lower class people, villagers, peasants, agricultural labourers and artisans who were affected adversely by the colonial state and their allies, and who fought their own struggles with imperialism.The subaltern writers want to study history from below. Their purpose is to understand the consciousness that informed and still informs the political action taken by these subordinate groups of their own, independent of any elite initiative. They believe that it is only by giving this consciousness a central place in the historical analysis that we can see the subalterns as makers of their own history. For example, a peasants view of the British Raj in India as a trimurti of sarkar, sahukar and zamidar makes it amply clear that their consciousness was different from that of the national leadership.14 Thus in the subaltern writings of history, the tribal rebellion of Sirsa Munda might find mention before the quarrels of moderates and extremists in the Indian national movement. In this context, subalternism offers a theory of change which argues that i) the moments of change be pluralized and be seen as confrontation rather than transition, and ii) such changes marked a functional change from religions to militancy such as crime and insurgency. The most significant outcome of this revision in perspective is that the agency of change was not only the national leaders but the also insurgents or the subalterns.15The subaltern writers believe that the major ideologies of liberalism, Marxism or nationalism are almost bankrupt in providing support for the subordinate people. Liberalism in its many varieties has tended to sweep aside issues of race, gender, equality or the rights of the indigenous people into its assimilative individualism. Similarly, revolutionary Marxism has been too narrow and insensitive a language to take account of cultural specificity of groups framed by race or gender rather than class. And if we turn to the ideology of nationalism, this can be seen as a disastrously insensitive to 343 matters of cultural and social differentiation and equality. We find that it is associated primarily with the activities and ideas by which, for example, the Indian elite responded to the institutions, opportunities and resources generated by colonialism. It fails to acknowledge the contributions made by the subordinate people of their own, independent of the elite, in the development of nationalism. Again in many countries, the resistance of the subordinate people in the tribal areas towards ecologically disastrous projects has been termed as ‘anti-national‘ because they are considered a hindrance to development.16In short, these ideologies are more limiting rather than liberating as far as the subaltern groups in the society are concerned. According to Baxi, the value of approaching particular issues through the idea of subordination is that it cuts through the conceptual division of race, class or gender, without denying the importance of them. It deals with a more inclusive conception of oppression or subordination than is possible under any particular ideology. Thus it is possible to see subordination arising from a number of sources such as colonialism/imperialism, tribalism, untouchablity, patriarchy, religion, developmentalism etc. All these forces have in common an ideological and cultural derive to subordinate social groups that stand in their way. Subalternism deals with the experience and struggles of these subordinate groups which have been a victim of colonialism and post-colonial state apparatus as well as elite groups in the civil society who have been a major factor in the process of their subordination.17 Ranjit Guha has summed up the problem by saying that ‘the experience of the subordination is deeply desolate like a cry and solitary like silent weeping, and it is not only the institution of law but the formulation of social sciences which have worked to prevent such cries being heard.SUBALTERISM AND JUSTICEAs explained earlier, subaltern thinkers divided the society into two groups: the elite and the subordinate masses. The elite is the privileged groups, even in a poor society, who are the holders of truth, consumers and producers of knowledge and who set the standards of rights, liberty, property or justice. The second groups consists of the under-privileged masses such as poor peasants, tribals, bonded-labour, migrants, women labourers, untouchables 344 etc. They are a sort of raw material who are used by the elites. In their long history these subordinated groups have been manipulated by the state as well as by the elite groups. Colonialism and elite manipulation hindered the growth of nation with a bond of unity among various groups in the society to come up to its own. As a result, even after independence, we can find two kinds of political languages in these societies. One is the language of the elites who talk in terms of nation-building, rights, liberties, political representation, citizenship. It is a part of our colonial heritage and it is what nationalism in ex-colonial countries owes to the colonial experience. The other language is the language of the people—the subaltern—which is rooted in the relation of power, authority and hierarchy, colonialism and even pre-colonialism. While the problem of the elite groups is how to use and exploit the subordinate group, the problem of the later is how to resist, ambush, fight or negotiate.Subaltern writers differentiate between mainstream theories of justice and subordinate people‘s concept of justice. Their argument is that mainstream theories of justice whether of Plato, Aristotle or Rawls never talk about justice from people‘s perspective. For example, Aristotle justified slavery and Manu justified caste system. The two languages of justice are different. Whereas for the elite group, justice lies in rule of law, rights, liberty and equality, for the subordinate groups, they are just ploys for domination. For them justice lies in ending this legal, political, economic and ideological domination and the methods can take the form of crime, insurgency, terrorism or counter-violence. For them the problem is how to re-orient or disown the knowledge in ways through which they can fight to micro-fascism of power which takes different forms of domination, suppression and exploitation. If for the elite, property is a right, for the subordinate classes, it is a theft. Legality of the subordinate groups is the denial of class legality of the elite. For them crime may not be abnormal but as normal as compliance. As Baxi writes, for the subaltern groups, ‘Criminality is a celebration of denial of authority‘. If for the elite, violence of law converts an act of insurgency into a series of crime, for the subalterns, the law of violence seeks to valorize ‘crime‘ as a pathway to justice. For them, law is no more than an ‘emissary of the state‘ representing dominance and suppression. 345 They know that they will always be victimized because wherever there is power, there are victims of power. Law represents ‘the will of the state that could be made to penetrate, reorganize part by part and eventually control the will of the masses in much the same way as Providence is brought to impose itself upon mere human destiny‘.10The naivete of post-colonial era has given way to a realization of the extent of social injustice towards the subordinate groups and the reasons that keeps them in their place. Also there is greater self-consciousness in these people than before. Simultaneously, there is a realization that the state would incur damage to its own image if it continues to deny such people their rights as ordinary human beings. Hence justice lies in redistribution of resources in the egalitarian liberal sense; it also consists in preventing encroachment of their life world. It may be giving them rights of cultural nature by developing ‘legal structures with which the collective dimension of human existence may be given clearer shape and form‘. There is a need to move beyond a jurisprudence of rights based upon individual and his relations to the state. What is important is that the process of overcoming the subordination of the whole community may entail recognition of the collective rights to order their own affairs. For the subordinate groups, justice lies in lessening encroachment to their life world and restoring them to their historical place.CONCLUSIONThe subaltern view of justice has drawn our attention to the experiences and struggles of the social groups which have been a victim of state apparatus as well as the civil society. For example, talking in the context of India, it was first the British colonial state and then independent India which laid bare vast tracks of forest land and turned it into agricultural land, impoverishing and subordinating the tribals and creating ecological disasters. Similarly, at the level of civil society, untouchability has been sustained by economic and social forces rather than by the state structure. It refers to the specific nature of class relationship in the colonial and ex-colonial societies where the such relationships are subsumed into the relations of domination and subordination between the members of elite and subaltern classes. Class relations in such 346 societies have been expressed through the notion of hierarchy, domination and subordination. In other words, subalternity — the composite culture of resistance to and acceptance of domination and hierarchy—has been a dominant characteristic of these societies. The formal liberal equality and rule of law which have been the cornerstone of mainstream theories of justice has served only a veil to hide the violent and feudal nature of political system still based upon power and authority. Hence there is a need to go beyond the formal legal structures and restore the subalterns their rightful place in the society.References1. see Will Kymillicka op. cit., p. 239-922. C. Mackinnon, Feminism Unmodified, Discourses on Life and Law, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1987 p. 323. Kymillicka op. cit., p. 2404. Ibid p. 2415. Radcliff Richard. The Skeptical Feminism,: A Philosophical Enquiry. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1980, p. 113-146. Mackinnon op. cit., p. 367. S. Okin Justice, Gender and Family, Basic Books, NY, 1989, p. 128-308. M. Friedman, ‘Beyond Caring: The Demoralizing of Gender‘, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol 13, p. 87-1109. Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women‘s Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1982, p. 1910. E. Gross &C. Pateman (ed). Feminist Challenges, Social and Political Theory, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1986 p. 19311. Ranjit Guha (ed), Subaltern Studies, vol I, OUP, NY.12. Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885-1947, Macmillan, Delhi 1983, p. 47.13. Quoted in Ibid.14. Subaltern Studies, Vol IV. P. 37415. Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Invitation to a Dialogue‘ in Subaltern Studies, Vol IV.16. Upendra Baxi and Oliver Mendelsohn The Rights of the Subordinated People, OUP, Delhi, 1994, Introduction.17. Ibid18. Quoted in Ibid19. Based upon the lecture delivered by U. Baxi on ‘Subaltern view of Justice‘ in a workshop on Political Theory held by CPDHE, Delhi University on 23 December 1995.347 CHAPTER 16 THEORIES OF COMMON GOODAristotle in his book Politics wrote long back, ‘If all communities aim at some good, the state or the political community which is the highest of all and which embraces all the rest aims and in the greater degree than any other at the highest good...The task of politics is to decide the good‘. The notion of common good has been an important element of political theory and the political philosophers have been debating the meaning, nature and content of common good. In the contemporary world, notions like rights, liberty, equality, property, justice are justified on the assumption that they serve the common good; that there are certain common interests which men share as member of the community and the task of the state is to promote and encourage those interests. Common life creates common interests which constitute the public good. Man is a social being and he comes to acquire his capacities and fulfill his needs by being a part of the larger social whole. Society is not merely an aggregate of the individuals but a community of persons with shared values, practices and institutions. The good of individual is not independent from the good of the whole community. The purpose of the state should be to assist its members to achieve goodness. It is a means whose end and justification lie in the promotion and happiness of the individual as a part of the community.WHAT IS COMMON GOODAlthough the notion of common good is as old as political theory itself, there is no universal definition of what constitutes common good and how it can be secured. As described earlier, it may refer to moral good, to means or a practice by which to reach348 a goal or a certain outcome. Sometimes politicians use the concept of public good to enhance their private interest. Due to diversity of meaning, the concept of public good arouses deep disagreement about its specific content. Who will decided about the common good? Its common good will of the people or the Party? Do philosophy, religion or traditions enhance common good? Is common good a sum total of the individual good? According to Roger Scruton, it is an illusive, concept. It can be a goal or an object of policy that is in the interest of everyone in the society. It is also related to General Will or the collective good. According to Goodin and Pettit, common good means i) a benefit to the civil society as a whole, and ii) a benefit to each of its individual member.1 According to J. Laird, ‘the phrase is radically ambiguous since it may mean either the good which is common to each (to the majority which takes care of the minority as well) or good of the community organized as a whole.2 In the government sense, it refers to an impartial government—evidently because, though it be logically possible that not everyone will benefit from the policies of an impartial government, such a government considers the good of everyone equally‘.3Historically, the notion of common good has been an essential element of all political philosophies. Plato and Aristotle in the Greek city-states, the political theologists of the middle ages, utilitarian liberals like Bentham and Mill, positive liberals like Green, Barker and Laski, socialist like Marx and Engles, the recently propounded communitarian school of thought and nearer home Gandhi and his followers—all adhere to a particular notion of common good. Since the concept cuts through ideologies, there has been considerable variation in the meaning of common good. For some, common good has been the dictates of reason; for others, it is the will of God. Liberals identified it with individual good. Rousseau equated it with General Will. For Marx, common good meant the creation of a classless and stateless society through revolution. For the communitarian writers, common good consists in the protection of cultural traditions and shared practices of the community thought the state. Gandhi and his followers explained common good in terms of Sarvoday.4 Inspite of diversity, all use the notion of common good as an ideal to which appeal for justification of all political activities and policies should be made. In this chapter, we shall discuss some important notions of common 349 good, namely: Liberal, Marxist, Communitarian and Gandhian. LIBERAL NOTION OF COMMON GOODThe classical idea of common good was associated with the good of the community. Liberalism in its early phase dropped the idea of community and believed only in the good of the individual. Society was seen as an artificial institution, a man-made device to serve the selfish interests of the individual. Liberal thinkers like Bentham and Mill believed that the good of the community consisted in the good of the members composing it. Hence common good meant ‘maximum good of the maximum number‘. They gave the doctrine that the good of the individual could be secured only by leaving him alone, to pursue his own happiness in his own way so long as it did not interfere with the happiness of others. Their efforts was to concentrate on special institutions and procedures like constitutions and rule of law that encouraged individuals to maximize their mutual interests in some public activity.However, it was T.H. Green who provided an ethical foundation to liberalism, gave a notion of common good which was developed later by liberal writers like Lindsay, Laski, Tawney, Barker and others. Green held the view that the individual is a social being and he comes to acquire his capacities by being a part of the larger social whole. To be free, rational and moral person is to live in accordance with the common good which supplies the criterion for individual rights. It is for the common good that we live in society. Only such a society is consistent with our essentially social self. The question of rights, freedom and justice are relevant only in so far as they promote common good. Politics is not value free or neutral and independent of any particular notion of good. There is a good, the common good, which the state should pursue.At philosophical level, Green believed that ‘virtue‘ is man‘s highest good and what is consistent with virtue is right action including the government action. He linked it with the formula that government should be for common good: the government should promote common good and virtue is such a common good and is the only common good. By virtue he meant: a) non-competitive good, and b) some good for each and everyone promotable and attainable in the society only.5 At practical level, he identified common good with providing the external conditions for the internal 350 development of man. This could be done by securing rights, liberty and justice on the one hand and by providing public education, factory legislation, prevention of food adulteration etc. on the other. Green believed in the interventionist view of state against the non-interventionist policy of the early liberals. For the sake of common good, he expected the state to regulate the economy. Competition and inequality undermined human fellowship and made the realization of common good impossible. Another liberal writer, R.H. Tawney regarded common good as a principle of distribution. The function of the state is to redistribute the resources and regulate the economy for social purpose. According to him, the question of rights and justice are relevant only in the context of common good which is their source and foundation. Harold Laski equated common good with the concept of welfare state and activities like raising the economic standard of people, providing health care, education, nutrition, human dignity and development of human personality etc.The liberal-egalitarian principle of common good has been further supplemented by John Rawls in his book A Theory of Justice. According to him, the essence of common good lies in the distribution of primary goods. These primary goods are of two types: a) social goods such as income, wealth, opportunities, power, rights, liberty etc., which are distributed directly by the social institutions, and b) natural goods like health, intelligence, imagination, natural talent which are affected by social institutions but are not directly distributed. Common good demands that these goods should be distributed equally unless inequalities in the distribution of goods are so arranged as to the advantage of the least favoured. The idea of common good lies in treating people equally by removing not all inequalities but only those which disadvantage someone. In other words, common good lies in the redistribution of primary goods. Ideally, they should be distributed equally. But if some inequalities benefit everyone, by drawing out socially useful talents and energies, then they must be accepted by everyone.6The liberal notion of common good which distinguishes it from other notions is the belief that good can be promoted by letting people choose for themselves what sort of life they want to lead rather than imposed by the state. The purpose of the state is to remove the external impediments and create conditions and 351 opportunities for internal development. No life goes better by being led from outside according to values that a person does not approve. Thus the conditions of common good are: i) we lead our life from inside according to our beliefs about what gives value to life, and ii) we should be free to question those beliefs, to examine them in the light of whatever information, examples and arguments our culture can provide. Common good demands that people must have resources and liberties needed to lead their life according to their beliefs and values. That is why, liberalism regards freedom as a precondition of common good because freedom of choice is needed precisely to find out what is valuable in MUNITARIAN VIEW OF COMMON GOODAs a reaction to the resurgence of libertarian politics, there has been a revival of the idea of state as a political community in 1980s and ‘90s. This school of thought is known as Communitarianism and has been popularized by a number of writers such as Charles Taylor, Micheal Sandal, Walzer and others7. These writers emphasize the necessity of attending to the community along with individual liberty and equality because they feel that the value of the community is not sufficiently recognized in the liberal-individualistic theories of politics. This community which already exists in the form of social practices, cultural traditions and shared social understandings needs respect and protection. What is worth noting is that unlike Marxism, it does not believe in rebuilding a new community by overthrowing capitalism but wants to protect what is already existing. The political theory must pay attention to these shared practices and understandings within each munitarians believe that the self or the individual is not free but is ‘embedded‘ or ‘situated‘ in the existing social practices because complete freedom would be a void in which nothing would be worth doing. True freedom must be situated. Again individual freedom and well-being is only possible within the community. Once we recognize the dependence of human beings on society, the task of politics becomes the good of the society as a whole and not to protect the rights of the individual alone. Hence common good demands that the politics of individual rights should be replaced by ‘politics of common good‘. There is no doubt that liberalism also places a number of restrictions on individual freedom in the 352 name of social welfare, but communitarians conceive of common good in a more substantive form which defines community‘s way of life. This common good rather than adjusting itself to the people‘s preferences, provides a standard by which those preferences are to be evaluated. Individual rights are given importance to the extent they conform to the notion of public good. The task of politics is to encourage people to adopt a conception of good that conforms to the community‘s way of life while discouraging concept of good not agreed to by munitarians identify common good with the overall good of the society and not merely an aspect of it. It means that while social good is reducible to individual good, the reverse is not always true. Such a community can be sustained by a notion of good, which according to Communitarianism should have three characteristics: i) need to sustain a cultural structure that provides people with meaningful options, ii) a shared forum in which to evaluate these options, iii) the preconditions for political legitimacy.8 Let us discuss them in detail.DUTIES TO PROTECT CULTURAL STRUCTURECommunitarians believe that the cultural structure that provide people with meaningful options should not be left to be determined by the individuals or the market forces. For example, Rawls claimed that the good ways of life will sustain themselves in the cultural market place without state assistance because in conditions of freedom, people are able to recognize the worth of good ways of life and will support them. However, for communitarians this is not sufficient. The interests people have in a good way of life and the kind of support they will provide will not necessarily guarantee their existence for future generations. For example, consider the preservation of historical monuments. The wear and tear caused by everyday use of things would prevent the future generations from experiencing them, if they are not protected by the state. Even if people think that they are important part of their culture, they cannot be relied upon to ensure that future people will have a valuable range of options. Hence state is duty bound to improve the quality of people‘s options by encouraging the replacement of less valuable aspects of community‘s way of life by more valuable ones.9353 COLLECTIVE DELIBERATIONSCommunitarians want to replace individual options by collective deliberations. They believe that individual judgements require the sharing of experiences and the give-and-take of collective deliberations. Individual judgements about ‘what is good‘ depend on the collective evaluation of shared practices. And the state is the proper arena in which to formulate our vision of good because such visions require shared inquiry. They cannot be pursued or even known by solitary individuals. The existence of state is the affirmation that men live in a community of shared experiences and languages. It is only through the state that the individual and society can discover and test their values through political activities of discussion, criticism, examples and emulation, and come to understand a part of who they are. Communitarians in fact go to the extent of combining society and state, i.e., whatever is properly social must become the sphere of political also.10 They firmly believe that people are naturally social and individuals will drift into isolation without the state actively bringing them together to evaluate and propose the good.POLITICAL LEGITIMACYPolitical legitimacy should identify itself with the politics of common good which can be secured by encouraging everyone to participate in it. Communitarians believe that the individual choices require a secure cultural context and a cultural context requires a secure political context. A ‘neutral state‘ undermines the shared sense of common good which is required for citizens to accept the sacrifices demanded by the welfare state. Citizens will identify with the state and accept its demands as legitimate only when there is a common form of life which is seen as a supremely important good. People will not respect the claims of others unless they are bound by shared conceptions of good, unless they can identify themselves with a politics of common good and encourage everyone to participate freely in it. Thus communitarians endorse a notion of common good in which state promotes a concept of good life which is tied up with the community‘s practices and traditions and in which everyone is encouraged to participate. They prefer a politics of common good to the politics of state neutrality.354 MARXISM AND COMMON GOODMarxism associates common good with class interest. In a class divided society, common good is nothing but an ideology of the ruling class to justify its legitimacy. Each new class which comes into power is compelled merely to carry through its aims, to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of the society. Such interests are given an ideal form, and are presented as the only rational, universally valid ones.11 For example, capitalism believes that private property serves the common interest of all whereas in reality it serves the interest of a particular class and is a means of exploitation and suppression of the non-propertied classes. The concept of common good demands a type of society based upon community of interests which can be nothing short of a classless and stateless communist society. We can study Marxist concept of common good from two points of view: i) as a critique of the capitalist society in which common good cannot be realized, and ii) the vision of a communist society which is synoymous with common good.CRITIQUE OF COMMON GOODMarx was quite categorical that common good cannot be realized in the capitalist society based upon private property. The hallmark of capitalism is the division of labour which, instead of being a sources of harmony, is a cause of conflict in the society. It brings disharmony among three aspects of life: productive forces, human relations and consciousness. As a result, it leads to inequality, private property, and opposition between individual and general interests. The ownership of the means of production in the capitalist society in a few hands and the sole aim being profit, the non-propertied class has no power except to sell his labour. It is obliged to set as its end not liberty, equality, fraternity or common good but the maintenance of a class divided capitalist system. His general conclusion was that the growth of capitalism, concentration of wealth and production on the one hand and the growth of unemployment, oppression degradation and exploitation, on the other, goes hand in hand. The political order, i.e., state, by legalizing the right to property serves the interest of a particular class. At social level, capitalism degrades workers by depriving them of their material means and physical energies. Workers are forced to spend most of their lives for physical needs they share with animals.355 Capitalism forces workers to engage in monotonous repetitive activity of unparalleled stupidity. Their life is largely determined by forces beyond their control. They sell their labour power as a mere means of obtaining necessities. They work in order to live. They do not even reckon their labour as part of their lives. It is rather a sacrifice of their lives. In a society where everyone is competing in the market, where everyone treats others as mere means, where everyone ‘is separated from the community‘, wholly preoccupied with his private (rather than common) interest and acting in accordance with his private caprice, social relationship is a mere means to private purposes and an external necessity. In such a society one cannot think of common good.Thus Marxism judges society by the kind of human life it creates and the capitalist society creates a self-seeking, alienated human being which cannot become the basis for common MUNISM AND COMMON GOODThe aim of common good can only be realized in a communist society created after the proletarian revolution. It is only when communism which has been slowly developing after the socialist revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat comes into full operation that one can talk of the good of the society as a whole as distinct from the good of a particular class. According to Marxism, only the communist society will be the basis of common good because whereas previous revolutions have only altered division of labour and the distribution of social activity, the communist revolution will abolish classes and nations as division of human race. It will for the first time in history bring about a universal transformation in terms of production and exchange. It will treat all previous forms of social development as the work of man and will subject them to the authority of united individuals.In the first phase of socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, being a class state, will serve the interest of the working class and not the common good of the society as a whole. It is only in the communist society when class conflict will disappear and exploitation will end, when everyone‘s wants will be satisfied, and when man will become master of his own destiny that one can talk of the common good. It is only in the higher stage of communist society, when enslaving subordination of the individual under the 356 division of labour has disappeared, when the conflict between the manual labour and intellectual labour is resolved, when labour becomes not only a means of life but also the highest want of life, when development of all the faculties of the individual productive forces have increased, when all the springs of social welfare flow more abundantly that one can talk of the common good.12 It will be a society where everyone will contribute according to his capacity but will receive according to needs.The common good can be realized in a society based upon equality and the communist society will be the first equalitarian society. Here all men will stand on an equal plane and will be respected simply for being individuals. There will be no ruling class because there will be no private property. There will be only administrators, artists, scientists and managers etc. But these talented men will have no greater social status than the farmer or factory worker because all are employed in useful labour and no function is qualitatively superior to any other. Here men will be paid not on the basis of market talent but on the basis of needs. In other words, the plumber with five children will receive a higher salary than a manager with two children. All men will give their labour gladly and to the best of their ability and their reward is the knowledge that they have made worthwhile contribution to the society.13The common good will become a reality when state has withered away. Coercion and power are the enemy of common good. The communist society will be a society without politics. Men will cease to be citizens and will become free individuals who gather together in a voluntary association. The working class in the course of its development will replace the old civil society. Everyone will be a worker either of hand or brain and society will constitute a single class. There will be no clash of interests because interests are based on property ownership and property is abolished in communism. The communist society will have a free government. The common good can be realized only when the state is replaced by the community.14Common good can become a reality only in the communist society because it is the positive abolition of private property, of human self-alienation and thus the real appropriation of human nature, through and for man. It is, therefore, the return of man 357 himself as a social, that is really human being, a complete and conscious return which assimilates all the wealth of previous development. ‘Communism as a complete naturalism is humanism and as a complete humanism is naturalism. It is the definite resolution of the antagonism between nature and nature and between man and man. It is the true solution of the conflict between existence and essence, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species‘.15 It is only when men will turn their attention from exploiting each other and bend their effort to a conquest of the forces of nature, it is only when the desire to possess is replaced by the desire to enjoy diverse and complex activities, that the common good will be realized.GANDHIAN NOTION OF COMMON GOODThe Gandhian notion of common good is totally different from the liberal, Marxist or communitarian notions which are primarily based upon industrial society. This notion is based upon a completely different philosophy of life, a different worldview as well as moral values. The Gandhian view of common good is known as Sarvodaya which means goodwill of all and welfare of all. The purpose of the political community is to establish a society based upon the welfare of all and welfare through all. It is a concept of good based upon a persistent critique of modern western democracy and wedded to the cult of non-violence. It implies universal and equal development of all. In the classical Indian texts, the concept of common good stood for spiritual upliftment, it had little concern for socio-economic and other mundane welfare of the people. It was more concerned with the realization of the absolute. Gandhi widened the concept of common good to make it a synthetic concept which included socio-economic, cultural and spiritual good. Its elements were sharpened during the course of national movement and were supplemented after reading of Ruskin‘s Unto This Last the essence of which was that the good of the individual is coterminous with the good of all. It was based upon the philosophy of learning the art of living for others. It defined the purpose of life being happiness, elevation and emancipation of all living beings. According to J.K. Khanna, common good as explained by Gandhi is the greatest good of all based upon classless and casteless society. It is based upon man‘s moral and spiritual nature. It stands for358 decentralized, self-governing and self-sufficient and cooperative society with equal opportunity for all. It means a radical transformation of the existing social order based upon coercion, violence, tyranny, exploitation, oppression, suppression, strife, conflict, inequality and injustice with a one which integrates spiritual well-being with material life, aims at realizing the value of truth and non-violence, love and compassion, justice and tolerance, peace and harmony.16 Similarly, according to V.P. Verma, common good according to Gandhi means i) conscious, spontaneous and heartily cooperation of all, ii) identity of the good of the capable minority with general majority, iii) an orientation towards universal and equal development of all, iv) widest dispersal of political sovereignty, v) least amount of government, vi) easiest availability of justice, vii) the least possible expenditure, viii) universal, uninterrupted and objective spread of knowledge, and ix) partyless democracy.17The Gandhian concept of common good is an integral and synthetic concept. It is based upon the principle of SAMTVA, i.e., Balance or harmony in different perspectives. According to Dashrath Singh, the chief characteristics of Samtva are Equanimity, nonviolence, decentralization, synthesis, satyagrah and world peace.18 Equanimity can be interpreted as balance or harmony. It is a balance of economic, social and psychological elements. At economic level, it implies fulfillment of daily needs of food, clothing and shelter. What is important in this context is that fulfilling wants is not everything. We have to put in talent in the service of society instead of converting it into pound, shilling and pense. As Gandhi wrote, if all of us realize this obligation of service, the eternal moral law, we would regard it as a sin to amass wealth and as a consequence, there would be no inequality of wealth, exploitation or economic rivalry. Nature produces enough for our wants but like thieves we want to store for future. This leads to inequality and at economic level a cry for economic justice. Hence common good demands that we should keep ourselves at voluntary reduction of wants. At social level, equanimity means the sustenance of a social order through our social duty at functional level. This social order can be sustained at the level of equality. God created all of us equally. The brotherhood of man follows from the fatherhood of God. We can do it by performing the duty given to us. The lawyer has the same value as that of the barber in as much as all have the same right of earning the livelihood. It mean bread359 -labour. And lastly, equanimity of mind is equally important because mind is very fickle, impetuous, stray and obstinate. It requires a restraint. The external world is the growth of internal. If the internal mind is controlled, calm persists outside. But we have a number of desires. It is not only a war of men against men but also a war of man with himself. Unless we control mental activities, there is no peace of mind or happiness. Only through a control over mind, we can change our emotional ups and downs.The common good is based upon non-violence. There is a close relationship between means and ends. It is only in a sarvodaya society that one can talk of non-violent society because where there is fear, suppression, domination and exploitation, there is no question of common good. Again, common good is based upon decentralization of production, wealth, power and position. At political level, it implies decentralization and widest possible dispersal of political sovereignty, village panchayats and partyless democracy. At economic level it means small scale cottage industries and khadi, while at social level, it denotes synthesis of different ideas and ideologies both Indian and western.In short, Gandhian concept of common good as expressed in Sarvodaya can be summed up in the words of Arunachalam. According to him, Sarvodaya is the welfare of all. It is a classless society based upon the destruction of classes but not the destruction of individuals who constitute the classes; a system of production that does not fail to make use of science and technology for creating an economy of abundance but does not kill the process, the individual initiative or freedom for development or create a psychology of ceaseless striving for more and more material goods; a system of distribution that will ensure a reasonable minimum income for all, and while not aiming at a universal equality of an arithmetic kind will nevertheless ensure that all private property or talent beyond the minimum will be used as a trust for public good and not for private aggrandizement; a social order where all will work but there is no inequality either in status or opportunity for any individual, and a political system where change is the result of persuasion, differences are resolved by discussion, conflict by love, and recognition of multiplicity of interests and a life spent in the service of all‘.19360 CONCLUSIONInspite of various strands of common good, it remains a vague concept. It is argued that it has no operational meaning. There is no such thing as common good; they are merely the policies which are for the individual good. Liberals assert that society shows more conflict than common good. There is no constant public good and the notion has been changing from time to time. Pluralists also deny any concept of common good. Society consists of groups and politics is more a conflict among groups. Similarly, the Marxist idea of common good is no more than an illusion. However, criticism apart, the idea of common good exists because it is the urge towards agreement, towards solutions to problems by reference to some idea of good which will smoothen the difficulties and ensure harmony of various interests in the society. It is a part of the general urge towards securing and reconciliating which is inseparable from life of the individual and is communicated to the life of man in the society. It creates a source of stability in the society.References1. Robert Goddin and Phillip Pettit, A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, Blackwell, 1993, p. 3692. J. Laird in Gould and Kolb Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, op cit., p 1083. See ‘Common Good‘ in Gould and Kolb, Ibid, p. 108-1094. For more details, see Adi H. Doctor, Issues in Political Theory, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1985, p. 495. Quoted in Gould and Kolb, op. cit.6. Will Kymillicka, op. cit., p 63-647. For more details on Communitarianism, see Goddin and Phillip, op. cit., and chapter on Communitarianism in Will Kymillicka, op. cit,8. Will Kymlicka, p. 199-2379. Ibid. p. 21710. Ibid, p. 2211. Karl Marx Germany Ideology, p. 13812. Andrew Hacker, Political Theory, Philosophy Ideology and Science, Macmillan, New York 1961, p. 553-5613. Ibid p. 55714. Ibid15. Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, p. 243-4416. J.K. Khanna, Gandhi on Recent Political Thought, SS Publication, 1982,Chapter I17. V.P. Verma, The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and Sarvodaya, Laxmi Narayana Agrawal Books, Merruth. 1985, p. 384 361 18. Dashrath Singh, Perspectives in Gandhian Thought, Commonwealth Publishers, New Delhi 1991, p. 151-16519. K. Arunachalam Gandhi‘s Approach to Rural Development and Sarvodaya, illukkiya Pannaj, Muduarai, 1989, p. 85-86362 CHAPTER 17 THEORIES OF DEMOCRACYToday‘s world is a democratic world. Sartori has called it a world of ‘democratic confusion‘ because democracy is the most confused concept of political theory. It is not simply a form of choosing and authorizing government, it has also been defined as ‘a type of society and a manner of life‘, as an ideal or as an end in itself. Every state, whether it is liberal, socialist or communist, boasts itself of being democratic and does not hesitate to call its opponents undemocratic, with the result that the concept has been the victim of contradictory interpretations. Dictatorships have been established in the name of democracy. According to Hagopian, democracy is ‘one of the most defused and pervasive concepts of history‘.1 Similarly, according to Macpherson, there is a good deal of muddle about democracy and this is due to ‘a genuine confusion as to what democracy is supposed to be, for the word democracy has changed its meaning more than once and in more than one direction.‘2 Moreover, the term cannot be divorced from ideological considerations.There was a time when democracy used to be a bad word. Democracy, in its original sense of ‘rule by the people or government in accordance with the will of the bulk of people‘, was considered a bad thing—something dangerous to nobility and civilized living. However, its full acceptance as a respectable form of government became apparent only by the time of first world war, a war which was fought by the Western liberal-capitalist countries to make the world sale for democracy. Since then, the question of merits and demerits of democracy or whether democracy is the best form of government has been relegated into oblivion, so much so that 363 everybody claims to be democratic. National liberation movements against imperialism and colonialism were attempts to assert the democratic right of self-determination of the peoples of Asia and Africa. Similarly, revolutions were made against the Western type of liberal democracy in the name of proletarian democracy or peoples‘ democracies. Such movements have changed the face of democracy and have made it the most ambiguous term of political theory. In 1949, UNESCO sponsored an inquiry into the conflicts and ideals associated with the concept of democracy. The questionnaire was sent to scholars of many countries and two points emerged:i) There were no replies averse to democracy. Probably for the first time in history, democracy was claimed as the proper ideal description of all systems of political and social organizations advocated by influential proponents.ii) The idea of democracy was considered ambiguous and even those who thought it was clear or capable of clarity were obliged to admit certain ambiguity either in the institutions or devices employed to effect the idea or in the cultural or historical circumstances by which the word, idea and practice are conditioned.3Contemporary democracy is not the monopoly of western world. It cannot be equated exclusively with the unique western liberal democracy. The erstwhile non-liberal systems of communist countries such as USSR and East European countries, and the somewhat different semi-liberal systems of most of the under-developed countries of Asia and Africa have also a genuine historical claim to the title of democracy. All of them evolved their unique characteristics of democracy. In this chapter, we shall discuss various theories of democracy in the modern nation-states which have come into existence during the last 200 years.DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF DEMOCRACYFor the greater part of human history, democracy was treated by intellectuals and political leaders with contempt. Democracy originally meant rule by the common people, the plebians. It meant rule by the untrained, ignorant mob. Its egalitarian character was contrary to the naturally hierarchical character of society. Democracy364 considered what is right by the counting of heads rather than by any standard of truth or justice. Plato defined it as ‘the worst form of government, less than tyranny‘. In democracy, freedom degenerates into license and equality into insolence. Aristotle considered it as the rule of the poor, regardless of whether the poor were a majority or minority. He emphasized three elements of democracy: i) intellectually, democracy meant equality, ii) constitutionally, it meant rule of the majority, and iii) socially it meant rule of the poor at the expense of the rich.4On the other hand, Greek philosopher Cleon defined democracy as the rule ‘of the people, by the people and for the people‘. A classical theory of democracy was developed in Athens. It was justified on the grounds that citizens should enjoy political equality in order to be free to rule and be ruled in turn. The key features of this democracy were: i) direct participation of citizens in the legislative and judicial functions, ii) assembly of the citizens being sovereign and had the power to legislate on all common affairs of the city, iii) public offices were filled through direct election, lot or rotation, and had short duration. However, this type of democracy was limited to small city-states, and had a slave economy which created ‘free‘ time for citizens. And more importantly, citizenship was restricted a to relatively small number of people.In the middle ages, one could not expect any theory of democracy or any demand for a democratic franchise. When feudalism prevailed, power depended on rank, whether inherited or acquired by force of arms. It was only in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that democracy became a respectable term. It were movements like Reformation and Renaissance that made the case for democratization of state, society, economy and politics. The initial theoretical thrust came from English puritans of the left such as Diggers and Levellers. The classical democratic element was provided by John Locke who sought to free the individual from arbitrary government and establish him as an independent sovereign being guided by his conscience and right reason. Government, according to him, must derive its authority from the free consent of the governed. The equalitarian element of democracy was provided by Rousseau who sought to re-introduce elements of direct democracy through his theory of ‘General Will‘. However, while these philosophers provided the foundation of a plausible concept of 365 democracy, they did not push their thought to logical conclusion. Their views were far away from the fact that people actually rule.During eighteenth century, the American revolutionaries and constitutionalists such as Jefferson and Madison tried to lay down the institutional basis of democracy. In England, Bentham and James Mill advocated right to vote and representative government. J.S. Mill elaborated the aims, ideals and institutions of democracy which later on came to be known as classical-liberal democracy. Implicit in his writings was the view that democracy was desirable not only because it produces public policies but also makes participation in a common undertaking rewarding. He saw democracy as participatory, developmental, educative and constructive. This type of democracy was endorsed by many subsequent liberal writers such as T.H. Green, Harold Laski, R.M. MacIver, John Dewey, W. Wilson etc.During the latter half of twentieth century, classical liberal theory of democracy was challenged not only by liberalism itself which produced a new theory known as Elite theory of Democracy, but also by two other non-liberal variants of democracy: the Marxist-communist or peoples‘ democracy, and a host of theories evolved by the underdeveloped countries. The major thrust of the elite theory of democracy was that democracy as a government by the people was a myth and political power, far from being wielded by the people, was competed among the elitist/pluaralist groups. A new theory of democracy known as Participatory Democracy which has evolved in Europe and America during the last twenty-five years is trying to free democracy from the elitist elements.A powerful critique of liberal democracy and a radically different image of good society was provided by Marxism. Marxism rejected the whole idea of liberal democracy, terming it as ‘class democracy‘ since capitalist society was a class-divided society. Instead, it proposed a new theory of democracy to be established by the working class after overthrowing the capitalist state. This is known as the proletarian democracy or ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat‘. Again, after the second world war, a large number of Asian and African countries got independence from colonial rule either through revolutionary struggle or without any actual use of force. These revolutions were made by the leaders who were able to get support 366 for their vision of building a future society. A part of this vision was democracy. However, these leaders arrived at their own theories of democracy by the conscious selection of those elements in both liberal and Marxist theories which they found applicable to the problems of their own people.Thus we find that though democracy is a legitimate and universally appropriate form of government, different structural foundations or social pre-conditions produce quite different but possible democratic systems. However, in all kinds of democracies, the ultimate ethical principle at the most general level has been the same: to provide conditions for the free development of human capacities and to do this equally for all members of society. However, serious differences arise when we move from the general to the particular level in different societies. The different theories of democracy are nothing but different attempts to achieve this goal.MEANING OF DEMOCRACYSeen from the above account of the development of the idea of democracy, it is next to impossible to give any universal definition of democracy. Cranston writes that democracy is nothing but different doctrines in different people‘s mind. C.D. Burns also complains: Tew words have been more loosely and variously defined than democracy. It has almost literally meant all things to all people‘. The UNESCO questionnaire had also pointed out the vagueness of the term: voices of complaints on the looseness and vagueness of current use of the word democracy have been heard at least since the days of the French Revolution‘. One can agree with Laski that ‘Democracy has a context in every sphere of life and in each of these spheres it raises its special problems which do not admit of satisfactory or universal generalization‘. The difficulty with giving any precise definition of democracy lies also in the fact that the term has been understood not only as a form of government but also as an ideal or a way of life. The latter meaning takes a broader view of democracy which includes the ideals of democratic man, democratic society, democratic economic system and democratic morality. A number of definitions have appeared from time to time associating democracy with the process of government, some of which are as follows:Lincon : Democracy is ‘a government of the people, for the people367 and by the people‘.Seelay : Democracy is a form of government in which everyone has a share‘.Sartori : A democratic political system is one that makes the government responsive and accountable and its effectiveness depends first and foremost on the efficiency and skill of its leadership‘.Lipset : Democracy...may be defined as a political systems which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing officials and a social mechanism which permits the largest possible part of the population to influence major decisions by choosing among contenders for political office‘.Macpherson : ‘...democracy is merely a mechanism for choosing and authorizing governments or in some other way getting laws and political decisions made‘.Schempeter : ‘The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions which realizes the common good by making the people itself decide issues through the election of individuals who are to assemble in order to carry out its will‘.From the various definition of this controversially interpreted political concept, the following ideas may be selected which are commonly associated with this democracy:i) A high level of political participation in the selection of public policies and public officials at regular intervals. It is the right and duty of all citizens to get involved in elections, public discussions and other aspects of political process.ii) Meaningful and extensive competition among individuals and organizations for effective positions of government.iii) Availability of civil and political liberties, sufficient to secure integrity of political competition and participation such as constitutional state, guarantee of basic rights such as right to vote, freedom to form organizations, free and fair elections, decentralization of political power etc.In short, democracy is associated with Participation, Competition and Civil and Political Liberties. Historically, it has been defended 368 on grounds of fundamental values such as equality, liberty, moral self-development, social utility, satisfaction of wants, efficient decisions etc.THEORIES OF DEMOCRACYAs mentioned above, democracy means rule by the people. However, to define democracy as the rule of the people raises more questions rather than helping to clarify its meaning. There is a lot of disagreement on both what constitutes ‘people‘ and what is meant by ‘rule‘. If ‘demos‘ means people, then the question is who constitute ‘people‘, what is the scope and extent of their participation; what are the conditions which are conducive to participation. Similarly, if ‘crats‘ means rule, then what is the scope of that rule; does rule mean control of the people over law and order, control over the economy and the public policies? What is the mechanism for those who do not want to participate? Just as there are innumerable questions, numerous answers have been given by different thinkers to these questions. While some thinkers believe that all should directly participate in the decision-making, others believe that people can also participate through their representatives. Still others believe that rulers should be chosen by the people and should be accountable to them. The rulers should be accountable to the representatives of the people. Some believe that if the rulers act in the interest of the people, this will suffice. The different theories of democracy answer these questions in a systematic manner. For the purpose of our study, the following theories can be identified:?1. Classical-liberal theory of democracy?2. Elitist theory of democracy?3. Pluralist theory of democracy?4. Participatory democracy?5. Marxist theory of democracy or peoples‘ democracyWhile the classical-liberal and Elitist/Pluralist theories are representative democracy, the participatory theory and the peoples‘ democracy try to blend elements of direct democracy so as to make the participation of the common man in the decision-making process a reality. Let us now discuss these theories in detail.369 REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACYModern democracies are representative democracies. Though the rise of democracy in Athens in associated with the direct participation of citizens in the affairs of the state, the rise of modern nation-state made the institution of direct democracy irrelevant. The industrial revolution, creation of towns and cities, migration of population and capitalist economy created a number of problems such as the scope and extent of participation, participation vis-a vis the requirements of skilled administration. The increase in population and other geographical and physical limits made direct democracy not only impossible but also unnecessary and undersirable. The ideal form of democratic state in the modern period was found in Representative Democracy in which people exercise their power through deputies or representatives periodically elected by them. The concept of representative democracy was systematically put forward by J.S. Mill in his book Considerations on Representative Government. According to him, a representative system along with freedom of speech, press and assembly provides a powerful mechanism whereby government can be watched and controlled. Through electoral competition, it is able to harness leadership qualities for the maximum benefit of all. Echoing Aristotle‘s views, he writes that when the government is controlled by all citizens, there is a constant danger that the wisest and ablest will be overshadowed by the lack of knowledge, skill and experience of the majority. Again, there is a difference between controlling the business of government and actually doing it. Control and efficiency increase if people do not attempt to do everything. The business of government requires skilled employment. The more the electorate muddle in this business, the greater the risk of undermining efficiency and reducing overall benefit to all. Thus the benefits of popular control and efficiency can only be had by representative democracy which separates functions and control. Representative democracy combines accountability with professionalism and expertise. It can combine the advantages of bureaucratic government without its disadvantages. The different forms of representative democracies value both democracy and skilled governmentCLASSICAL-LIBERAL THEORY OF DEMOCRACYLiberalism supported the democratic ideas right from the beginning. In fact, it was only with the rise of liberalism in England 370 and Europe that the path was cleared for democracy and it became a respectable concept. Democratic ideas were nothing but a logical requirement of the governance of a society which had freed itself from absolute power of the kings and religious traditions. The ideas of liberty, equality, rights, secularism and justice became the cornerstone of liberalism and democracy became a means of achieving them. The liberal democracies that we know were liberal first and democratic afterwards. According to Macpherson, before democracy came in the western world, there came a society and politics of choice, a society and politics of competition, and a society and politics of market. It was the liberal state that was democratized and in the process, the democracy was liberalized.5Early traces of classical-liberal democratic ideas are found in the writings of Thomas Moore‘s Utopia (1616), Winstanely‘s The Law of Freedom (1652) and English Puritanism as well as in the thinking of Levellers. However, it was the social contract theory which became crucial in establishing the foundation of democracy because the contract could be made only when all men were assumed to be equal. Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651) elaborated the democratic principle that the government is created by the people through a social contract. It was John Locke who provided the formula that government must be by the people and aim solely at their good. The essence of his argument was that:(i) ultimately all political power inheres in the people,(ii) the legitimate power of the government is a limited one; the government should not violate certain rights of the people, otherwise, the contract between the government and the people is dissolved, and(iii) individual rights are a part of man‘s nature. Ultimately, a government is dedicated to the needs of the individual and not vice versa.Locke‘s ideas about politics were complemented by Adam Smith in the realm of economics. He opposed mercantalism promoted by the state and argued that the best economic decisions should be made by the people themselves. Freedom to produce, buy and sell, free and open competition, free economic exchange would give advantage to the best endeavours and most industrious 371 proportionate opulence. The French philosopher Montesquieu elaborated the theory of separation of powers which had a great democratic appeal and influenced the making of American constitution. On the American continent, Jefferson. Madison and Hamilton tried to give institutional shape to the ideas of Locke, Adam Smith and Monesquieu.Views of Bentham and J.S. MillJermy Bentham was the first modern liberal thinker who prepared the ground for the attitude towards democracy. He along with James Mill and J.S. Mill justified democracy on utilitarian grounds. He said that individuals require protection from the governors as well as from each other, and an assurance that those who govern pursue policies that are in consonance with the interests of the individual. Thus for him the problem was how to make sure that governments follow the wishes and interests of the community in matters of law and policy. In other words, the problem was how to find a system of choosing and authorizing government which would make and enforce the laws needed by the society. The solution to this problem was representative democracy, constitutional government, regular elections, secret ballot, competition between parties and leaders, majority rule etc. Thus Bentham came to see democratic franchise as essential to the goal of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The only way to prevent the government despoiling the people was to make the governors frequently removable by the majority decision. However, his views on democratic franchise were not consistent. Till 1802, he advocated limited franchise, in 1809 he called for a householder franchise limited to propertied class, in 1817 he talked about universal franchise for men. However, broadly speaking, liberal democracy with universal franchise and constitutional government was seen as the best protector of individual rights and laisses faire capitalist economy.It was J.S. Mill who set the course of democratic thought in the nineteenth century. Through his writings he sought to defend a concept of politics which increased individuality, representative government, efficient administration and non-interference in the economic affairs. While accepting the views of Bentham on democracy as a means of protecting the citizens from the oppression of the rulers, he supplemented it with another dimension—the 372 moral worth of democracy for the improvement and development of mankind as a whole. His emphasis was more on what democracy could contribute to human development. Macpherson has called Mill‘s views on democracy as ‘Developmental democracy‘. According to Mill, man is capable of developing his powers and capacities and a good society is one which permits and promotes these activities. Liberal democracy or representative government was important because it was an effective means for the free development of individuality. Democracy drew people in the operations of government by giving them a right to vote which could bring a fall in government. Participation in political life such as voting, involvement in local administration and jury service was vital to create a direct interest in developing citizenry. Like Rousseau, Mill conceived democracy as a prime mechanism of moral self-development and highest and harmonious expansion of individual capacities.However, while accepting participation in the elections as an essential means of human development, Mill did not favour universal franchise or the principle of one-man-one-vote. He was fearful that the working class being in majority, one-man-one-vote may lead to legislation in the interest of one particular class at the expense of other classes as well as of posterity. Instead, he recommended a system of plural voting for the members of the smaller classes so that neither of two classes should outweigh the other and impose class legislation. While everyone should have vote, some should have several votes. In his later book, Representative Government (1861) he argued for plural vote for some along with the exclusion of others such as people receiving poor relief, bankrupts, illiterates, those not paying taxes etc. While participation in the political process was necessary to improve people‘s quality, participation with equal weight was deemed to reinforce low quality. Hence those who had already attained superior quality, through education or property must not be made to yield their power to the rest. As he wrote ‘It is not useful but hurtful that the constitution of the country should declare ignorance to be entitled to as much political power as knowledge‘.6 Thus, although from a purely arithmetical point of view, Mill could not be ranked as a full egalitarian yet his moral dimension was more democratic because it wanted to move towards a society of individuals more 373 humanly developed. On the whole, he drew the conclusion that a representative democracy, the scope and powers of which are tightly restricted by the principle of liberty and laissez faire in economic relations is the best guarantee of free community and brilliant prosperity.The above ideas of classical-liberal democracy found further support in the writings of T.H. Green, Hobhouse, Lindsay, Barker, Laski, MacIver, John Dewey, W. Wilson etc. With the evolution of the party system in the twentieth century, the classical-liberal theory was further strengthened. The contradiction which Mill had seen between universal franchise and the class interest turned out to be unfounded. Franchise was extended to all adult population. In fact the early twentieth century liberal thinkers felt that the democratic party system had overcome the dangers of class government. For example, MacIver saw the party system as an effective way of reducing the multitudinous differences of opinion to relatively simple alternatives. Similarly, John Dewey felt that democracy was the best method to organize the scattered, mobile and manifold public.CHARACTERISTICS OF CLASSICAL LIBERAL DEMOCRACYFrom the above discussion, we can sum up the characteristics of classical-liberal theory of democracy as follows:1. The classical liberal theory of democracy from John Locke onwards, enshrines supremacy of the people.2. It takes individual as the basic unit of democratic model, assuming that he is rational, ethical, active and self-interested. It emphasizes individual freedom and the right of the individual to pursue his own good with minimum of state interference.3. It hated the tyranny of the old regimes of monarchies and aristocracies, stressed the role of vigilance and participation in protecting the hard won rights against the sinister interests of the government. Hence participation in political life was felt necessary not only for the protection of individual interest but also for the creation of an informed, committed and developing citizenry. Political involvement was considered essential for the development of the individual.374 4. Participation was deemed a virtue. Through this opportunity, it was believed that the horizon of the individual would be widened, his knowledge extended, his sympathies made less parochial, his practical intelligence developed. It would serve as a means of intellectual, emotional and moral education, leading towards the full development of the capacities of the individual.5. At institutional level, it advocated representative government with elected leadership, regular elections, secret ballot, constitutional state, independent judiciary, individual rights and civil liberties including freedom of thought, feeling, taste, discussion, publication etc.6. It made a clean demarcation between elected representatives and the bureaucracy. The benefit of popular control and efficiency can be had only be recognizing that they have quite different functions.7. At economic level, it was built upon economic inequality and political equality. It believed in competitive market economy, private possession and control over the means of production and laissez faire economy. According to Macpherson, democracy was to maximize the liberty of citizens and above all secure their property and the working of the capitalist economy. Liberal democracy neither destroyed or weakened the state, it strengthened both the state and the capitalist society.CRITICISMInspite of being a comprehensive theory of democracy, the classical-liberal theory was vehemently criticized and found inadequate to meet the needs of highly industrialized and technological states which emerged during the inter-war period and the second world war. The main grounds of criticism are as follows:1. The classical theory rests on a view of man as rational, active, informed and ready to take active part in the political process. Lord Bryce, Graham Wallas and later the empirical writers maintained that man is neither as rational, as disinterested, as informed or active as it is assumed to be. The classical theory either ignores, underplays or simply condemns the role of organized groups, leaders or emotions in political affairs. As Davis writes, ‘the reality of irrational mass emotions, self-interest, group egoism and the 375 prevalence of oligarchic and hierarchical social and economic organizations need no longer be denied in the name of democratic values‘.2. The classical democracy is centred around the proposition that ‘the people‘ hold a definite and rational opinion about every individual question and they give effect to this opinion by choosing their representatives who will see to it that their opinion is carried out. However, it fails to provide definition of such terms as ‘people‘ or ‘rule‘ which are obviously central to a conception of government as the rule of the people. Public opinion as the basis of government is a ‘democratic myth‘. In actual practice, public opinion does not make the government; rather it is the government which moulds the public opinion.4. The classical theory is based on the assumption that there exists a common good (such as human self-development) which is always simple to define and which every normal person can be made to see by means of rational argument. However, as was pointed out by Schempeter, there is no such thing as a uniquely determined common good on which all people could agree or be able to agree by rational argument. Common good is bound to mean different things to different people.5. Public policy is not necessarily the expression of the common good as conceived by the people alter widespread discussion, debate, consultation and consent. Such a description of policy-making is held to be dangerously naive because it overlooks the role of demagogic leadership, mass psychology, group coercion and the influence of those who control concentrated economic power. According to Walker, classical democracy is unrealistic because i) it employs concepts of the nature of man and the operation of society which are Utopian, and ii) it does not provide an adequate operational definition of its key concepts.6. With the advent of the party system, democracy has been reduced essentially to a competition among the elites rather than the masses. These elites are the driving force and they formulate issues. What we are confronted with in the analysis of the political process is not a genuine but a manufactured will, manufactured in ways similar to commercial advertising. People neither raise nor decide issues but the issues that shape their fate are normally raised or 376 decided for them. The wishes of the electorate are not the ultimate ideas nor the electorate‘s choice flows from its initiative. Rather it is shaped by the elite.7. The classical theory takes an over-simplified view of the complex procedure and decision-making process in politics. It lacks a satisfactory treatment of the problems caused by simultaneous affirmation of majority rule and minority right. The complex and technical nature of the political process is beyond the understanding of an average man who is too much engrossed in his own activities. As Davis writes, ‘The highly technical and complex process of policy making is over-simplified and misunderstood (by the classical theory)‘.8. The classical theory of democracy was based upon political equality (equality before law) and economic inequality. While the early liberals such as Bentham, James Mill and J.S. Mill tried to absorb the working class aspirations through limited political participation, the theorists of the first half of the twentieth century increasingly lost sight of the class character of liberal democracy and its exploitative consequences upon the working-class. The neoliberals like Lindsay, Barker, MacIver, Dewey felt that democracy with its regulatory and welfare state could be the best way of bringing a good society. Although they were not insensitive to the concentration of economic power in a few hands, yet they did not find fundamentally anything wrong with the capitalist relations of production. They hoped that with some redistribution of rights between the classes, the democratic process could adjust the differences of various interests through peaceful and rational give and take. For example, Barker wrote that such redistribution would be ‘a matter of constant adjustment and read justament, as social thought about justice grows and as the interpretation of the principles of liberty and equality broaden with its growth‘. And this could be done through voluntary class cooperation aided by the state. However, as been pointed out by Macpherson, such a redistribution still remains a dilemma of liberal democracies.CONCLUSIONInspite of the critical attacks both from the empirical political scientists and Marxists, there is no denying the fact that the classical 377 liberal theory broadened the vision of democracy. It associated democracy with democratic humanism. It understood democracy as a value and a way of life. The heart of classical democracy remained its moral purpose. It prescribed this purpose, then a general strategy for its fulfillment and the various institutions through which this strategy may be carried into operation. It emphasized self-government through individual participation, free debate on political issues, consultation and consent. However, with the rise of liberal welfare state and the complexities of the state in the twentieth century, liberal democracy was found lacking. It was replaced by Elitist and Pluralist theories of democracy. However, the shortcomings of the elitist-pluralist theories have once again compelled to revise our views on democracy. This will be made clear in the participatory democracy.ELITIST THEORY OF DEMOCRACYThe classical theory of democracy which gave central place to the idea of political equality and individual participation in the affairs of the government was challenged in the twentieth century by a number of thinkers determined to bring democracy face to face with the empirical reality. For them, the problems were: how realistic is it to expect the individual to directly participate in the day-to-day politics? can the ordinary citizen bear the strain of playing public role? will liberty be not destroyed if the masses are allowed to bring a variety of impulses unaided by an externally imposed discipline? In other words, is self-government possible? The answers to these questions led to models of democracy very different from the classical-liberal theory of democracy. These models are popularly known as i) Elitist Theory of Democracy and ii) Pluralist Theory of Democracy.What led the realists to revise the classical theory of democracy? Historically, a number of factors during the inter-war period created favourable circumstances for such a change. Primarily, they were: large scale warfare, international rivalry in economic growth, economic depression, rise of fascist governments in Italy and Germany which led to the general enhancement of the importance of leadership, an increased need to remove political decisions from the democratic responsiveness, and the belief that only the experts could save the democratic system. What became 378 overwhelmingly clear was that the industrial organization of society demanded so much specialization, hierarchical and bureaucratic control that the demands for democratic participation in the decision-making were simply unrealistic.On the whole, the drive away from equality of control in the modern society became extraordinarily powerful. Not demanding much from individual citizens, the revisionists defined democracy in terms of ‘system maintenance‘. They encouraged their readers to appreciate the value of orderly, constitutional government, political stability, and an electoral system that successfully makes elites accountable to the more visible parts of the body politic.7The elitist theory of democracy can be studied on the following lines:?(i) Meaning of the concept of Elite?(ii) Elite theory of democracy?(iii) Characteristics of the elite theory of democracy?(iv) CriticismMEANING OF THE CONCEPT OF ELITEThe term elite is usually used to mean a minority group distinguished from the mass of the people by some factor or factors that put it in a more advantageous position than the mass with regard to certain important aspects of social life.‘ According to Suzanne Keller, elites are those ‘minorities which are set apart from the society by their pre-eminence in the distribution of authority, achievement and reward‘.8 The kind of elites with which we are concerned are the political power elites and are often categorized as ‘governing elites‘, ‘political elites,‘ ‘power elite‘, ‘ruling elite‘ etc. Such elites have as one of their distinguished feature the position of special access to or special ability to gain political power. According to Lasswell, ‘the political elite comprises of the power holders of the body politic. The power holders include the leadership and the social formation from which leaders typically come and to which accountability is maintained during a given period‘.9 Similarly, Presthus defines political elite as ‘minority of specialized leaders who enjoy a disproportionate amount of power in the community‘s affairs.10 In short, the elite is a group of people who hold political power because of their higher ability 379 and provide leadership in all affairs of the society. An elite holds political power because it is an elite.The elitist tradition of political thought has a long history. In a sense, Plato was an elitist. But modern organizational elitism has arisen in the last 50 years or so, achieving its most notorious expression in the works of classical elitists like Vilfredo Pareto, Geatano Mosca, Robert Michels and J.O. Gassett. In USA, the theory found expression in the writings of James Burnham and C. Wright Mills! The elite theory is based upon the idea that the society consists of two broad categories of people—the selected few and the vast masses. Pareto, in his book Mind and Society. wrote that every society is ruled by a minority that possesses the qualities necessary for its accession to full social and political power. Those who get to the top are always the best. They are the ‘elites‘—persons who rise to the top in every occupation and stratum of society. He also believed that the elites generally came from the same class, those who are wealthy and are also intelligent. Thus society consists of two strata of population: (i) lower stratum or the non-elite, and (ii) a higher stratum or the elite which is divided into governing elite, and non governing elite. Pareto also gave the concept of the circulation of elites which was further developed by Mosca. According to Mosca, two classes of people appear in every society: a class that rules, and a class that is ruled. The former is less numerous, performs all political functions; monopolises power and enjoys the advantages that power brings; the latter more numerous, is directed and controlled by the first in a manner that is now more or less arbitrary and violent. ‘The domination of an organized minority over unorganized majority is inevitable‘. It is always the minority organized as a group which rules over the unorganized majority. Similarly, Robert Michels, whose name is associated with the ‘iron law of oligarchy‘ asserted that the majority of human beings in a condition of eternal tutelage are predestined to submit to the domination of a small minority and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy‘. Leadership is a necessary phenomenon in every form of social life. The majority of human beings are ‘apathetic, indolent and slavish and permanently incapable of self-government‘.In short, the theory holds that:?i) Division of society into dominant and subordinate classes is a universal tact. People are unequal in their ability and capacities;?ii) The elites exercise power and influence because of their superior quality such as intelligence, ability, administrative capacity, military power or moral authority;380 ?iii) The elites are open groups and there is circulation of elites. Some new elites are admitted and some old go out. Sometimes a whole set of elites is replaced by a new one through revolution.?iv) Since, the majority of the masses are by and large apathetic, lazy and indifferent, society needs leadership in every walk of life. Elites provide this leadership.?v) In the present century, the ruling elites consist of three kinds of people—intellectuals, managers of the industries and bureaucrats. C Wright Mills who used the term ‘Power elite‘ discussed three major elites—economic, military and political.ELITE THEORY OF DEMOCRACYA generation of theorists of political elitism flourished around the second world war who tried to attempt a theory of democracy which could be reconciled with the theory of political elites. Considering the existence of political elites as inevitable phenomenon of modern political life, these democrats welcomed elitism and evolved what they called an ‘Elitist Democratic Theory‘—a kind of democracy in which elites were seen as the bulwark of democracy, protecting it from the dangers of totalitarianism‘. They evolved a concept of democracy as a political system in which political parties in the form of elites complete for votes of the mass of electorate, the elites are relatively open and are recruited on the basis of merit, and people are able to participate in ruling the society at least in the sense that they could exercise a choice among the rival elites.The elite theory of democracy was deeply influenced by the classical elitism of Pareto, Mosca and Michels. In the English speaking world, the theory was systematically formulated by Joseph Schempeter in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). Since then it has been built up by many political scientists 381 and has been supplemented by a host of writers such as Bernard Berlson, G. Sartori. Robert Dahl, Eckstein, Raymond Aron, Karl Mannehium, Almond and Sydney Verba etc.The elite theory of democracy begins by attempting to assess realistically what is meant by ‘rule by people‘ in a complex industrial society. Relying on the arguments presented by elite theorists, it was claimed that popular rule means very little indeed. It could be demonstrated conclusively that any large scale organization (such as the state) is of necessity organized on hierarchical lines. There are certain people who possess more power than others. Any organization can be divided into two groups—the elites who make the decisions, and masses who follow it. The reasons are obvious. Every member cannot be expected to know the full details involved in running the government. People are normally concerned with earning their livelihood for themselves and pursuing their individual interests. To expect an ordinary citizen to be a full time participant in the political process is simply absurd. The complexities of modern society demand that we adopt a specialization whereby some people become expert in running the organization. In other words, the basic assumption of the elite theory of democracy was that most men are incapable of understanding the complexities of government decisions, adhering to liberal values or even continuing to have an enthusiasm in the democratic procedure.Secondly, the elite theory of democracy feared the participation of the people in the political proces and wanted to restrict their entry. The fear originated as a reaction to the totalitarian and fascist movements and regimes which sought to mobilize mass support as a means of achieving power and then destroying the democratic system itself. Whereas for the classical liberal democracy, the enemies were the kings, aristocrats and plutocrats, for the elite theory of democracy, the new enemy was the people. Any deep incursion by them into politics and rapid mobilization of their numerical strength was a sign of authoritarian trend. Democratic and liberal values could be saved only by keeping the masses away from politics.Whereas the classical-liberal theory of democracy believed that people hold a definite and rational opinion about national issues and they give effect to their opinion by selecting their representatives,382 the Elite theory of democracy reverses this process. That is to say, the role of the people is only to elect the representatives who in turn produce a national executive or government. ‘Democracy is simply a mechanism for choosing and authorizing governments, not a kind of society nor a set of moral ends.‘11 The voter‘s role is not to decide political issues and then choose representatives who will carry out those decisions, it is rather to choose the men who are responsible for choosing the policies and enacting legislation. The mechanism consists of a competition between two or more self-chosen set of political parties (elites) for the votes which entitle them to rule until the next elections. The individuals who compete are politicians. The citizens‘ role is simply to choose between sets of politicians periodically at elections time. The citizens‘ ability thus is to replace one government by another which protects them from tyranny. In short ‘the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people‘s votes‘.12Similarly, Giovanni Sartori, is his book Democratic Theory writes, ‘the democratic theory of elites is, in the light of present day factual knowledge, the core of democracy itself. He cautions that democracy is terribly difficult. It is so difficult that ‘only experts and accountable elites can save it from the excess of perfectionalism, from the vortex of demagogy...adequate leadership is vital to democracy.13 He rejects the idea of self-government demos as either deceptive myth or a demagogic device and accepts elites as necessary evil. Democracy can be defined as a system ‘where the majority designates and supports the minority (elite) which governs.‘23 Political democracy is a method or procedure by which, through a competitive struggle for sanctioned authority, some people are chosen to lead the political community. Democracy is the product of effects that results from the adoption of this method. Similarly, Plamenatz writes, ‘In democracy, those who govern acquire the right to do so by competing for the people‘s votes‘All elite theorists deny that there can be in any real sense government by the people. Raymond Aron writes ‘it is quite impossible for the government of a society to be in the hands of any but a few...there is government for the people, there is no government by the people‘.24 In any society which is large and 383 complex, democracy can only be representative, not direct and the representatives are a minority who clearly possess greater political power than those whom they represent. Democracy means rule of the political elite which has been elected by the people. We have democracy when competition for power between various competing elites goes on and the people vote to decide who will enjoy political power.In what sense the Elite Theory is democratic? Firstly, the simple and important point that the theory believes in plurality of elites. The existence of choice for the people as to which elite (s) shall hold political power is the key democratic feature. Although there is at any one time rule by a minority but over a period of time, there is an alternation or some other form of changing the elites. Secondly, while the power is held by elites, the choice as to which elites shall hold power remains in the hands of people. It is this decision-making by people, together with the dynamic relationship between elites and masses which makes the elite theory democratic. Thirdly, the process of moving in and out of power involves elite competition: they compete for the position of power, which gives the people the ultimate power. The result of competition among the elites is democracy because the power of deciding between the competitors is in the hands of the demos. Fourthly, people‘s ultimate power consists in the capacity to remove one set of elites from power and appoint new ones. This feature of elite democracy ties it with the general idea fundamental to all theories of democracy that there should be a meaningful choice for electorate. Thus the electoral process holds key place in the elite theory. It is a mechanism which gives people ultimate control over the elites. The elites in power have a duty to give an account of themselves and their action to the people who have a right to remove them if the account is unsatisfactory.The elite theory of democracy has two sides: the elite side and the democratic side. The elitist side is the stress on the importance of leadership and the need for specialization; the democratic side consists in the ‘openness of the elites‘. The masses can become members of the elites. There is a possibility of the rise of new elites from out of the masses. According to Bottomore, the elitist democratic system implies the following conditions:384 ?i) the elites are relatively open?ii)they are recruited on the basis of merit,?iii)there is a continuous and extensive circulation of elites, ?iv)the mass of population is able to participate in ruling society to the extent that it can exercise choice in selecting between the rival elitist groups,?v)the democratic elites have a mass background, ?vi)the distance between the elite and the masses is minimum.CHARACTERISTICS OF ELITE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY1 At the heart of elite theory of democracy is the presumption of an average citizen‘s inadequacies. The concept of an active, informed democratic citizen is a myth. The theory believes that the political inactivity of the average citizen is more or less a permanent aspect of his behaviour. It considers political inactivity as a sign of satisfaction with the operation of the political system. It is considered as a form of passive consent. As a result, a democratic system must rely on the wisdom, loyalty and skill of its political leaders and not on the population at large.2 The elite theory conceives democracy primarily in procedural terms: it is seen as method of making decisions, a mechanism for choosing and authorizing governments, and not a kind of society nor a set of moral ends. The mechanism consists of competition between the two or more self-chosen elites arrayed as political parties, for the votes which will entitle them to rule till the next election. The voter‘s role is not to decide the political issues but to choose representatives who will make decisions which ensure efficiency in administration and policy-making. The average citizen has some measure of political power because of his right to vote in regularly scheduled elections. The theory expects that the political leaders in an effort to gain support at the polls, will shape public policy to fit the citizens‘ desires.3. The elite theory of democracy calls for an agreement on democratic values among the elites which it considers as the only main bulwark against the breakdown of constitutionalism. It calls for a consensus among the elites—political parties, leaders, trade union executives, and leaders of voluntary associations to defend 385 the fundamental procedures of democracy in order to protect their own positions from the irresponsible demagogues. Agreement among the political leaders is more important than consensus among the common citizens for achieving stability.4 Several elite theorists have suggested that democracies have good reason to fear increased political participation. They argue that a successful democratic system depends on widespread apathy and general political incompetence. The idea of democratic participation is thus transformed into a nobel lie, ‘designed chiefly to ensure a sense of responsibility among political leaders.‘ If the uninformed masses participate in large numbers, democratic self-restraint will break down and peaceful competition among the elites—the central theme of the elite theory—will become impossible.5 The principle aim of the elite theory was to make democracy more realistic and to bring it closer to the empirical reality. The elite theorists were convinced that the classical liberal theory does not account for ‘much of the real machinery‘ by which the system operates. But in the process of bringing it closer to the reality, they have transformed democracy from a radical theory into a conservative political doctrine, stripping away its distinctive emphasis on popular political activity so that it no longer serves as a set of ideals towards which society ought to be striving.6. The elite theory of democracy has shifted the emphasis of democracy from individual participation in decision-making to the needs and functions of the system as a whole. The central question for the elite theory is not how to design a political system which encourages individual participation and enhances the moral development of the citizen but how ‘to combine a substantial degree of popular participation with a system of power capable of governing effectively and coherently‘. The elite theory allows the citizens a passive role in political activity. The overriding concern of the elite theory is with maintaining the stability of the democratic system. Political participation has been substituted by stability and efficiency as the prime goals of democracy.15CRITICISM AND EVALUATIONThe elite theory of democracy has been criticized by a number of writers, prominent among whom are C.B. Macpherson, Greame 386 Duncan, Barry Holden, Bottomore, Plamenatz, Christian Bay, J.L. Walker, Robert Dahl etc. The main lines of criticism are as follows:1. The elite theory of democracy is excessively arbitrary and does not pay attention to the recognized characteristics of democracy. According to Barry Holden, if we define democracy as the making of political decisions by the electorate, then elite theory is not democratic. The appointment and removal of elites by means of elections is held as the key to the democratic process. If it means that the electorate only appoint and remove governors and do not decide upon issues and policies, then this is not an instance of democracy. If the electors are only to choose the representatives, this means that they have no voice in running the country.2. The heart of the classical theory of democracy was its moral purpose. The elite theory deliberately empties out the moral content from the democratic phenomenon. There is no nonsense about democracy as a vehicle for the improvement of mankind. Elite democracy changes the means and the locus of the contributions of the government to human development. Politics may play a part in the pursuit of the ideal but it no longer has the paramount role which it had before. The most significant realms for responsible personal activity lie beyond the limits of politics—economics, education, arts etc. Elite democracy, though not denying the traditional democratic hopes for moral progress, conspicuously excludes them from the list of essential features in the definition democracy.3. For elite theory of democracy, participation is not a value in itself. All elite theories deny that there can in any real sense be government by the people. Popular government in the classical democracy meant active participation of most adult citizens in the determination of public policies. In the elite theory of democracy, the popular rule means only the popular choice at periodic elections of governors who make policy-decisions. The extent of popular participation, which is essential for political democracy, is more than that. However, according to Bottomore, this is an undemocratic element which becomes ‘more apparent when the representative principle is applied in a system of indirect elections whereby an elected elite itself elects a second elite which is endowed with 387 equal or superior political power.4. Responsibility of the government, according to the elite theory, refers to the accountability of the creative and governing elite to those who have been the object of its policies. Citizens must have minimum involvement in the affairs of the state. They have to judge the governors, their records and their promises largely as passive objects. That is, they are to judge the world they never made. If a high degree of social solidarity and a sense of community are necessary for the effective functioning of any sort of democratic government, then it must come largely from some other source than the political activity of the citizens.5. An important unsatisfactory element in the theory is its concept of passive apolitical common man who pays allegiance to his governors and to the sideshow of politics while remaining primarily concerned with his private life, evening of television with his family, or the demands of his job. Only when the average citizen finds his demands threatened by the action or inaction of government that he may vigorously strive to influence the course of public policy.176. The primary concerns of the elite theory of democracy have been the maintenance of democratic stability, the preservation of the democratic procedure and the creation of machinery which would produce the most efficient administration and coherent public policies. With this the social movements have been pictured as a threat to democracy or as political extremism. Whereas the social movements also serve as the ‘creators and carriers of public opinion‘, the elite theory fears that the social movements put the system out of gear and disrupt the mechanism designed to maintain the due process of law.7. By replacing the classical theory of ‘democratic humanism‘ by that of ‘democratic mechanism‘, the elite theory of democracy has stripped democracy of much of its radical elan and has diluted its Utopian vision, thus rendering it inadequate as a guide to the future. As Davis Lane writes: ‘The institutional idea of contemporary democracy lacks the radical bite of classical theory. It is bound by the limits of political reality. It is less a guide to future action than a codification of past accomplishments.18 The theory generally accepts the prevailing distribution of status in society and finds it 388 not only compatible with political freedom but even a condition of it.‘ It provides democracy with something of a system to be preserved rather than an end to be sought. Those who wish a guide to the future must look elsewhere.PLURALIST THEORY OF DEMOCRACYApart from Elite Theory of Democracy, modern democratic theory has another dimension which has been developed primarily by the American political scientists since the second world war. This is known as the Pluralist Theory of Democracy. The elitist and the pluralist theories of democracy are distinguished as two types of democracy but there are important inter-connections between the two and the writings of some theorists contain an amalgam of both.19 Both theories point to the power of groups other than people as a whole and as such both run counter to the classical-liberal democracy. Both see democracy as consisting of plurality of power holding groups and their relationship to one another and the mass of the people. Nonetheless, there are enough differences to outline them as two separate theories. In the Elite Theory of Democracy, the concern is with the elites that control or seek to control the government. In the pluralist theory, the focus is on the groups that seek to influence rather than control the government. This is understood by distinction between political parties and pressure groups. Another difference is the different role given to the electoral process in the two types of theories. Elite theory is centred upon elections: it is by virtue of competition for the peoples‘ votes that the elite model is held to be democratic. In the pluralist theory, although elections may be seen as a necessary condition for the existence of the democratic process, that process is itself constituted primarily by the inter-election activity of the groups.To a very great extent, the pluralist theory of democracy was a reaction against the non-democratic character of elitism. The pluralist theory of democracy was formulated as part of the rejection of the elitist analysis of politics. Whereas elite theory believed that the masses were incapable of making decisions on major issues, the pluralist democracy, recognizing the inadequacies of the electoral process, called for other means of eliciting the will of the people.389 MEANING OF THE CONCEPT OF PLURALISMAlthough the origin of pluralism lies far back in history, it became part of the liberal creed in the twentieth century. Pluralism can be characterized by its‘ view that power is and ought to be decentralized and scattered among a number of groups and associations. In USA, pluralism manifested itself especially in the group theory of politics. Some writers treat ‘group theory of politics and pluralism as synonymous. It was the group theory of politics associated with Bentley and Truman that provided the immediate intellectual basis for the pluralist theory of democracy. Group theory entered into pluralism in two ways. Firstly, it provided the view that the society is basically composed of various interest groups. Such groups engage the interests of the population and act as a chain between the masses and the elites. Secondly, groups provide the foundation of what is known as the ‘pressure group‘ theory which represent the masses in a much more meaningful way because they articulate and make effective the specific demands of the citizens. On the whole, groups provide for some real participation and they advance the perceived interests of the masses.The modern concept of pluralism believes that in the industrial/ technological societies, power is highly fragmented; it is so amorphous, shifting and tentative that only a few are said to have more than others over a period of time. Power is broadly shared among a group of competing public and private groups; those in high places appear to have more power but in fact they are mediators among conflicting interests for whose power and support they always bargain. As Durkheim maintains: ‘Collective activity is always too complex to be able to be expressed through a single and unique organ of the state...A nation can be maintained only if between the state and the individual, there is inter-related a whole series of secondary groups near enough to the individual to attract them strongly in their sphere of action and drag them in this way into the general torrent of social life‘20. Through their leaders, such groups mediate between individual and all organized forms of power, thereby ensuring the representation of affected interests. They give private citizen a voice in the government and ease consensus.390 Even though industrial and political integration and technological demands have made power concentrated in a few hands, the competition among fewer but larger interest groups goes in favour of public interest. The competition among big business, labour and government keeps each interest from misusing its power. Though there are inequalities in wealth, education and power, the presence of associations and groups provide the broadest possible representation of private interest that make democracy viable. Pluralism insists that government is not merely the responsibility of politicians and officials but also that of individuals and social groups of any kind who have their part to play and make their influence felt in indirect ways.Modern pluralism agrees that some form of elite rule by highly educated and interested groups is the essential requirement of our system. However, pluralism exists if no single elite dominates decision-making in every substantive area. If bargaining and opposition among three or four elite groups persists, pluralism remains. Here pluralism comes near the elite theory.PLURALISTIC THEORY OF DEMOCRACYThe pluralist theory of democracy has been supported by a number of American political scientists such as S.M. Lipset, Robert Dahl, V. Presthus, F. Hunter, R.E. Agger etc. According to these writers, political power is divided among diverse interest groups, associations, classes and organizations in the society and the elites which lead them. These groups raise their demands directly or through the mediating agencies of political parties on the political system. Pluralist democracy means ‘a political system in which policies are made by mutual consultation and exchange of opinions between various groups so that no group or elite is so powerful as to dominate the government to such an extent that it may implement all its demands completely.21 The theory believes that power should be shared by all groups in the society and all organizations and groups must have their share in the policy making. No social class should really control the machinery of the government to the total exclusion of other competing classes or groups.According to Presthus, pluralist democracy is ‘a socio-political system in which the power of the state is shared by a large number of private groups, interests, organizations, and individuals represented 391 by such organization...pluralism is a system in which political power is fragmented among the branches of government, it is moreover, shared between the state and a multitude of private groups and individuals.22 Duverger defines it as ‘a plurality of decision centres‘. According to Truman, twentieth century democracy consists of a pluralistic struggle among diversified interest groups. Writing in the context of USA, he felt that United States was a democracy by virtue of the fact that no small set of the multifarious interests controlled a dominant share of public policy decisions.‘For the pluralist democracy, the behaviour of the individual citizens per se is not crucial since the virtues of groups would make up for the failures of individual citizens to conform to the popular democratic image. If the citizens are ignorant of the political issues that affect their interests, the relevant interest groups would protect them. If the individual citizen lacks the resources to make his wishes known, the relevant interest groups would pool their resources, aggregate their separate concerns and articulate them to the appropriate decisions makers.The key character of this model of democracy is that no single group or minority coalition groups dominate in all important areas of political decisions. For group theorists like Dahl, modern democracy itself could be defined as ‘a process of governance by which minorities—plural—rule‘23. In order to effect such a rule, the theorists postulate an open political system in which all citizens have the legal opportunity and the economic resources to organize and to pursue their interests in the political arena. Such an opportunity is vital because it provides an instrument by which support and opposition towards a proposed measure may be expressed.The pluralist theory believes that normal politics consists in the resolution of conflicts among groups. As most citizens lack the competence to govern directly, democracy works better when citizens are governed indirectly through membership of or identification with a group that supports their interests. Individuals should actively participate in and make their will felt through groups of many kinds.The democratic quality of the pluralist theory is preserved not only by the great diversity of competing groups but also by the greater commitment to the democratic principles among the group 392 leaders and activists. A consensus must exist on what is called ‘democratic creed‘. All groups must have faith in the democratic methods of voting, organizational membership and other political activities. They must believe that elections are a viable instrument of mass participation in political decisions.In the political community there must be different centres of power, influence and competition. Also a lively competition among individual elites and groups possessing different basis of power is a critical factor in the pluralist theory of democracy. Here pluralist theory comes very near to the elite theory. As has been pointed out earlier, the line between the elitist and the pluralist democracies can become blurred or non-existent. The greater the emphasis on the importance of plurality of elites and the dispersal of power, the nearer elite theory comes to the pluralist theory. Indeed, the two have been merged by Robert Dahl in his ‘pluralist-elitist‘ theory of democracy.Dahl‘s PolyarchyRobert Dahl has explained the theory of democracy in his books A Preface to Democratic Theory and Polyarcy. In his democratic theory, Dahl has combined the elite concept of government and the electoral competition with the pluralist stress on the dispersal of power. The plurality of elites is regarded in the same light as that of the plurality of groups. According to him, people act both through the electoral system and the group process. In his type of democracy which he calls ‘Polyarchy‘, there are several places where decisions are made—merchants, industrialists, trade unions, farmers‘ associations, consumers, politicians, voters. A number of groups and association influence policy making in the government. No one succeeds in obtaining full satisfaction of their demands. Some groups may be more influential than others, though it is difficult to measure the different degrees of this influence exactly. Moreover, the groups have greater power to resist policies which are not wanted and relatively less power to get desired policies implemented by the government. He defines the normal political process a polyarchal democracy by which he means ‘a political system in which all active and legitimate groups in the population can make themselves heard at some crucial stage in the process of decisions.24 Dahl argues that in polyarchal democracies, it is the 393 minorities—plural—which rule. This argument is based on two lines of reasoning: i) even superficial observation suggests that in USA, decisions are made by endless bargaining; perhaps in no other national political system in the world is bargaining so basic a component of the political process, and ii) all groups share the political power and minorities rule‘25. If minorities do not exercise political influence effectively, they at least are accorded sufficient political status to prevent revolutions stemming from the disregard of their intense preferences by the majority.According to Dahl, the formulation of elites is natural in the industrial democratic societies but he rejects both the notion of the ‘power elite‘ and the ‘ruling class‘. In his book Who Governs, he came to the conclusion that the city was governed by a combination of elites in the cultural and economic fields but none of which could be described as a ruling elite. He firmly believes that the political elite in USA is a democratically competing pluralist elite leadership drawn from a large number of elites in different fields of society. The laws passed by the government are the result of a compromise between the forces of labour, capital and the organized power of other intermediatory groups. Thus although minorities rule in both democracy and dictatorship, the characteristic of polyarchy greatly extends the number, the size and diversity of minorities, whose preferences influence the outcome of government decisions.CHARACTERISTICS OF PLURALIST THEORY OF DEMOCRACY?1. It believes that democracy is a political system run by competitive minorities because only they can secure political liberty of the masses.?2. No single group should dominate the decisions-making process. Power should be decentralized, shared, contested and bartered among various groups in the society.?3. To keep a check on the concentration of power, there should be a system of checks and balances between legislature, executive, judiciary and administrative bureaucracy.?4. The function of the government is to mediate and adjudicate among different groups.394 ?5. There should be different centres of power, influence and competition with wide resource base of different groups.?6. There must be consensus among different groups on political procedures, range of policy alternatives and legitimate scope of politics.CRITICISM AND EVALUATIONThe pluralist theory of democracy presumes that the group process and its outcome constitute the popular will and the general interest. However, as Holden points out, this is based on a general fallacy since that which results from the pursuit of particular interests may not be that which is desired by anybody.43 Firstly there is a mistake of supposing that the outcome of the clash of interests will necessarily bear a relevant relationship to those particular interests. For example, the result of the clash of interests among the groups of property developers, inhabitants, architects, local authorities, and the environmentalists over a policy of slum clearance might well result in that nothing is done. This would be an outcome that nobody wants. Secondly, it is also misleading that the individuals want only what is incorporated in their various interests. Indeed what an individual wants may run counter to what is involved in the pursuit of group interests. For example, as a wage earner, many people may want higher wages, but if asked at the elections, they might well say that as individuals they want a sound economy and an end to inflation even if this may mean a wage restraint.Critics remain unconvinced that the procedural safeguards that assure competition form an adequate foundation for democracy. For example, Micheal Mavgolis points out that the pluralist theory of democracy, inspite of assuring competition among elites, does not give a satisfactory explanation on the following grounds:(i) it does not devise ways for the elected legislature, the central institution of liberal democracy, to control the huge bureaucracy;(ii) it does not limit military‘s control of the budgetary resources and technical information that allow it to manipulate public policy in its favour;(iii) it lacks the capacity to limit or control the great concentration395 of wealth, income and employment opportunities found in large private corporations;(iv) the theory does not devise ways to increase or redistribute society‘s resources so that traditionally underprivileged groups like racial minorities, women and those of lower socio-economic status get sufficient share to allow them opportunities to participate in politics with their compatriots on a substantial footing;(v) it could not devise ways to achieve all the above within the limits of natural resources available for development at reasonable economic and environmental cost.26Thus in order to improve upon the pluralist theory of democracy, many American political scientist have developed possible restatements of democratic theory that may meet many of the above criteria. Rober Dahl, for example, has suggested socialization of private corporations either through public ownership or public control. He has argued that the private decisions of these corporations concerning economic investment and planning have so much impact on the public sector that the public must have some say in them, if the polity is to call itself a democracy‘27. On the other hand, Ithiel de Sole Pool and Duncan have stressed on the necessity of making relevant information available to responsible decision makers. It has been suggested to enhance citizens‘ control through public access to the otherwise proprietary files of a large bureaucracy both public and private by means of a nationwide computerized information network. Such information can form the basis of direct participation by citizens in the public policy formulation.28 Similary, Frederich Thayer has suggested that democracy can only be achieved if the hierarchical authority to make decisions binding upon others is replaced by a co-operative network of individual decision makers, who meet in groups of 5 to 6.29However, the task of linking principles of democratic theory to the practices of democratic governance has always been difficult and it has been rendered even more difficult in recent times by the ever expanding scope of welfare state. The pluralist-elite theorists have attempted to make a virtue out of the shortcomings of these institutions. They supplement the presumed linkages between citizens and representatives, realized through the electoral process, with indirect linkages realized through interest groups, political parties 396 and leadership elites. Their critics have pointed out that governments based upon such practices violate too many democratic principles. However, they have failed to develop an alternative that remains true to democratic principles.PARTICIPATORY THEORY OF DEMOCRACYThe theories of democracy during the last 200 years have assumed that a proper system of government must provide opportunities for political participation by ordinary citizens in the affairs of the state. While the opportunity to vote in periodic elections is the minimum qualification for democracy, participatory democracy believes that comprehensive opportunities and forms of political participation are the essence of democracy. The participatory theory of democracy justifies participation both as an ideal i.e. why people should participate, and as a functional requirement, i.e., how to and how much to participate in the affairs of the state. Though the term ‘Participatory Democracy‘ is frequently used to cover a variety of models from classical Athens to Marxist tradition, the type of participatory democracy with which we are dealing here is a new model of democracy developed by certain Left Wing political writers from 1960s onwards. It was the result of the political upheavals, student movements, internal debates within the left wing ideology and dissatisfaction with liberal and Marxist ideas on democracy. Many writers have contributed to the development of this new model of democracy, but primarily it is associated with three names: Carole Pateman, C.B. Macpherson and N. Poulantzas.30 This theory was also developed as a counter model to Legal Democracy propounded by Hayek and Nozic. Although many writers have advocated participatory democracy as the appropriate response to twentieth century challenges, yet theory and practice of this model remains quite limited.WHAT IS PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACYParticipatory Democracy has developed as a reaction against the Elitist/Pluralist theories of democracy. It is the common man‘s reaction against the ‘expert‘. In Elitist/Pluralist theories, power of decision-making is the monopoly of certain -elites or groups and the role of the masses is reduced only to the selection of elites once in few years. The participatory democracy seeks to distribute decision-making power more equitably. The helplessness of the 397 individual against the growth of the functions of the state and the concentration of decision-making power in a few hands led to a number of movements calling for the direct involvement of ordinary people in the decision-making. While adhering to equality and majority rule, participatory democracy wants to extend this political equality by some sort of grassroots decision-making of an authoritative nature. According to Cook and Morgan, participatory democracy has two broad features: i) decentralization of authoritative decision-making so as to bring it closer to the people affected by the decisions, ii) direct involvement of common man in making the decisions.31Participatory democracy agrees with the classical liberal idea that democracy is not only a form of government but also a means of equal right to self-development. Such a development can be achieved only in a participatory society—a society which cares for collective problems and helps in the formation of politically active citizens who take a continuous interest in the governing process. It believes in direct participation of citizens in the regulation of key institutions of society, making political parties more open and accountable, and maintaining an open institutional system to ensure the possibility of experimentation with new political forms of participation.Since Participatory Democracy wants to restore common man‘s participation, the natural questions are: i) why is there a need for participation, and ii) how to and how much participation? Let us see what the theorists of participatory democracy say on these questions.NEED FOR PARTICIPATIONAs stated above, Participatory Democracy means involvement of common man in the authoritative decision-making. The early liberal thinkers like J.S. Mill had defended participation both on grounds of protecting the citizens from the oppression of the rulers and as a means of improvement and development of mankind as a whole. It were the elitist/pluralist theories which discouraged participation. The theorists of Participatory Democracy want to restore participation once again. According to Carole Pateman, the free and equal individual is found rarely in the contemporary democracies. The formal existence of rights (though not unimportant) 398 is of little value if they cannot be actually realized. Freedom can be assessed from the concrete liberties and opportunities available to the individual in the society to participate actively in the political and civic life. Drawing upon the central notions of Rousseau and Mill, Pateman argues that participatory democracy fosters human development, enhances a sense of political efficacy, reduces the sense of estrangement from power centres, nurtures a concern for collective problems and contributes to the formation of an active citizenary capable of taking a more acute interest in government affairs. If people know that opportunities exist for effective participation in decision-making, and that participation is worthwhile, they would definitely like to participate actively.32 Similarly, Macpherson writes that liberty of the individual can be fully realized only with the direct participation of the people in the regulation of the affairs of the state.Participation is a learning process. Participation changes the psychology of man since it socializes people into new beliefs, attitudes and values. According to Cook and Morgan, it increases the political efficacy or a person‘s sense of effectively manipulating his environment. In an age when people find themselves helpless in the administrative complexity, a change in the decision-making through participation can overcome this sense of powerlessness and the resultant apathy. Participation can lead to acquisition of more information on public affairs. Participants become aware of possible alternative solutions to problems. Participation can revive the feeling of community solidarity and increase the ability to cope up with the tensions of modern life.33Participation also results in better decisions. Participatory democracy is everyman‘s revolt against the expert. Even ordinary people are experts in certain matters. They are better than elected representatives. Collective wisdom may be specially relevant to our times of rapidly expanding higher education in the industrial and technological societies. The more man knows collectively the better. Also the best protection from tyranny is through the dispersal of power. Participatory democracy can rescue the individual from apathy, ignorance and alienation.34Thus participation is the essence of democracy and without the involvement of common man in the decision-making, it is 399 meaningless.METHODS AND SCOPE OF PARTICIPATIONNow, if participation in the affairs of the government is a precondition for self-development, the question is what are the possible means available to the common man. Inspite of disagreement among various theorists regarding the means and extent of participation, one can pinpoint a number of means in the modern democratic state. Some of these are: voting in local or national elections; canvassing or otherwise campaigning in the elections, active membership of a political party; active membership of a pressure group; taking part in political demonstrations; industrial strikes with political objectives or other activities aimed at changing public policy; various forms of civil disobedience such as refusing to pay taxes; membership of consumer councils for publically owned industries, involvement in the implementation of social policies; various forms of community development programmes such as women development, family planning, environment issues etc; taking part in referendum, recall etc.35 The participatory democracy finds a number of shortcomings in the representative democracy and wants it to be supplemented by a number of measures by permitting the ordinary citizens to participate in the decision-making process. Opinions, however, differ as to how the people can directly and effectively participate and a number of alternatives have been and can be proposed.The classical-liberal democracy had evolved a number of participatory means such as elections, universal adult franchise, individual rights and civil liberties, freedom of thought and belief, participation in local government, public debates and jury service etc. However, the recent supporters of participatory democracy consider these means inadequate. According to them, modern mass democracies produce alienated, isolated citizens, and that the governments in reality lack legitimacy. The inequality in power and resources have limited the means of life, liberty and equality, thereby restricting the capacity of the individual to effectively participate in political life. The state being a part of the productive process, produces a number of inequalities in daily life through its laws. Elections are not always an adequate mechanism to ensure the accountability of the representatives. 400 Hence peoples‘ control over the democratic process becomes an urgent matter.According to Poulantzas, since the state has grown in size and power, institutions of direct democracy or self-management cannot simply replace the state because this will leave a vacuum which will be filled by bureaucracy. However, participation of people can be enhanced through two sets of changes: i) the state must be democratized by making parliament, the state bureaucracies and political parties more open and accountable, and ii) new forms of struggles at local level through factory-based politics, women‘s movements, ecological groups must ensure that society as well as the state are democratized.36 But how the two are to be interrelated is a big question mark.Macpherson also admits that the problem posed by size and number of modern states are formidable and it is very difficult to imagine a political system in which all citizens can be involved in a face-to-face discussion every time a public issue arises. However, it does not mean that there is no scope for change. This can be achieved through a combination of competitive parties and organizations of direct democracy. There will always be issues and different interests around which political parties might form. Moreover, only competition between political parties guarantees a minimum response of government to the people. However, this party system can be organized on less hierarchical principles making political administrators and managers more accountable to the people. A substantial basis would be created for participatory democracy if i) parties are democratized according to the principle of ‘direct democracy‘, ii) if these genuinely participatory parties operate within the parliamentary structure, iii) if they are supplemented by fully-managed organizations in the work-place and local community. Only such a political system can realize the democratic value of ‘equal right to self-development‘.37According to Carole Pateman, participation can be increased by making democracy count in people‘s everyday life. This can be done by extending democratic control over those institutions which affect the daily life of the people. For this, democratic rights need to be extended to the economic enterprises and other institutions of society. The political rights of the citizens must be supplemented by a similar set of rights in the sphere of work and community 401 relations. There is no doubt that the institutions of direct democracy cannot be extended to all political, social and economic spheres because of a number of constraints. Also many of the liberal democratic institutions like competitive parties, political representatives, periodic elections are unavoidable elements of participatory society. But direct participation and control over immediate local issues, complemented by party and interest group competition in government spheres can most realistically advance the principle of participatory democracy. Also the opportunity of participation at work place can radically alter the nature of national politics. Individuals would be able to learn more about the key issues in resource creation and hence would be better equipped to judge national questions, the performance of the representatives and participate in decisions of national importance when the opportunity arises. Through such methods, the representative democracy can be extended to change into participatory democracy.38CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACYOn the basis of the above discussion, the chief characteristics of Participatory Democracy can be enumerated as follows:1. It believes that democracy is not only a form of government but also a means of self-development. An equal right to self-development can be achieved through participatory society—a society which fosters a sense of political efficacy, nurtures a concern for collective problems and creates a kind of citizen who takes continues interest in the governing process.2. Apart from representative institutions, it calls for direct participation of citizens in the regulation of key institutions of society such as work place and local community.3. It wants to reorganize the party system so as to make the representatives directly accountable to the people.4. Only ‘genuine‘ accountable political parties should operate the parliamentary system.5. It wants to maintain an open institutional system to ensure the possibility of new forms of democratic control.402 6. It wants to make a direct improvement in the poor resource base of individuals and social groups by extending economic rights and redistribution of material resources.7. It wants to minimize the hold of unaccountable bureaucratic power in both public and private life.39PROBLEMS OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACYAccording to David Held, while the participatory democracy recognizes many difficulties associated with the previous models of democracy (classical-liberal, earliest/pluralist etc.) and represents an advance upon them, it leaves many questions unresolved. There is no doubt that we learn to participate by participating and that it does help foster an active and knowledgeable citizenship, still it does not mean that an increased participation per se will automatically bring a new revolution in human development. There is no guarantee that people generally become more democratic, cooperative and dedicated to the common good. As Burnheim points out, it would probably be wiser to presuppose that people will not perform better either morally or intellectually than they do at present. There is every possibility that participation will lead to consistent strifes and clashes, leading to contradictions between individual liberty, distributive justice and democratic decisions.Secondly, the participatory democracy is based on the belief that people in general want to extend the, sphere of control over their lives. However, it is one thing to recognize a right, and another to say that we must, irrespective of choice, must participate in public life. What if they do not want to do so? What if they do not really want to participate in the management of social and economic affairs.? What if they do not wish to become creatures of democratic reason? Or if they wield democratic power undemocratically, who is to check them?Thirdly, participatory democracy consider democracy not only a form of government but also a way of life and human self-improvement. According to David Held, although participatory theorists are right in pursuing the implications of democratic principles for the organizational structure of society and state, yet they have not clearly resolved the highly complex relation between individual liberty, distributional matters and democratic process. By focusing on the desirability of collective decision-making, 403 they leave these relations to be decided by democratic negotiations. But the basic problem is: Should there be limits on the power of the people to change and alter political circumstances; should the relation between liberty and equality be left to the whims of democratic decisions. Participatory theorists are vague on these points.40Fourthly, according to Cook and Morgan, as a system of government also, participatory democracy has not been able to build a systematic theory. Participation of ordinary citizen in the decision-making process both at local level and national raises a number of problems which have not been adequately dealt with at theoretical level. Some of these problems are: i) What would be an appropriate unit for this kind of decision-making?, ii) What should be the proper size and function of the participatory unit, iii) The involvement of a large number of citizens may affect the efficiency and competence of the decisions, iv) How the decisions taken at the local levels may be coordinated with the political decisions at other levels and with the overall interest of the society at large.41Such innumerable problems have created a variety of difficulties for the implementation of participatory democracy but have also a lot of criticism from the New Right school of thinkers.MARXIST THEORY OF DEMOCRACY OR THE CONCEPT OF PEOPLES‘ DEMOCRACYDemocracy is not the monopoly of the western liberal world. The concept was equally accepted by Marx, Engles and the subsequent Marxist writers, though with an altogether different connotation. As discussed above, the liberal world associated democracy with political institutions like elected legislatures, universal adult franchise, several political parties competing for power, freedom of thought, expression, association and assembly. Marxism, on the other hand, adjusted democracy in the overall philosophy of socialist revolution. It associated democracy with the dictatorship of the proletariat or peoples‘ democracy and the establishment of a socialist society, and its abolition as a form of state in the higher stage of communism.As a form of political organization, Marxism considers democracy 404 to be ultimately determined by the relations of production in a given society. In a class divided society, democracy exists practically for the members of the dominant class. In the bourgeois society, democracy is a form of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It frames constitutions, forms parliament and other representative bodies and introduces adult franchise and formal political liberties. But the bureaucratic machinery of the bourgeois state is so patterned that the political activities of the working class keep them out of the decision-making power. The rights are proclaimed formally and are not guaranteed, the representative bodies are no more than an instrument of policy of the ruling class. Hence the fight of the working class for democracy acquires a major significance as a condition and component of the proletariat‘s struggle for the socialist transformation of society. Socialist democracy, according to Marx, is the highest form of democracy because it is genuine democracy for the majority of the people. It is people‘s democracy. Economically, it is based on the social ownership of the means of production. Politically, it will involve the masses directly in the administration of the state and social affairs. It is in this context that Marx defined democracy as ‘an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all‘. In the higher state of communism, democracy as a form of government will wither away and it will become a habit or a way of life. Lenin, another Marxist writer, laid stress on the class character of democracy and defined democracy as nothing but a form of state which is essentially a class rule. However, the concept of democracy as interpreted by the Marxist writers bred in the European tradition such as Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg, Kautsky and the Austo-Marxists laid less emphasis on the class concept of democracy and did not agree with the criticism of the bourgeois democracy per se. The working of peoples‘ democracy in USSR and East European countries brought into open serious contradictions in the theory and practice of Marxist theory of democracy. The state, in these countries, far from withering away strengthened its hold upon the society. In the seventies, the Eurocommunists made an attempt to blend communism and liberal democracy.We can study the Marxist concept of democracy or peoples‘ democracy on the following lines:?i. Criticism of the bourgeois concept of democracy405 ?ii. Marxist concept of peoples‘ democracy or dictatorship of the proletariat.?iii. Characteristics of Peoples‘ Democracy?iv. Change made by Lenin and Stalin?v. Other Marxist writers on democracy ?vi. How far the Communist states were democratic.CRITICIMS OF BOURGEOIS CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACYDuring 1840s, Marx and Engles associated themselves with democracy which they saw as an egalitarian movement leading to socialism. Marx wrote twelve essays during this period to express the principle tenets of his democratic convictions. ‘Organ of Democracy was the subtitle of the journal which he edited. Marx was fully convinced that only democracy could help in establishing the state on a rational basis. He criticized the aristocratic, hereditary domination of landed interests, and property qualification for franchise. He wanted the popular will to permeate the executive and legislative branches of the government. Similarly, he also attacked the non-democratic bureaucracy. During this period, all his criticism of the despotic institutions was based upon his concept of humanism. His devotion to the goal of human freedom, respect for law as a human need, his concern for the separation of powers in a democratic state and his defence of the rights of the individual were all a part of the western liberal tradition. In the Paris Manuscripts of 1844, Marx put forward his concept of democracy which could accomplish general human emancipation.42. Although he was critical of the rights granted by the bourgeois state, yet he realized the historical importance of these right in so far as they provided an opportunity to the working class to organize themselves against the oppression of the dominant class for general emancipation. Similarly, he regarded the bourgeois freedom as only one step in the direction of man‘s total freedom. Marx was still to develop the class concept of democracy but his commitment to communism was quite clear i.e. it was to be classless and based upon the absence of exploitation of man by man.The first great democratic battles which Marx and Engles experienced were a series of uprisings that exploded across the major cities of Europe in 1848. However, the happenings of 1848 led them to reject the view that communism and democracy were 406 synonymous. This was because while the democrats wished to overthrow feudalism and establish representative institutions within the capitalist society, they were not ready to allow power to descend to the working class.43 After the failure of revolutions in France and Germany, Marx saw the unreliability of the petty bourgeois democrats. Democracy was a progressive demand against autocracy but it was also the highest form of the capitalist state, and as such ‘stands condemned if seen as an ultimate aim‘. However, the meaning of democracy was not different from that of the liberal notion i.e. constitutionalism, civil liberties, representative institutions and universal adult franchise.49 For liberals, this provided a satisfactory means of ascertaining and implementing the will of the people. However, for Marx, it made a mockery of its aim because the selfish and corrupt politicians misused democratic structure for their own personal ends. ‘The formal values of liberal constitutionalism were wrong in a number of ways. Firstly, the basis of bourgeois democracy was the economic system in which the means of production were vested in the capitalist class. The state sanctioned the existence of private property, personal ownership of capital, profit motive in production, free competition, free contract and free market. In a class-divided society where bourgeoisie controlled and owned the means of production, it also controlled and dominated the state apparatus. The state power, rights and privileges were exclusive to it and were defined in such a way that the working class did not possess them. Secondly, the state bureaucracy, courts and police, the army apparatus and maintenance of law and order were not neutral but served the interests of the dominant class. Here, we have the core of Marxist critique of bourgeois democracy. It is that ‘the state parliament and the entire political sphere do not occupy neutral ground in which success is obtained purely on the basis of arguments and numerical appeal. On the other hand, for the working class, it was an enemy territory. These are simply the devices to delude and deceive the masses into believing that the power of the state belonged to them while in reality this was controlled and exercised by the bourgeois minority‘. Parliaments talked without being listened to. Parliamentary influence could not bring any fundamental change in the basic social and political power which is in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Hence, democracy was nothing but a convenient form for the maintenance of class rule, to be used as and when and in so far as 407 it serves the class interest. In short, the liberal bourgeois democracy hides its intentions, is a class state instead of a natural arbiter; it offers paper freedoms for real political freedoms; and it offers only political freedoms instead of general human emancipation‘.45However, while maintaining that bourgeois democracy was not real democracy for the working class and that working class cannot come to power through democratic means, Marx and Engles held the view that this kind of democracy could be used by the working class to organize itself, to raise the level of political consciousness and to achieve the level of proletarian revolution. The main feature of the bourgeois democracy was universal suffrage which provided a ‘school of development‘ for the working class and offered definite but limited possibilities for the revolutionary movements. The question of suffrage was also connected with the ‘transition to socialism‘. Marx was willing to allow that there might be some isolated cases where the transition would be achieved by nonviolent means, though he was very sceptical about such a process and took it for granted that it would not be the common pattern. Nevertheless the notion that a revolutionary party has no interest in the bourgeois parliament finds no confirmation in the writings of Marx and Engles. For them, the revolutionary and the parliamentary paths were not opposed but complementary to each other. They accepted parliamentary tactics as one part of class struggle. But theirs was a vigorous, radical and suspicious parliamentarianism, and involving no renunciation of other forms of struggle‘46.PEOPLES‘ DEMOCRACY OR DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIATMarx and Engles accepted the Enlightenment ideal of democracy as a participatory activity. However, he saw this notion of democracy as incompatible with the parliamentary model of bourgeois democracy which viewed politics as a specialised activity restricted to a relatively harmless sphere. For Marx, genuine democracy, as distinct from the sham bourgeois democracy, comes into existence only after the proletarian revolution. The Paris Commune of 1871 provided an actual indication of ‘the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour.47 For Marx, the significance of the Paris Commune was that it had begun to dismantle the state apparatus and given power to the 408 people. The whole initiative hitherto exercised by the state was laid into the hands of the Commune, whose municipal council was elected by universal suffrage and a majority of whose members were working men or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time‘. It got rid of the police, suppressed the standing army and replaced it by armed people. Like the rest of the public servants, magistrates and judges were to be elected, responsible and revocable, and all public services had to be done at workmen‘s wages. In short, in the Commune, Marx saw an attempt to give power to the working class and to bring into being a regime as close to direct democracy as possible.Marx and Engles pointed to the Paris Commune as illustrating what they meant by people‘s democracy as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. However, the term Dictatorship of the Proletariat as understood by Marx and Engles and as it was interpreted by Lenin in the context of Russian Revolution deserves careful consideration. According to Selucky, the term was used by Marx not more than five times while Hal Draper finds this phrase used by Marx and Engles not more than eleven times. The study of the concept in the context of its appearance proves adequately the democratic credentials of Marx and Engles. In The Class Struggles in France, Marx referred to the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the inevitable transit point to the abolition of class differences generally. In The Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), he wrote, ‘Between the capitalist and the communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be noting but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat‘48.After the seizure of power by the workers in the Paris Commune, Marx further elaborated the idea of democracy. This view of democracy cannot be understood without reference to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Democracy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat were not mutually exclusive concepts but this dictatorship permitted a clear distinction between the bourgeois democracy and the proletarian democracy. Marx and Engles conceived of every state as the dictatorship of the ruling class. They used the term dictatorship in the sense of rule of a particular social class and not as a 409 government of a single party. For them the concept was not primarily a political concept but a social one. The opposite of this phrase was the ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie‘ which signified the different forms of bourgeois governments such as absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, democratic republics.49 Similarly the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was used to signify the different forms of proletariat governments. Marx and Engles were more concerned with the content rather than the form of post-revolutionary state. Democracy meant no more no less than rule by the majority. Since Marx and Engles were certain that at the time of socialist revolution, the proletariat would be in the majority, this very notion of democracy merely suggests that ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat meant to be the rule of the majority by the majority and for the majority.‘50 It was peoples‘ democracy in the real sense of the terms.According to Marx and Engles, revolution could be violent or peaceful depending upon the presence of democratic political possibilities. However, whether peaceful or not, the socialist revolution must be democratic. Although, at the time of Communist Manifesto, there was no possibility of bringing any social change through peaceful, parliamentary means, yet the Manifesto declared that ‘the first task after the revolution would be to raise the working class to the level of democracy‘. Inspite of being deficient and incomplete, both Marx and Engles positively assessed the historical importance of political emancipation of man (political right), universal suffrage and right to representation and association granted by the bourgeois democracy. Marx and Engles, as is well known, anticipated the possibility that socialism could be introduced peacefully by parliamentary means in countries like England and United States. Towards the end of his life, Engles explicitly declared that ‘dictatorship of the proletariat‘ would express itself under the political form of bourgeois parliamentary republic. He wrote, ‘If one thing is certain, it is that our Party and the working class can only come to power under the form of democratic republic. This is even the specific form of dictatorship of the proletariat as the great French revolution had already shown.‘51CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF PEOPLES‘ DEMOCRACY1. Democracy is essentially a participatory activity by the working class in the affairs of the state through direct democratic 410 means. It is a rule by the majority, of the majority and for the majority.2. Peoples‘ democracy can be established only after the proletarian revolution and raising the working class to the level of political decision-making. It requires the defeat of the bourgeoisie and their class privileges and the unity of the working class.3. At economic level, peoples‘ democracy means social ownership of the means of production, appropriation of all large-scale private capital, central control of production in the hands of the state, rapid increase of productive forces, state control of transportation and communication, equal liability of All citizens to work, and public direction of employment.4. At political level, democracy means integration of executive and legislative functions; all government personnel to be directly elected and subject to recall; election and recall of magistrates; replacement of army and police force by people‘s malitia; full local autonomy; public officials to be paid no more than workmen‘s wages.5. At social level, there will be no inheritance; free education for all children; heavy graduated taxation, reunion of town and country through more equitable distribution of population over the whole country; integration of work and non-work environments; sustained development of forces of production so that all basic needs are met and people have sufficient time to pursue non-work activities.6. People‘s democracy is a transition stage between capitalist democracy and communism. After the abolition of classes and the establishment of socialist society will start the higher stage of communism. It will be a society based upon abolition of scarcity and private property, elimination of markets, exchange and money, end of social division of labour. Here government and politics will be replaced by self-regulation, all public affairs will be governed collectively, administrative tasks will be done by rotation or election; and all public questions will be decided on consensus. Thus communism will herald not only the end of politics but also of democracy as a form of government. It will become a part of habit and a way of life. It will turn into self-rule in the real sense 411 of the term.CHANGES MADE BY LENIN AND STALIN IN THE CONCEPT OF DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIATThe Marxist concept of democracy as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as developed by Lenin and Stalin, and the establishment of peoples‘ democracies in USSR and other communist countries introduced major variations in the original concept. Lenin called DP as the major idea of Marx regarding the state, the main content of socialist revolution and necessary for workers for their victory. However, he gave different interpretations of this concept at different times. In 1918, he called revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat as the ‘rule won and maintained by the use of violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws‘. In 1919, he shifted emphasis from the use of force to the organizational task of building socialism. In 1920. he made clear that the dictatorship of the proletariat can be exercised neither by the proletariat class as a. whole nor by a mass proletariat organization but only through its vanguard—the Party, on behalf of the proletariat.52The question of democracy was examined by Lenin in relation to three phases: Capitalist Democracy, Socialist Democracy, and Communist Democracy. Defining democracy, he wrote, ‘Democracy is a form of state, one of its varieties‘. In a class divided society, government is both democracy and dictatorship. It is democracy for one class and dictatorship for the other class. For example, the bourgeois democracy is the dictatorship of the bourgeois class over the working class; it is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It is a democracy by an insignificant minority. It is democracy for the rich where the capitalist class controls not only the political institutions but also structures other institutions in such a way as to guarantee their overall control on the society. Since it does not serve the working class interest, it has to be destroyed and replaced by a radically different form of state, by a different set of institutions to serve the proletarian interests.Regarding the socialist democracy, Lenin frankly accepts that the new socialist state established after the revolution will be an instrument of power and repression quite as much as the capitalist state. In it, the proletariat, ‘organized as a ruling class creates its 412 own appropriate apparatus of violence to enforce its class purpose on the non-proletarian and other elements‘. The victory over the bourgeoisie requires a long persistent battle which can be carried through only by strong determination and use of force. During the transitional period from capitalism to communism, class struggle will continue and it will aim at the complete overthrow of the bourgeoisie. During this period, ‘the state must inevitably be a state that is democratic in a new way (for the proletariat and the propertyless in general) and dictatorship in a new way (against the bourgeoisie)‘.53 DP is also class state but with a difference. The difference consists in the fact that all hitherto existing class states have been dictatorship of an exploiting class minority over the exploited majority, whereas the dictatorship of the proletariat is the dictatorship of the exploited majority over the exploiting minority‘54.The twin purpose of the dictatorship of the proletariat is i) to defend the revolution and ii) to organize the new social and economic order. These functions, according to Lenin, are carried out by the Party which is the guide and leader of all the exploited classes. Thus in the hands of Lenin, the dictatorship of the proletariat became ‘the dictatorship of the Party‘. He advocated that the transition from socialism to communism will be carried out by the party which will not only suppress the exploiters but also discipline the workers and the whole population.Reduced to simple terms, Lenin‘s argument was that any state is an instrument of class domination. Where there is dominance, there is neither freedom nor democracy. It is only in the communist society when the class struggle has ended and a classless society has been created that it will become possible to speak of freedom. ‘Only then‘ according to Lenin ‘will there become possible and realized a truly complete democracy, democracy without any exception whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away....Communism alone is capable of giving really complete democracy and the more complete it is, the more quickly will it become unnecessary, and wither away of itself. In other words, communism will cause even the truly complete democracy to wither away. He categorically states that ‘it is constantly forgotten that the abolition of the state means also the abolition of democracy; that the withering away of the state means the withering away of 413 democracy‘55. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment when it begins to be unnecessary.Thus in the context of bourgeois democracy, democracy does not exists; in the context of dictatorship of the proletariat there is more democracy than before in the sense that the proletarian majority, rules over the minority, but all the same real democracy still cannot exist; in the context of communism, democracy should not exist because it is superfluous. While for Marx democracy as such is a stateless society; for Lenin democracy is a form of state and therefore, a stateless society cannot be a democracy.With Stalin, the dictatorship of the proletariat came to be associated with autocracy and reign of terror. A new turn was given to the theory of revolution; the party was converted into a centralized and all powerful bureaucracy. DP meant further centralization of power and greater use of repressive and arbitrary power. It became a regime in which one man had absolute power of a kind which Lenin had never imagined. Stalin used that power to the full, herding into camps millions upon millions of people and liquidation of countless others including the vast number of people who were part of the upper and uppermost layers of society.Thus whereas Lenin reduced the DP to the dictatorship of the party; Stalin further reduced the dictatorship of the party to the dictatorship of one person. It was taken for granted that the Party and the working class formed a perfect unity and that the former represented the latter.OTHER MARXIST WRITERS ON DEMOCRACYThe concept of democracy as understood and interpreted by some Western Marxist writers has been quite different from that of Lenin and Stalin. Edward Bernstein, for example, not only challenged Marx‘s analysis of capitalism, he also claimed that socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat were neither necessary nor desirable. He believed that political democracy and liberal freedoms extended to the working class are much more important than a militant class struggle which could bring only crude communism. Another writer, Karl Kautsky, however, defended the basic tenets of Marxism but criticized the Marxist concept of democracy of DP as put forward by Lenin. Kautsky held that 414 Lenin was wrong in claiming that UP was a particular form of government opposed to democratic form. For Marx and Engles, democracy had also social content. Also unless the proletariat represents a majority of population, no socialist revolution can be successful, and if they represent the majority, no dictatorship is necessary. He gave importance to democracy than to socialism and by merging the democratic tradition with the Marxist socialist doctrine, Kautsky laid the foundation of achieving socialism through democratic means.Another Marxist revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg also criticized the anti-democratic policy of Lenin, for suppression of free political life, of establishing the dictatorship not of the masses but over the masses. She agreed with Lenin that the party should seize power but rejected the social democratic principle that the party must first gain majority and only then think of taking over power. But this does not mean that the party should seize power despite the majority of population, should maintain itself by terror and reject all normal forms of political freedom and representation. Democratic institutions were not perfect but to abolish them was wrong because it would paralyse the political life of the masses. There must be unlimited democracy, a free public opinion, freedom of election and the press, the right to hold meetings and form associations. Otherwise the DP would be replaced by the dictatorship of the clique. Dictatorship is not a matter of abolishing democracy but of applying it correctly. Also it must be of the class and not of the small leading minority. She wanted that the masses must participate actively in political life and in shaping the new order. For her socialism and freedom were inseparable.50After the first world war and the collapse of the Second International, all key concepts of Marxism such as class struggle, DP, proletarian democracy became subjects of intense debate. It led to a variety of Marxist thought and different views on the nature of democracy. Moreover, the devastation of the economy after the war led to the rise of welfare state in Europe which made structural changes in the capitalist economy. As result, the working class in these countries instead of being the agents of revolution became a part of the capitalist system. A number of European communist parties quietly abandoned the goal of revolution and socialist democracy. During the second world war, the communist 415 parties of Europe not only see their sight on constitutional changes but also shared power with political parties of opposite ideologies. While they declared that their purpose was the establishment of a socialist society and proclaimed their allegiance to Marxism, they nevertheless accepted constitutionalism, parliamentary democracy, electoral process and representative institutions of bourgeois democracy. Palmiro Togliatti, an Italian communist, for example, stated firmly: We always start from the idea then socialism is a regime in which there is the widest freedom for the workers, that they in fact participate in an organized manner in the direction of the entire social life. Togliatti‘s ideas later on led to the ‘historical compromise‘ among the communist parties of France, Italy and Spain which gave rise to the concept of Euro-communism. These parties criticized the concept of DP as developed in Russia and stated that socialist transformation can be brought about only through peaceful democratic means.57Thus the Western Marxist concept of democracy has been evolved in direct opposition to the Leninist concept of democracy as the DP. It firmly believes that the socialist transformation in the advanced capitalist societies can only be brought about by using the bourgeois democratic institutions. Socialism can be brought about by peaceful means. It implies parliamentary democracy, multiparty system, civil liberties, rights of freedom of expression and trade union activities. Democratic features are not the monopoly of the bourgeois regimes but a part of the Enlightenment tradition of the Western civilization. The revolutionary methods of seizure of power by the proletariat are not possible in the advanced capitalist societies.HOW FAR THE COMMUNIST STATES WERE DEMOCRATICUnfortunately, the historical experience of the DP has not been in keeping with the concept of proletarian democracy as developed by Marx and Engles. The goal of Marxism has been the establishment of a proletarian state and society in which men, free from the fetters of capitalism‘ would learn to organize production for the common good. The revolution in Russia failed to achieve this because it was proletarian in a new sense provided by Lenin and later on by Stalin. As stated above, the concept of DP was transformed into a minority, ‘government of a small number‘ under the leadership of Lenin. Under Stalin, DP became a means of autocracy and 416 reign of terror. The 1936 constitution admitted the exclusive domination of the Communist Party. The party, with restricted membership, never became a mass party. The effort was to make the party less proletarian and less democratic and convert it into a centralized bureaucracy.The denunciation of Stalin by Khrushchev at the 20th party congress in 1956 had a profound repercussion on the communist movement. Khrushchev condemned the cult of individual and called for a restoration of Leninist principles of socialist democracy. The Communist Party was no longer the vanguard of the proletariat but became the party of the whole people. However the constitution of 1977 reinforced the power of the party, uniting the secretaryship of the party with the Presidency of the state. It dropped the talk about the dictatorship of the proletariat and used the term ‘state of the whole people‘. However, the lack of political and civil liberties and the establishment of state socialism or ‘socialism from above‘ were criticized by many Marxist writers and Soviet dissidents such as Edward Kardelj, S. Stjanovic, Roy Medvedev. S. Stjanovic, for example, attacked the undemocratic nature of the Soviet socialist system where the concept of government by the working class was missing. The continuous increase in the power of the state gave birth to a new class and a bureaucratic socialist society. Similarly, Roy Medevdev called for decentralization of power, freedom of expression and freedom to form other political parties, democratization of social life, functioning of the Party on democratic lines, safeguards to the opinion of minorities, dissidents, freedom of press etc.Whether the communist states were democratic depends upon the meaning of democracy. According to Macpherson, if we define democracy in the narrow sense, meaning a system of choosing and authorizing government, then the communist states being the vanguard states were governments for the people but not governments by the people. Again the vanguard state can be democratic if there is full intra-party democracy and the party membership is open. Even from this point of view, these states could not be called democratic. But there is a broader meaning of democracy which contains an ideal of human equality, an equality that can be realized only in a classless society. In this broad sense, the communist states could be termed democratic. But on the whole, whereas 417 Marx‘s negative critique of bourgeois democracy was maintained, its positive alternatives were barely contemplated.58CONCLUSIONIn conclusion, we can say that the Marxist theory broadens the area perceived as political and extends democracy into the economic and social domains. It thereby pursues a much fuller democracy than that envisaged in the liberal theory. However, its negative strength, i.e., its critique, of bourgeois democracy, was not matched by alternative positive achievements. Its failure posed a challenge not just for the advocates of Marxism but for anyone committed to the values of democracy itself.References1. M.N. Hagopian, Ideals and Ideologies in Modern Politics, Longman, New York, p. 172. Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy, OUR New Delhi, 1965, p.l.3. Demcracy in a World of Tension. UNESCO, Paris, 1919, p. 5-74. Hagopian, op. cit, p. 185. Macpherson, op. cit.. p. 66. J.S., Mill, ‘Considerations on Representative Government‘ in Collected Works. ed. J.M. Robson, London. 1937, p. 4787. For the reasons of the emergence of elite theory of democracy, see Dahl and Lindblom, Politics, Economics and Welfare, Torchbook ed., 1963, p. 273-75, and T.B. Bottomore, Elites and Society, Chapter VI8. Suzanne Keller, ‘Elites‘ in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, vol 5, p. 269. Quoted in Bottomore, Ibid, p 1310. Robert Presthus, ‘The Pluralist Framework, in Henry S. Kareil, Frontiers of Democratic Theory, op. cit.11. Schempter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. George Allen and Unwin. London p. 269-7312. Ibid13. Sartori, Democracy Theory, Oxford and IBH, New Delhi, 1965. p. 118-1914. Ibid, p 12215. For more details See J. Walker ‘A Critique of Elite Theory of Democracy‘ in APSR, June 196016. Barry Holden, The Nature of Democracy, Nelson, London, 1974, p. 158-15917. Note 15, p. 23418. Quoted in Kariel, op cit p. 24519. Barry Holden, op. cit. p. 15920. Durkheim, The Division of Labour, Free Press, Glencoe, 1947 p. 2021. Prethus in Kariel, op. cit., p. 254418 22. Ibid p. 28023. Robert Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, University of Chicago, 1950. p. 13224. Ibid. p. 13725. Ibid p. 15026. N. Margolis, ‘Democracy: American Style‘ in Duncan op. cit.. p. 13027. Dahl ‘Liberal Democracy in USA‘ in Prospect of Liberal Democracy (ed) William Linvingstone, University of Texas. Austin p. 1979, p. 52-7228. Ithiel de Sole Pool (ed) Talking Back: Citizen Freedback and Cable Tecnology, MIT Press, Massestitute, 1973, p. 158-7029. Quoted in Duncan, op. cit., p. 13130. David Held, Models of Democracy. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1987, p. 25431. Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970, p. 171-7233. Cook and Morgan, Participatory Democracy, Harper &Row, N.Y., 1971,p. 734. Ibid35. Anthony Birch, op. cit, p.8136. Quoted in David Held, op, cit. p. 25737. Ibid, p. 25838. Ibid, p. 25939. Ibid p. 26240. Ibid p. 26341. Cook and Morgan, p. 21-3942. For details, see Michael Levin ‘Marxim and Democratic Theory‘ in Duncan, op. cit.,43. Ibid., p. 7944. Ibid., p. 8045. Ibid., p. 8346. Ibid., p. 8647. Marx and Engles, Selected Works, Vol I, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, p. 13448. Ibid p. 33149. Sidney Hook, Revolution, Reform and Social Justice. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1975, p. 17750. Selucky. Radpslav. Marxism, Socialism and Democracy. Macmillan, London, 1979, p. 16351. Marx and Engles, Correspondence 1846-75. Martin Lawrence, London. 1934. p. 48652. Selucky op. cit., p. 10553. Lenin, State and Revolution. Chapter II p.54. Ibid55. Ibid.419 56. Rosa Luxemburg. The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism. University of Michigun Press. Ann. Arbor, 196157. Berlin Conference of the Communists Parties of Europe, Calcutta, CPI (M) Publication 1976, p. 5758. Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy, op. cit., p. 21420 CHAPTER 18 THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGEAs explained in the opening chapter of this book, the task of political theory is not only to understand the nature and purpose of political institutions but also to analyse the causes as well as the need for social and political change. By social and political change, we mean a marked difference from one system to another in terms of social structures (i.e. in the size of society, the composition or balance of its parts or the types of organization), political institutions, mode of production and economic organization, meanings and values held by the important groups in the society. According to Gould and Kolb, socio-political change means ‘an observable difference from antecedent status of the social structures, institutions, habits or equipment of a society in so far as it is i) the outcome of legislature or other means of control conduct, ii) product of change either in specific or dominant sector of social existence or in the psychological or social environment, iii) the repercussive effect of social action pursued in uniformity with the systematically related mode of fulfilling needs and meeting expectations prevailing in the society.2 Twentieth century has seen massive social changes not only in the advanced industrial societies of Europe and America but also in the underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa. More importantly, the rise of communist states in Soviet Russia, Eastern Europe and China were model example of social change of this century. Hence it is not surprising that the concept of social change has dominated much modern social and political investigations. There has been a tradition that change is always good and even natural, and that such social orders which do not allow it are seen as somewhat flawed. However, there have been theories which doubt the worth of change, largely on the ground of stability, but 421 such voices have been very few.DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF SOCIAL CHANGEWhat are the causes of social and political change? How does social change occur and how it should be deliberately brought about? Such questions have been probed and analysed by a number of thinkers. Numerous causes are attributed to socio-political change such as technological innovations, wars, revolutions, demography, migration, acculturation, economic disparities, diffusion etc. However, the concept of social change is best approached by examining a few general theories. Before Marx, theories of sociopolitical change were superficially explored. From August Comte and nineteenth century theories of evolution to the histori-philosophical treatises of Sorokin, Toynbee, Rustow, Afred Weber, Jasper etc., they were developed in the form of philosophies of history. Independent theories of socio-political change are found in ethnology where two schools have been dominant: i) The Diffusionists who attributed social change to the spread of cultural progress from certain centres, and ii) The Functionalists who explain change and innovations as a result of the need to maintain a functional equilibrium in the social system. Though liberalism in its earlier phase was quite revolutionary, the liberal theory of social change during the twentieth century has been dominated by evolutionary assumptions. For example in the theories of Hobson and Hobhouse, it was assumed that the course of evolution would automatically guarantee prosperity and the spread of rationality. Marxist theories of social change present it as a phenomena which results from the interplay of productive forces and productive relations and the class conflict arising out of them. Some other theorists while reciprocating that social change is due to social conflicts attribute these conflicts to various interests groups in the society. Less influential today are those theories which attribute all changes due to one dominant factor such as population growth, technological break, warfare etc. More recent theories of change present it as a ‘planned social change‘. While the Marxist writers claim that such a social change can be brought about by politically induced revolutionary action and the creation of a socialist/communist society; the liberals claim that such a change can be brought about only by gradual, piecemeal methods. The study of social change after the second world war has been dominated by the422 Marxist and the Anglo-American categories. However, due to the stability of the post-war era, no great advances have been made in the theories of social changeHISTORICAL MATERIALISM AS A THEORY OF SOCIAL CHANGEThe distinctive character of Marxism lies in its worth as a theory of social change and the revolutionary reconstitution of society. As explained earlier, it consists of three inter-related elements: i) an examination and critique of the past and present societies. This is known as Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, ii) the notion of socialist/communist society which will replace a society based upon exploitation and divided among classes, and iii) how to bring about such a society.4 Of the above three elements, not much advance could be made about the second element inspite of the communist revolutions in a number of countries; the third element of bringing about a revolution has also proved very problematic. Hence most of the efforts of the Marxist writers have gone into the elaboration of the first element— a critique of the past and present societies and an analysis of the causes of social change in the society.The concept of Historical Materialism as elaborated by Marx and Engles answers the question: what circumstances have had the greatest effect in changing human civilization. Historical materialism is a broad category and covers all forms of changes such as social, political, economic, religious, organizational and institutional as well as changes in beliefs, values, thought process etc.WHAT IS HISTORICAL MATERIALISMHistorical materialism is simply the dialectical materialism applied to the particular field of human relations within society. In Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Marx starts by asking what is the principle that governs all human relations. His answer is that it is the common end which all men pursue i.e. the production of the means of production to support life, and the exchange of these products. Men have to live before they can start thinking. Hence the ultimate determinant of social change is not to be found in the minds of men, in their increasing insight into the eternal truth and justice or some rational principle, but in changes in the 423 mode of production and exchange. They are to be sought not in the philosophy but in the economics of the period concerned. It is the mode of production which colours the political and economic institutions as well as the beliefs, actions, attitudes and habits of the people.This historical materialism, also known as the materialist interpretation of history was explained by Marx as follows:‘In the social production of their means of existence men enter into definite, necessary relations which are independent of their will, productive relations which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The aggregate of these productive relationships constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis on which a juridical and political superstructure arises... The mode of production of the material means of existence conditions the whole process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, it is their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation, the entire immense superstructure is more rapidly transformed. In considering such transformation, the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production...and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out...No social order even disappears before the conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society‘.5Similarly, Engles wrote, ‘Historical materialism designates the view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historical events in the production and exchange, in the subsequent division into the distinct classes, and the struggle of these classes against one another‘.6EXPLANATION OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISMOn the basis of the above lengthy quotation, the Marxist views on historical materialism can be summed up as follows:424 1. The mode of production and exchange, and the material means of existence condition the whole process of social, political and intellectual life of the individual. It is the motive force of social change in the society.2. The whole process of social change is dialectical. Its moving force is supplied by the internal tensions created by the contradictions between a newly evolving system of production and the persisting ideology appropriate to an older system.3. The dialectical development is an internal process of unfolding i.e. the productive force inherent in any society develop completely before the dialectical transformation takes place.4. The level of productive forces determines the basic structure of relations of production. This is the foundation of social life. Upon it is built a superstructure which includes political institutions, the state, all organized religion, political associations, laws and customs, and human consciousness expressed in ideas about the world. In brief, they are law, politics, philosophy, and morality. The principle of historical materialism is that the particular mode of production calls for a particular superstructure and causes it to come about in course of time. This superstructure is the sum total of the weapons employed by the classes fighting one another for a maximum share in the product of surplus labour.5. The process of social change has passed through a succession of stages, each of which is dominated by a typical system of production and exchange of goods. In this connection, Marx distinguished five stages of development and social change in world history, each with its own socio-economic structure and each following the other in some logical pattern. These stages are: primitive communal, ancient or classical based upon slavery, feudal, capitalist and socialist. In the first stage, the means of production were socially owned. In the second, the masters or the citizens owned the means of production, while in the third, the feudal lord partially owned them as his men had some property. In the fourth, the capitalist owns the means of production, but not his men, who he can no longer dispose of as he pleases, though they are compelled to work for him. Under fifth, the workers will themselves own the mean of production and with the abolition of contradictions inherent in capitalism, production will reach its fullest development. Both 425 from the points of view of production and freedom, each of these stages represents advance upon its predecessor, this being in accordance with the dialectical principle that every new stage takes up whatever is of value in that which it negates.6. What is the role of individual initiative or conscious intentions in the process of social change? Marx and Engles felt that although all human acts are governed by specific intentions—personal, private, religious etc., yet the result of these intentions does not reflect the intention of any particular individual. Historical materialism is not concerned with the personal motives but is concerned with the mass phenomena which are not consciously willed by any particular individual but which obeys social laws that are regular and impersonal as the laws of physical nature. The sole reality of the historical process is the human beings and their inter-relationship which is expressed in property relations, class barriers, institutions of government, ideology etc. As Marx wrote, ‘Men make their own history but they do not make it just as they please, they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past‘7. Great individuals who appear on the scene to change the course of history are instruments of historical process; they are unconscious agents of a great impersonal force which they did not create. The effectiveness of their action is determined by the situation in which it takes place.7. Historical materialism is not a ‘factor‘ of social change but it is one, a unity, or ‘the whole‘. It consists of various phenomena and influences, mode of production, superstructure, mental attitudes, traditions, interests, ideals which are on the broad level affected by the prevailing system of production, exchange and distribution.CRITICISM OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISMA number of objections were raised in the nineteenth century against historical materialism as a theory of social change. Some of them were: i) it denies the role of human action in history, ii) it gives importance only to a single economic factor, iii) it treats all other factors such as religion, thought and feelings as unimportant, or iv) social change is determined by economic to the exclusion of human freedom. However, according to Kolakowaski, we should be every careful in interpreting the concept of historical materialism 426 and must distinguish between what it does and what it does not set out to answer. Historical materialism defines only some broad features of social change and does not claim to be a key to the interpretation of any particular historical event.8 Marx‘s account of the dependence of superstructure on the relations of production applies to great historical areas and fundamental changes in the society. It is not claimed that the level of technology determines every detail of the social division of labour, and thus in turn every detail of political and intellectual life. Marx and Engles thought of great and broad historical categories, and in terms of the basic factors governing social change from one system to another. They believed that the class structure of the society definitely brings changes in the institutional structure sooner or later, but the course of event also depends upon other factors such as demography, geography, national traits etc. As Engles wrote, ‘The determining element in history is, in the last resort, the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx or I have ever asserted. If therefore, somebody twists this into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase‘ 9. However, inspite of these limitations, a number of objections have been raised from time to time. The main points of criticism are as follows:1. According to Kolakowaski, Marx and Engles assert dogmatically and without proof that every social change in history is the outcome of the class struggle which is determined by the technological level of the society. Also the exact meaning of ‘economic factor‘, ‘base‘ or the ‘superstructure‘ is by no means clear. There is no doubt that the base affects the superstructure and it is accepted even by the non-Marxists. However, historical circumstances like wars, revolutions, religious changes, fall and rise of empires, scientific discoveries can be explained by many circumstances, technological and class conflicts being few among them. Hence, if historical materialism is that every change is dictated by the base, then it is absurd, and if, as Engles remarked, it does not involve absolute determinism, it is no more than a fact of common knowledge. Again, if we say that the economic factor determines the social change in the ‘last resort‘, that it is not absolute, or only the chief relations of production are affected by the technological level, then the big question is: what are important and what are 427 less important. If the relations of production determine only some features of super-structure and not all, then historical materialism can explain only certain broad lines of the social change and not any particular historical phenomena. Hence, the theory is severely limited. It can explain that capitalism will be replaced by socialism but when and how, it cannot predict.102. At the root of historical materialism is the fact that economic factor is fundamental for all social institutions and their historical development. No doubt this has exercised a profound influence and all modern social scientists are indebted to Marx even if they do not know it. Any return to pre-Marxist social theory is inconceivable. However, as C. Wright Mills has pointed out, economic factor is only one factor and it may itself be shaped by political and military factors. Political determinism and military determinism are as relevant as ‘economic determinism‘ to explain many of the historical events of twentieth century. Although the idea is not to undermine the economic factor, yet it needs to be emphasized that the economic powers are often defensive and limited and they are not all sufficient to the understanding of political power or in changing the total social structure.113. The idea that it is the social existence the determines the consciousness is not something eternal. The project of social change from capitalism to socialism/communism as envisaged by Marx and Engles, though a historical necessity, was to enlarge the sphere of creative activity outside the production process and free the human consciousness from false consciousness. In such conditions, it will be the human will and consciousness which would be in control of social existence and it would determine the social being rather than social being determined by social existence. When human society is liberated from class struggle, it will control the relations of production instead of being controlled by them and will become a source of creative energy.4. As mentioned above, the historical and political analysis by Marx and Engles show that they took into account other factors which help in social change such as demography, geography, national culture etc. According to Kolakosaski, there exist even less rigorous interpretations of historical materialism. Marxist writers have often asserted that relations of production do not bring about change in428 the superstructure but only define it in the negative sense of ‘limiting the option at society‘s disposal.‘ But what is important is that, if the ‘relative independence of the state‘, or ‘reciprocal influence‘, or ‘role of tradition‘ etc. in the social change is accepted, then the role of historical materialism becomes very much limited.125. The concept of technical progress as a source of social change in the relations of production is also doubtful. The improvement of productive forces is the result of mental labour and to subordinate it to the relations of production is wrong. There is a multiplicity of links between intellectual labour and social environment. Hence historical materialism as a theory explaining all historical change by technical progress and all civilization by class struggle is not sustainable.136. Historical materialism as a theory of social change has also been criticized for giving too much importance to class struggle and class war. To say that class struggle rather than harmony is the normal and inevitable condition of societies based upon property is to ignore the institutionalization of conflicts of economic interests. Contrary to the expectations of Marx and Engles, it has been possible within capitalist societies to transform class struggle into harmony through administrative regulations and welfare measures In fact collaboration is as much a fact of class history as is the struggle. Liberal sociologists like Raymond Aron, Lipset, Dahrendorf present the view that Marx‘s analysis was accurate for the nineteenth century society. The rise of middle class in the industrial societies has made the whole theory of class struggle as a vehicle of social change impracticable because this class acts as a mediator between the classes.147. The division of society into five different kinds of societies is also not very correct. Contemporary anthropological studies have proved this division to be baseless.However, the above criticism does not mean that the theory of historical materialism is meaningless. It has profoundly affected our understanding of historical and social change. Without it, our study would have been incomplete. The major contribution of historical materialism lies in altering the mode of historical thought.429 LIBERALISM AND SOCIAL CHANGEAfter Marx‘s theory of historical materialism and the development of liberalism from negative to positive form in the-twentieth century, the problem of social change became an essential element of all contemporary ideologies. As an ideology of social, economic and political change, the initial phase of liberalism was revolutionary when it challenged the medieval feudal institutions and political absolutism, and laid the foundation of a new polity based on the consent of the governed. It was associated with progressive ideas in all fields whether society, economy, religion, culture, politics . which accompanied the breakdown of traditional social hierarchies. There is no doubt that it was a great revolutionizing and modernizing force which opposed the whole world based on monarchy, religion, privilege and birth, and favoured change, dynamism, mobility, growth, accumulation. It reached its peak in the nineteenth century when the political power came in the hands of the capitalist/ industrial class which had been the main beneficiary of liberal ideology. However, with the development of capitalism, not only the number of working class increased, its economic conditions also became acutely miserable which led to dangerous social and economic consequences. Marxism through its theory of historical materialism and class conflict propounded the theory of social change as a historical necessity and called for a proletarian revolution and the establishment of a classless society. Against this Marxist challenge, liberalism in the twentieth century became defensive and offered a gradual, piecemeal and reformist approach to social change. Thus the revolutionary ideology of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries became an evolutionary ideology—an ideology of status quo which preferred stability, equilibrium, consensus and unity in the social system.During the twentieth century, the problem of social change has been the dominant theme of liberal sociologists. Their basic approach has been that the social system is a ‘functional equilibrium‘ in which consensus of various classes, groups and institutions is the linchpin of the system. If there are conflicts, tensions and struggles in the society, these can be solved by peaceful and reformist methods. Liberal sociologists like Parson and Durkheim have emphasized social order, unity and equilibrium. They consider social conflicts as dangerous for the society and give preference to social consensus.430 The state can play an important role in bringing consensus so as to maintain social unity, equilibrium and stability. In short, instead of revolutionary methods, liberalism believes in reformist and gradual change in which consensus and cooperation of all classes, groups and institutions is desirable. This function of social change can be very well performed by the state through social policy, legislation, taxation policy, income distribution and leveling the gap between the rich and the poor.KARL POPPER‘S THEORY OF ‘PIECEMEAL SOCIAL ENGINEERING‘Karl Popper, an Austrian philosopher and sociologist in his book The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol I &II rejected Marx‘s theory of historical materialism as well as the existence of objective laws of social development and supported the liberal theory of gradual reforms and peaceful social change. He has very brilliantly argued for a theory of social change through piecemeal methods, popularly known as ‘piecemeal social engineering‘. He has replaced the notion of ‘social change‘ with that of ‘social engineering‘. By this he means ‘the planning and construction of institutions, with the aim, perhaps, of arresting or of controlling or of quickening impending social developments‘15. Social engineering is concerned with institutions and their management. Social engineering must be, as he says, ‘piecemeal‘. That is, it starts with institutions as they are, examines in what ways they work badly, and then introduces reforms to make them work better. The theory of social engineering, writes Popper, is the most appropriate method of finding out the contemporary evils of the society and fighting against them rather searching and fighting for the common good. He does not subscribe to the view that social change can be brought by one great push, through revolution and other such methods because the social life is so complex that it cannot be contained in a particular blueprint of broad social reconstruction. On the contrary, ‘the blueprints for piecemeal engineering are comparatively simple... They are blueprints for single institution, for health and employment insurance, for instance, or...educational reforms‘.16 This sort of social engineering advances by trial and error. It becomes more effective and successful as practical experience accumulates and in this way it can be supported by the approval and agreement of a great number of people.Popper rejects the Marxist method of social change on the 431 following grounds:1 Any large scale project of social reconstruction with a fully worked out plan of an ideal society is ‘Utopian‘. Our knowledge of the working of society is inadequate to the task which the Utopian social engineering imposes on it. There is every possibility that many of the consequences will be undesired as well as unintended. Rational action must take into account the imperfections of our knowledge. All programmes of change should advance in small steps so that the unexpected ill-effects can be corrected as soon as they arise and before they do much damage.2. It is not true that only by a complete reconstruction of society could social evils be remedied, because experience shows that much can be achieved through piecemeal methods, by tackling them little by little and one by one.3. There is likely to be much more agreement about the desirability of removing specific present evils than about a remote complex ideal. Also to reconstruct the society as a whole, there must be a dictatorship which would have to be imposed on the society by violence.4. In their enthusiasm for abstract good, the Utopians actually disregard concrete evils which are under their very nose.5. Programmes of large scale social engineering will take long time to carry through and they become less attractive by the passage of time. Moreover, there is injustice in imposing the burden of change on those who have to live through the process of radical reforms and delivering all its fruits to those who have not made any sacrifice for it.PLEA FOR PIECEMEAL SOCIAL ENGINEERINGThus, rejecting the Marxist theory of social change, Popper forcefully argues that it is better to work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract good. There is no use in aiming at establishing happiness by political means. On the other hand, it is more useful to eliminate concrete miseries. He writes, ‘Fight for the elimination of poverty by direct means—for example, by making sure that everybody has minimum 432 income. Or fight against epidemics and disease by erecting hospitals and schools of medicine. Fight illiteracy as you fight criminality. But do all this by direct means. Choose what you consider the most urgent evil of the society in which you live, and try patiently to convince people that we can get rid of it‘. He agrees that although peaceful and gradual processes of social change through social reforms have not been able to eliminate differences of wealth and power altogether, yet they have got rid of some particularly extreme varieties of inequalities from the society.SOCIAL CHANGE AS ‘INCREMENTAL CHANGE‘Apart from Popper, a number of other liberal writers like Macpherson, Galbriath and C. Wright Mills have stressed the other side of ‘social engineering. This is known as ‘Incremental Change‘. Their argument is that socialist management is better than the capitalist management but because it cannot be established through revolution, the correct approach should be that liberalism should advance towards it slowly. That is, socialism could be achieved through evolutionary methods. It can be achieved if i) socially created wealth is gradually stopped going into the hands of the capitalists class and brought under the control of democratic institutions, and ii) the democratic institutions are strengthened so that the achievements of the past could be rationalized for the future.CONCEPTUAL ADVANCES IN SOCIAL CHANGEAs mentioned above, due to the domination of Marxist and liberal ideologies, no great advances have been made in the theories of social change. However, according to John A. Hall, on the basis of the developments and social change in the aftermath of second world war in different parts of the globe, certain broad outlines about the new concepts of social change are worth noting.17 Firstly, today both liberal and Marxist ideologies presume that social change does not emanate from socio-economic conditions alone; rather political events can force a society to change drastically. Here the most notable examples are of the geo-political defeat of Japan and Germany in the second world war which led to not only the democratization of both countries but also remarkable advances in social change. Secondly, there has been remarkable advance within capitalism. Most social thought in the twentieth century has been produced in opposition to historical materialism and 433 sought to reject it or go beyond it. The speed of change within capitalism and the extension of its social reach to each arid every strata of society and providing those facilities which even the communist regimes could not think of has been its remarkable feature. With the fall of USSR and the ideology of socialism being on defensive, the relation between capitalist society and the nation-state constitutes the agenda for study of social change at the present times. Thirdly, the Marxist theories are no longer satisfied with mere description of social change and classification of epochs. For regions outside the socialist camp, they proposed a politically-induced social change brought about by peaceful or revolutionary methods, and thereafter a planned process of change. Fourthly social change in the erstwhile colonial countries after 1945 has been of utmost importance. The establishment of these countries was the result of nationalism which has been the most striking feature of change in the twentieth century. Much debate has been going on whether the advanced capitalist countries of the world will control these underdeveloped countries and impose their model of social change upon them or they can evolve their own theories of social change.References1. M. Ginsberg, ‘Factors in Social Change. Third world Congress on Society, vol. p. 10-172. Gould and Kolb. Dictionary of Social Science, op cit, p. 647.3. For more details, see Kernig, op. cit.4. David Millers. ‘Marxism‘, in Blackwell Encyclopeadia of Political Thought, op. cit., p. 399.5. Marx and Engles Selected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, p. 181-826. Quoted in L. Kolakowaski. Main Currents of Marxism, OUP, 1981, p. 336-37.7. K. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte., Quoted in Kolakowaiski op. cit., p. 3398. Ibid.,9. Engles Letter to Joseph Bloc, 21 Sep 189010. Kolakowaski, op. cit., p. 363.11. C. Wright Mills, The Marxist, Pelican Books, Middlesex, 1962, p. 112-23.12. Kolakowiski, op cit.. p 36613. Ibid, p. 36814. C.Wright Mills, op. cit., p. 107.15. Karl. Popper, Poverty of Historicism, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966, p 15916. Karl Popper The Open Society and its Enemies. New World Pages Books. 1968, NY, p. 223.17. Willium Outthwaite and Tom Bottomore, Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth Century Social Thought, Blackwell, 1993, p. 581434 CHAPTER 19 THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENTThe idea of development has dominated human thought for centuries but it became a general human concern only after the industrial revolution. Industrialization turned raw material into finished goods, machinery replaced human labour, changed feudal society into a capitalist one, created new forms of production, consumption and ownership, set new standards of material comfort and luxury, public health and hygience, education, culture, living standards, transport, communication etc. The new social forces of production and economic reorganization of life affected not only the societies in which industrial revolution took place but the whole world when this industrialization turned into imperialism and colonized a large number of Asian, African and Latin American countries. These countries were used as a source of raw material for the industries and a market for the finished goods produced by the industrialized countries. Over a period of time, these industrially advanced countries of Europe and America were able to create strong political, economic and technological structures which emancipated their peoples from the recurring problems of poverty, unemployment, illiterary, disease and guaranteed a decent standard of living, coupled with democratic political institutions, civil rights and liberties. The colonial countries missed the industrial revolution and because of imperialist domination remained underdeveloped in every respect.The end of imperialism and colonialism and the rise of these new states on the world scene after the second world war opened new dimensions in political theory. These countries, known at that time as the ‘third world‘ consisted of more than 100 countries with 45% of the world population, 48% of the area, 14% of the 435 gross income and with an industrial production of 8%. It comprised of those ex-colonial countries which exhibited neither developed capitalist nor developed socialist economies. They were all victims of colonialism, economically under-developed and exploited by imperialist powers. Their economies were primarily agricultural, capitalist class consisting of hardly 2-5 percent. They had simultaneous political structures—pre-capitalist, feudal, semi-feudal, monarchical. At socio-economic level, they were characterized by economic backwardness, unemployment, hunger, illiteracy, ill-health, malnutrition etc. Also they lacked political, socio-economic, intellectual conditions which could help them to achieve national unity. White most of them were underdeveloped, many of them were stagnating.1 Hence the biggest question before them in their march towards nation-building was to visualize a concept of development and to choose the path of development. Since it was a period of cold war, both liberal-capitalism and Marxist socialism offered their own theories and models of development as well as ‘under-development‘. While the liberal theories associated development with setting up of liberal representative institutions, capitalist economy, political stability and anti-communism, Marxist theories offered a critique of capitalist mode of development and evolved a theory of ‘under-development‘ rather than development of the ex-colonial countries. Simultaneously, it also offered a socialist model of development. In India, Gandhi and his followers gave a totally different concept of development which was opposed to both liberal capitalist and socialist models based upon large scale industrialization.WHAT IS DEVELOPMENTAt the most general level, development means the achievement of economic and social progress by transforming conditions of underdevelopment such as low productivity, stagnation, poverty in countries popularly known as poor, underdeveloped or less-developed. While economic growth is a necessary condition of development for the satisfaction of basic needs of adequate nutrition, health and shelter, the concept of development also includes full human existence such as universal access to education, civil freedom and political participation. According to Gunnar Myrdal, development is ‘a movement upward of a whole system of interdependent conditions as a complex process in which economic growth is 436 only one of the several categories of causally relevant conditions‘. Development is a loose term which includes elements like level of democracy, nation-building and state-building, administrative and legal development, political change etc. Those who associate development with modernization, define it as: i) attitude towards equality of opportunity, ii) capacity of the political system to make policy and carry it out, iii) differentiation of ‘political functions, iv) development of industrialization, growth of markets and widening of economy, In short, in the liberal capitalist world, development means: Territorial integration, national integration, universal adult franchise, free and fair elections, political participation, effective role of political parties, freedom of judiciary, neutrality of public services, non-politicization of defence, effective role of legislature, decentralization of power, accountability of government to the people and regulated capitalist economy. On the other hand, political under-development is associated with electoral rigging, violent demonstrations, political defections, fragmentation of political parties, suppression of dissent, glorification of official ideology, political assassinations, committed bureaucracy, corruption and maladministration, concentration of power, no rule of law, foreign interference etc.Marxism on the other hand associate liberal view development with capitalism and class relations. It put forward the theory that any real theory of development can emerge only after the proletarian revolution and establishment of a classless and stateless society. It analysed development in the context of class structure and talked of underdevelopment of the exploited classes as well as nations rather than their development. Its conclusion was that only socialism/ communism can open the path of development. The views of Marxism are more relevant in the context of under-development of the third world countries.Some remarkable studies of developing and underdeveloped countries were made by a number of eminent American political scientists during 1950 and 1960 who showed a deep insight into the understanding of the socio-economic forces and the nature of political systems in the third world countries. Prominent among them were James S. Coleman, Leonard Binder, Herbert Faith, Lucian Pye, Myron Weiner, David Apter etc. These writers studied the nature of development in countries like India, Pakistan, Ghana,437 Lanka, the type of nations they were building, the dilemma they faced at the political, economic and cultural levels, the role that bureaucracy or army or religion played in their march towards development. In the process, they produced a number of theories as to what contains the essence of ‘development‘.In the first phase, development was associated with three elements: i) with respect to the population as a whole i.e. whether the citizens behaved passively receiving orders from the higher authorities or actively participated in the shaping of decision making, ii) with respect to the level of governmental and general system performance i.e. the capacity of the political system to manage public affairs, control controversies or cope with popular demands, and iii) with respect to the organization of polity i.e. how far there was structural differentiation of the political institutions. Some writers made a distinction between a developed and developing political system and pointed out that to reach the goal of development, the developing country would have to pass through four stages: i) political unification i.e. centralization of power in the hands of the state, ii) industrialization, iii) national welfare, and iv) abundance.In the second phase, political development was associated with the will and capacity of the political actors and institutions.3 It was realized that while massive socio-economic and psychological forces did play a role, it was ultimately the will and capacity of the political leaders which determined how the issues, demands and needs of the society were to shape the character and direction of development. The essence of development laid in the increased effectiveness and efficiency of the performance of the political system and its increased capabilities.In the third phase, a number of other social scientists developed a theory of development in the context of social process like industrialization, urbanization, commercialization, literacy expansion etc. 4 Another approach known as the comparative history approach tried to study the nature of development in terms of evolution of the developed and under-developed societies.Another set of western writers associated development with modernization which in turn was identified with westernization. For example, accorching in Levy, a society was regarded as ‘more or less modernized to the extent that its members use inanimate 438 sources of power or use of tools to multiply the effects of their efforts‘.5 Modernization was seen as a process of change towards those types of social, economic and political systems that have developed in Western Europe and North America from seventeenth to nineteenth century and then have spread to other European countries and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the South America, Asian and African continent‘. In this context, development was seen as ‘institutionalization of political organizations and procedures‘. According to Huntigton, it consisted of four elements: i) Adaptability i.e. a long and regular chain of leadership adapting to new challenges, ii) Complexity i.e. existence of a large number of institutions, each carrying its responsibility without hindrance from others, iii) Autonomy i.e. independence and full control over a clearly defined jurisdiction, iv) Coherence i.e. a degree of consensus and internal unity prevailing in the system. In short, if the political system is moving in the direction of adaptability, complexity, autonomy and coherence, it is development and if it is shows rigidity, simplicity, subordination and disunity, it is decay.6A Brazilian writer Helio Jaguaribe tried to develop a comprehensive and more convincing theory of development. According to him, development is both political modernization and political institutionalization. In brief it includes: i) development of the capability of the political system which means effectiveness of the polity as a part of the social system, ii) development of the contribution of political system to the overall development of the concerned society, i.e. development of its economic and cultural-participative systems by political means, iii) development of the responsiveness of the political system, i.e. to create a consensus through representative institutions, legitimacy and serviceability. In any study of development, all the three are to be taken together. If any one of these is taken alone, then it would be a specific development. It is because the development of the system‘s capability is a necessary precondition of the two other aspects of development. Development of the political system must follow the economic and socio-cultural development.7On the basis of the above discussion, the concept of development can be summed up as follows:1. Development is a very complex phenomena. At the abstract 439 level, development is the level of rationality achieved by the social structure of a state and the degree of advanced level of techniques of production. Now-a-days we refer to a developed society as one made up of social and political structures, technologies and life styles that exist in the developed nations of America and Europe.2. The concept of development and the need to study and define theories of development was necessitated due to the emergence of a number of Afro-Asian and Latin American countries after the second world war and the end of imperialism and colonialism. These countries were backward, underdeveloped and undeveloped in every respect: political, economic, social, cultural etc. There was a tussle among the capitalist and the socialist/communist super powers to impose their models of development on them.3. The liberal-capitalist world defined and refined its concept of development in the context of competitive capitalist economy and liberal democratic values. It associated development with industrialization, urbanization, secularization, political participation, political differentiation and growth of markets.4. Marxist writers have been critical of the liberal view of development. Development did not proceed harmoniously or mechanically since there were always classes in the society which depended for their existence upon the status quo. In a class divided society, development was only for a particular class. The real theory of development will only emerge in a classless and stateless society established after the proletarian revolution. In the context of the third world countries, Marxist writers are more known for their theories of ‘underdevelopment‘ than development.5. Studies in the theories of development became a major concern during 1950s and 1960s in the writings of American social scientists who not only produced a host of theories of development based upon empirical studies of the Asian and African countries but also made a comparative study of developed and developing societies. In their studies, development was associated with i) political unification of the state, ii) industrialization, iii) national welfare, and 440 iv) abundance. Some writers associated development with modernization which in turn meant a process of change towards the type of social, economic and political systems that have developed in Europe and America during the last hundred years.6. Some Latin American writers tried to give a comprehensive view of development which included political institutionalization and political modernization. In sum it meant: i) establishment of an effective political system capable of taking decisions, ii) capacity of the political system to bring or help in bringing economic, social and cultural development, and ii) the capacity of the political system to create a consensus in the society through representative institutions, legitimacy and social serviceability.7. A developed society is made up of certain social and political structures, processes and technologies and life styles. The structures and processes define the stage of development of the society. In today‘s world, development as a process means all those planned and non-planned activities which produce those social and economic changes that tend to make the nations of the underdeveloped world more closely resemble the nations of America and Europe.8. Development is an asynchronous process. It is never uniform. The political, economic, social, and cultural sections of a state do not advance at the same time and at the same rate. For example, the economic sector of India may be equal to some developed country but the social may lag behind.89. The asynchronous nature of development makes it difficult to determine whether a nation is developing or stagnating. Such a judgement assumes that the investigator has measures for determining the degree of development in various sectors which make up the nation as well as some kind of techniques for measuring the development scores assigned to each sector. The techniques of measuring political or social development are very difficult to define.10. The concept of development is also associated with ideology. The ideological viewpoint of development attempts to 441 determine in advance not simply the goals but also the instruments, tactics and strategies of planned social change. The ideologies of development tend to compel types of change along predirected channels. For example, classical liberalism assumed that development was possible only through the market mechanism and laissez faire policies; for Marxism, only socialism/communism could open the path of development. We shall learn more about it when we study the models of development.MODELS OF DEVELOPMENTAs we have seen above, development in the contemporary context is a minimum level of socio-economic, political and technological progress which can ensure the fulfillment of basic human needs of food, clothing and shelter and better human existence through universal education, civil liberties, equality and justice. All western theories of development believe that this could be achieved through unified nation-state, industrialization, urbanisation, secularization and political participation. Enormous socio-economic changes have been taking place throughout the world for the last 50 years at a dizzying pace. Everywhere old institutions and values are being eroded and shattered while new ones are being erected in their place. The values of society of scarcity are giving way to the values of society of affluence. The rise of USA and the erstwhile Soviet Union to the position of world super powers have been the result of their fantastic economic growth and development in a relatively shorter duration. Even the countries of South East Asia entered upon an era of modernization and economic development. What is significant to note is that they employed different strategies to achieve their goal of development. While USA championed the cause of free-trade capitalist economy. Soviet Union and China achieved their goal through command economies and public (state) ownership of means of production as well as internal and external markets. Some European countries like Sweden experimented with a third alternative—a mixture of capitalist and socialist elements and gave it the name of state socialism or the welfare economy. Over a period of time, these countries became a model for the underdeveloped countries at Asia, Africa and Latin America which were marching towards their goal for development. Of the many ways in which socio-economic development could be achieved, 442 three models have been most significant. They are Market Model, Welfare Model and Socialist/communist model. Apart from them the Gandhian model of development has also become relevant in recent times. Let us consider these models in detail.MARKET MODEL OF DEVELOPMENTThe classical-liberal view of development considers market as central to development. It believes that market economy ideally optimizes economic welfare as well as development. At political level, the market model of development is based upon individual rights, liberty, legal-political equality and liberal democracy. It believes in individual enterpreneurship and capitalist economy. The theory which was propounded by Adam Smith in his book Wealth of Nations laid stress on the concept of ‘an autonomous self-regulating economy described as civil society. He advocated the isolation of civil society from the political sphere of the state, its capacity for self-regulation if left unhindered, its potential for achieving maximum benefits for all participants left free to pursuing their own interests. He propounded the philosophical desirability of bringing about such a state of affairs in which civil society could become independent of the state. Development was equated with a negative state.The market model strives development without any central direction whatsoever. Individuals striving to maximize their economic welfare respond to a system of prices which is in itself the result of the interaction of the forces of demand and supply. The market economy exists largely in the liberal-capitalist states. This system has the following characteristics:Consumer Sovereignty: In the market model of development, the consumer is the king. Whatever is produced is done so in response to or in anticipation of consumer demand, since the only way in which the producers can maximize his own position is by selling his goods to the consuming population.Efficiency in Production: Competition between producers ensures that the most efficient ones supply the consumer market since only they will be able to provide goods cheaply. The consumer, in maximizing their economic welfare, purchases only at the lowest available price.443 Technological Innovations: Since producers can improve their economic position by expanding their market, each producer will be in constant competition with every other one. Seeking to expand one‘s market can be accomplished only by reducing prices (price competition), and this can be achieved only by reducing production costs via technological innovations. The system automatically generates technological change and development.Equity in Income Distribution: Those whose services or products are in strongest demand by the consuming or producing population receive the highest prices for their labour power or goods. The market system provides for an automatic mechanism by which income is distributed (unequally) in accordance with the social evaluation of the benefits of income received to society as a whole.Full Employment: Should there be an outbreak of unemployment for any reason whatsoever, for example, displacement due to the introduction of machinery, automatic forces are set into motion to reestablish full employment. Further, competition between workers, who must be employed for their own survival, may lower wage level to a point where it becomes profitable for employers to use them. Finally, labour and capital can shift from low demand to high demand where they may once again be employed.9An important condition for the market model of development is competition. Any interference with free competition between economic units will defeat the system‘s ability to provide automatically the advantages described above. Also rapid and smooth shifts of labour and capital must be possible from one industry to another. People are motivated by material well-being and by economic gain. Hence to the extent that they are deprived of economic incentives, the market mechanism will break down or seriously compromised as a basis for allocation of goods and services.In the present day world USA is an ideal representative of the market model of development, where free market has been able to achieve rapid social development through laissez faire. Here the economy is based on private ownership in a free market. The economy is capitalist, based on individual entrepreneurial initiative, with little centralized planning (except for social welfare sectors). There is internal open market, high international integration created by financial and commodity markets, with slight regulation. Savings 444 policies are individualistic based on democratic tax system. Investment is private, unrestricted, uncoordinated. It has high degree of industrial development with an agriculture sector, though highly mechanized, constituting 5 to 20% of the GNP. Society is highly urbanized, consisting of several large and middle size cities. There is moderate pace of industrial growth leveled off at a high rate of development. The middle class has grown rapidly—both professional and entrepreneurial. There is high degree of vertical upward and downward mobility, and increasing specialization of occupation. Education has high income yield and is in great demand. Slowly, there has been an increase in leisure activities and decrease in work activities. The state provides a variety of social welfare programmes and benefits. On the whole, it fits into the standard of a highly developed society and this level of development has been achieved primarily through the market model.Most of the underdeveloped countries have been a witness to the market model of development during the colonial rule but it was more an underdevelopment for them and development for the imperialist powers. However, the market economy was able to create a national economy, national market, introduction of capitalist economic relations in land, and industrialization though limited by the needs of colonial powers. It also introduced liberal political ideas of legal equality, liberty, right, democracy and the need for a social system devoid of caste, creed and religious discriminations. Market was the major cause of backwardness of these countries yet they did not discard it after gaining independence. The market model was adopted by a number of Latin American, Asian and African countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Brazil. But what is important to note is that these countries simultaneously adopted authoritarian rule which provided the multinational companies with a suitable political environment and a disciplined cheap labour. Over a period of time, some of them achieved tremendous growth and the status of developed country, others could not solve the basic problems of poverty and inequalities and fell into a debt trap. On the other hand, India‘s economic development proceeded to a larger degree under market conditions, even though Indian leadership was committed to socialist ideology. It tried to preserve not only the political democracy but also to maintain the right of capitalist ownership of the means of production. However, due to the liberal democratic nature of the state with political 445 rights and mass participation, this market model was supplemented by a large public sector, state planning and control over the economy. This was given the name of mixed capitalist economy. There is no doubt than India scored definite achievement in terms of economic development. A stagnant and dependent economy has been modernized and made more self-reliant. More importantly, this has been achieved within the framework of democracy. But if we compare it with other countries which adopted the free market model or the socialist model, it lagged behind. In fact, because of the conflict between savings for investment (requirement of the market economy) and the need for providing subsidized public services like power, fertilizers, education etc. (requirements of the welfare state), the economy could not grow faster and the growth rate stagnated between 3.5 to 4.5 percent.The advocates of market model argue that opening up the economies by the under-developed countries is the only way for development. The theory is critical of the way many ruling politicians have distorted the operation of the market in their countries. Their argument is that if allowed to evolve naturally, unhindered by government intervention, free market and competition will stimulate economic growth. Eventually, the developing nations will catch up. As Blake and Walter write, ‘liberal economists feel that less developed countries can facilitate the modernization process by exposing their domestic producers to external competition‘10. The market theory blames under-development on bad government, bad trade policies and political mismanagement. The leaders of underdeveloped countries regard the state as a resource to be exploited for the benefit of themselves, their friends, their allies or their ethnic groups. Rulers are more concerned with their short term success or survival than long term development of the economies.For the last few years, the market model has come to be supported by some of the most influential international organizations. Both the World Bank and IMF are committed to encourage the underdeveloped countries to open their economies to free trade and international competition, though they do not claim that there is no role for government. Rather, the key to effective development is taken to be the interaction between market and government. The role of the government is to ‘kick start‘ firms and industries that might not otherwise get moving, but once the industrial motor 446 is running, it is expected to generate its own power. With the disintegration of Soviet Union and East European countries based upon socialist model of development, and the globalization of world economy, the market model has emerged as a major model of development in the world today.CRITICAL EVALUATIONThough at the present juncture of history, the market model of development seems to be the only viable model of development, yet it has a number of inherent weaknesses and contradictions. It is based on the assumption that the essence of development lies in the allocation of resources through the market. It believes that individuals are tree only when they are not prevented by the state to dispose of their resources as they choose. It gives priority to the autonomy of individual, to negative freedoms and rights, particularly right to property.The market model of development was called into question by the turn of the century on a number of grounds, the importance of which has not diminished every today. Since that time, the issue of how far the state should be allowed to intervene in the society has remained central to the debates on development, especially in the post-1945 era after the emergence of welfare model of development. The main criticism against this model has been that it leads to monopoly capitalism and an economy dominated by power of trusts, combines, cartels, multinational and trans-national corporations. This in turn gives rise to a variety of social, economic and political contradictions in the society. In the absence of any positive interference by the state in the economic sector, the exploitation of the working class by an aristocracy of monopoly capitalism without caring for any social responsibility, unemployment on a large scale, inhuman working conditions in factories, competitive low wages, long working hours, poverty, illiteracy and poor health are bound to result. This was as true of the advanced capitalist countries before the second world war as it is true of the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America which adopted the market model after 1950s. As a result, most of these countries were forced to adopt welfare measures, though the nature and extent differed from country to country.The market model of development has been an enemy of socio-447 economy equality. As Green and Tawney pointed out. by denying redistribution of national wealth through the state, the market model foresters inequality and injustice. Similarly, Marshal, talking in the context of citizenship extended the notion of equality beyond civil and political spheres to the areas of social equality and declared that citizenship demands equal enjoyment of social rights which the market model is not sufficient to provide.The market model of development with freedom has been challenged by both the welfare and the Marxist models of development. The market model lays more stress on the negative freedom whereas a full comprehensive freedom requires both negative and positive aspects. The market model is more interested in leaving the individual free. It neglects those areas where freedom can be genuinely enlarged through the activities of the state. For example, according to Rawls, since people have unequal capacities and make unequal contributions to the society, the big question is: Can they be treated unequally or do they deserve an egalitarian treatment. The market model justifies unequal allocation of wealth and income. Moreover, it allocates authority and responsibility according to the market, whatever may be the outcome (irrespective of inequality, deprivation, exploitation etc). What is important is not what people get but how they get it. People get what they want according to their skills and they deserve reward in proportion to those skills. However, according to Rawls, this is inadequate and insufficient because skills are a social asset and the higher expectations of those better talented are just if and only if they improve the expectations of the least developed members of the society. Inequalities which are justified are those which lead to everyone being better off and which lead to an increase in the overall size of the cake. Social and political universe is inherently harmonious and a theory of development which leaves a large population at the mercy of a few is a distorted view of development.Marxist writers hold the view that the market model of development rests on the mistaken account of the character of capitalism that individual development will lead to social development. Inequalities under the capitalist market economy signify modes of domination and exploitation. Capitalist entrepreneurs are not a means to the general advantage; they are a ruling class with its own particular interest which are privileged 448 and protected by the capitalist state. The market model provides certain structural privileges to the capitalist class which has a bearing on the distribution and exercise of powers and resources in the society. Whereas the positive liberals believe that the state, through its positive intervention can rectify these shortcomings, Marxism believes that this requires a total transformation of the economy, society and polity.WELFARE MODEL OF DEVELOPMENTThe market model of development has been central to the classical-liberal and neo-liberal ideology. It has been based on the assumption that politics and economics are mutually independent and that in the good of the individual lies the good of the society. It presumed that distribution of national wealth into wage, profit, rent, dividend, unearned income, though unequal, is on the whole conductive to development and that the market-based capitalist economy was free from crises. It has been the only model of development since the industrial revolution. However, by the latter half of 19th century and in the first half of 20th century, this model of development came under severe criticism because it led to concentration of wealth in a few hands, monopoly capitalism and an economy based upon the power of the trusts, combines, cartels which created a variety of social, economic and political contradictions in the society. The exploitation of the non-propertied working class by an aristocracy of monopoly capitalism, unemployment, inhuman working conditions and poverty belied the hope that the market model, unhampered by the state, was the best-model of development.The reactions to such a state of affairs were numerous. Marxism and democratic socialism challenged the whole concept of market model of development. The model was also critically examined by a host of liberal writers themselves. As a result, the classical model was forced to meet the challenge—the challenge of the non-propertied class which had been left behind in the competitive market society. The new theory of development called the Welfare Model assigned a positive role to the state to act as the guardian of the common interest of the society as a whole so that the fruits of industrial development could reach to each and every member of the society.The welfare model involved a radical transformation 449 of the laissez-faire view of development in respect of the scope of public policy, the character of state action, the basic assumptions concerning human nature and the idea of social good. While the market model gave importance to the individual alone, the welfare model attempted to reconcile the interests of the individual and that of the society, a model which would preserve the essential capitalist system while at the same time remove its ill-effects.The welfare model held the view that development did not consist only in providing a unified state based upon law and order, and leaving the individual free but also in ensuring minimum social services leading to the welfare of all members of the community. It believed in development through the state. That is, the power of the state could be utilized to modify the play of market forces in at least three directions:i) guaranteeing individuals and families a minimum income irrespective of the market value of their work or property;ii) by narrowing the content of insecurity by enabling the individuals and familities to meet certain social contingencies such as sickness, old age, unemployment etc.,iii) by ensuring that all citizens without distinction of status or class are offered the best available in relation to certain agreed range of social services.11The welfare theory of development is associated with a number of writers but was best explained by J.M. Keynes. He believed that poverty and economic struggle between classes as well as nations could be overcome by social reorganization. Rejecting state socialism, he held that capitalism was better because it safeguarded personal liberty, promoted efficiency through decentralizing decisions, and appeal to the self-interest of the individual. But the economic anarchy of laissez faire capitalism did not ensure full employment or sufficient equality of income or wealth. This required collective action. Hence an enlargement of the functions of government through semi-autonomous agencies and greater governmental control over savings through low interest rates and public work programmes could be the techniques through which development and social justice could be promoted. This, according to Keynes, ‘could preserve a modified form of capitalism in which money motives could diminish in importance. This theory 450 was adopted by a number of European and Asian countries after the second world war and came to be known as ‘welfare state‘ model. The welfare model believed that it is the responsibility of the community, acting through the state, to provide the means whereby all its members could attain a minimum standard of health, economic security and civilized living, and can share, according to their capacity, in the social and cultural heritage.What is significant to remember is that the welfare model also operates within the market economy i.e. the capitalist mode of production. However, unlike the market model, the welfare model believes that unrestricted operations of market prove dangerous for the common man because it leads to poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, as well as for the economy because it results in booms, depressions and crises leading to waste and inefficiency. The welfare model does not want to end capitalist economy but to streamline it in a manner where it could realize the production potentialities by preventing crises. It believed that poverty, dependency and economic insecurity are neither the consequences of nature nor incompetence on the part of the poor but are the result of changeable institutions of the society. Similarly economic insecurity stems from inadequate compensation, disabilities because of accidents, ill health, old age and unemployment. These could be overcome by remodeling the laissez faire economy and by introducing a form of planning to realize these objectives.17 But planning should combine with market economy in various degrees.This model gives a positive role to the state in the process of development. While the market model believes that the state can promote the interests of the individual by leaving him alone and through the free and unrestricted play of natural forces, welfare theory believes that the state is an instrument that could be used for furthering the common interest to ameliorate the conditions under which people live and work and to provide for their health and safety, and for their social and economic security. The state can reshape the economy in such a manner that a minimum level of social living is created for all citizens irrespective of their status and class position in the society. At political level, it believes that only a democratic state can perform the task of development. It is on this ground that the welfare model rejected the Marxist model of development as developed in Russia and China.451 The welfare model of development was adopted by a number of Western European countries and England after 1950s. Some countries included welfare rights in their constitutions as well. The state assumed the primary role in ensuring a minimum standard of welfare to all its citizens. The main aspects of ‘welfare‘ included medical care, education, housing, income maintenance and personal social service. Public spending on welfare also grew rapidly during this period. By 1970s, virtually the entire population in all democratic countries of Western Europe was covered by the welfare schemes. However, although the welfare model was supposed to help the poorer section of the society, in many countries, newer benefits such as subsidies for higher education and house purchase have been heavily biased in favour of more affluent. It brought many affluent people within the net who had previously been excluded from means-tested schemes. Also the nature of welfare has been different from country to Country. While in countries like England, welfare was based upon the principle of equal, flat-rate benefits for all citizens, in Germany welfare benefits were linked to jobs, depended upon the ‘paying in‘ principle and the benefits distributed in line with salary. On the other hand, USA and Canada have been very strict and are not put under the category of welfare state.13The main problem of the underdeveloped countries after independence was to find ways and means to get the growth started. It was to resolve this difficulty and to overcome the vicious circle of lack of production, limited market, small savings, little capital and low production that the idea of ‘big push‘ through the state was forwarded. These states had to raise their productivity in order to keep their independence intact as well as to make human life possible by removing economic backwardness, illiteracy, poverty, disease etc. Though it was not impossible to do it under the market model, yet it was felt more natural to achieve it through the welfare model. For example, the development strategy in India grew around the pursuit of four well-defined goals: i) independence of economy from its reliance on strategic imports and foreign aid (goal of self-sustained growth), ii) resource mobilization and capital accumulation leading to increasing rates of savings and investment (high rate of growth), iii) reduction in social disparities (goal of equality), and iv) providing minimum conditions of subsistence and survival (goal of equity and justice). The attainment of these goals within a time framework obviously demanded economic452 planning and state intervention. In fact, the state had to play a major role in the late modernizing countries irrespective of the goal of development. According to Gunnar Myrdal, the state planning and control of the economy was required in order to i) enhance capital formation and productive investment, ii) to keep out non-essential imports, iii) invest in economic and social overheads like water, power, education etc, iv) obtain loans from other countries and v) to ensure that the drive for private profit did not result in gross inequalities.14 As a result, India adopted the strategy of mixed economy and planning and laid stress both on production and redistribution of wealth. The socialistic pattern of society was a positive step towards the welfare state model which included nationalization of key industries, equitable distribution of wealth, planned economy, fixing minimum wages for industrial and agricultural workers, equality of opportunity, political, social and economic rights. At political level, it proclaimed parliamentary democracy with political rights, civil liberties, electoral process and multiparty system. To attain equitable distribution, a large investment of resources was transferred from private to public sector through the policy of nationalization. However, in the development process, the state was caught between the contradictions of economic development (which required savings for investment) and the political compulsions of subsidized social services (which meant huge expenditure). Moreover, inspite of huge investment (with the help of foreign aid) in public sector, the economy could not move faster. It showed a number of inadequacies such as low rates of accumulation, narrow home market, the incompleteness of industrial revolution, shortage of investment of capital, low level of capitalist development in agriculture, economy‘s far reaching dependence on foreign capital, too much bureaucratic control over public sector, inefficiency and low production, problem of inadequate financing etc. This led not only to substantial rise in taxes but also lowering of the standard of living of the working people. During 1980s, the trend was reversed in the name of pragmatism and liberalization for growth. The role of government in economic development began to be de-emphasized and efforts were made to open up the economy to private sector. The welfare rhetoric began to wane. So much so that with regard to welfare and removal of inequalities, the seventh five year plan in India abandoned the whole idea of reduction of inequality of income, wealth and economic 453 power, and concentrated its attention only on the poverty line. With the mounting international debt, the Indian state in 1991 had to bow to the pressures of international financial institutions to not only open up the economy to multinational corporations but also to privatize a part of its public sector. There is no doubt that the welfare model of development is, relatively speaking, the best model but its success depends upon the capacity of the state to generate resources which could match the welfare. If it fails to do it, it may either fall into a debt trap or resort to the market model. The welfare model is being dismantled in a number of developing as well as developed countries.CRITICISMThe welfare model of development seeks a compromise between market model of early liberalism and contemporary libertarianism on the one hand and the Marxist model of development on the other. It combines the capitalist freedoms and inequalities with socialist equalities. It wants to achieve the best practical realization of the demands of liberty and equality. It retains the essentials of capitalist system while removing its attendant abuses. However, inspite of great claims, the welfare model raises many questions such as: Does it ensure the citizens the necessary income to fight insecurities and enable them to secure a stable dignified and civilized life? Does it remove the inequalities of real income by adopting measures to redistribute income between rich and poor and by preventing the concentration of wealth in a few hands? Does the mixed economy usher a trend whereby private sector is curbed, crippled and made powerless? Has the welfare state been able to free the economy from booms, depressions, inflation and other economic crises.15 The answer to these questions are far from satisfactory. In some of the developed countries which have adopted the welfare model, there is the largest concentration of wealth and technological potentialities. Neither has it been able to remove the insecurities which are considered avoidable. Welfare measures in respect of pension, tax free sums, compensation for loss of office, life insurance, sickness, higher education, housing, free travel and host of other benefits are concentrated on the better off one-third of the population. Again the welfare state has failed to perform the task of curbing the power of capital. Nor has it been able to remove the inequalities in real income. In the underdeveloped454 countries, planning has been more an instrument to subserve the capitalist production i.e. protection, defence and guarantee of private profit. Unemployment and creeping inflation have been the permanent problems of welfare states. The economy has been dependent for its functions more and more on production of war goods, the kind of goods which annihilate mankind rather than goods which provide welfare to the people.The welfare state requires radical policies to eliminate entrenched hierarchies as well as affirmative positive action such as nationalization, workers‘ self-ownership of industries, payment to homemakers, public health care, free university education. For this the welfare state needs a growing economy to support its redistributive programmes. However, the structure of the capitalist economy is such that the growth can only be secured by policies inconsistent with the principles of distributive justice that underlie those welfare programmes. The ideals of liberal equality are not wrong but they require reforms that are more extensive than have been suggested by John Rawls and others.The libertarian philosophers like Nozic do not approve of the idea of welfare state. They defend market economy and hold that the distributive policies of the state in the name of welfare violate people‘s rights. They do not agree with Rawls that the talents and skills of the individuals are the common assets of the society and the individuals are entitled to the fruits of their talents so long as they improve the conditions of the least advantaged section of the society. It is nothing short of seizing once‘s labour and a fundamental attack on the sovereignty of the individual. Again too much role to the state can lead to increasing bureaucracy, increasing decline of freedom and inefficiency. It represents a violation of the rights of those who are taxed to provide for the funding of the poor.CRISIS IN THE WELFARE STATEThe 1990s are witness to a real setback to the welfare model of development. The underlying problem has been financial. It is being argued that the welfare states are expensive. As the average age of population increases, so the total cost of welfare services such as medical care, pensions, education etc. also increases whereas the working population which shoulders the burden declines in number. Thus the demand on the welfare state increases when the 455 supply is low. For example, when unemployment goes up, the expenditure on unemployment pay also increases but the tax collected from the workers goes down. Thus the recession of 1980s caused many doubts with regard to the welfare model. Again, the international pressures also matter. If the cost of welfare in one state is higher than the other, the economy loses its international competitiveness. As Pierson has pointed out, the move to a more open international economy ‘has curtailed opportunities for further development of national welfare states‘16 And lastly, the impact of welfare on the willingless to work is also a problem confronting the welfare states. If people are assured of pay and other benefits, they do not work. And it affects those who have to give a substantial amount of their earnings in tax deductions in order to pay for the welfare benefits. In many countries public support for the welfare state has declined very sharply.Thus in the context of the present crisis of welfare state, the major point of debate is whether the state is an agency of redistribution of wealth and services from rich to poor and soften greater social equality or it should only provide a safety net, establishing a minimum level of welfare beneath which no one would be allowed to fall. The present trend favours only a safety net.SOCIALIST MODEL OF DEVELOPMENTSocialists from Saint Simon to Marx associated the concept of development with that of a particularized class interest and thus introduced an ideological note to development. Progress in human affairs was no longer a total undertaking, of society but a class enterprise. The ‘great man‘ of liberalism was transformed into ‘great class‘ rather than ‘society‘ as a whole. The socialists sought to strike a balance between individualistic and collectivist ideas of development, and the mechanism for accomplishing this task of development was an interest group, that is, class formation. The agency of this change became the proletariat organized as a class.Socialism viewed development as a social question, a secular question and a specific interest iaden problem. Development takes place in the civil society and actually constitutes the history of class society, the history of the division of human labour. These 456 contradictions of development are resolved and synthesized in socialism, when the communism of ‘natural society‘ is joined with the material achievements of civil society. Marx clearly saw the problem of development as one which must account for both continuities and discontinuities in social life, and at the political level, development signified the replacement of state power with social authority.Marx also sought to enunciate principles of development in terms of natural history of socio-economic production. In this context, he identified five periods of development vis slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism. Just as the appearance of capital announced a new age in the process of social production, the appearance of labour signified the next higher stage of development i.e., socialism.Marx‘s was the first system of social science framed primarily in terms of developmental models since it related development to social interests. He asked the question: what is development? and answered it in terms of class. Development did not proceed harmoniously or mechanically, since there were always classes which depended for their existence upon the status quo. So long as there was class division in the society, development could only be of a class. The Marxist notion of development thus included the class structure, no development in a class divided society, and since socialism cannot be brought without revolutionary means, only revolution will open the path of development. Talking in the context of capitalist society, he wrote that only after the fall of bourgeois society and bourgeois consciousness could there be national, and even international development as a general social phenomenon.17The Marxist model of socialist development was adopted in Soviet Union after the proletarian revolution and was followed by a number of East European countries, China, Cuba, North Korea etc. In Russian, though revolution occurred in a state which was agrarian, backward, underdeveloped rather than an industrial, capitalist one, yet the Russian revolution was unique in many respects. It attempted to work out a theory of socialist economy and society, and manipulation of development through planned state action. However, inspite of the fact that it created a number of contradictions in the historical process which led to its ultimate 457 downfall, it is worth consideration because of its innumerable achievements.Soviet Union represented a civilization which became powerful in the twentieth century. Through this model of development, it was able to transform a backward agrarian society into an industrial society in which all sectors were linked through the instrument of planning. It was a unique example of how by blending planning and socialization with urbanization and industrialization, the process of development could be consciously manipulated towards certain specific goals. The Bolshevic Revolution was the symbol of a society consciously dedicated to the realization of an ideal model of development and social change in all sectors.18 This model of development was different both from the market as well as welfare models. Some of its characteristics can be enumerated as follows.The socialist system of development is based upon the public ownership of the means of production and centralization of all sectors of economy. All economic decisions are made by a central authority. It had a conscious purpose such as building of socialism and communism. A central authority organized the economy in such a way as to maximize the possibility of achieving this goal. Markets were controlled internally as well as externally, with trade agreements largely with the socialist states. They had direct and manifold control over production and distribution of consumer goods. Investments were through public sector, though highly regimented and controlled. More emphasis was placed on heavy industries. The most important element of their economy was planning. The socialist states are planned states. Soviet Union ran the most planned economy on earth. Here planning was given the status of law. It operated on the principle that social welfare is best determined by central planning and that if the people are left to their own devices, it will retard progress. Implementation was the responsibility of the ministries which controlled the individual enterprises through a complex administrative network. Detailed planning was forced by a command economy. What is to be produced and at price it should be sold was decided not by the market but by the central authorities.Planning was successful in building the foundations of industrial development (though at a sizeable human price). Heavy industry was the greatest success of planned economy. The industrial 458 production arose leaps and bounds. More recently China and Cuba applied the philosophy of ‘great push‘ to their own societies and achieved spectacular results. They gave higher priority to housing and improved life expectancy and allocated as much resources as needed to achieve these goals. This big push was ‘focused planning‘. Such massive changes could never had occurred in a market economy. However, once the heavy industrial base had been constructed, the planned system proved far less successful in generating light industrial and consumer goods. According to Galbriath, while the socialist system was able to attain its initial goals, it could not adapt to the new challenges and requirements placed upon it. ‘Capitalism in its original form could not have survived. But under pressure, it adapted. Socialism in its original form and for its task did succeed. But it failed to adapt.19The communist stated preferred a more equal distribution of growth pattern than the fastest possible growth.On the whole, through the socialist model, they were able to create a highly urbanized society with large and medium sized cities, high pace of industrial growth, high degree of social mobility, a huge technical-scientific mass education, increase in leisure activity, high social benefits and high level of mass communication and low level of mass consumption.At political level, this planned and command economy was manipulated by a strong one-party system dictating all interest articulation. It was based on the principle of democratic centralism associated with economically grounded ideology of socialism and communism. There was complete prohibition and suppression of opposition and dissent. Party activity was all-encompassing and continual, with no separation of policy making from policy implementation. Also there was no separation of powers. All legislation was from above, the implementation of which was achieved through bureaucrats functioning under political executive. The judiciary was not independent.CRISIS IN SOCIALIST MODEL OF DEVELOPMENTHowever, by early 1980s, the socialist model of development came under severe strain. Apart from the question of political freedom, it could not sustain the supply of basic consumer goods. Faced with the economic stagnation, these states began to look to 459 the West for advanced technology and loans to pay for it. Most of the states which had built their economies on a planned system of development were turning towards the market as a way to bring their economies back to life. In some East European countries, movements to introduce market mechanisms and breakdown of planning system were under way long before the revolutions of 1989. For example in Hungary, the state withdrew direct control over many economic enterprises and allowed market forces to set prices for some products. China also pushed a number of market reforms. Foreign companies were invited to invest in the country. The revolutions of 1989 which brought the disintegration of Soviet Union and end of communist rule in East European countries put a big question mark on the socialist model of development. In this context, two factors were worth noting. These states found themselves caught in the vicious circle of subsidy. Subsidy created an expectation that essential goods would always be cheap. This made it harder to increase prices in accordance with the actual cost. Any attempt to increase the prices resulted in strikes and violence. Secondly, it led to mounting debts, as a result of which the system cracked. But what is worth noting is that although the socialist/communist model was not able to solve their basic problems due to a variety of reasons, yet there has not been any unrestrained tilt towards market model.20 This is because if these states have been disillusioned by Marxism, they are equally doubtful about capitalism. Nevertheless, the post-communist states have begun the new and enormous task of dismantling planned economy. The surveys conducted after the revolutions revealed that people wanted introduction of market system but with strong welfare guarantees and substantial government involvement. As one report put it, ‘While most East Europeans endorse the idea of a free market, they do not trust the private sector to manage it. They want the state to run the heavy industries, transportation and telecommunications, and to be involved in health care, banking, farming, consumer goods, manufacturing, newspapers, radio and television‘21 Similarly, in Russia, the entrepreneurs tended to be viewed in the same negative light as black marketers. Thus the failure of Marxist model is likely to lead to welfare model rather than to a pure market model.MARXISM AND UNDERDEVELOPMENTApart from propounding the socialist theory of development, 460 Marxist writers also wrote extensively on the causes of underdevelopment in the ex-colonial countries even after attaining independence. Here they dwelt upon the external forces of imperialism and colonialism and reached the conclusion that the domination of imperialist powers over backward countries and the extraction of their surplus wealth had been responsible for the lack of development in these countries.The theory of underdevelopment can be traced to Lenin‘s theory of imperialism. Terming imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, Lenin said that it has been responsible for diverting surplus wealth from the colonial countries , as a result of which initial development of the world markets tended to block the development of capitalism in the colonial countries. Thus while the industrial revolution transformed the social relations in the capitalist countries, in its imperialist form, it blocked the ‘same capitalist development in the colonial countries‘. Hence Lenin propounded the thesis that the ruling classes in the advanced countries tended to ally with the pre-capitalist ruling classes in the backward countries and this alliance prevented the local capitalists from successfully bringing about the capitalist transformation of the society. Thus while capitalism was a progressive force in the developed countries, imperialist domination blocked the same development in the colonial countries. The development of the imperialist countries led to the under-development of the backward countries.This theory of UNDERDEVELOPMENT was further extended by Paul Baran, Celso Furtando and Andre Gunder Frank in 1950‘s in the context of post-colonial societies as a critique of welfare model of development. According to Paul Baran, developed countries generate a lot of surplus wealth which they fail to consume or invest. This lack of demand is met through a number of political and economic mechanisms: such as defence production, state expenditure, planned obsolescence, technological innovations, and most importantly through economic dominance of colonial and post-colonial societies. These countries by providing consumption and investment outlets help to alleviate the potentially damaging effects of over-production in developed countries. In this way, the industrialized countries impose a particular form of development on post-colonial societies in which the economic surplus is 461 appropriated by foreign concerns and domestic elites to the detriment of indigenous population. Thus development in these countries are confined to sectors which cater to the needs of industrialized countries and domestic elites. Sectors which require large scale production stagnate. Whereas the problem for the industrialized economies is one of an over-production of economic surplus, for the post-colonial societies, the problem lies in their lack of access to surplus for their own economic development.The theory of Paul Baran was further developed by Gunder Frank who combined the concept of surplus absorption and utilization with a model of the world economy based on ‘metropolitan‘ and ‘satellite‘ economies. According to him, the ‘industrial metropolis‘ dominate the underdeveloped ‘satellites‘ through expropriation of their surpluses resulting from the imposition of an export-oriented capitalist development. Thus the main cause of under-development is the penetration of the industrial capital in these countries which continues even after attaining political independence.UNDER-DEVELOPMENT AND DEPENDENCY THEORYThe major tenet of underdevelopment theory is also shared by ‘Dependency Theory‘. It uses the term ‘dependent capitalist development‘ to describe the predominantly capitalist social formation in the underdeveloped countries. It says that the capitalist class of the colonial countries allies itself with the capitalist class of the advanced countries and creates a situation of ‘double exploitation‘. This places the country in a state of semi-dependency. Underdevelopment and economic dependence go hand in hand. This is done through multinational corporations. While they do help growth, but in the countries that host multinationals, development becomes dependent upon their decisions and activities. The imperialist countries are still extracting the economic surplus from the backward countries. It is the loss of their present and potential capital. The developed countries can use it for their development.In the context of liberalization trends, the Dependency Theory believes that the very structure of the world economic system means that development will not take place in a smooth way. Opening up the economy to free trade and international competition 462 will only widen the gap between rich and the poor nations. Those who have already developed and modernized will always have the advantage. The market always favours the well-endowed and not the poor. Hence free trade will accentuate disparities. The dependency theory claims that though formal colonialism is not in vogue now, the economic neo-colonialism persists. Since the backward countries depend upon the rich nations for development, the ex-colonial powers reap the economic benefits of colonialism without paying the political and financial price.The Dependency Theory argues that one of the key concerns for the backward countries is the size of their national debt. The outflow from the third world countries in the form of debt repayment is far more than the aid received by them. For examples; in 1986, the Western countries gave $30 billions in aid and received $93 billions as debt repayment. Analysing the dependence of backward countries, Hague writes that in 1970s, the western banks found their deposits swelled by petrodollars. The banks were looking for customers and many backward countries were looking for loans. Billions of dollars were loaned to second and third world countries. Many countries could not even afford to pay the interests on debts and turned to International Monetary Fund for loan to pay the interests. IMF is controlled by the contributions of the member nations and the voting right depends upon the size of its contribution. America with 20 percent contribution has a veto power in IMF. The debt crisis of 1980s gave the liberal theory of market model to assert itself on the backward countries. IMF loans are much more attractive than private loans. But for this, the nation must in practice surrender a degree of its control over economic policies. For the past few years, IMF has been encouraging opening up the economies and domestic industries to international competition and primacy to market forces over state planning. Desperate to pull themselves out of the debt crisis, many countries of the world have accepted the IMF condition of economic development. For example in 1991, the Indian government announced that it would eliminate many subsidies, reduce tariffs on imports and exports, and privatize up to 1/5 of the public sector. Five weeks later, it sought a loan of $15 billions from the West to tide over the debt crisis of $70 billion. Thus the market model of development is carrying on because of the dependence of backward countries on the developed ones.24463 evaluationHowever, according to John Taylor, underdevelopment theory erroneously overstresses the role of colonial and post-colonial economies in the development. Market and investment .outlets of colonial countries played only a minor significant role in all phases of capitalist accumulation and industrialization. Moreover, there is no general form of capitalist development particular to the less developed economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The underdevelopment theory has been rejected for its inadequacies in explaining the emergence of substantial forms of national capitalist industrialization in ex-colonial countries such as South East Asian countries or even in India. The development of manufacturing industry and machine production in these countries on? vast scale undermined the conclusion that sustained capitalist development is necessarily confined to a number of sectors by the requirements of industrial capitalist countries and the comprador capitalist class. Also the underdevelopment theory created a false barrier between domestic and export oriented sectors i.e. that one can grow at the cost of other. In short, while an analysis of export of capital is a necessary part of the study of underdevelopment and backwardness of a country, restricting only to the domination of exchange relations between the colonial and imperialist states to the exclusion of other factors gives only a partial explanation of the reality.25GANDHIAN VIEW OF DEVELOPMENTThe Gandhian view of development is radically different from the western model, of development. It was based upon his metaphysical idealism with emphasis on the supremacy of ethical values and a moral approach to the problem of development. It was a plan of political, social and moral reconstruction and a critique of the Western model of development based essentially upon industrialization.Gandhi made a distinction between economic and real development.26 Real development, according to him, is moral. It is development in the pursuit of truth through love and non-violence. Economic development connotes the limited material advance. There have been different views on whether material development means real development or whether it comes into conflict with moral development. However, Gandhi‘s answer was very simple. 464 He did not agree with the view that material development leads to moral development. Whereas an unlimited material progress did not mean moral or real development, material degeneration below a certain level can breed moral degeneration. As he wrote, ‘No one has ever suggested that grinding pauperism can lead to anything else than moral degeneration‘27.He believed that material development beyond a given minimum was in conflict with moral progress. In other words, he favoured material development so long as it was morally justified and to the extent it helped to remove poverty. Seeking more than the minimum required was bad because greed destroyed human values like honesty, high thinking etc. Moreover, it demands increased production, which in turn results in exploitation, state control and centralism. The greater the possession of riches, the greater was the moral turpitude‘28. For Gandhi economic policies which were harmful to the moral well-being of the individual or the nation were immoral and hence sinful. He did not measure development in terms of money.Simultaneously, Gandhi was equally emphatic: that a minimum standard of living was necessary for the existence of an orderly society. Securing one‘s livelihood in a well-ordered society should be and is found to be the basic thing in the world. However, by livelihood, he meant simple means of existence: Food, Clothing, Shelter and Education. His idea of development was not an increase in the number of millionaires but the absence of starvation.465 According to Gandhi, development is measured in terms of happiness and happiness is not only bodily welfare. He wrote, ‘Civilization in the real sense of the term consists not in the multiplication of wants but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment and increases capacity for service. The mind is a restless bird. The more it gets, the more it wants and still remains unsatisfied‘.29 Man could be really happy if he obeys moral laws. The search for material well-being that disregards moral conditions was contrary to the divine order. Thus the problem of material development versus moral or real development can be reduced to the problem of defining happiness and setting up a standard or a ideal for measuring the achievement of happiness.According to Gandhi, the root of happiness lies in spiritualism. The real development is the pursuit of truth because only this can lead to God and that is happiness. For this, only deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants or what he called ‘voluntary poverty‘ could promote real happiness and contentment. People who continue the pursuit of wealth as their goal deviate from that ideal. Not only the religious scriptures but the entire history of human civilization bears testimony to the fact that the ideal form of development is moral and not material and that the standard of morality is nothing but the standard of truth.From economic point of view, development meant removal of extreme poverty. For this Gandhi favoured abolishing all social barriers so as to improve the material conditions and standard of life of the people. This could be achieved by increasing production as well as equitable distribution of national resources. For increasing production. Gandhi had strong reservations about industrialization and large scale mechanization. Industrialization is the outcome of man‘s greed for more and more profits. The machine by rendering men unemployed deprives them of livelihood; by reducing work to a mechanical performance, it derives out all creative instincts and destroys man‘s initiative. Also industrialization leads to centralization which in turn leads to exploitation of the village by the urban or the city centres. Hence the ideal system according to Gandhi is the village self-sufficiency and manufactures for use and not for trade. The goods to be produced and consumed should be concerned with basic necessities and there is hardly any room or justification for the production of modern luxuries and amenities. The village could use machine but it should not displace labour. He wanted the society to be active rather than industrialized. In this context, he propounded the theory of ‘bread-labour‘, which implied that amount of physical labour which is required from each person to produce the necessities of life. That much labour time must be spent by everybody in physical labour. With regard to distribution, in his early writings Gandhi emphasized the concept of absolute equality. That is, no work or profession is superior or inferior to any other, a lawyer or scavenger should receive equal payment. However, later, he came round the view that beyond a minimum living wage which would ensure the worker a decent home, a balanced diet and sufficient khadi to cloth himself with, differences could be permitted only on the basis of different needs.466 As he wrote, ‘Let no one try to justify the glaring inequalities between the prince and the pauper by saying that the former needs more...Just as it would be preposterous if an ant demanded as much food as an elephant; in like fashion if a man demanded as much as another with a wife and four children that would be a violation of economy equality‘.In short, Gandhi‘s view on development can be summed up as Social Equilibrium. A society which is too poor materially must progress towards this ideal by attempting to improve its material conditions. Conversely, a society which has superfluous wealth must renounce some of it in order to attain that stage. This social equilibrium can be attained through individual and social reformation, through various physical, mental and social rules, and improvement in the material progress through cottage industries, spinning wheel and village improvement. Development is a complex web of moral, social and material relationships. The moral basis of this development lies in Truth, Ahimsa, continence, non-possession, non-stealing, fearlessness, Swadeshi, bread-labour, toleration of faiths, vegetarianism, nature cure and simplicity in life. At social level, it means equality of women, removal of untouchability, prohibition, education, communal harmony, equilibrium between city and village And lastly, the material basis of development lies in increasing wealth through village and collage industries, decentralization of economic production, and redistribution of wealth between labour and capital through trusteeship ‘31RELEVANCE OF GANDHI‘S VIEWS ON DEVELOPMENTDespite Gandhi‘s interest in the abolition of poverty, and raising the status of dumb millions of the country, Indian government like many other countries of Asia and Africa after independence, decided to adopt the path of development based primarily upon Western models of market economy coupled with a large public sector. They were- more influenced by industrialization and paid only a lip service to the Gandhian model of development.However, by 1970s, the developing countries began to realize that the path of development they had been following was leading them nowhere because the poorest 40% of the population in most of these countries had become still poorer. The prevailing type of development had failed to absorb labour or to provide an effective 467 trickle down‘ effect on the poor. As a result, more and more attention began to be paid to what could be called the correct theory of development for the developing countries. More thought now began to be given to indigenization of development strategies, particularly the development of agriculture and labour intensive industries which might provide employment to the people. In the writings of the intellectuals of developing countries, development theories began to emphasize the relationship between growth and distribution which was an important element of Gandhi‘s theory of development. Growth had no meaning if it merely led to marginalization, mass unemployment and recurrent starvation. More interest began to be taken in the eradication of poverty and in extending help to the poorest people in the poorest countries. However, redistribution with growth model did not break with the early growth strategy. During 1970s through a number of conferences of economists, social scientists and intellectuals, a theory of development began to grow which was close to Gandhi‘s approach to development. The conclusions arrived at in the Belmont Statement of March 1974, the Cocoyoc Declaration of 1974, the Charter of Algiers and the Declaration of Lima, 1975, the Hague Symposium of May 1975, the World Employment Conference of 1976 are some of the examples of such a thinking.The essence of these conference was that a new and different approach was required at international level to complement the efforts of many poor countries to increase the participation of their entire population in the process of development and to ensure a more equitable distribution of the benefits. There was talk of self-reliance and refashioning of the economic policies of developing countries to the needs, problems and experiences of their economies. It was also realized that the growth process which benefits only the wealthiest minority and maintains or even increases the disparities between and within countries is not development but exploitation.32 The idea of ‘growth first and justice later‘ was rejected. A report called ‘Another Development‘ pointed out that development had to be geared to be satisfaction of basic human needs—food, habitat, health and education.33 In the writings of Rajni Kothari, Samir Ali, Johan Gultung, there has been greater emphasis on self-reliance and decentralization. Thus thinking on development, particularly in the context of third world, has reached a full circle and come 468 back on the lines of Gandhian thinking. As pointed out by Hetlne, ‘On many points, Gandhi appears strikingly modern. His approach may be described as action-oriented, normative and global. These same principles may be found in current ideas on problem-oriented social science research‘34. Even the sustainable theory of development comes very close to the Gandhian perspective of development which we shall deal in the next chapter.References1. Scrution Roger, Dictionary of Political Thought. Macmillan London. 1982. p. 462 and Rostislav Ulyanovski. Present Day Problems in Asia and Africa. Progress Publishers, Moscos 1978, p. 111-15.2. Lucian Pye. Political Culture and Political Development. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1963, p. 133. This is associated with a group of writers such as Eisentedt, Halperu, Huntigton, Diamant, Holt and Turner, Nye and others4. This is associated with Karl Duetch, Social Mobilization and Political Development5. M.J. Levy. Moaermiaticn and Structures of Societies. 1966. p. 116. Huntigton. Political Development and Political Decay, World Politics, vol 17, p. 3937. Helio Jaguaribe, Political Development: A General Theory and a Latin American Study, Harper Publishers. 1963, NY8. Irving Horowitz, Three World of Development, OUP. 1972, p. 48-519. Ibid p. 205-0710. Blake and Walter, The Politics of Global Economic Relations. Prentice Hall, N.J., 1976, p. 20311. Asa Briggs, ‘The Welfare State in Historical Perspective‘ in European Journal of Sociology, Vol II, p 1012. H.K. Girvetz, From Wealth to Welfare, Standfort University Press, California. 1950 p. 23313. Hague Harrop and Breslin, op. cit., p. 409-1014. Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama Vol II. Penguin, London 1968 p. 715-72215. A. R. Desai, State and Society in India, Popular Prakashan, Bombay 1975, p. 63-6516. C. Pierson, Beyond the Welfare State. Polity, Oxford, 1991, p. 18817. Horowitz op. cit., p. 45-4618. Ibid.. Chapter 6 ‘The Second World of Soviet Development19. G. Prins, Spring in Winter: 1989 Revolutions, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1990 p. 1-220. Hague, Harrop etc. op. cit., p. 42021. ‘Atalantic Outlook‘ No: 18, Nov 1991469 22. Tom Bottomore. Dictionary of Marxist Philosophy, op cit., p. 498-50023. Ibid p. I 1524. Ibid., p. 128-129.25. Ibid p. 49926. J.K.N. Unnithan. Gandhi and Social Change. Ravvat Publications. Jaipur. 1979 Chapter 327. D.G. Tendualkar, M‘ahatama: Life of M .K. Gandhi Vol I. Ihaveri K. Vithalbhai and Tendulakar. Bombay, p. 236-9228. Ibid29. Ibid30. Ibid31. J.K.N. Unnithan op cit.. p. 31-4732. Issued at the Belrtiong Conference 111 Maryland. Washington. Marcon. 1974.33. The 1975 Dag Hammerskjoild Report What Now Prepared by UN General Assembly34. Bjron Hettne. Current Issues in Development Theory. Swedish Agency for Research and Cooperation with Developing Countries. August 1978.470 CHAPTER 20 DEVELOPMENT AND ISSUES OF ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION, THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTThe theories of development discussed in the preceding chapter are all, except Gandhian, based upon the assumption that industrialization and continuous growth and advancement in technology are the preconditions for development. However, during the last twenty years, public concern about the nature and consequences of such a development and its influence upon the environment has become a matter of public debate when two things became clear: that the ozone layer was disappearing, and that ‘global warming‘ was a reality. As a result, alongwith feminism, ecology movement and ‘Green thought‘ have become prominent issues of political theory in recent times.Man has been intervening in nature for a long time. However, the growth of industrialization during the present century has accelerated this process of intervention to worrying levels. There is no doubt that industrialization increased production leaps and bound, and has been helpful in wiping out poverty, ignorance, disease, illiteracy, and bringing prosperity for certain societies. But the fundamental question being raised during the last twenty years is : Development at what cost? Industrialization has brought pollution which is undermining the basic biological system upon which the life of the planet rests. The effects of development on 471 air, water, land and climate have been quite damaging. Pollution of air, air born lead, acid rain, emission of carbon dioxide, ozone depletion, soil erosion, deforestation, silting of rivers and reservoirs, problems regarding disposal of solid and toxic wastes are affecting the health of people adversely. Such theories of development did not take into account the benefits of clear water, stable atmosphere or a predictable climate. As one author remarked: ‘It does not appear to have occurred to economists that if our activities interfere too radically with the working of nature, then nature might no longer be capable of providing the benefits we now take for granted and upon which our survival depends‘. Against the liberal and Marxist theories of development, the environmentalists and the ecology movement put forward a theory that in a world where resources are limited, development cannot be infinite. Hence the growth oriented theories of development must be replaced by sustainable theories of development.ECOLOGY AND THE ISSUE OF DEVELOPMENTEcology as a scientific perspective relates to the simple fact that the ecosphere is an inter-related system. What we call the environment is ‘a system which includes all living things and the air, water and soil which is their habitat‘1. Human beings are a part of an immensely complex, and inter-related natural world. What we sow in terms of industrial pollution, we will reap from the instability of the ecosphere. From its inception, ecology has been characterized by a strong scientific empiricism. It was designed as a science dealing with the systematic relation between plants and animals and their habitat or environment. However, the normative usage of the word in terms of morality, politics, economics and development has been of recent origin. Primarily, it is related to the ecology movements of 1960s and 1970s. A number of writings such as Rachel Carson‘s Silent Spring (1962), Paul Ehrlich‘s The Population Bomb (1968), Garrett Hardin‘s ‘Tragedy of the Commons (1968) raised the spectra not only of environmental collapse but also of its relations to overpopulation.‘2 Some others find the origin of the ecologism in the widespread public reaction to events like the oil crisis and deeply resonant reports like the U.S. Carter Administration‘s Global 2000 Report; the unofficial UN report Only One Earth (1972), the Club of Rome‘s The Limits of Growth (1972); the Ecologist journal volume Blueprint of Survival and 472 The Brundtland Report Our Common Future (1987). The common feature of all these reports and journals was the concern regarding wholesale depletion of the environment. The late 1970 also saw the newly developed Green parties in Europe. Because of these developments, the ecology movement has moved into the forefront of politics in the last two decades.The key theme of the ecological movements is the insistence that the major problems we face are neither capitalism nor communism but industrialism. They are critical of the belief that human needs can only be met through permanent expansion of the process of production and consumption regardless of the damage done to the planet and to the rights of the future generation. Ecologism as a political ideology is concerned with the relationship between man and his environment and among human being themselves. It rinds the concept of development through industrialization as wrong on a number of grounds. Firstly, according to Fritz Schumacher, the modern industrial system with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which it has been erected‘3. By consuming recklessly the non-renewable sources of energy, the industrial societies are digging their own collective grave. Secondly the industrially developed societies are dragging the rest of the world with them into a grave for two reasons—i) because the rate of production and consumption in such societies is higher than the developing countries. So the per capita rate of resource use and pollution created is proportionality more, and ii) such high rates of production and consumption is the aspiration of all developing countries. Such aspirations can only be fulfilled across the planet with incurring untold and irreversible damage to the ecosystem‘4. Thirdly, the tendency of industrial development to expand production and consumption is incompatible with the finite nature of the planet. Soon the limits of expansion will be reached. Either the resources will run out or the planet‘s capacity to absorb toxic waste will exhaust. Along with this, the environment is despoiled and the quality or life worsens. ‘Sustainability and industrialism are mutually exclusive‘5. Fourthly, industrial development is no answer to environmental problems; they can provide temporary success but they cannot provide lasting solutions.In short, development through reckless industrialization is faulty 473 because: i) it is not sustainable since it aspires for continued and unending growth in a finite system—finite both in terms of non-renewable sources and its capacity to absorb waste including pollutants we produce. The affluence in the developed world is due to the deprivation of resources of the underdeveloped countries and operating a global economic system that consistently works in the developed world‘s favour; ii) a sustainable economic and political system cannot be built upon the self-interest of the individual and his right to exploit the nature the way he likes. Holding industrialization and sustainability as opposed to each other, ecologism offers an alternate concept of development‘6NATURE OF ECOLOGYEcology as a political ideology is still in the process of formation. There is great diversity of views within the ecology movement and it is supported by liberals, socialists, anarchists alike. ‘Neither left nor right but forward is its slogan‘7. Still it is an ideology in the sense that it has a metaphysical account of the nature of reality, human nature and the role of humans in the world, evaluations and assessments of the constituents of the best political, economic and social life, and a set of recommendations as to what ought to be done in these spheres.Though there is great diversity within the ecological movement but at philosophical and political levels, two broad tendencies can be identified. The first school is known as Light Anthropocentrists‘. They believe that human beings are the sole criterion both what is valuable and of what can value.8 The natural world has value because humans give it a value. The world has been made for man and human beings are not only the source but the measure of all value. Nature has considerable value such as it supports and nourishes human beings, we can do experiments with it, we can admire it, relax in it, admire it for its beauty. But without humans, nature is valueless‘. Within this group, there are some of the important traditional environmental groups, conservation groups, preservation and recreation groups. Their major appeal is most usually based on the importance of retaining some aspects of the environment for the benefit or survival of human beings. They work within the existing institutional framework and political process, although they might resort to some form of public demonstration to make, a point.474 The other school is known as ‘Biocentralist‘ or better known as ‘Deep Ecologists‘. They do not give primary value to human individual but to the ecosphere as a whole of which man is a part. This is ‘Eco-centric‘ as opposed to ‘anthropocentric‘. Since value is given to the whole eco-sphere, it cannot be used as an instrument of human ends. It believes in the intrinsic value of nature i.e. something valuable in itself rather than man giving it a value. The deep ecologists want a total value change in society—a new age to be constructed where the whole perception of the world and nature changes. They recommended setting up of alternative communities based upon alternative technologies and ‘bioregionalism‘. We shall discuss more about it in the later part of this chapter.Apart from these two broad categories, there is a radical wing of ecologists for whom nature is more important than human beings. Wilderness is their ultimate value. Industrialization is considered a foul corruption of the planet. They see famines, floods, epidemics as the symbols through which the ecosphere is reasserting its natural balance. Critics have labeled them as ‘eco-fascists‘CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTInspite of theoretical differences, all ecological schools have questioned the limits of economic development in industrialized countries. This in turn leads to critical reflection on the nature of development such as production in industry and agriculture, energy use and the kind of technology, concept of work, consumption patterns, population growth etc. The ecology perspective also tends to combine both respect for local autonomy in communities and a global message. They all focus on the central theme of Sustainable Development, a development which will not damage but will exist harmoniously with the eco-system.However, what is meant by sustainable development and how it could be achieved; what kind of sustainable society and economy is like to emerge—on these questions, there is diversity of opinion. Broadly speaking, two distinct visions of the futuristic society can be identified. They are:?i) Maximum Sustainable Society ?ii) Frugal sustainable society‘9475 MAXIMUM SUSTAINABLE SOCIETYIt is the vision of society that aims to exist ‘in equilibrium with its environment but is still based on such fundamental values as the dominance of man over nature, the primacy of material and other wants and so on‘10. This vision is supported by Anthropocentrists. It forms the background of what is known as eco-capitalism. It believes that the present nation-state and its legal structure, modified to a greater or lesser degree by ecological consciousness, is adequate and in fact necessary to the task of meeting the requirements of sustainable development. An important factor in this vision is the realization that ecological concerns are linked with political and constitutional questions.11 It believes that sooner or later, the growth economy will come up against the biosphere because it refuses to adjust with planet‘s capacity to absorb. However, an alternative can be found through maintaining the stock and minimizing the flow, developing alternate sources of energy such as that of sun and wind, taxing heavily the non-renewable sources of energy, resources substitution, recycling and more efficient use of energy etc. This may also mean accepting and enjoying lower levels of consumption that is currently the case. While this may be seen as a lowering of standards of living but the ecologists maintain, it may result in better quality of life measured in terms of better relationships, closer communities, more time for leisure, and better leisure. It firmly believes that to continue to deplete and consume at the current rate is to follow the path of unsustainability.What is important is that such a change can be brought through the capitalist market system. For example Elkington and Burke contend that though market capitalism may have been part of the problem, it can also become a part of the solution. Through the market, environment friendly products can be produced. In fact, the environment is becoming a ‘major new competitive area for business‘. They argue that instead of engaging in Utopian schemes, we should distinguish not between a sustainable development and an industrial growth development but between sustainable and unsustainable development. The sustainable development is one which via market adjusts to recycling, cleaner technologies, infrastructural investment and alternative energy. The authors see this as ‘new age capitalism‘13.476 In short, the maximum sustainable view wants to reduce the rates of depletion and pollution to a point where depletion is as close to the capacity of regeneration and the pollution does not exceed the capacity of the environment to assimilate it safely. Since non-renewable resources cannot regenerate, their careful conservation must be accompanied by a corresponding increase in both recycling and the use of renewable resources. And a state is needed to deal not only with the massive problems of poverty and income redistribution but also to check the vast powerful structures of multi-national corporations.FRUGAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTThe other concept of development propounded by the ecologists is known as ‘Frugal Sustainable society‘. It is supported by deep ecologists and is based upon a total value shift in production, consumption, habits, political structure etc. Basically, it is a view of development based upon low energy throughput, more labour intensive with little emphasis on material consumption and encouragement to personal self-sufficiency and voluntary personal frugality. It places more emphasis on moral responsibility of the individual.14 The key words of this vision are Frugality, Self-reliance and Voluntary Simplicity. In economic terms, it will be a society based upon meeting only human needs and caring for the environment. It will be a society in which energy would come from renewable sources like sun and wind and all non-renewable energy would be conserved and recycled. Technologies would be appropriate and not harmful. It would also involve a massive personal assessment of our everyday activities. As Schwarz remarks Living simply is not just a question of keeping paper bags and making compost; it implies an awareness of what products we are using, what food we are eating, how it was produced and who was helped and exploited by our use‘15.Apart from a change in the production and consumption pattern, the frugal sustainable society wants a change in the territorial reorganization of the state. Here they have come out with the concept of ‘Bio-regions‘. A bioregion is not a national or administrative political unit but an ecologically and biologically sustainable unit. Mountain ranges, rivers, vegetation, weather patterns, soil, plants and fauna characterize a bio-region. The units within the state should be replaced by such a bio-region. Within 477 this bio-region, there is a sustainable eco-system where humans can live in place without damaging the environment. The idea of bio-region will not only benefit the environment by linking our social, economic and political life with a natural self-sustainable entity, it will also link the human beings intimately with nature. Such communities will encourage cultural diversity and autonomy. In the context of development, the frugal sustainable society puts faith in decentralized commune life where needs and wants are reduced to bare minimum. James Robertson describes this as SHE economy (Sance, Human, Ecological)16. The SHE economy redefines a number of elements like demand, supply, production and consumption in ecological terms. This economy puts humans and their total physical, moral and spiritual welfare first. Instead of economic growth, human development and the satisfaction of physical, social, economic and cultural needs are regarded as more significant by the new economics. Contractual relations will be replaced by mutual ethical concerns between people. Large scale destructive technologies would be replaced by human-scale and relatively harmless ones.The concept of work will also significantly change. Writers like James Robertson want to replace the present formal employment by informal ‘onwork‘. It will be localized, linked with many other occupations, such as housework, growing own vegetables or sharing a job. It will be a kind of work which people organize themselves and control also. In short, it is a radical change in the society‘s attitude towards work. It is a vision of self-reliance, self help, decentralization, labour intensive, localized and small scale in terms of technology.Herman Daly, an eminent ecologist has termed the frugal vision as Steady State Economy. According to him, the industrial economies must change in the next few decades, because ‘in a finite world nothing physical can grow for ever‘13. Though growth can take place in the frugal sustainable economy, but it will be tied to environmental knowledge and less harmful technology. More importantly, it would not be the aim of economic activity. Development which would simply maximize throughput and not try to conserve energy, deplete the finite stock of planet‘s energy and create pollution will be replaced by slowed down throughput, stable population, energy conservation, use of renewable resources 478 like solar power, insulation, wider use of public transport and bicycles. The purpose of the Steady State is to develop a greater humility in human beings towards our planet and its resources.PROBLEMS WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTLike any radical ideology, ecologism faces a number of theoretical and practical problems in putting its idea of sustainable development into practice. There is no doubt that green political parties at the national level and a number of environmental groups at the local level have been functioning around the globe, exhorting people to change lifestyles either in the home or in sustainable communities, still industrialism remains the practice in most states. The concept of sustainable development has a number of limitations, some of which are as follows:LIMITS OF GROWTH THESIS IS WRONGThe sustainable view of development believes that the current rate of growth is impossible to sustain a finite system. However, critics point out that the limit of growth thesis is no more than scaremongering. The solutions to the scarcity can be found through technology—either by developing more resources or making better use of those we have. In fact, the limits announced by ecologists in the past have already been surpassed by development with no apparent difficulty‘18. Rather, growth is essential for protection of the environment because environment preservation is a costly business and the only way to make the money to pay for it is to operate a growing economy. Development, far from being the enemy of environment is its best friend. The only problem is that we have been insensitive to it till now. With proper regulations, development and environment protection can go together.FRUGAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IS DANGEROUSIt is argued by critics that the frugal sustainable development dethrones human beings to the point where they are no more worthy of consideration that bacteria. According to Bookchi, to blame humanity (all of it) for environmental destruction is both to legitimize viewing human beings as blight on the planet and to ignore the way in which some human beings and their activities (what he calls corporate interests) are more destructive than others.19The issue of population reduction has always left ecologism 479 open to criticism. As Goldsmith remarks, ‘Clearly we must go all out for the unlikely event of achieving the replacement-sized family (on average about two children per couple) throughout the world by the end of the century‘. He suggested to achieve this target through massive publicity and advertising campaigns which could be supplemented by free contraception, sterilization and abortion. Other writers have suggested legal restrictions on couples having more than prescribed number of children, in the form of ‘baby licenses‘ and tax incentives for having less children. Some early population theorists of 1960s and 1970s certainly came close to racist solutions to solve the population problem. Finally there have been suggestions for immigration control. All these issue raise certain ethical implications to control the population which biocentralism needs to spell out clearly.AUTHORITARIANISM OR DEMOCRACYA major unresolved difficulty, particularly with frugal sustainable development is the nature of political authority to attain its objectives. It has been suggested that their commitment to principles is such that liberty and democracy are likely to be sacrificed to achieve those ends. The long transition to a genuine commune life will require the curtailment of many freedoms. Critics have expressed concern over any over-arching political structure.20However, the contemporary green movements are opposed to authoritarian solutions. Either through parliamentary participation or grass roots activity, greens seem committed to taking a majority of citizens towards sustainability of their own free will or not at all. It is worth noting that while greens will agree that restraint is required, their belief is that self-imposed restraint is more effective and lasting that if it is coerced.CONCLUSIONThe introduction of the concept of environment in the context of development is still in the process of formation. It has drawn our attention to the global responsibilities and indicated that human beings are interrelated with the eco-sphere. Certainly it has a clear role to play in public policy making. The green movements and environmental pressure groups have made environment a political issues. It would be wrong to think that ecologism‘s future is doubtful because its more radical demands like dismantling 480 of industrialization, the examination of the assumptions of anthropocentrism and the move towards a decentralized, low impact society are not being given due consideration at present. For example, while there is a great debate concerning anthropocentrism and biocentralism, it has no bearing whatsoever on the way environmental policies are being made or justified by the individual states. However, its actual future lies somewhere between the two extremes, acting as a pure and good conscience for environmentalism which has become a part of the developmental policies of the present day nation-states. It will continue to play an active role in the environmental movements throughout the globe.References1. E. Goldsmith (ed), Blueprint for Survival, Harmondsworth, Penguin p. 692. For the origin of the movement, see Pepper, Roots of Modern Environmentalism, Croom Helm, London, 19843. E.F. Sahumacher, Small is Beautiful, Abascus, London, 1973, p. 164. Andrew Dobson, ‘Ecologism in Eatwell and Anthony Wright, Contemporary Political Ideologies, Penter Publishers, London, 1993, p. 2215. Jonathon Porritt, Seeing Green: The Politics of Ecology Explained. Blackwell, Oxford, 1984, p. 496. Andew Dobson, op. cit., p. 224-257. Andrew Vincent, Modem Political Ideologies, Blackwell, Oxford, 1992, p. 2158. Ibid., p. 2179. It is based upon Willium Ophuls termmonplogy, see D. Pirages (ed) Sustainable Society: Implications for Limited Growth, Praeger, NY, 1977. p. 162-6310. Ibid11. Goldsmith and Hildyard (ed) Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland. Polity. Oxford, 1986, p. 117-1812. Elkington and Burke, The Green Capitalists, Gallancz. London, p 188, p. 2313. Ibid, p. 25214. see Introduction in Sprentak and Capra, Green Politics: The Global Promise, Paladin, London, 198615. Porritt and Winner, The Coming of the Green. Fontana, London, Chapter 816. James Robertson, Future Work, Temple Smith, Gower, p. 517. Herman Daly (ed) Towards a Steady State Economy, Freeman. San Fransisco, 197318. Julian L. Simon and Herman Kahn (ed), The Resourceful Earth: A Response to Global 2000, Blackwell, Oxford, 198419. 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