Though the credit for establishing Marxist ideology as an officially accepted political philosophy of a country goes to Lenin and dates back to the early 20th century, the actual surge and tilt towards Socialism or leftist economic doctrine came much after.
The Great Depression of the 1930s highlighted the glaring limitations of laissez-faire economy and put a very big question mark on Capitalism as a socio-economic system. The search for an alternative economic model became imperative for most of the economic powers and superpowers of those days, and the contours of Socialism – in different shades and forms – started taking a discernible shape.
The Second World War and the subsequent global need for massive reconstruction and rehabilitation propelled many countries to adopt an economic model that envisaged governmental intervention in the economic sphere on a large scale. This model also sought massive state investment and intervention along with control in education, infrastructure, and other social sectors.
This political model was seen as an effective way of turning the economy around.
While the East European countries adopted this economic order, Western Europe remained firmly glued to the lofty principles of Capitalism and the free-market economic model, thereby leading to a fractured bipolar world with two predominant economic philosophies.
Asian colonies of the erstwhile imperial powers, such as the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and so on, though officially adopted a non-aligned political stand in order to hide their political predilections, effectively veered towards the socialistic model as a panacea to their birth pangs and avoidable imperial legacies.
Socialism continued in all its hue and glory until the mid-eighties and early nineties, until the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent Balkanization.
The limitations of this model became all too glaring in the impoverished countries of Europe, and the futility of state intervention, along with the realization that an open economy that rewards entrepreneurship, led to a series of collapses and political upheavals on a global scale.
Economies started opening up, old political orders started collapsing, and the emergence of new political equations prompted a paradigm shift towards a capitalistic model that became the order of the day from the mid to late nineties. Shrinkage of economic opportunities due to immigration, unemployment, a deep sense of deprivation, social polarization, and numerous other factors blended well together to provide these rightist forces with a fertile ground to prosper and gradually come to power through democratic mechanisms across the world, as they had the popular mandate.
During the last thirty years, we have observed the emergence of many political outfits across the globe that belong to the right or far right of the political spectrum, with a clear predilection for a capitalistic economic model. India, being no exception, witnessed the emergence of a rightist outfit in 2014, which has continued until the present day, spanning the last ten years.
A close analysis of the rightist powers across the world in various eras indicates that their ideological framework has a deep emotive content.
While decentralization and decontrol of productive resources, mechanisms, and distribution, along with the lofty dream of unhindered growth of entrepreneurial spirit, form the basic ideological fulcrum, a strong passion for establishing individualistic identity—whether religious, racial, linguistic, or otherwise—remains an equally important contributory factor.
Given this backdrop, it is extremely interesting to note the political mandates that emerged from the recent elections conducted in India, England, and France at very close intervals. In India, the rightist alliance, which had been in power for the last ten years, received a severe jolt and returned to power with a wafer-thin majority. Though the leftist ideology did not garner favor at the national level, the political outfits that received a thumbs up from the electorate were known for their socialistic inclinations and centrist approach.
In Britain, the Conservatives lost power after a long gap, and the Labour party is ready to take charge, promising to usher in a new era. In France, where the Rightist under Macron were firmly ensconced in power, the left alliance registered an impressive victory, completely upsetting all political calculations and predictions.
All these results clearly indicate that rightist ideology, as a political system, is no longer the preferred option—at least for these two nations, France and England—and they are willing to explore this alternative model, which had been more or less a dystopia for the majority of nations for so long.
What are the factors that contributed to this marked shift?
Despite a clear preference for an open market-driven economy that incentivizes a free economic spirit with a generalized solution template for all socio-economic afflictions, why did these two developed economies opt for a worn-out eco-political mechanism that had been abandoned for so many years? The answer is simple.
The picture that emerged after a decade-long experimentation was in sharp contrast to popular expectations and mass belief. After giving them a fairly long run, the initial sense of euphoria gradually waned as it became evident that the economy is not showing the desired turnaround trend. Unemployment has soared, as has inflation, and the economic condition has worsened contrary to popular expectations. Economic development and the realization of a high economic standard in terms of the defined economic parameters remain a long-cherished dream as ever.
Social templates to address migration and establish distinctive ethno-cultural identity may have worked to a limited extent but have clearly failed to lift these countries out of economic morass. In other words, the same old economic maladies that had once driven them towards this model fifteen to twenty odd years back have now forced them in the opposite direction, or in common parlance, put them back to square one.
So, what are these cyclical experimentations of the last nearly eighty to a hundred years indicative of? Can we conclude that an open-market economy is a panacea to all socio-economic ailments, or will complete control on productive resources and distribution mechanisms – as postulated in the basic tenets of Socialism – lead to the road of economic prosperity?
It is extremely difficult to arrive at a conclusion without examining the changing facade and imperatives of time.
It will be pertinent to note here that the concept of a free-market economy, i.e., laissez-faire economy, and the socialistic model of control and centralization were implemented in a world governed by labor-intensive industry, and technical education was more or less confined to the world of mechanics. The last decade of the twentieth century witnessed the rapid popularization of computerized innovation followed by a silent revolution in the field of digitization.
The production mechanism underwent a cataclysmic change with the introduction of a slew of technical innovations, each marked with sophistication and panache. Industrial processes were drastically rationalized, and technical education silently underwent a vast change that gradually became evident over the years. Information technology has acquired a new dimension, and the knowledge economy, a direct fallout of the fast-expanding footprints of Information Technology, is universally accepted as the most significant and vibrant sector of any modern-day economy.
Technological disruptions, sweeping across sectors day in and day out, are bringing in their wake a silent revolution, and the all-pervasive influence of technology is being felt in every walk of our day-to-day life. Neither Socialism nor Capitalism, in its orthodox form as an economic doctrine, has any space to absorb these changes and throw up a viable model. What we need is a practical and inclusive approach to absorb the changing facades of technology and modify the economic models and templates in accordance with the prevalent imperatives of the present technology-driven era. Ideological orthodoxy certainly does not have any room in this technology-driven world where individual choices and preferences are all too exposed, courtesy of the prevalence of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Economic parameters, perspectives, and ultimately the approach need to factor in the narrative of rapid digitization and technological change if we are to develop a sustainable socio-economic ecosystem for posterity.
