Power and Greed

Last Updated on June 12, 2023

There is an argument that can be made or you might have already heard it over and over again that Greed leads to taking short-cuts or worse, breaking rules and taking illegal and unethical steps to gain financial and political power. As a response to that, we have also heard that it is not the “Greed” that is the problem, it is our actions. If our actions are clean and good, Greed is not bad.

However, this post aims to show that the saying – “Too much of anything is bad” applies even to Greed. This is done by explaining what it means for the limitations on Greed enshrined in our constitution and statutes. In other words, someone or some group acting completely legally and ethically in acquiring more power will eventually hit a limit on greed. This limit on greed is set by the constitution and statutes, which is indirectly saying that beyond this limit greed is not good.

Political Power and Greed

The constitution uses the idea of separation of powers – Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary to avoid the concentration of power. This ensures that one branch of government acts as checks and balances against the other.

If a person or a party has supreme power over the country then not only do people feel helpless but so do officials because they feel powerless before the concentrated power to hold it accountable.

I am not sure about the saying – “power always corrupts” is true. But, I do believe that “concentrated power always corrupts”. It breeds and feeds on favoritism, cronyism, and nepotism. The concentration of power has almost always corrupted in the past. This is why there were many revolutions against the monarchy in the first place. Too much power in too few hands.

Separation of power is not the only way for preventing the concentration of power. There are other ways like different levels of government – Central, State, and Municipal/Panchayat so the power is not in one’s hand or just a small group of people.

This means that if one is greedy in their political power they can only acquire so much political power, maybe at most, they can become a head of a state – President or Prime Minister. As per the constitution, even with the power of the head of state position they have control over only the executive, neither legislature completely nor judiciary even slightly. If the head of state becomes greedy or aspires for more power then it is constitutionally impossible to have powers from Legislature and Judiciary. So if one is greedy in politics beyond this limit, the constitution implies it is bad.

Politicians have found ways to get around this constraint. They appoint Judges based on the Ideology that is in line with theirs rather than first checking the competency. Legislature is no different. The bandwagon effect takes place all the time, people change parties or vote in favor of the party in power just to get a piece of the action.

More importantly, constitutional law, a body of fundamental law, from Constitutionalism has placed strict limitations on government so that it can never abridge civil liberties – freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, etc and it should always follow the due process like when arresting someone – by serving a warrant or notice and right to an attorney. This limit on the constitution guarantees individual rights which are themselves based on human rights.

Well, to be fair, though civil liberties are inherent and inalienable to an individual, they are even more important for a government to call itself as a truly liberal democratic one. If the civil liberties are severely compromised then the government can not make a claim that it was formed from popular sovereignty, which is the principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (rule by the people), who are the source of all political power.

Economic Power and Greed

We have heard from Multi-billionaires in one or the other interview saying – “The Greed is good and greed is what gets the economy going”. Considering the cut-throat competitive “free-market” nature of the economy, maybe greed is what really gets the economy going. One company is trying to outdo the other for more market share or one employee outperforming another for a hike or promotion. At some level, greed is built into the game.

However, there is a limit to the greed one can legally have that Multi-billionaires don’t talk about. Maybe, it is against their interest. even in most of regulated free-market economies, a single company is not allowed to keep expanding and acquiring the rest of the companies in a market until it becomes a monopoly. There are anti-trust laws preventing anti-competitive business practices, and misuse of monopoly. Here, when I mean by monopoly is not in a sense used in economics – as a single player in a market but as in Law – an entity that has the significant market power to charge overly high prices.

There may be a law preventing from becoming a monopoly in a particular market. However, a company can always diversify and venture into other sectors of the economy thereby they can grow their company in other spaces. This may not sound so bad at first. But, when the companies have operations in other sectors, they try to set up an end-to-end business – right from sourcing supplies to manufacturing to distribution by themselves. This only helps them more disproportionately than other companies in acquiring more market share and thereby, ultimately becoming a monopoly. This usually happens because companies are not only competing against each other with their products but also with their capital, trying to keep the small players out of the market.

At least within a specific market sector, monopoly means no free market. In a monopoly, customers don’t have any choice but to bow their heads to the price and quality set by the company for their products and services. Here, in the monopoly, greed is a clearly bad thing. The idea that Monopoly leads to price rise goes as far back as Aristotle.

As of 2022, there is another limit that may not be set or enforced by any country for that matter. If they do so, then it would hurt the economy. It is completely fine if it hurts the environment. We are so addicted to non-renewables we only talk talk talk but no policies, Or worse, just like any addict, some don’t even believe there is a problem or its significance. They simply are in denial. No wonder we are in the middle of a Climate Crisis. The impacts of this are being felt in various ways at various levels and getting only worse over time. So, there is no legal limit here. Well, we all know that there is an ecological limit. Through unforeseen environmental events with increasingly severe threats like heatwaves, floods, and coastal erosion, We are beginning to see that we are not very far from reaching that ecological limit.

Economic, Political power, and greed

Unfairly higher tax on the poor and middle class

There is no other combination that is as deadly as economic and political power and greed coming together as one. This is a recipe for mini-monarchy – the king being an economic and political superpower. When all you need is a big enough campaign fund to win the election, there is no better way to raise it other than through Electoral Bond.

This Electoral bond is introduced in the Finance bill(2017) – as a part of the budget and not as a bill to be discussed and passed in the legislature. One is only left to guess – Is it to avoid debate and voting on it?. It guarantees “anonymity” of purchasing the bond and there is no limit set on the bond amount. This means it is a legal route, a red-carpet invitation, for all the lobbyists, rich individuals, and corporates with vested interests, to make donations as much as they want without any scrutiny. This begs the question – when this investor class makes donations? is it really a donation or investment? are they really donating for so-called “good governance”?

Well, I can certainly say that it has been a “good governance” for the business class. The effective corporate tax has gone down by more than 10 percentage points since 2019. During the pandemic, this has resulted in their income growing by 105 percent over FY20. This is when their average revenue fell by 5 percent and the tax cut has contributed 19% percent to this. The tax for the new manufacturing companies to set up between 2019 and 2024 will have to only play 15% tax or 17%(including cess and surcharge). In addition to the tax cuts, they also enjoy the PLI Scheme – Production Linked Incentive, a subsidy scheme where the government has set aside whopping 2 Lakh crores for 5 years.

On the other hand, the fuel tax had risen by 69%, the highest in the world in 2020. After immense pressure from the public, the center cut the Excise duty in May 2022. This reduced the price of retail petrol by around Rs 9.5 per liter and of diesel by Rs 7 per liter. Yet, the petrol price stayed above 100 Rs and Excise duty and VAT still amounted to 40-50% of the total price.

On top of the fuel tax hike, When the inflation is at 7.9%, above 6% that RBI is trying to bring it down to, government places 5% GST on staple and essential food items like rice, wheat, curd, etc and the GST on health insurance stayed at 18%. Whereas, the GST on Luxury items like diamonds is 1.5% and Gold is 3%.

I am not saying the previous governments were not in bed with the business/investor class. But, now, nearly ~90%(475 out of 539) of Loka Sabha members are Crorepatis. Congress party is not any better either. 43 out of 51 Congress MPs – totaling 96 percent, were found to be ‘crorepati’. The close relationship between the political class and business class goes as far back as the pre-independence era when the workers from textile companies in Mumbai were protesting for living wages and better working conditions. This is only a culmination of a long history of the ruling class – both the political class and business class exploiting the working/middle class and the poor.

Social & Economic issues as rhetorical weapons

People are quick in blaming the ruling class for the status quo. I think the working/middle class and the poor are equally responsible. If only we didn’t allow ourselves to be divided based on caste, religion, gender, class, language, god, etc. The working class and the poor have lost touch with reality. We are misled by the ruling class. The ruling class wants the middle class and the poor to believe that social issues are so important that we can happily forget or ignore our economic issues.

Social issues are truly important. Social justice is important. But, in 2022, rarely is social justice solving economic injustice. Social justice is not paying our rent, not paying our children’s education fees, and definitely not paying our parents’ hospital bills. The solution is for the working class and the poor to come together, leaving their social differences apart and organizing themselves on economic issues. So that we hold some political clout to fight for living wages and conditions, affordable quality education, affordable quality healthcare, or anything else they care about. These are not actually economic issues. These humanistic issues are human well-being, development, progress, and autonomy. However, the current economic system has “commodified” the solutions for these issues, thus making them economic issues.

This is easier said than done because the business class wants the middle class to “individualize” the economic issues. We have all heard the narrative that the “unemployed are unemployed because they are wasting time, indulging themselves, neither educating themselves nor making themselves useful to the society“. But, we know that the current unemployment is involuntary in nature because when 3700 Ph.D. holders among 93000 candidates apply for the position of peon that had the minimum eligibility criteria of passing 5th grade and knowing how to ride a bicycle. Aren’t these Ph.D. holders educated enough to get a job? This incident happened in August 2018, before the pandemic and now, in 2022, after the pandemic, anyone can tell the situation has not gotten any better. Moreover, as the article points out this is not just one random incident. In Railway recruitment, over 2 crores applied for 1 lakh jobs, and for police constable positions in Mumbai, over 2 lakhs applied for only1100 vacancies. So, it is not that it is an individual’s problem not having a job. It is that there are not enough jobs in the economy.

How much more can a person study than a Ph.D. for a job including a peon? does this mean one has to be overqualified for getting a job? if not, then, why should an overqualified get a job over an exactly qualified one? when the scope of a job is limited in terms of both efficiency and quality, how can we say that an overqualified performs better than an exactly qualified person? I don’t know the answers to these questions. But, the answers are definitely not found in the job candidates alone but also in the nature of the job – an economic opportunity.

Even if somehow all the graduates, postgraduates, and P.h.Ds get a job, I bet they would not get the job they rightly deserve. They would most likely be underemployed. This is the biggest reason why everyone hates their job. They wouldn’t get to put all the skills they have learned into the job because the scope of the job is limited. This leads to individuals not really realizing their true potential. So, now, who do we blame for the problem of underemployment? This can not be easily blamed on the individual as in unemployment. However, when there are limited job opportunities, both underemployment and unemployment go hand in hand. In fact, when an overqualified gets a job, it leaves the exactly qualified with no job. In other words, if there is one underemployed for a job, at the same time, there is at least one unemployed for the same job. Therefore, unemployment depends on underemployment.

Unemployment has largely become involuntary caused by the system. But, the ruling class wants us to believe it is voluntary. They use examples, that may be genuine but rarely occur, to convince us that unemployment is largely voluntary in nature. They do this not only for the sake of shifting the responsibilities from the economy and government to individuals, but also, more importantly, to prevent the middle class/working class from coming together and taking collective cooperative actions regarding their economic issues because this would hurt ruling class’ profits and especially their control over the economy and thus, on the government and ordinary people.

The Cancer in the “Free Press”

The constitution doesn’t say there should be only state-media – giving the government exclusive right to publish news like the exclusive right to broadcast a sports event by a TV channel. This allows anyone to take up the profession of journalism including private individuals and institutions. Therefore, in theory, at least “the press is free”. The free press acts as the fourth pillar of democracy to hold government, public officials, and people in power to account. This is very much important for any democracy to survive. So, here, the constitution places a strict limit on political greed so that government doesn’t have the exclusive right to publish news. Yet, India’s situation has become only worse in the last 2 decades.

Reporters without borders(RSF), which has consultative status at the UN and UNESCO, evaluates how free is press relative to other countries in the world. They publish a ranking list every year. In their first year of evaluation, in 2002, India stood at 80th place among 139 countries. In 2005, of the 169 countries evaluated, it fell to 106th. In the span of 10 years, at the end of Manmohan Singh’s government, in 2014, of the 180 countries evaluated, India’s rank had fallen to 140th place. Now, in 2022, after 8 years of Narendra Modi’s government, of the 180 countries evaluated, it has again fallen to 150th place. Freedom of the press is slowly eroded and so are the standards of journalism. There are many countries with little to no democratic government ranking higher than India.

How has India got to this place? What made the situation worse for journalism? Read my complete analysis in another post – Is the free press really “free” in India?

Conclusion

In conclusion, the constitution places limits on government through civil liberties, rule of law, and rule by consent. The constitution also ensures that power is not concentrated by splitting it into 3 branches – Executive, Legislative and Judiciary also act as checks and balances, holding each other accountable. There are statutory laws against economic greed – anti-competitive practices and monopoly. Therefore, the constitution and statutory laws do place some significant limits on Greed, and thereby, asserting absolute greed is not good. Whether these constitutional and statutory laws are enforced are not, the unwritten ecological laws are always enforced in full force on both economic and political greed. The only difference is that, with ecological limits, consequences are irreversible, and both innocent and guilty are punished.