Tuesday, November 6, 1984
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Change achievable through protest, disobedience
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T onviolence and cowardice go ill together . I
ll can imagine a fully armed man to be at
JL V heart a coward Possession of arms implies
an element of fear, if not cowardice. But true nonvio
lence is an impossibility without the possession of
unadulterated fearlessness. " Mohandas K. Gandhi
It is truly depressing to see the violence in India today,
36 years after the death of Gandhi his words and
leadership faded altogether too fast.
He was assassinated by a religious fanatic. Two Sikn
guards shot Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal
Nehru, who was one of Gandhi's closest discipies and
India's first prime minister.
India has lost another great leader. Indira Gandhi
was loved and hated in her country, and although some
of her actions were questionable, such as the attack on
the Sikh Golden Temple at Amritsar, she was a unifying
force in the world's largest democracy.
She was assassinated Wednesday by two of her own
body guards. True to Gandhi's theory, that act of vio
lence begat more violence. Since the attack about 1,100
people, mostly Sikhs, have been killed The looting and
rioting has stopped traffic across the country Sikhs
control much of the country's industry, commerce and
transport. The attacks by Hindus on Sikhs could have
devastating effects on India's economy.
DOtn tne DIKJ13 Wliu onuv vjtniv.li. uuuo ttiiu
are attacking Sikhs aretakingthe downward path -the
easiest path, as Gandhi would have said. The true brave
would fight for justice through nonviolent means: pro
test, civil disobedience and noncooperatlon.
Gandhi's success in quelling violence through fasts
and his success in ousting the English colonialists
through protests and civil disobedience are testament
of the validity of his words. Change can be achieved
without force.
But there are always extremists, martyrs, and their
acts do not achieve their goals. The attack on Indira
Gandhi has only fueled prejudice and hatred of Sikhs in
India. The group as a whole will long be paying the price
for the murder of India's prime minister.
It would be ideal if India's new prime minister and the
Sikh leaders could achieve peace through nonviolence.
Rajiv Gandhi, Indira's son, is desperately trying to quell
the violence with riot police, but as of Monday an end
was not in sight.
"It is no nonviolence if we merely love those who love
us. It is nonviolence only when we love those that hate
us. I know how difficult it is to follow this grand law of
love. But are not all great and good things difficult to
do?..."
Gandhi
Four
years w na
JUl J
politic
al jufikws
Tfir TTe are entering that brief period in
11 1 public life characterized by the
V absence of any political campaign.
Once again our television commercials
will focus on the essentials of human
existence: beer, well-conditioned hair, and
dental adhesives. Once again, the news
papers will be full of corruption, murder
and ten ways to insulate your attic
mr mi -
Ellen
Goodman
For most Americans, this post-election
hiatus offers a welcome respite from pros
and cons, Democrats and Republicans,
images and issues. But we here at the
National Mental Health Center know the
dark side to this story. According to our
research, an estimated ten percent of the
population has been tragically hooked on
politics over the last decade. These people
are about to be plunged into a difficult
period of withdrawal.
The political junkies, we have learned
in our well-funded studies, are not like
the rest of Americans. They are citizens
who have known all the Democratic can
didates featured in the New Hampshire
primary. They can list the names of six
pollsters along with their margin of error,
match at least three advertisers to candi
dates and four campaign managers with
their hometowns. They have spent, lo,
these many months strung out on daily
doses of poll statistics, and increasing
their tolerance for rhetoric and hyperbole.
If we are to reintegrate the political
junkie into the normal pattern, the next
few weeks are critical So for those of you
who have a husband, wife, boss, friend or
significant other who shows the telltale
signs, we here at the center are sharing
our helpful hints for recovery.
First of all, we must state as a
matter of principle that we abhor the
inhuman tactic known as cold turkey.
The most hardcore politicos, campaign
operatives and journalists have spent the
last six to nine months on planes, buses
and cars. By now it is absolutely normal
for them to wake up sweating and
mumbling that they have missed "baggage
call."
We recommend that during the first
post-election week, family members hand
these sufferers a mimeographed sheet
telling them exactly what city they are in
and what the daily activities are. It may
also be useful to brief some of them on the
names of their children expeciairy if
there have been any new ones and
these children's ages.
Tfcs CZn&i&ZtCD will have unique
problems. They will have to relearn com
munication skills, since they have only
exercised the ability to debate or to
address a crowd. A sensitive family might
set a microphone before the candidate's
place mat until he or she feels com
fortable with such a small audience. Do
not take it personally if the former can
didate comes to your dinner party and
tries to raise funds. Be tolerant if he
attacks your remarks on the need for
antifreeze in the car by labeling them "ill
informed, and dangerous in the nuclear
age."
As for the civilian addicts, or citizen
addicts, we have experimented with some
behavior-modification ideas that have
been remarkably successful. Since most
of these political junkies get their fix from
the media, our treatment is centered
around television. Allow the victims to
watch post-campaign analyses, but re
ward them if they refrain from switching
channels to catch all the commentary.
Encourage them abo to expand their
interests. Researchers now believe that
the best bridge to a politics-free existence
is, curiously, through reading public
opinion polls. This familiar activity can be
a bridge, to transfer their attention from
political statistics to such equally fas
cinating questions as how many Yuppies
in major Sunbelt cities prefer kiwi fruit to
fresh figs.
There are, of course, aversion tech
niques. We recommend re-running tapes
of the presidential debates as often as
necessary. Not even the most strung-out
political junkie can watch all three de
bates consecutively without breaking
Finally, we here at the health center
remind you of the urgency of this cause.
There is very little time left to help these
cases. If you listen carefully, you can hear
some lost soul, around the corner and
inside the television set, pushing the
longest lasting, most enticing high of
them all: the Campaign of 1933.
1S34, TM Boston G!o& Hmn?&?f Company
Whlns!on Post Wrttarj Crtvp
Opposition economists say overregulation causes monopoly
Economics, like politics,- makes
strange bedfellows. It is indeed an
-J odd curio when two completely
diverse intellectual traditions can pro
duce agreement on some important
phenomenon.
I came across such a surprising event
recently as I read two books written by
authors from diverse academic back
grounds. One is a Marxist (or neo-Marxist)
economist and the other is a Libertarian
Jim
Rogers
economist. They agree that the state,
rather than the free market system, lies
at the root of the development of monop
oly capitalism.
The traditional, popular idea about the
relationship between big business and
the state is that they are antagonistic
toward one another.
That is, on the one hand, that big business
loathes government intervention in the
economy and, on the other hand, that
government intervenes in the market
against the interests ofbig business. These
two economists challenge this traditional
belief
The similarity of the assertions are
amazing. For example, at one point Marx
ist economist James O'Connor, in his
intriguing work "The Fiscal Crisis of the
State," writes that "the first basic thesis
presented here is that the growth of the
state sector and state spending is func
tioning increasingly as the basis for the
growth of the monopoly sector and total
production. Conversely, it is argued that
the growth of state spending and state
programs is the result of the growth of
the monopoly industries. In other words,
the growth of the state is both a cause
and effect of the expansion of monopoly
capital.
Compare the above statement with
that made by Dominick T. Armentano in
his book "Antitrust and Monopoly." Gov
ernment and not the market, b the source
of monopoly power. Government licensing,
certificates of public convenience, fran
chises, patents, taiiS, and other legally
restrictive devices can and do create
monopoly, and monopoly power, for spe
cifc business organssrions protected from
open competition. Abusive monopoly is
always to be associated with governmen
tal interfereence of production or ex
change, and such situations do injure
consumers, exclude sellers, and result in
an inefficient misallocation of resources.
There is now solid historical evidence
that a number of American industries
welcomed government intervention in an
attempt to restrict and restrain competi
tion, and in order to preserve positions of
wealth and power within the industrial
order."
Although these individuals obviously
disagree on many other points of political
economy, this one similarity intimates
that some ideological blinders are worn
by conservatives and leftists which, if
removed, would enrich both traditions
substantially.
First, for the conservative, the entrench
ed big business is simply the result of
open and voluntary competition in the
freemarket Consequently some right-wing
"thinkers" such as Ayn Rand ridiculously
term big business "America's persecuted
minority."
However, if O'Connor's and Armen
tano's claims are correct and I think
they are then state action, not compet
itive success, undergirds the supremacy
of monopoly capital in the U.S. economy.
Indeed, the growth of monopolization
almost could serve as a proxy to measure
the growth of state intervention in the
economy.
On the other hand, for the neo-Marxist
understood as a radical who rejects
the historical determinism of traditional
Marxism the implications of this type
of thought are almost as striking as for the
conservative. Namely, the Marxist must
examine the notion that onh in a limited
or "minimal" state, one incapable of being
used to advance business interest at the
expense of the larger population, is the
basis for a truly just and humane society
laid. For it is the large modern state
which causes and is caused by monopoly
by monopoly and the plethora of prob
lems associated with its rise. This vision
of the limited state stands in stark con
trast to the massive and unwieldy state
usually posited by leftists as the solution
to the problems associated with large
aggregations of capital
Harvard philosopher Robert Noz
ick posits for us the basis for a realistic,
neo-conservative political economy one
which recognizes the problems associated
with the rise of monopoly capital and
avoids tne big business naivete which nas
been the bane of modern conservatism.
In "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" he writes
that "although to introduce socialism as
the punishment for our sins would be to
go too far, past injustice might be so great
as to make necessary in the short run a
more extensive state in order to rectify
them." It is precisely at this point, then,
where there is room for the development
of a relevant conservative social theory.
J
