We live in the era where the ‘Empires of the Mind’ dominate the arteries of global commerce. All that mind workers produce, replicate and innovate are cognitive constructs. We are told to get ahead of the curve, develop strategic advantage and all the popular business literature jargon, popularized by business anchors and business gurus like Shiv Khera, Arindam Chaudhuri and their tribe. The most recent addition to the tribe  is Chetan Bhagat.  All the hooplah about ‘meritocracy’ in India about having the brightest go to the best institutions, and the cry against affirmative action has a life of its own.  In 1968, meritocracy started off as a pejorative term, now it is often used phrase in popular discourse by right of centre political organizations globally with a positive spin on it.

Knowledge is a resource which is not freely available. Knowledge is culturally contextualized and embedded in specific discourse. The french philosopher Michel Foucault connected the word Knowledge always with Power as he said that Knowledge creates and sustains power relations. A person who has power would like to replicate it and maintain the status quo. As the French Sociologist  Pierre Bourdieu stated in his theory of the ‘Field’ that there are different capitals that a person possess’s: Cultural, Economic, Social.  Education used to be matter a matter of status and privilege, it has been democratized to an extent in the developing world with the proliferation of private universities. Governments simply cannot catch up, private enterprise steps in to meet the gap. But, is this private sector education providing the right skills for the information economy? Do they have the correct skills to work in a Infosys, Wipro or a Dell back-office, when millions are being de-patterned into thinking the correct way after the abysmally poor technical education, when these IT firms are spending millions in retraining thousands of employees to have the apt skill-set.

People can only go to private schools and elite educations institutions if they are born into the ideal niche, to go the cool public schools, have extra coaching and have music lessons. How many people crack competitive exams in India sans spending a hefty sum on private tutoring? Education of the right skill-set needed for the knowledge economy needs not only Intellectual Capital but Cultural and Economic as well.  I have an equation to illustrate the above.

Knowledge economy Skills = f(Intellectual, Cultural, Economic)

My Habitus is of an Engineer, so if you get engineers to do social theory; there will be influences from the quantitative sciences in my analysis.

In my opinion, knowledge is strength, information is power and there is an opportunity cost associated with it…in order to make it big within the paradigm of the knowledge economy, i am sad to say a degree is simply not enough. Its about having the right stuff at the right time at the right moment; Outliers contribute to our success whether we agree or not. Knowledge is often the ideas of the ruling class as Marx said.  Knowledge fuels power differentials and aggravates class inequalities. Meritocracy is a myth in the developing world. People of a particular strata enter the hallowed temples of Knowledge called Ivy Leagues, IIM’s,  Grande Ecoles etc.  A Knowledge based society cannot be an ethical construct even in an intellectual discourse as it amplifies unethical dimensions in itself.  Lets get our definitions right,  India is not Electronic City Bangalore,  and America is not route 128. Mind workers do not manufacture or produce grains. It can only provide employment to a handful, so what about the 99%?

‎”The top 1 per cent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 per cent live Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 per cent eventually do learn. Too Late.”-Joseph Stiglitz

The last time the world saw transnationalism in protest movements were during the breakup of USSR (in general the fall of institutionalized communism) and more recently in 2005 during the Orange Revolution in Kiev and in Georgia. The weather from the Arab Spring from Cairo and Tunis seems to have impacted Delhi and New York as well. It again is a confluence of elements all making its presence felt in political mobilization. It is the situational element at play.

It has been really interesting to observe the global scale of movements unprecedented across human history. People are more connected via the internet powered smart phones via social media apps. Photos, videos ans status messages can be updated with a flicker of a tab. The sociological dimensions of this are unprecedented as the notion of sovereignty is diluted although these movements are about reforming existing systems. The context is endemic graft in India to democracy in the Maghreb and people power in Zuccotti Park all reflect, the disillusionment with the status quo and a belief that  it is the people who can initiate a dent in the strong armor of capitalism.  The collusion of the governing elite with the deal street has taken it cognitively away from the inner-cities and main street.  Marx, who died 150 years back presciently predicted that the boom and bust cycles of capitalism lay the seeds of the downfall of this very system.

Occupy Wall Street along with the Tea Party movement on the Right are demonstrative of the inability of Capitol Hill to revolve issues which have exaggerated the  inequality gap to the extreme. Similar copy cat movements to Occupy Street are emerging in Montreal, Boston parts of Europe.  The Anna Hazare Agitation in India was a textbook example of middle class disgruntlement with graft.  The fruits of the event are still not visible, but have rung an alarm in the corridors of power in Delhi.

There is a common ethos to all these movements- they are not about power but about resistance to the injustices that common folk suffer each day against the big guys without any mechanism for economic redressal. Legal measure are expensive and take ages. Politicos are hand in glove with corporate interests almost acting as lobbyists. Its Empire of the Underdog striking back against the 1% which rule their destiny and in peaceful means. Gandhism at its finest.  Let all the workers of the world unite as Marx said is very apt as the underclass are awakening to their plight once again.

Intefada which in Arabic means resistance-uprising usually associated with Gaza and the West Bank is now a global phenomena, and movements are well back into the public sphere, asking for a change, peacefully.

This year’s Nobel Prize for peace was given to three amazing women; two from the West African Nation Liberia and one extraordinarily courageous lady from Yemen, the face of the Arab Spring in the strife hit country, where an extremist was droned a few days back.  There is a common strand, connecting the three women, they come from strife afflicted conflict areas and they advocate the virtues of human rights, development and democracy. This is a stamp of approval for Human rights in a huge way as was the Nobel was for Dr. Yunus for Microfinance.  Human Rights has often been area for Moral Entrepreneurs in the Third Sector- Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are the big players in this ‘ethical business’. If Environmental Stewardship can be institutionalized through ISO 14001 and there can be sustainable forestry standards, why can’t we ensure corporate stewardship for ethical behavior. Some elements of Sustainability reporting do incorporate social variables in their analysis as corporate social responsibility measures and initiatives. This does not go far enough by any measure.

Human Rights protection is crucial as large global companies are venturing out in to the far flung areas of the globe  to search for raw materials, manufacturing centers and markets.  Most of the mineral rich areas in India are heavily under forest cover and are dominated by indigenous groups (tribals) like the Santhals in states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. Powerful global mining majors like POSCO, Jindals and the Vedantas have their projects stalled and delayed in this region because of native people movements.  The infamous case of ‘Blood Diamonds’ which was made into a film, which impacted diamond sales internationally gave way to the Kimberley Process for approving ethical, non conflict origin diamonds.

The iconic tech company Apple Inc. has been under the scanner for outsourcing its manufacturing to Foxconn in China, which has been accused for using child labor in manufacturing of their products.  High Street Fashion labels have been maligned too for getting their manufacturing done cheaply in third world sweatshops, and charging a bomb from the consumer.  The Sports Industry is another case in point. The list is endless. Human Rights violations seems to be a byproduct of the cowboy globalization. It is high time that industry reclaims the moral pedestal. Good human rights, make for excellent branding and hence better bottom line. Makes sense isn’t it ?

This is an emerging phenomena in the industrialized and the developing world, that the information highway is getting more decentralized and ‘democratized’ that the common man has more access to diverse streams of data in order to make an informed political choice. Elections come periodically and the official campaigning for the polls have a limited time period but online political campaigns begin away before. Twitter has started official political twitter accounts for the 2012 presidential polls. With the power of smart phones and facebook, twitter at a push of a tab; social media is transforming citizenry in a way not seen in decades.  Online forums like blogs are the platforms for independent commentators and citizen journalists. These are not checked for authenticity of data unlike the Lesbian Blogger in Damascus who eventually turned out to be a Brit guy!  More often than not, blogs are the only source for videos and other content to escape out of repressive regimes like North Korea and Burma or even Southern Thailand.

Arab Spring and how Social Media was used to organize protests from Tunis to Tahrir to Pearl Square is now a legend.  Some commentators like Malcolm Gladwell, have suggest that protest in the late 1980’s against the communists in the Eastern Bloc were aggregated and triggered in the absence of any technology; emphasis of message over medium. Thats a valid argument; but here is the difference- the flood of credible accessible content as a source of digital activism with real world impact is changing a dormant electorate and making it into an active group of people who dynamically influence policy. The Third Sector- the civil society has gained an amplified voice in this context.  As the world is more than ever living in smaller settlements in cities, with access to the information super-highway, legislative pre-process will be more than ever dynamic. The Corporate-Politician Complex Nexus is increasing being exposed with sting journalism and independent documentary film makers getting a platform to upload their films and getting popular virally.

Now the Medium is amending the message to be more popular. Gen Y does not watch TV anymore, or atleast it watches TV on the internet. Its changing citizenry to be a more active part of governing themselves. This change is for the better instead of depending on a cabal of wise men in the executive branch. Better feedback from Civil Society will make for effective socially constructed bottom up policy implementation.  The 2011 Singapore Parliamentary Polls are case in point of a opposition campaign completely dependent on Social Media for publicity and it did work in patches. The Anna Hazare movement was led by a army of social media volunteers, in order to mobilize the middle class (the author of this post did his tiny bit as well to spread the message), It will be interesting to notice how electoral democracy changes in the coming years in the onslaught of social media. The test case will be the 2012 US elections. More updates in this domain will be coming up.

Recently I have watched two documentaries which have shaken me up; the first one is Micheal Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, based on the book of the same name. During the Bush era years, there was a sentiment of absolute belief in the Free Market and a panacea for all ills. In retrospect, that hungho attitude ended with the 2008 recession and we are experiencing a double dip recession with a good probability that a ‘Great Stagnation’ is up ahead. During the Bush 43rd era- it was a perfect time for the Right, favorable allies in the UK, Germany and France along with the post 9/11 sentiment made the french fries  into the freedom fries for sometime. After the boom years of the 1990’s, people were upbeat about the potential of free market capitalism. The program of economic liberalization was on full swing through out the developing world although Russia and Latin America had bared the brunt of Chicago School madness in the past decade.

The left in France was pushed to a corner, things were perfect for the right.  Marxism was passe and had died down in the public narrative over the 1990’s. Since the recession in 2008, as Marx had said that in the Capitalistic system itself; there are seeds of its own destruction with the erroneous cycles of boom and bust. There was a protest sit-down on Wall Street the last week. Unthinkable a decade back.   The french left has good shot at the presidency next year.  Leftist ideas have finally found acceptance in the mainstream. Writers like Umair Haque have penned down aspects depicting why Marx is relevant in today’s context.    No ideology is bad or sacrosanct; ideas are only relevant to the ground on which it is applied and fact is Marx still matters 15o years since his death.