The Devil of Economic Fundamentalism

by Javed Jamil

still tension and anxiety rule his mind and heart. Socialism aimed at converting the world into a factory, and humans into ma­chines; corporate has transformed the world into a bazaar surrounded on all side by jungles, and humans into wild animals who know only their rights and some duties but no prohibi­tions and restraints. When the modern man feels anxiety, he opts for either a tablet of a sedative or a peg of whisky. When he is sick with bore­dom, he goes to gamble or flirt with women or watches the vulgar­ities on big or small screen. And when his problems become intol­erable he often decides to seek refuge in the valley of death. Everyone is ready to exploit everyone else. Friendship has lost its meaning; relationships are governed by selfish interest. Nobody wants to help others. Neighbours do not even recognise one another. None is concerned about the sentiments of others; everyone is seeking fulfilment of one’s own desires, whatever the consequenc­es for others. One kills another for the sake of a few thousand bucks. Money is important, man is not. The great thinker, Emerson, in his essay, “Napoleon” says: “As long as our civilization is essentially one of property of fences, of explosions, it will be marked by delusions. Our wishes will leave us sick. There will be bitterness in our laughters and our wine will burn our mouth."

  It can be said without hesitation that the economic fundamentalists led by the West have brought about the grand barbarisation of the earth. Sentiments have ceased to be of any worth. Morals are supposed to be a big hindrance in aggrandisement. But te truth remains that despite all the efforts to negate emotions, man by his very nature is sentimental. The man inside this animal often haunts him. He feels sad; he is stricken by grief; he is moved by emotions; he wants to love and to be loved; he longs to own and to be owned. And it is this battle between the sentimental man and emo­tionless society that ravages his psychological composure. An overwhelming percentage of men, women and children of the present world are psychiatric patients. Minor or major mental ailments affect almost every person. Anxiety, insomnia, nervousness phobias, mania, depression, obsession, paranoia, melancholia, schizophrenia -- all are becoming increasingly common. Obviously, these diseases are more common in those countries where material­ism has completely marginalised spiritualism and religion has ceased to exist as a driving force in human lives. Still, religion is ridiculed, jeered at and maligned for the problems of the world. No medical scientist has bothered to objectively study the possible role of religiousness in treating the psychiatric patients because religion does not pay as much as drugs do.

  Freedom is the catch-word for the megalomaniacs of modern “civi­lization”. This augurs well for them because it opens a great number of avenues for their business and is also a tool in their hands to create a fantastic image of the present civilization vis-à-vis the “black ages” when men and women used to love under “severe restrictions” and “unnecessary inhibitions”. Free man tends to do whatever he feels like doing at a particular moment of time, irrespective of its consequences on his own life or on the lives of others. The rationale behind this, according to the liberalists, is that man is himself responsible for the conse­quences of his acts and others have no business to poke their nose in his personal matters, and to teach him morals. If one wants to drink it is his right, even if it causes severe mental anguish and financial burden to his dependents and well-wishers and makes him vulnerable to several life-threatening health problems. If one wants to lie with a person of one’s choice one must have full liberty to do so-even if it destroys one’s family and leads to several other unforeseen problems including fatal or incapacitating illnesses. If one wants to roam in minimal or no clothes it is one’s prerogative to dress as one likes, even if it blazes the passions of onlookers and drives them mad to rape unwilling women. One must be free to commit suicide, even if one’s hara-kiri brings intolerable pain and suffering to one’s relatives and friends. What sort of freedom is this that kills people, maddens men, women and children, leads to sexual assaults, destroys families, makes parents and children alien to one another, turns the old into destitute and kids into orphans and gives people sleepless nights! It seems to be absolutely nonsensical to call the modern “civilization” civilization. It is barbarism at its worst. Today’s men and women are not humans but another species of animals, the Homo sapiens whose animal instincts are always positioned in the driver's seat. They are in fact even worse than the beasts as the beasts do not manufacture weapons, drinks and eatables for their own destruction; their actions are simply the result of impulses and reflexes that ensure their survival. Whatever the animals do is without the foreknowledge of the consequences of their actions. Man is mostly prescient of the possible adverse consequences of his actions on himself and on society; and yet, his knowledge does not stop him from indulging in evil acts. The kings of the jungle rule only due to their sheer physical force and commit “excesses” on fellow-animals only to fill their empty stomachs, having no other option to satiate their hunger; neither do they exploit the other inhabit­ants in their territories nor prevent them from availing the products of nature. The rulers of the world of Homo sapiens commit excess­es, oppress and cheat their species-fellows for their own inexpli­cable designs; they are worse than the carnivores and saprophytes. It is not the compelling necessities but their covetousness that makes them ruthless dictators. They kill people not to fill their hungry intestines but to perpetrate their uncompromising hold on the economic or political power. Their intention is not just to survive but not to let others survive. It will be worthwhile here to reproduce Schiller’s remarks about freedom:

  “We all in nature, destitute of reason, only a sister who, more fortunate than ourselves, has remained under the material roof, while in the intoxication of our freedom, we have fled from it to throw ourselves into a stranger world. We regret this place of safety, we earnestly long to come back to it as soon as we have begun to feel the better side of civilization and in the totally artificial life in which we are exiled we hear in deep emotion the voice of our mother. While we were still children of nature we were happy, we were perfect; we have become free, and we have lost both advantages”.

  How then is the present era better than the middle ages? There might have been some areas where the medieval people suffered at the hands of the rulers or the administrators. There might have been many wives who were beaten by their husbands. But there was generally no lawlessness. Murders and rapes were few, at least in the parts of the world that had well-established govern­ments; the murderers and rapists could not go scot free and severe punishment to them was a big deterrent for other crimi­nals. Cheating and infringement of others’ rights were not easy; the law was always there to act decisively. Prostitution was there but it was not the order of the day. The family system was not only alive but well; there used to be little rancour between the different family members who were always eager to support one another. Women were then viewed not just as paramours or objects of beauty; they were not just bedfellows, they were also mothers under whose feet lay paradise, the sisters who tied the rakhi on the wrists of their brothers and the daughters whom the parents treated like precious jewels. If the wives were beaten by some illiterates then, they are beaten no less now and not by the illiterates but by the highly educated and highly placed husbands. The girls were not assaulted in their own houses, and anyone found eve-teasing them in the streets had to face the wrath of society. The woman of today is free only to be exploited. It is not only her charm that is abused. In the so-called developed world, woman has much fewer chances of becoming a high-class officer or a leading politician than of becoming a sex-worker, a cabaret-dancer, a model, a receptionist and a saleswoman. And if she is working, her ordeal does not end; the more she concentrates on her career the more her family suffers. Mind it: Her own family, her own husband and her own children who want to share some moments of delight with her but have to adjust without. As a result, the husband often finds solace in someone else’s arms or in a bottle of whisky; and the children grow as psychiatric abnormals. The fate
of today’s woman as a human being living in peace is totally sealed. If she decides to stay at home for the sake of her family, she has to live under the burden of unfulfilled ambitions. If she goes out, she faces the threat of assault, even rape, and alienation of her dearest ones. And because it is only her physical charm that sells, it is only between the ages of 16 and 35, 40 at the most, that she is most wanted in the market. Once her charm vanishes, her career is also on the downslide. The people hovering around her decrease in number and she feels neglected; her glorious past haunts her but that cannot return. And it is between 16 and 40 as well that she is most wanted at her home. The truth is that if the modern civilization developed by the economic fundamentalists has harmed any one most -- though it harmed everybody--it is woman. Her liberty has in fact made her a permanent captive of the public. She looks at herself only with the glasses of man. No wonder then that she has miserably failed to discover herself.

  If