Austerity and Managed Democracy | Sai Mukhesh

The disinterestedly wise ought to desire the holding together of all being
— Bhagavad Gita, Verse 3.25

Normal men do not know that everything is possible
— David Rousset

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present
— Albert Camus

The liberal democratic apparatus has been imploding, and the more I think about the lying world order [1], the more I am convinced from global to provincial that beneath the facade of democracy is an oft-concealed rotting reality. The political theorist Michael Walzer writes in "Liberalism and the Art of Separation" that "Liberalism is a world of walls, and each one creates a new liberty" (315). If the autonomous institutions strengthen liberal democracy, fusing these institutions with a supreme leader’s and a single party’s will or the sovereignty of capital indicates a totalitarian impulse. The litmus test for any proclaimed democracy, be it the largest or the smallest, is whether the institutional integrity is being upheld or erased. In the Indian context, an attempt at answering this test shows that the signs of rot are all around us. For example, the judiciary and the election commission ought to act disinterestedly, but they overwhelmingly do not. The totalitarian impulse visible in the collapse of institutions integral to the well-being of citizens of a polis does not entirely take the form of classic totalitarianism. The demise of democracy, as we have been witnessing, is not a collapse into classic totalitarianism "total mobilization, total war, and the like but is nicely orchestrated so that only the facade of democracy remains. At the same time, insidiously, like cancer cells, the core gets killed from the inside. How does this killing unfold? In his book Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin argues,

One cannot point to any national institution[s] that can accurately be described as democratic: surely not in the highly managed, money-saturated elections, the lobby-infested Congress, the imperial presidency, the class-biased judicial and penal system, or, least of all, the media. (105)

We see the replacement of citizenry by the electorate, i.e., "voters who acquire political life at the time of elections" (59), to sustain an order that keeps the power and capital in the hands of few. Wolin coined the term "inverted totalitarianism" [2] for this phenomenon. Managed democracy, the product of inverted totalitarianism, "exploits what appear to be formidable political and legal constraints, using them in ways that defeat their original purpose but without dismantling or overtly attacking them" (56).

The Economist Clara Mattei, in her book, The Capital Order, defines the capital order as maintaining a certain sociopolitical order ("the social relation of capital” people selling their labour power for a wage ”must be uniform across a society" ) to promote economic growth (4). Politicians, policymakers, and some economists always almost invoke austerity [3] to maintain the requisite sociopolitical order for unhinged economic growth. Mattei argues that austerity is "an anti-democratic reaction to threats of bottom-up social change" (7). It is an invocation by the economists and technocrats—”whose actions are increasingly inseparable from the establishment’s policy-making” with the supposedly transcendental understanding of economics, which claims that economic growth is an undeniable good. In the book, Mattei shows how austerity policies originated post-World War I to subdue the alternatives to capitalism that arose during the war. In short, it was a deliberate and successful attempt to keep democratic practices at bay by its subjugation to the sovereignty of capital order. Once the goodness of economic growth is established as the good for all, the social cuts, higher interest rates, and wealth generation for the very few are posited as the necessary conditions for attaining a good life in the future. In short, the deferral is ideological since it promises utopia for all in the future and delivers wealth only for the select few in the present. In other words, Capitalism is the ideology of managed democracy, and capital order is sustained through deliberate subjugation of democracy to non-democratic economic policies—such as invoking austerity to pump money into corporations at the cost of social spending, which results in profit maximization of the few and burden on the non-saving and non-investing public.

In this article, I attempt to elaborate on the themes introduced—managed democracy and the capital order—in light of recent corruption scandals in the youngest state of India, Telangana. I look at the recent developments in Telangana to understand how universal capital order and managed democracy play out in particular provinces. Also, I try to underscore the importance of Wolin’s question from the book Democracy Incorporated: "Can the citizens relearn the demands that democracy places on its highest, most difficult office—not as commonly supposed on the office of the president, but on that of the citizen" (43)

Ten years ago, the State of Telangana was formed on 2nd June 2014 with many aspirations. It seems that the Bhartiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) that governed Telangana for the past ten years, regardless of a wave of welfare schemes [4] that it introduced, has pushed the state into a seven lakh crore debt crisis, allegedly oversaw a major surveillance scandal [5] involving tapping the phones of opposition party members, media and the perceived enemies inside the party. Meanwhile, Kavita, the daughter of K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR)—the BRS party’s founder and two-time chief minister of Telangana—was arrested on the charges that she is a vital member in the Delhi liquor scandal [6]. The BRS government invested one lakh crores in Kaleshwaram, touted as the world’s largest lift irrigation project. However, issues have arisen with the piers of the Medigadda barrage [7], a crucial component of Kaleshwaram. The Dam Safety Authority has yet to report on the safety of the barrage. And the 700 crore sheep scam [8], which saw the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). Allegedly, a ten thousand crore scam [9] involved diverting paddy meant for the Public Distribution System (PDS) with the help of BRS officials. Five months ago, the Indian National Congress (INC) won the third assembly election and formed the government, promising the delivery of six guarantees [10] that would push the state further down in the debt crisis if implemented properly. During the reign of ex-CM KCR, the current CM, A. Revanth Reddy, was caught red-handed in the vote-for-note [11] case. The incumbent government has released several white papers on irrigation projects, welfare schemes, electricity, and other issues to show the corruption of the BRS government. The BRS party retaliated by responding to these allegations in the assembly meetings; however, there were no definite conclusions as expected.

Instead of thinking about the correct course of action for the overall good of society, political parties engage in sophistry and gain a rhetorical victory at the expense of not being concerned about the question of the good life, or worse, present themselves as the precursors of the highest good by using filthy propaganda. The situation where the ’representatives’ elected by apparently ’sovereign’ people who do not act on behalf of people, or worse, present their acts as the best actions through manipulation, leads us to consider a particular contradiction internal to democracy: the question concerning sovereignty. Joseph de Maistre—the firm representative of the conservative current, especially after the French Revolution—”writes in Study on Sovereignty:

[t]he people is sovereign, they say; and over whom? Over itself apparently. The people is therefore subject. There is surely something equivocal here, if not an error, for the people that commands is not the people that obeys. (93)

These words, written way back in 1794, still make us think about the supposedly democratic polity we are inhabiting. Technically speaking, the people elect the representatives, and they are supposed to represent the interests of the people. However, can people be sovereign and, at the same time, be free subjects, especially with the representatives going against the will of the public? Moreover, how can we know the will of the people? If it is through ‘one person, one vote,’ we are reducing the citizenry to a mere electorate. The question posed by de Maistre must be thought about with utmost care, for it dismantles the democratic ground as soon as the elected representatives act as if they are mandated by the divine capital, not the public who elect them.

Therefore, if not protected by the thoughtful people who need to re-learn the demands placed by democracy on its citizens and, by extension, the representatives who ought to act disinterestedly, democracy collapses with its internal contradictions, let alone by the fusion of democracy with free market ideology. We inhabit the world of spectacle run by people whose will to power presents itself as the free reign of the capital at any cost. As we can see, the default position of political parties, both BRS and Congress in Telangana, is economic growth at any cost. The welfare schemes seem to present a benevolent face to the public, but they are meant to maintain an order that allows cash flow for the political parties and profit maximization for the corporations. Simultaneously, the same welfare schemes, touted to change public lives, get embroiled in political scandals. In case of any hiccups, public relations, a propaganda euphemism, will ensure the image is not damaged. In a polity, if the question of good is tied up with the free market, the ideals of democracy are thrown out by the sovereignty of the free market. How come sovereign people choose an ever-expanding free market economy for themselves, especially if they know it is terrible? Presumably, they don’t want to. Then, the representatives’ embrace of free market ideology shows that either they somehow have extra-constitutional powers or special knowledge about the health of the polity, or they have been deliberately lying about the capital order in the name of the common good while in the same time intensifying few people’s powers to accumulate wealth. Mattei cogently argues that the latter is the case:

[T]hat the purpose of the economic policy is to shift resources from the majority to an economic minority. . . The overall message here is explicit: cuts in social spending and labor costs not only boost the profits of the select few; they also serve as control over the majority. . . (296-97)

How have the powers successfully maintained such deception worldwide? Wolin, writing about a crucial distinction between classic totalitarianism and inverted totalitarianism, writes:

In classic totalitarianism, the conquest of total power was the conscious aim of those who led a political movement. Inverted Totalitarianism follows an entirely different course: the leader is not the architect of the system but its product. He is the pliant favored child of privilege, of corporate connections, a construction of public relations wizards and party propagandists. (44)

In a similar vein, Guy Debord wrote,

[t]he WHOLE LIFE of those societies in which modern production conditions prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. (12)

Once the distinction between the real and the representation is annihilated, the spectacles replace the concern for truth; life goes on, and everything goes. In short, there is no prescription, only description. In such a world, every event is a spectacle so much that the question of good does not occur or is sidelined as not an important question to ask. What happens when the relics of democratic ideals are present in a world devoid of prescriptions, primarily if the representatives are geared to preserve ’their’ will to power but do not want to create the classical totalitarianism situation? A managed democracy with the capital order as its ideological weapon—enough to not let the majority of people rebel and, simultaneously, eternal accumulation by the few, ever supported by the economic ideology—in which the representatives and the people electing them are born into it. It does not mean we cannot see through it; we can with some effort. But the danger implied in Wolin’s formulation is that even if we see the managed democracy for what it is, we may not be able to do much about it, especially when the question of good and collective responsibility are thrown out of conversations as bygone era’s products and are replaced by the outcomes of networks and relations— euphemism for spectacle masking as the good.

The case of Telangana is no exception. At this point, it is so ubiquitous that the terms development, progress, and growth, to mention a few, are aliases to let the capital order thrive and to let economics trump politics. If you observe, politicians across India never speak without referring to these terms. Is there anything else worth discussing? For example, responsibility and the right course of action. That "pure economics" is the politically "neutral" science of policies and individual behaviour and that there is something natural to such an economy is a myth. Many scholars have shattered this myth [12]. Economics as having achieved, Mattei writes, "a standpoint above class interests . . .constitu[ting] value-free truths" (10); free from politics is a myth that has been deployed to drive austerity [13] home so that the few at the top can maintain the hierarchical order—a lying capital order of destruction. What entails a good life in a polity is debatable. Still, if goodness is defined by the free market and such a conception is upheld by so-called democratic institutions, there is no stopping eternal accumulation, which does not contribute to the good life in a meaningful way, for such accumulation is only possible through the suffering of a whole lot of humanity.

Currently, the public of Telangana—confused among INC promises, BRS scams, and BJP’s distribution of holy rice kernels from Ayodhya—waits for the truth to emerge or the drama to conceal the truth. At the chai stall, I frequently visit every day as a ritual; I see them all: the party aligners who already know the truth and the specialists who seem to have the arsenal to speak for either side. And sometimes, the intellectuals who have been silenced. The public was asked to wait until the judicial inquiries revealed the truth. Almost a dozen people at the chai stall unanimously declared—with better conviction than any media outlet in India—that the truth would not come out, for it endangers all political parties. "We could jolly well wait for ten thousand chai times," one of them said in a peculiar chai terminology, "it will be of no use" The ordinary people seem to have given up on the deliverance of truth and justice, not just in cases produced in the court but also in events that happen in broad daylight. It is not an anomaly that the friendship between capitalists and politicians often accompanies the collapse of democratic institutions.

Walzer’s point in ’Liberalism and the Art of Separation’ is that for a healthy democratic polity, autonomous bodies must function with integrity so that none have more power than they should. That autonomous bodies like the judiciary and election commission act with integrity has been a pipe dream is well known. After all, fall of the election commission [14] and the ever-losing faith in judiciary [15]—both bodies that ought to remain autonomous and free from political pressure—provide ample evidence that democratic institutions are being trampled by powers that be. Therefore, my acquaintances at the chai stall have good reasons to conclude that the truth will never emerge.

Moreover, we must also ask why politicians reduce people to the electoral roll and say nothing about the active role of people in maintaining the health of institutions that make democracy. In a managed democracy, political order is at the service of capital order, not the public. This murderous order is maintained through deliberate political disengagement. Wolin writes, "The regime’s ideology is capitalism, which is virtually as undisputed as Nazi’s doctrine in 1930s Germany" (47). Furthermore, commenting on the meaning of representative government in a managed democracy, he writes,

[t]he citizenry is being displaced [and] severed from a direct connection with the legislative institutions that are supposed to "stand in" for the people. If the main purpose of the elections is to serve up pliant legislators for lobbyists to shape, such a system deserves to be called "misrepresentative or clientry government." it is, at the same time, a powerful contributing factor to the depoliticization of the citizenry, as well as the reason for characterizing the system as one of antidemocracy. (59)

Therein lies the danger: thinking that the only way for a better polity in a managed democracy is by electing a different political party, thereby oscillating between this and that option, rather than thinking about strengthening institutions (often subjugated by the capital order, for it does not want an equitable alternative to capitalism that involves majority in decision making) that make up democracy and deliver truth, justice, and protection. Therefore, the common root underlying the establishment and the corporations emerges–both keep people in the dark in a managed democracy in the name of austerity.

In a managed democracy, the offspring of inverted totalitarianism, the illusion of separation of powers becomes a shield wielded by political powers to protect themselves, especially when the populace is reduced to mere voters during elections. Former Telangana Chief Minister, KCR, is skilled at employing this art of separation, albeit for his ends. Take, for instance, his response to inquiries about phone tapping, where he adeptly reminded the media that a chief minister has no power over intelligence agencies’ actions. He would say that he merely received a daily report and nothing more. Similarly, when confronted about his daughter Kavita’s alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor scandal, he confidently denied any wrongdoing, stating, "There is no scam in the Delhi liquor issue. Why haven’t the agencies recovered a single rupee?" Known for his exceptional oratory skills, KCR delivers his responses with such conviction that one could easily be swayed if not discerning enough.

Wolin speaks of two imaginaries—constitutional and power. He calls each imaginary because they exist only in the imagination and have a few familiar elements. Nonetheless, they are powerful because they let people envisage a time when they become part of reality. Wolin writes,

Constitutional imaginary prescribes the means by which power is legitimated, accountable, and constrained (e.g., popular elections, legal authorization). It emphasizes stability and limits. . .¦[t]he power imaginary seeks constantly to expand present capabilities. (19)

Managed democracy is ideological precisely because of constitutional and power imaginaries. We set the ideals in the constitution’s name, which prescribes limits and checks power. But in reality, it is an imagination we want to be realized. However, capitalism, the ideology of managed democracy, posits that the only way for a country to move forward (it is always about moving forward, not about realizing the good life in the present) is by expanding its power in the name of growth, development, and globalization, among others. We are told to be uneasy in the present and hope for a bright future. While the power imaginary conceals the supposedly eternal rule of capital that controls labor power, the constitutional imaginary is a cover-up for degenerating democracy.

Therefore, fighting for our liberties involves recognizing the limits that guard us against the pitfall of nihilism and, at the same time, not letting democratic aspirations degenerate—perhaps due to hopelessness imbued by the capital order on thoughtful people—into a justification for a murder or murderous regime. Furthermore, perhaps the most important aspect is how we citizens perform our part placed on us. Can we surpass the political passivity imposed on us in a managed democracy? Can we think of realizing limits, creating values, and solidarity? Is it possible? Yes, there are still—regardless of ideological fervor that constantly attempts to devour intellectual thought—people who discern truth, shed the passivity imposed on them, and act. For example, the non-violent farmer protests against draconian farm laws were a resounding success; they showed that dissent, solidarity, and conviction still have a huge role, regardless of how stifling the political atmosphere has become. Another example is "Sakala Janula Samme" (Tr. All People’s Strike) in 2011, a successful protest of 42 days for the separate statehood of Telangana. Everyone—truck drivers, students, teachers— was part of it. Highways were blocked, trains were cancelled, and the entire region came to a halt. I remember being happy for not having to go to school, but, at the same time, having to eat in the makeshift community kitchen right on NH-65 and taking massive rallies was an everyday routine. Ironically, the politicians who led the separate state movement were the prime actors in numerous scandals that shook the state.

One could point at many defects and contradictions within liberal democracy; nevertheless, considering how utopian alternatives fared, perhaps all we could expect was a moderate government under a stable rule of law. Once we realize that one can expect moderate results, we can, in speech, argue about truth and justice as ’ought’ conditions, but we may, in our actions, only hope for moderate outcomes, always being "here and now" doing what is achievable, rather than dreaming of paradise "later on" Even these moderate aims will not come to fruition if we are not forthcoming in discussing the capital order and its subjugation of democratic institutions.

(Author: Sai Mukhesh is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania with a keen interest in the History and Philosophy of Science. | Email: jyothulamukhesh[at]gmail.com)

Works Cited

• Camus, Albert. The Rebel. 1953. Penguin Classics, Penguin Group, 2013.
• Marie, Joseph, and Jack Lively. The Works of Joseph de Maistre. Schocke
• Books, 1971.
• Mattei, Clara E. The Capital Order. University of Chicago Press, 2022.
• Walzer, Michael. “Liberalism and the Art of Separation.†Political Theory, vol. 12, no. 3, Aug. 1984, pp. 315–30, https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591784012003001.
• Wolin, Sheldon S. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton University Press, 2017.