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Friday March 29, 2024

Power of money

By Hussain H Zaidi
January 22, 2017

In his farewell address, former US president Barack Obama outlined the threats to democracy in his country – a shrinking world, growing inequality, demographic changes and terrorism. These perils to democracy are not specific to one nation and apply to all democratic countries including Pakistan.

Although he made an oblique reference to it, Obama’s prognosis effectively misses out the foremost danger to democracy – the increasing power of money. The man who succeeds Obama in the White House is a billionaire. But this does not mean that Trump’s rival in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton, didn’t represent the power of money.

Arguably the most virulent attack ever on the relationship between money and democracy was made by the 20th century German philosopher Oswald Spengler in his monumental work, The Decline of the West. For Spengler, democracy and plutocracy are the same. Universal suffrage, which lies at the heart of representative democracy, requires heaps of money for its application through nationwide electioneering. The candidates who wish to set in motion their ideologies, must arrange the necessary funds.

While a democratic constitution, argues Spengler, may confer a plethora of fundamental rights on people, the ability to have these rights enforced requires a pretty penny. The freedom of opinion – another cornerstone of democracy – involves generation of opinion, which needs money. The ownership of press or electronic media is also a pecuniary matter.

While Spengler might have gone overboard in equating democracy and plutocracy, the money-democracy relationship is confirmed by history. The growth of overseas trade in the 16th and 17th centuries encouraged surplus agricultural production and contributed to the termination of serfdom –  an inefficient means of economic organisation. The expansion of trade also sounded the death-knell for the medieval guild system and paved the way for the rise of capitalism to satisfy the demand for manufactured goods through mass production.

Trade created capitalists (middle class bourgeoisie) bankers and stockbrokers, who were destined to play a central role in pulling down the old regime. This particular class though, did not stake claim to power, for it wanted a political set-up conducive to its interests.

The feudal states did not suit them – what the bourgeoisie wanted was a freer movement of goods, larger markets, uniform laws and a strong centralised government which could give them full protection. Therefore, they supported kings in their conflict with competing forces.

However, as its influence expanded, the middle class started pressing for political reforms with a view to having political power commensurate with its economic muscles. This brought the middle class into direct conflict with absolute monarchy – the very institution they had supported earlier. It was due to the efforts of the middle class that political reforms culminating in the rise of representative governments in Europe were adopted. In this way the democratic nation state emerged. Even the French Revolution was a bourgeoisie revolution. It is not a coincidence either that one country – England – was the cradle of both industrialisation and the parliamentary form of government.

But the moneyed class, which is the nobility of the modern era, is interested in rent seeking, not in absolutism or republicanism, despotism or democracy, social liberalism or conservatism. The welfare of the people or the popular sovereign, is the least of their concerns. During the last two and a half decades in which democracy and capitalism have been the supreme political and economic doctrines all over the world, the concentration of wealth has increased. “An economy for 99 percent”, a report recently released by Oxform, finds that eight of the richest people own the same wealth as that owned by the poorest half of mankind – around 3.6 billion people. Big businesses are rigging the political process to ensure that their fortune ratchets up at the expense of the vast majority of the population.

Pakistan is no exception when it comes to the power of money to manipulate the political process. Elections are largely a pecuniary affair. All else being equal, the more a candidate is capable of and willing to spend, the brighter are the prospects of his victory.

The leadership of all the major political parties are well aware of the wonders that money can do in politics and they keep in view the financial credentials of candidates while awarding them party tickets. One plays to win, not to lose. Just look at the list of the successful candidates fielded by the three largest political parties in the 2013 elections and any doubts about the power of money will be cast aside.

The ECP rules prescribe Rs1.5 million as the maximum amount of money a candidate for the National Assembly can spend on his/her electioneering. Is the stipulation adhered to? Hardly.       

A typical NA constituency comprises around 200 polling stations. On election day, a candidate is supposed to provide meals to polling agents and supporters and transport to the voters. In the run-up to the polls, he has to campaign all over his constituency. Thousands of posters, banners and billboards have to be printed and replaced at least twice a week. Staff and transport have to be hired for door-to-door electioneering.

These are all ‘legitimate’ items of expenditure – even the cost of these goes up to millions, making a mockery of the ceiling on electoral spending. Whether it is political parties or independent candidates, they leave no stone unturned to ensure their victory. Thus it’s not a big deal if they have to barter a few million rupees for purchasing the support of influential people in the constituency and the ordinary voter. But seldom has a candidate been disqualified for having overshot the limit on electoral spending.

Having doled out so much in cash and kind to return to the assemblies, the legislators can’t be realistically expected to exhibit a particular disdain for money. This doesn’t mean that parliamentarians are a corrupt breed. What it means is that given the role money plays in every election, it is difficult to resist the temptation of a monetary reward if the stakes are high.

Democracy everywhere must usher in improved economic, social and political opportunities. This is the strongest test to gauge the efficacy of the democratic form of government as well as to serve as the ultimate argument in support of the system. The most potent threat to democracy today stems not from extremism, fanaticism or ethnicity but from the perverted impact of money, which unfortunately, is increasing.

The writer is a freelance countributor. Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com