Economic Crisis.. An Opportunity..

One is hearing a lot and reading a lot (and seeing a lot on TV), reg. the economic crisis and the figures are staggering. Everyday incredible numbers, whether it's unemployment percentage, job cuts or quantum of wealth erosion keep coming from the media. The media and the analysts also based on their inclinations and biases (and perhaps based on their data and guts) give their predictions on how things will turn out to be..

It's all indeed very bewildering and sometimes defies sense.

I read in my primary school book that the basic needs of human beings are food, clothing and shelter.

I don't believe that since the start of this 'global melt-down', there has been a sudden reduction in production of any of these three. In other words the world continues to produce the same quantity of food and clothing and the housing levels continue to be more or less what they were before all this madness began.

Then who is the actual sufferer? The ones losing jobs. They are the ones who are really hit and deprived/facing the possibility of deprivation of these basic needs. For the rest, it's just some numbers in some statements will be smaller now. They have food to eat, clothing to wear and a roof above their heads. So the crisis is for those who lost their jobs, and for those it looks imminent.

Now if we look at it, that's a sizeable number, but is it sizeable in proportion to the real bulk of people in poor countries in unorganised sector who never had firm employment, the vast rural population living in poverty who depend on agriculture and allied works etc. ?

I wish I had numbers with me, but my gut feeling is that for every new job loss that's happening now, there's already 10 or 15 people who are already living in precarious conditions due to lack of a steady job or reasonable income. They have always been there, in the sense we just didn't see them before all this meltdown happened (not that we see them now), and they never had any serious voice.

So all that's happening now is more of urban people have lost a security net made of steady income, and more are about to lose - and it hurts/impacts directly those people who consume today's media, whether it's TV, print or web. Hence the huge commotion on economic meltdown now.

What's happening effectively is a breakdown of an essentially flawed system which was based on greed, insecurity and division. Strictly speaking we should all be rejoicing and grabbing this opportunity to build a world where there will be joy and peace. Before getting on to what we should/could be possibly doing, let me substantiate my atrocious/ludicrous allegation.

Today's system is based on greed.

Today's corporates are profit motivated, and growth driven. In the process ulmost universally, they bring unplanned, uncaring urbanisation, ruthlessly make jobs so specialised effectively styming all creative abilities in their workforce and unemployable elsewhere (at the same time without hesitation throwing them out when their jobs come in the way of maintaining their insane profits). Profits and growth are many a times a zero sum game, unless very very well planned, and unless they are not artificially thrust in a place. The side of the equation taking a hit is many a times are the vulnerable areas such as envioronment, the workforce, the natural resources of a place etc. These negatives do not figure in any reckoning while the glistening growth stories are recorded and recited in corporate and countries' reports.

Today's system is based on insecurity.

Today's system sustains and ensures a society where there are vulnerable, insecure, needy people are there and uses this as a tool to engender insecurity in the minds of the people with money and makes them work very hard and save (which is essentially a way of taking money off the people and giving it to corporates, and when given for artificial growth, facilitates the maladies visited in previous para) instead of giving to the needy, vulnerable sections and ensuring a healthy, happy life for all today. In other words worried about being left without money for my later years, I do not give to those who go to bed with hunger today. Today's society makes this idiocy perfectly logical and reasonable and any alternate action so difficult to execute and even mind-boggling to figure out.

Today's system is based on division

Today's system divides people on various labels, the two most dangerous ones being nationalism and religion. Volumes have been written about the danger and fallacy of these divisions but the policy makers, and those who take decisions that impact people are many a times driven by these ideas. We have inherited a sickening baggage of these two from the yesteryears and that's just weighing the whole world down. We need to just shrug this baggage off if we need to get anywhere.

Let's think over the possibilities and options 'today's crisis' presents to shake up this crazy system into a sensible one in subsequent posts.