Wealth Redistribution Debate ? From The Proletarian Point Of
When the election campaign was going in full swing in India, Sam Pitroda, the then chairman of Indian Overseas Congress, created more than a flutter by a supposedly innocuous statement from his present abode in USA. He stated that India should have something like inheritance tax of USA, where 55% of the wealth inherited by the children of their parents is 'grabbed' by the Government. Presumably, he referred to this US act as a measure against the rising inequality in India. BJP jumped into the statement and interpreted it as a plan ofCongress for wealth redistribution by ?forcibly snatchingaway??hard-earned? wealth of the individuals, though there was neitherany mention of wealth redistribution nor of inheritance tax in theelection manifesto of the Congress party. Modi went further and in hischaracteristic style claimed in his election meetings that the Congressis planning to snatch mangalsutras of Hindu housewives andbhains of poor Hindu peasant families to give that wealth tothe Muslims. Today, after the election results it has become obviousthat at that time Modi was getting anxious about the election resultsand he was trying to polarise the electorate in a Hindu-Muslim divideand rouse the Hindu voters to vote for BJP. The fact that inspite of allhis theatrics he could not alter the slide of his party in the electionis altogether a different story. But, it is a fact that the huge uproarcreated by the BJP and its lackey media was successful in generatingsome adverse reactions from the wealthy, rich and also upper middleclass people, due to which the Congress party distanced itself from thestatement and ultimately Mr. Pitroda was removed from chairmanship ofIndian Overseas Congress. And in this way it also made it clear that itis not in favour of any idea of wealth redistribution.
How can it be? The Congress party may promise some alms for the poorto get their votes and capture the governmental power. It may alsopromise to give some benefits like free rations and a few days of MNREGAtype jobs from government kitty, when in power or may be a few thingsmore. But,the redistribution of wealth? Capturing a part of wealth ofthe rich and giving it to the poor? How can it favour such a step? It isalso a party of the rich, of the big bourgeoisie. Not only that, for along time it was the main party whom the big bourgeoisie supported andon which they depended. It was the main representative of the rulingclasses of India. So, how can it favour an idea of general wealthredistribution? Moreover, in a country ruled by the bourgeoisie, rightof private property is considered as inviolable and in India also, theconstitution holds the right of private property as a fundamental right.So, not only BJP or Congress, no party working within the framework ofthe present constitution, can ask for any general redistribution ofwealth.
But, if we delve a bit deeper, the hollowness of the logic of therich people to portray their property as 'hard-earned' by them becomesapparent. And also their logic that as the constitution has attributedall citizens the right of property so that the property cannot be takenaway also does not hold water. Is the right of property of rich and poorconsidered at par in this society? Can we forget how many times sincethe 'independence' and especially since the beginning of globalisation,acres after acres of land of the poor have been taken away by thegovernments in the name of development, in the name of greater commongood of the society by forcible land acquisition? Do not we know howmany crores of indigenous people were uprooted from their habitat,either by the governments for development projects or by the bigbourgeoisie for mines or industrial projects? Even in recent times, thecontract farming act, which was passed in the interest of the corporatesbut later withdrawn under the pressure of farming community, was alsoprepared to capture the land of poor peasants by the corporates.Everyday millions of petty bourgeoisie, petty producers are gettingruined in the competition with the big monopoly capitalists. Theproperties of small bourgeoisie, small petty producers are beingdevoured by the big capitalists. As Engels once said, for smallcapitalists and peasant proprietors ?freedom of property? fromfeudal fetters became ?freedom from property?. So, hereproperty of poor can be snatched by duping them, forcibly acquired bythe bourgeois government, usurped, bulldozed, but the same cannot bedone with the property of the rich.
Whenever, there arises a question of taking away some part of theirproperty, everybody from the upper strata talks about hard earnedproperty. Hard-earned property? My foot. The wealth of the capitalistsis not product of the labour of the capitalists, but the labour of theworkers. They sweat blood to produce the goods which makes thecapitalists rich, who exploits the workers on the strength of theirownership of means of production. So, actually the wealth is hard earnedby the workers and toiling people but which has been snatched away fromthem by the capitalists. So, had anybody forcibly taken away the wealthfrom the capitalists and other rich people, who live a parasitic life byliving on others? labour and distributed it to the toiling people, itwould not have been an act of snatching away, but an act of returning ofthe wealth from the thieves to its real owner. But, that will beconsidered as a grave offence by this society of capitalists, by theirlaw.
To be honest, regarding the question when private property can beappropriated for the good of society and when it cannot be, bourgeoisreasoning can sometimes may get quite confusing. When the abovealtercation on the question of wealth redistribution was raging in theelectoral arena, a similar question cropped up in a case the SupremeCourt was dealing with. The case regarding a question whether aparticular plot of land can be acquired by the Government, reached aparticular stage where interpretation of article 39 (a) becamenecessary. There is no need to get into the details, only a few thingsmay suffice. First of all, the question which was considered by thebench of the Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice was whetherany private property can be acquired by the Government. Someadvocates tried to argue that no individual property or private propertycan be acquired by the government. They also tried to argue that the anearlier opinion of late Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer that all privateproperties can be acquired for greater good of society is a socialistproposition which should be contemptuously rejected. However, the Chiefjustice D Y Chandrachud took a middle path. Whereas he agreed that theproposition of Justice Iyer is socialistic and should not be followed,he argued that opposing any acquisition of private property is notadvisable. He said that in that case the measures of land reforms oracquiring of mines and banks could not have been possible. It isabsolutely correct. Actually his arguments laid bare the real positionof the bourgeoisie in this question. The bourgeoisie always uphold theright of private property as sacrosanct. But that does not mean that thebourgeois state never acquires property of a private individual and alsoThey have acquired land from the big landlords to distribute it amonglandless. Because, they did it only when they felt that it was necessaryfor the interest of the bourgeoisie. When they have acquired from richor big landlords, they gave huge amount of compensation to the biglandlords. The bourgeois state has also acquired land from the small,petty landholders for their ?development model?, to buildinfrastructure, to construct mines and etc. But, those petty landownerswere forcibly evicted from their lands almost without any compensationor at the most with meagre amount of compensation which cannotcompensate their losses. The bourgeois state upholds the right ofprivate property but acquired the banks, the mines for the greater goodof the bourgeoisie as a class. Not only in the days of ?Nehruviansocialism?, it is even true today, during the days of ?free competition?of capitalism. There are many examples where the bourgeois stateacquired numerous ailing bourgeois financial institutions so that theirfailure does not bring down the whole financial system of the country.(Here, we may also note that not only the bourgeois governments, the bigbourgeoisie themselves take away the property of small bourgeoisie,petty-bourgeoisie by competition and also by a number of tricks,financial tricks like manipulation of share market included). So,bourgeoisie is for private property, they consider it as their sacredright is true as a whole, as a general right, but that does not meanthat that sacred right cannot be ignored in special cases, where rightof the individual comes as an impediment to the interest of the whole ofthe bourgeoisie as a class. This is the inner content of the argumentsof the Chief Justice. It cannot be otherwise. Because, in a bourgeoisstate the function of the judiciary is to serve the interest of thebourgeois class as a whole and to try to resolve the disputes in theinterest of that class.
But, their argument that the redistribution of wealth is socialistidea is completely mistaken. Of course such a mistake is natural ontheir part, because how much knowledge they may have on bourgeois legalsystem, they know nothing about the socialism, we mean to say,scientific socialism that is Marxism. No worthy socialists, not even theutopian socialists, original champions of idea of socialism, leave asideMarx-Engels and their real followers, demanded or worked forredistribution of wealth within the limits of the bourgeois society. TheSocialists always aimed for a society where all means of production willbe taken away from the capitalists to bring those under socialownership. From the days of great utopian socialists like Owen, Fourier,Saint Simon, socialist society meant a society based on social ownershipof means of production, where everybody is a worker, where classdivision disappears, and with that the exploitation of man by man. Here,the social ownership is of means of production, not of the means ofsubsistence. Means of subsistence is of use of every member of society,either as his personal belonging or as a part of society. These means ofsubsistence is the fruit of one?s labour, which cannot be appropriatedby anybody else. Even for the sake of debate, we consider that wealth istaken away from the rich and distributed to those who do not have, canit remove the inequality present in the capitalist society? First ofall, one may take away money, and distribute it to the poor, what willhappen about the factories, machineries, etc, i.e., means of productionwhich has become already socialised in the capitalist society, that is,which have been transformed in such a way that these cannot be used byindividuals, but must be used by many. Can we divide the factories inmany small parts and distribute each and every machine, or even partthereof to the individuals? No doubt, that is not possible. Now, if weleave the factories or means of production to its present owners, thosemeans of production will again be used to exploit the proletariat, thatis, who do not have any means of production. This exploitation of theproletariat will again increase the inequality of wealth. So, even if inour wild imagination we consider that wealth redistribution is carriedaway in a bourgeois society, it cannot resolve the inequality.
Furthermore, the socialist ownership of means of production is alsonot same as state ownership of some factories under a bourgeois state.The state ownership of factories, of some means of production wasprojected as a socialist step to dupe the toiling people. This was doneby the Congress during the initial period of the republic, aided by thereformist-revisionist parties like CPI, CPI(M) & co. That so-calledNehruvian socialism was nothing but a phase of capitalism in India forthe benefits of the bourgeoisie as a whole, especially the bigbourgeoisie. At that time it was used to dupe the toiling people andnowadays it is being used as a weapon against the idea of socialism.But, such state ownership is not socialism, neither the idea ofredistribution of wealth is a socialist idea. The ongoing march ofstruggle for socialism may have been defeated, but we must not allow inany way the distortion or defeat of the idea of scientific socialism. Wemust in every way work hard to preserve and uphold the revolutionaryessence of the scientific theory of socialism.
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