By Raja Prabath Lankaloka
Currently, there are many people who are proposing to go for a general election as a solution to the current crisis, the country is facing. In the meantime, we also heard a scream begging to protect the state. Although we do not have any desire to answer the opportunistic crooks who, lick the backs of the capitalist rulers, there are sections among us who are confused by such slanderous nonsense, because of the illusion that the current education system has inculcated in the people that things like the state and the general election are essential elements of a governance system. So, we have to explain the governance structure of a country, the purpose it was built for and the reason for rulers and their protectors to spread false propaganda on them.
At present, the economic decisions made in Sri Lanka or elsewhere in the world are based on the needs of the people but on the basis of profit. Maintaining the private property system, allowing capital to be invested freely, providing opportunities to make profits from those investments, providing cheap labor to make such profits, allowing to exploit labor and resources as required, and subordinating the country’s resources to the market forces are key elements of the present social system. The purpose of governments in any country is to set out the legal and administrative framework to facilitate those activities.
Global capital is now controlled by a handful of the world’s most powerful financial institutions and companies, and economic policies around the world are shaped by the interests of those global companies and imperialist countries too, to which those companies have belonged. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are nothing but institutions set up to facilitate those global corporations to plunder the resources of other countries for the economic interests of those companies and the imperialist powers. The measures taken by previous governments to which paved the way to the catastrophe faced by Sri Lanka today, namely the devaluation of the rupee, the deregulation of trade, the abolition of price controls and subsidies, the introduction of export-oriented economic policies, privatization, austerity measures in health care and education sectors all were carried out according to the recommendations of those institutions.
These policies have caused the debt crisis, which has plunged Sri Lanka into bankruptcy. It was these institutions that pushed developing countries to borrow, for the sake of accelerating economic development. Developing countries like Sri Lanka were initially given loans at a low-interest rate to persuade them to take loans heavily. Politicians wasted money on their luxuries and white elephant projects, and those institutions did not have any concern for them. The goods, technology and other services required for those projects were procured from developed countries. Therefore, around 80% -90% of the loan value has gone back to the developed countries and the borrowers had to pay instalments and interest on the entire loan. Later, developing countries were pushed to borrow more to pay off their debts. It is this process that has plunged Sri Lanka into the crisis it faces today.
In view of all the above, it is quite clear that the current crisis has taken place due to the economic and political system of the country. The current ruling party must be ousted. There is no debate on that. At the same time, we must keep in mind that the removal of an individual or a group of people from governance alone will not solve the issues faced by the country today. This is because the rulers are being created by the economic and political system, and when one or more faces are removed, this system will replace them with other faces which suit the interest of the system. As long as the existing system is not changed, it will not be possible to prevent another group of traitors from coming to power.
Since the current crisis is caused by the economic and political system, we must stand firm in changing this system. This is where we need to start a discussion on what system we should build instead.
Any governing structure is built to meet the needs of the economic system. There have been different forms of governance in different eras of history based on the needs of that era. After the establishment of the capitalist system, the present system of governance, known as representative democracy, was established around the world, which evolved to suit its needs. In Sri Lanka, the Parliament and the executive presidency and other institutions have been established for the same purpose.
Accordingly, the current governing structure of Sri Lanka is designed, as mentioned earlier, to maintain a profit-oriented system that allows for imperialist interests, and as part of that, to facilitate global capital, obtain cheap labor, exploit labor and plunder the country’s resources.
At present, the state is the governance structure built according to the needs of the capitalist system, together with the instruments of oppression controlled by the state, which are established to suppress the people, who rise against the system, when they are no more able to bear the atrocities of the system. The military and the police belong to the instruments of oppression. Accordingly, the crooks who are screaming to save the state are doing so to save the capitalist state machine which is built on capitalist desires, fulfils capitalist desires, and unleashes bloody repression on the people who rise against it as they got devastated.
Elections are being held to elect people who will run the state machinery for a certain period of time. Summarizing Marx’s ideas stated in his book “Civil War in France”, Lenin wrote in his book “State and Revolution” as follows. “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” This is what actually happens in a general election. That is why we always say that a general election is not a solution at all to the ongoing crisis. On the other hand, what is the guarantee that the current crooks will not be re-elected in the next election?
The feature of this system is to hide those facts from the people and keep them out of politics. The Constitution of Sri Lanka states that the sovereignty of the Republic of Sri Lanka rests with the people. But as stated in the next article of the same constitution, the people can exercise that sovereignty only by voting in a presidential election, a general election or a referendum. Accordingly, every possible opportunity for the people to intervene in the decision-making processes in economic and political fields has been prevented. Those decisions are made by an executive president and the parliament. At the very least, the people have no power to recall their elected representatives if they do not make the decisions, the people have mandated.
What we need is not a system that fools the people and prevents them from making political and economic decisions, but a governing structure in which the people can actively intervene to make decisions for their institutions, their industry and their region. Subject to the power of recall, the entire administration of any institution (including factories, banks, businesses and service providers) shall be entrusted to a democratically elected committee, selected from a ballot by all working people, for a specified time period. Similarly, Presents Committees and Fisheries Committees should be established for areas of farmers and fisheries. Local People’s Committees should be set up to take decisions on the needs of the people at the local level. A National General Assembly should be formed out of the elected representatives of the established Workers Committees, Farmers’ Committees, Fisheries Committees and Local People’s Committees, for the planning and coordination required at that national level. These councils should not be merely advisory councils or monitoring bodies, but councils that make and implement the decisions. Thus, there will no longer be a need for a parliament, an executive president, or any other kind of representative to waste public money.
In such a regime, the people are actively involved in governance and decision-making. Therefore, the chances of fraud and corruption in such a regime are very much reduced. Since any committee member is subject to recall, they are constantly addressing the interests of the people. These committees are established in such a way that being a member of the committee is not a privilege of any kind.
In such a regime, the interests of the people will take precedence over profit. Decisions will be made according to the real needs of the people, rather than the interests of the imperialist financial institutions. Instead of developing the private property system, the public property system will take precedence. When making projects, their need, their impact on the environment and sustainability will be taken into consideration. Essential services such as banks, education, health, and transportation will soon be brought under general planning and public control. Racism, religiosity, gender inequality, and gender inequality will be eliminated.
What we need today is to provide guidance to the working class and the masses to build a truly democratic people’s governance as explained above.
