Restructuring Value Base of Social Sciences in the Age of Neo-Liberalism

The emergence of a unipolar world and a centralised political order: After the disintegration of the USSR, there was almost an end of ideology, and neo-liberalism became the lone player in the field. Even China, in the garb of socialist order, accepted privatisation and a fast economic growth model. India, which was wedded to a mixed economy and central planning, adopted the LPG model after 1990. In many places, the role of the state, which was the welfare of people, was reduced to a provider of infrastructure for speedy industrial growth.

With the acceptance of neo-liberalism by the state, many welfare schemes have been dropped. There are now fewer jobs in the government sector and more in the private sector. Sectors like education and health are also being privatized. Labour laws … are being changed to labour code, reducing the tripartite (employer, employee and government) structure of labour administration to almost bipartite one. (Joshi, 2022, p. 150)

On the economic front, the state gradually starts giving up its promises made in the constitution. Political authority is being centralised more and more. The economic and financial authority of local self-government institutions is being taken away by the central authority. The role of NGOs is either being formalised as a service provider or being reduced to a minimum. The politics of majoritarianism dominates almost every country. Knowledge-creation institutions are also being privatised in line with neo-liberalism. Many autonomous research institutions are either becoming defunct or being closed. In place, many individual consultants are springing up, clearly taking sides with the order. The human rights front is also a matter of concern. The United Nations accepted certain human rights for all the people of the world, as early as 1948. They are given legal forms in many countries. ‘However, violation of human rights in the 21st century has become a stark reality. … Many states themselves are violating human rights by using police and other force’ (Joshi, 2020, 159).

Environmental crisis: The development pattern exploits natural resources, and the damage is beyond repair.

The ruling paradigm about environmental issues continues to be biased in favour of the North, and the elites of the South. This bias creates several misconceptions about environmental issues in the third world. The first misconception is that the third world countries need ‘development’ and cannot afford the luxury of protecting nature’s ecological processes. The second misconception is that poor people cannot be a source of solution, they are merely a source of environmental problems. (Shiva, 1991, p. 11)

As such, the crisis is not new. Way back in 1969, forty concerned intellectuals met in Rome and declared that environmental resources were in crisis. They warned concerned states to put ‘Limits to Growth’. They also warned against the belief that natural resources are unlimited. The advice went unheard. Since then, the following steps have been reported: (a) The First Earth Summit in Belgium (1972) also called on all concerned to save the earth. (b) A commission report ‘Our Common Future’ (1988) said that with the degradation of the environment, not only poor people may die because of pollution but even rich people may also die. So, saving the environment is our common future. Various universities and research institutes have started environmental studies. But the emphasis was not to alter the system. (c) In 1992, the United Nations Conference for Environment and Development (UNCED) gave us Agenda-21 for sustainable development, where we develop technology that may not eat up our environmental resources but may regenerate them. Now, various states have enacted environmental laws and started environment-related institutions. But very few people have adopted sustainable development technologies. The pollution went on increasing. Global warming has become a reality. People started talking about green energy. Economists have found indicators to measure environmental degradation. Sociologists studied environmental movements. But the mainstream development remained the same. (d) It was then that the United Nations introduced the Millenium Development Goals in 2000 AD. They were not achieved. (e) Then, the United Nations introduced sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015 and set a target of implementing it fully by 2030. A midterm review in 2020 suggests that SDG is not implemented in full spirit. Meanwhile, pollution is increasing beyond limits. The UN report says that inequality has increased in developed countries, it goes on increasing, and global warming has reached an alarming state. Recycling, carbon credit or renewable energy is not the solution. You will have to go to the roots.

Competitive society and economy: A fiercely competitive, and hence achieving, society is emerging based on individual achievement. A small child attending a kindergarten school is being told by the mother not to give notes to their co-student, as they are their competitor. Thus, from the early childhood socialisation process, a child is taught about competition and not about cooperation, friendship and harmony. Your colleague in your office is also your competitor. Every relationship is seen as a competitive relationship in a competitive society. Social science knowledge tells us that a competitive society is a creative society prone to research, innovation and development, though evidence of the relationship between competition and creativity is hardly provided. In the enthusiasm to establish an open society, the basic fabric of society is ignored.

They overlooked the institutions and rules that alone enable competition to work—the protection of property, the enforcement of contract prevention of fraud. They overlooked the common ends and values which are not competitive, but which are superior to those, and which keep social order in harmony. They forgot that competition can be vicious as well beneficent, that it can lead to starvation in the midst of plenty, to fear and insecurity, to instability and pain.… They forgot that unlimited competition could lead inevitably to monopoly that the very success of the strong leads to gigantic power over the weak and creates such inequality that a mockery is made of contract. Above all, they forgot that a few are willing to pay the full cost of competition, that security as well as opportunity is a universal motive. (Davis, 1966, p. 165)

Rising poverty and inequality: Poverty and inequality are inevitable results of a competitive society. Economists calculate poverty in absolute terms, in three manners: income, consumption and calories. Now, according to standardised indicators, if one is above a certain level of income, consumption or calorie intake level, they are above the poverty line. All those below the line are BPL. Many governments and even the World Bank claim that development has taken place, and as a result, some people have risen above the poverty line. ‘There were 735 million people living in extreme poverty in 2015’ (World Bank, 2018). If the income of the poor rises and prices also rise, the poor will remain poor.

In US, real income of poor people has remained stagnant for past sixty years. If the income in form of money rises by 10 percent per annum and the price rise is also 10 per cent per annum, the real income does not rise. And the price rises generally more than the rise of income of the poor. (Joshi, 2022, p. 161)

Poverty exists more in poor countries; nearly 60 per cent of the world’s 1 billion extremely poor people lived in only five countries in 2011: India, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Laxman, 2023, p. 25). There is a big methodological issue. Poverty is a relative term, related to the rich. Poverty cannot be seen in absolute terms and in isolation. It must be seen in terms of inequality. More inequality means more poverty. According to Piketty, ‘market economy based on private property contains powerful forces that push in the direction of increased inequality as well as forces that push in the other direction’ (Ronie, 2017, p. 146). Oxfam and the UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs (UNDSEA) have worked on unequal distribution. Joseph Stiglitz talks of market failure in terms of distribution. Market, as believed earlier, is not a great leveller. Inequality has increased in developed countries. The more the development, the more the inequality. Oxfam International’s ‘Inequality Kills’ report (Ahmed et al., 2022) says that the richest 1 per cent of the world population owns 40 per cent of global assets. The three richest persons’ assets are more than the assets of 48 lower-income countries. Iceland is the richest country in the world, with per capita income of $2,03,847 per annum. Malavi is the poorest country in the world, where per capita income is only $54 per annum. If we see the overall picture, as reported in the UN General Assembly, in a world of 7 billion people, 80 per cent live on less than $10 per day and almost half of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. We sociologists are more concerned with ascription-based inequality but not much concerned with achievement-based inequality.

Employment and working conditions: Neo-liberalisation is not only characterised by LPG but also by the use of AI and ML in production and service processes. As a result, there is a structural transformation in both the processes. AI and ML both pose a threat to employment opportunities for millions. As machines learn to accomplish certain complex production tasks, known as automation, there is a fear of decrease in job opportunities. The question is: what types of jobs are at risk? It is believed that non-routine jobs require manual handling, whereas routine jobs can be handled by machines. AI and ML will not only take away certain jobs but also divide employees into two strata of digitally literate and non-literate. High-end jobs require AI and ML, on one hand, and more manual tasks, on the other. About 47 per cent of US workers face the risk of losing their jobs. Sectors such as transportation, office administration and HRM are likely to be affected more. Between 2004 and 2009, 7 million Americans lost their jobs. In India, between 2001 and 2011, the labour force grew by 2.23 per cent, employment grew by 1.4 per cent and GDP growth was 7.7 per cent. Joblessness was 6.6 per cent in 2011. This was the highest unemployment rate after 1970–1971.

Not only the jobs have grown, but the working conditions have also become hard. Labour laws are being transformed into labour codes. Instead of a plethora of labour laws, now we may have four types of labour codes: wage code, working condition code, social security code and safety-related code. The code may be a bipartite issue between employee and employer. Government’s intervention may be reduced. That is also expected in neo-liberalism. Eight-hour shifts may stop very soon, and many jobs may have twelve-hour shifts. Once upon a time, we had powerful trade unions (Tus) protecting the interests of the working class. In the phase of neo-liberalism, TUs have gone weak. We had powerful TU leaders as political leaders of national and international stature. Today, we do not have a single TU leader of national stature.

Failure of market institutions: Earlier, economists and market management experts used to believe that the market is rational and also a great leveller. All problems will be taken care of by market institutions. Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hands of market teaches us that demand and supply of goods and services in a free-market economy will reach a level of equilibrium. This happens because the market works on rationality. Moreover, there is auto-correction in the market, and with some adjustments, the market can avoid any disasters. Private businesses will act in favour of people. So, no government restrictions are required on the economy. LPG was introduced world over in the past three decades. It worked well for two decades. Then, fissures started appearing. There was no perfect competition and no perfect market having an auto-correction mode. Big fish started putting small fish out of business. Independent individuals were reduced to the status of consumers. They do not have freedom; they have only market choice. They cannot participate in the decision-making process. With the advancement of IT, information became power for those who owned the technology. Joseph Stiglitz, who advised the US government to adopt LPG, was disenchanted by the market failure and wrote a book The Roaring Nineties in 2004 and apologised before people for wrongly advising the US government. Concerned social scientists should listen to him, on the net, on ‘Ethics, market and Government Failure, and Globalization’.

Unnatural lifestyle: Globalisation has brought many changes to the lives of people. Human beings are operators, one of the three biotic elements of the environment. They were living in harmony with other biotic and abiotic elements. Now, the operators make efforts to ‘develop’ at the cost of other elements of the environment. All types of fuel human beings use reduce the resource base of the environment. All the gadgets they use generate carbon, resulting in global warming. All plastic and other packaging materials they use generate pollution. Prior to globalisation, their eating and drinking habits, clothing, working habits, leisure activities, daily routine etc. were in harmony with the larger environment. During globalisation, these habits seem to be changing. Now, ready-to-eat food available in the market is full of unnatural elements. Six white items used in excess in food are almost poison. They are salt, sugar, soda, refined flour, monosodium glutamate and cheese. They are not in harmony with the human body. This generates many lifestyle diseases. Overemphasis on competition has led to stress among the working class. Everyone must achieve, and everyone has to succeed. We must work hard to earn more and ‘develop’. Since both the life partners are working, and working overtime, quality family time and family function such as childcare, care of the elderly, entertainment and food cooking are being taken away by market institutions, weakening family relationships. This results in a need for family and relationship counselling. A new competitive professional lifestyle has taken away community life. Earlier, we used to have family doctors, family tailors, family grocery providers and so on. Now, we do not have such personalised services. To get more and more consumer items, we are bent upon harming other elements of the environment, breaking our harmony with them and destroying them.

Civil society institutions: With more and more privatisation of community resources, restricting the role of governments to the level of providing infrastructure and, with the increasing role of market, overall welfare measures and social justice issues have taken a back seat. At this juncture, one good point is the emergence of civil society institutions. This is a good sign. Social scientists will have to study them. This happened once under the leadership of Rajani Kothari, when some social scientists started a project on ‘Lokayan’. The market may not oppose structural violence, but civil society organisations, in the form of CBOs and MBOs, do oppose such violence. They demand water, land and forest resources to be community resources. Several micro-movements are taking place. Studies by social scientists will bring new data and transparency to the system. Many sections of society, such as LGBTQ people, women, tribals or first nationals, dalits and human rights activists, have started speaking against the dominance of MNCs. There is also a democratic upsurge. Now people demand the implementation of the PESA Act. They demand the holding of Gram Sabha. At the international level, recently we have witnessed demand for democratic rule in the Philippines, China, Burma (Myanmar), Korea, Nepal, Chile and Argentina. A new Arab Spring may happen again. This indicates that war, violence and hegemony are not necessary for a humane social order. It is likely that civil society organisations may come up with new agendas.

Liberty: When the French Revolution promoted the value of freedom, or liberty, it meant liberty from the clutches of feudal and princely states. A clear meaning was to establish a democratic state where there will be no servitude, every person will be free to choose their course of action and people will no longer be at the mercy of rulers. The emergence of liberalism supported such a notion of liberty, and democratic states were established in many countries. Now, where is my freedom? I am free to vote for a candidate of my choice. I have some fundamental rights given by the constitution. Such is the case in many democratic countries. Of course, non-democratic countries do not have provisions for such rights. Now, after neo-liberalism, two things have happened. One, the role of the state is shrinking, and second, the role of the market is increasing. So far as the role of the state is concerned, majoritarianism has emerged in a big way. So, minority rights are questioned. When I say minority, I do not mean only religious minority. On the economic front, the increased role of the market has put citizens’ rights in question. A full-fledged citizen has been reduced to the level of merely a consumer in a big market structure. Emerson opposed big structures, as they take away the freedom of an individual and reduce them to a small, negligible unit. A citizen has market choice, not freedom. They know that toothpaste does not whiten teeth, but they are helpless. They enjoy that they have the option to choose a toothpaste of their choice. Thus, the value of liberty has been truncated in the phase of neo-liberalism.

Equality: When the Enlightenment Age and the French Revolution established the value of equality, they clearly made reference to the abolition of the old ascription-based, feudal system–based inequality. When they cherished equality, they cherished the vanishing of old inequality. It was believed that an old society will give way to a new open society, where everybody will have equality of opportunity. All citizens will be equals. There were institutional efforts by introducing human rights at the international level. When our constitution declared all citizens as equal, it meant equal in terms of race, religion and other such birth-based inequalities. They also meant equality of opportunity, which clearly meant that nobody should get inequal opportunity because of birth-based inequality. This sort of equality of opportunity was incorporated into our constitution. So, our constitution does not say a word against achievement-based or new or individual achievement–based inequality, namely inequality in terms of income, education, lifestyle and facilities. In fact, achievement- and achievement-based inequality is cherished. When we were considering backwardness, the word was ‘backward classes’ and not ‘caste’, ‘religion’ and other birth-based criteria. But some sociologists, in those days, said that caste is the class in a relatively closed society, and so caste should be the basis of reservations. It might have been workable in those days, as we were more of a closed society in the initial decades of independence. Neither human rights nor our constitution promises equality of achievement. As a result, old inequality is vanishing, but new inequality is emerging and emerging at alarming levels. So, we can safely say that our promise of bringing equality has been truncated. It may be that we could not visualise this sort of dialectics in those days. Even sociologists are more occupied with caste-, religion- and gender issues–based inequality.

Fraternity: Fraternity means a feeling of harmony (brotherhood or association) and support or cooperation between a group of people. It also means a group of people who share common interests or work. Based on fraternity, cooperative economies were designed by some thinkers. In India, M. N. Roy advocated an economic structure based on cooperation. Many cooperative societies were established in India. Amul has become an icon. But after neo-liberalism, cooperation is taking a back seat. Many cooperative societies and banks have been closed. Now, we are on the way to becoming a competitive society in place of a cooperative one. My coworker is not my friend, but he is my competitor. The value of fraternity is gradually vanishing, giving way to a competitive society.

Justice: Though justice was not mentioned as a core value of the French Revolution, it was inevitably a part of equality and fraternity. Justice is essentially associated with democratic structures. The very meaning of justice is what I expect as a citizen of the state. John Rawls provided an ethical ground by his theory of justice (Rawls, 1971). This was an alternative to utilitarian theory. Amartya Sen provided a critique of John Rawls’s theory of justice. He gave the idea of capability and argued that governments should be evaluated in terms of the concrete capabilities of their citizens. Now, in neo-liberalism, the role of the state is shrinking, so the capability-building role of the state is also decreasing. We find labour laws being changed into labour codes. Earlier, the implementation of labour laws was a tripartite issue. Now, when the state is withdrawing, justice becomes a bipartite issue. At the international level, the role of the ILO is also shrinking. It is now more concerned with providing jobs rather than issues of justice.

Ethics:

Ethics is about moral choices in public life and in relationships. It is about the values that lie behind them, and the language they use to describe them. It is about innocence and guilt, right and wrong, and what it means to live a good or bad life. It is about the dilemmas of life, death, sex, violence and money. In studying it, you are challenged to examine what it is that you want in life and what you believe to be worth doing. (Thompson, 1994, p. 5)

There is a thin difference between morality and ethics. Both deal with the choice between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but morality is personal, whereas ethics indicate standards of social life. Both are often used interchangeably. Philosophers of science and scientists have said that science is rational, and ethics or morality has no place in it. But in the 21st century, they have started accepting the importance of ethics. Einstein expressed the view that ‘Scientific statements cannot produce ethical directives. However, ethical directives can be made rational and coherent by logical thinking and empirical knowledge’ (Einstein, 1955, pp. xix–17). Bertrand Russell also held similar views. Thus, ethics is not untouchable to science. In current years, various scholars have written on ethics. Eddy Souffrant (2017, p. 19) writes,

Good development projects empower individuals and communities to alter their current circumstances and to shape the future conditions that will enable them to thrive. As we examine the range of ontology fit for our contemporary conditions, we also attempt for bridge of commonality. How do I bring myself to moral- that is to act congenially toward the other? … How do I come to assume a sense of responsibility to empower others. …The answers to these questions require a move from ‘I’ to the other, to recognize others.

Now, neo-liberalism has given rise to a fully competitive society, undermining the harmony and conflicts present in the web of relationships. The element of competition is of a very high level. One considers their freedom as the freedom to compete with their fellow colleagues. This is a truncated notion of the basic value of freedom. Ego becomes too much under such circumstances. Once, when Nehru was doubtful about some action, he asked Gandhi. Gandhi’s postal replies are famous.

I will give you a talisman. Whenever in doubt or when self becomes too much with you, apply following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you would have seen, and ask yourself, if the step that you contemplate is going to be of any use to him, will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to his destiny? (Pyarelal, 1958, p. 65)

Social scientists have already started relating social sciences with ethics. Basu and Konbur’s (2008) edited work on Arguments for a Better World Order (2005) clearly puts emphasis on ethics. Editors and various authors devote the first part of the first volume to Ethics, Normative Economics and Welfare. The very first article by John Broom is on ‘Why Economics Needs Ethical Theory?’ Joseph Stiglitz’s lecture on the net is ‘Ethics and Globalization’. Edie Soffrant’s book is on Ethics and Development. It is time that sociologists start discussion on ethics when they discuss human relationships.

Equity: It has two meanings: one, the value of being fair and impartial, and two, my share in an enterprise. We are mainly concerned with the first meaning. The first meaning of ‘social equity’ as a term was used in public administration in the United States in 1960 by H. George Fredrickson. Here, equity is a quality of being fair and impartial in public decision-making. Social equity is impartiality, fairness and justice for all people in social policy. If I do not participate in a decision-making process or am not an active part of a system in which I work that concerns me, most likely such decisions are going to be against my interest. In this sense, equity also means my participation in decision-making. The essence of democracy is my participation, my share. A decision has to be impartial and fair to everybody, including me. But the structures have become so large that there is neither scope for direct participation nor representation. Gandhi identified this as ‘Swaraj’ (my rule). Many times, we use equity and equality as coterminous. There is a slight difference. Equality is measurable in terms of quantitative indicators, where equal parts are identical in size and number. Equity is not sameness but demands equivalence in treatment. Suppose there is only a Tamil-medium school in a small town in Tamil Nadu, a non-Tamil-speaking boy will be at a disadvantage compared to native Tamil-speaking students. Though the entire class receives equal instructions in the local language, the non-Tamil-speaking student will be at a disadvantage. He requires additional instructions to be equitable with his classmates. This happens in many development programmes. The task before social scientists is to evolve indicators to make such disadvantageous groups equitable. If such measures are not taken, power relations become unequal in non-equitable societies.

Thus, social equity suggests a rule to distributive justice. Remember Stiglitz, who said that the market has succeeded on the production front but has miserably failed on the distribution front? In the age of development, each one of us competes for the acquisition of goods and services. Now, the market has distributive norms, which are not equitable. Each good and service is accompanied by an autonomous sphere of justice. This makes distributive justice an art of differentiation. Some people dominate, and some do not. Cultural hegemony also plays a role here. Under such a situation, simple, measurable equality is unattainable. Amartya Sen adopts an approach of developing capabilities to get justice (Sen, 2006). The issue or value of equity becomes a separate study area for social scientists. If various issues related to social equity are handled well, it may make way for an egalitarian society. Complete and mechanical equality is not possible, but it is possible to establish an egalitarian society, reducing inequality to a bare minimum.

Ecological harmony: It simply means harmonious relationships between various elements of environments. In other words, it is also known as ecological balance. There are eight elements in the environment—three living and five non-living—as mentioned in Table 3.