Filling the vacuum

My time in India has been a bit of a clash of civilizations in part because India itself isn't quite firmly footed in its own development. A stunningly universal visual of this is the rubble. Everywhere you go - from the slums to the fancy neighborhoods, you will find bricks piled by the sides of the road, half-vacant buildings falling down, and a thin layer of dust on everything. Much of the country looks like it has recently been bombed, and no one seems to notice.

Being a privileged white Westerner, I am blessed to experience and am most accustomed to the nicer parts of India. Eating in nicer restaurants, taking nicer transport, and staying in nicer dwellings than most of the population can afford. Nonetheless, it would be impossible (and undesirable) to avoid the extreme poverty which is present here. Everywhere I go, there is someone who is needy, with children, broken limbs, and/or a debilitating disease asking for hand outs. The poverty goes past the point of overwhelming to a point where it becomes disturbingly ordinary and matter of fact.

India is currently making attempts to pull itself out of poverty through rapid Western style growth. The Indian government constantly compares itself to its northern neighbor, China - trying to demonstrate that they too are capable of rapid growth - and without the dictatorial government which has a stranglehold on China. India has an enormous split between the wealth of the rich and the poverty of the poor - and the gap is ever widening. While it is tempting to encourage any sort of economic growth which would help to bring any percentage of the population here into a reasonable standard of living, it is frightening to look at the devastating environmental, social, and economic toll that growth (and a couple hundred years of colonization) have had on the sub-continent. The gut instinct to throw money (or industrialization) at the problem is likely a poor choice.

I have never been such a fan of capitalism. For a long time I have been an avowed socialist, inherently distrustful of the notion that an individual's attempt to pull themselves up will in turn help others. I see the system instead working as a means for one person to screw over another. We have a finite amount of resources, people will fight over them, the end goal of each player in the system is to take the most they can (allowing for any applicable national and international law).

However, recently in conversation I have had capitalism explained to me in an amoral light. The argument goes as such; Thinking of capitalism in moral terms is impossible. Captialism, as such a complex system, cannot apply the black and white terms of 'good' and 'bad.' Thinking of the workings of an economy more like that of a natural ecosystem will present a more digestible and neutral system. Wolves eat rabbits. Is this bad? No. Is it good? Not really. Rabbits and wolves have equal worth and one must die so the other can live. If there are too many rabbits, the wolves will eat them, then there will be too many wolves, then the next season some wolves will move out of the area or starve. If all the wolves or rabbits were to die, it would throw the system out of whack, but only for a brief period of time. With time, all things will pass and a new creature will evolve to take the space previously occupied by the rabbit. Nature, and capitalism, abhors a vacuum. The only constant is change. Nature has no conscience. Businesses will come and go, some people will suffer while others succeed, and all will continue to roll on no matter what you think about it.

I am a progressive, and I think that things are getting better, though with some of the gains we have made much has been lost. Overall, I think that people are better off today than they were 100 years ago. I think people, especially people of privilege, romanticize the past and poverty. I admit it is tough to judge what should be seen as universal social goods. I don't think that technology is inherently good or bad. There are technologies which help people, and some that hurt people, and telling the difference between the two can be difficult at times, but possible.

But I wonder how one can put moral reigns on development. Individual actors have morals - but acting as part of the collective they seem to lose them. Why? Is a democracy of morals the best way to get the best for everyone? If we all try our hardest to do what is right are we more likely to do the right thing than if there were a law making us do it? Are good intentions enough? If the majority of people are unaware of the consequences of their actions, what then?

Addressing the merits of the Green Revolution has been tough because everyone is so freaking righteous and unwilling to examine their own position. Everyone is a little wrong and too much money has been put into too much development without asking follow up questions. I should have taken an ethics course in college.