Money as Commodity, and its Political Career: A Theoretical Abstraction

It is sometimes advisable, and I follow it by starting with a negation. Money is, of course not a commodity; it has no intrinsic or essential value. It is a promissory entity, it promises value which is not ‘contained within it’ but to be realized through transactions, usually in the realization/obtainment of a commodity. However money could also be exchanged for other promissory entities, namely cheques, drafts, etc. At this point it would be wrong to say that ‘money’ has never been a commodity. Money, as we know it, is promissory, but there has been other ‘moneys’. Commodities were considered mediums of exchanges for an unbelievably long period of time; and the value of commodity money came from the value of the commodity from which it was made, namely gold, silver, copper, salt, peppercorns, livestock, conch shells (in India) etc. Together with the advent of industry, and the cultures of modernity came the desire and the need to ‘manage’ money properly and effectively and hence we graduated to paper money, or promissory money; money as we know it.

But how did money come to become commoditised? What is a commodity in the first place? A cursory and general understanding will presume that commodities are consumable; things that we consume, like tea, beverages, like even capital management schemes (namely Mutual Funds, and though we do not consume it, money market instruments are particularly ‘packaged’ to ‘manage’ our money better, which certifies and guarantees its subsequent consumption/sale/business) etc. On the other hand, air, that we breathe every moment of our life, cannot be considered a commodity. Subsequent stages of value addition, like air in a pressurized scuba tank, like air in a mountaineering gear, like flavoured air in beauty/skin treatment saloons however certifies it as a commodity. A ‘thing’ (for want of a better word) need not always be packaged to become a commodity. The ‘value addition’ (as understood in financial parlance) is something that we call ‘affect’.

A commodity is not a product (it is important to remember!), commodity is a process. Commoditisation, and decommoditisation depends on how affect works. I will give a particularly interesting example, that of water. Water (consumable water; here understood as non-salty water) occurred naturally and geographically depending on various factors like groundwater reserves, precipitation levels, slope of terrain, general climactic humidity as was found first in various forms like lakes, rivers etc. Then, value addition in the form of ‘affect’ worked by ascribing extra elemental qualities; like finding ‘holiness’ in water (declaring this particular well, that pond as ‘holy’), like slowly developing anecdotal material on water (that for example, the Ganga absolves one of all the sin committed in one’s life, the particular performance of which we are witnessing in the observance of Gangasagar Mela presently). Water was also made ‘scarce’, for example by denying the dalits the right to use water from a common village well. Myths have developed around water, battles have been fought, relics were immersed, World Bank funding were sanctioned and denied, nations found identities, boundaries were drawn and redrawn, until water not merely remained water. Subsequently it was understood that water is really scarce, and essential, until finally a new body of litigation developed to make it universally accessible, for everyone, so to speak. Today again, water is commoditised, albeit in a secular way, and we realise that whenever we reach for a bottle of packaged Alpine water (sometimes costing to the extent of Rs. 40), or an expat in New York buys a bottle of muddy Gangajaal for five dollars.

We therefore come to the realization that affect makes and unmakes a commodity in a process that is continual and unmistakable. Some things/items (again, for want of a better word) gets commoditised easily while others resist commoditization. But why do people reach out for commodities? The answer is to be sought in two directions; a commodity has a use value (for example I need a toothbrush every morning though in winter I abhor its sight!), and a commodity has an exhibitional value, (for example, nobody otherwise would buy a pair of shoes used by Salman Khan in a particularly successful Bollywood movie for a fortune!).

Now, coming back to our original topic of discussion, money, of course, though not a commodity per se, has use value as well as exhibitional value. In a globalised economy of money dependency, money perhaps has more exhibitional value than use value. Money creates commodity fetishism; the more the exhibitional value of money increases the more people crave for money, the more people who don’t have enough money are rendered failed consumers.

I am, however going to argue from a very different point of view altogether. Money, as I have argued before is primarily a promissory entity, it does not contain value; it however promises value through exchange. I am going to pursue the fate of money when it is not in circulation, when it cannot be circulated, and when it is poorly managed.

Recent studies conclude that the estimation of Indian money (black/illicit of course) stashed in the coffers of Swiss Banks go to the extent of 1.71 trillion Dollars. In another recent report it has been found that ‘over the last two decades, overseas development assistance from the rich to poor countries has totalled $50-80 billion per year. In the same period, every year, $500-800 billion of illegal funds have been sent from the poor to rich countries’. To the best of my knowledge, the Madhu Koda, illegal mining case, involving illicit monetary transactions to the extent of 600 crores could not have been investigated because of insufficiency of data regarding the Swiss bank accounts of Mr. Koda. My point is, is money like these, i.e., illicit money, a commodity. This money is out of circulation, stashed offshore as it is, and this is a money that does not have any use value for sure. Huge black money cannot usually buy huge property/commodity because it renders things disproportionate at it were. Why is therefore it valued, and how does the culture of valuation, or affect work?

My thesis is, black/illicit money is valued for its exhibitional value. One cannot exhibit illicit money per se, but there are almost innumerable subterranean ways through which this culture of illicit money and corruption find publicity, acquire exhibitional status, is craved for and finally finds a liminal acceptance in the public culture. The news of a scam is both a shock, and a pleasurable sensation. It leads to desire and craving, and without jargonizing the arena with psychoanalytic theories, I can simply say; it leads to a circulation in the public realm, a desire of more scams, and more money.

Aro Aro!!

Aro Pujo..

Pujor Chobi..

The Slave Ship: Fashioning a Maritime Future

Why a Ship? In ways more than one, this age has been defined and fashioned by the existence of ships. The sight of a ship, sailing lonely and resolutely, in an ocean marked by its openness and vastness has been a potent imagination for mankind. One of the greatest philosophers of our age, Michel Foucault, in his Heterotopias: or Other Spaces identified the ship as one of the prime examples of a heterotopia. Heterotopias, as understood by Foucault, are a space, which is at once, a curious conglomeration of multitudinous spaces. The anthropometric identification of space is defined by the occupant (both physical and ideological) of the space. The ship is primarily a vessel, a container which contains within its hollow belly people, individuals, items, cultures, symbols, politics, possibly every imaginable symbols of humanity, each marked by their obvious differences. It travels an uncharted landscape marked by the absolute absence of humanity and the symbols that define humanity. It is a sole representative, an ambassador of humanity. It etches its mark in the ocean, the ports and cultures that it touches. The West imagines itself as a ship. It gives the West an ever mobility; it is a verb of movement. And since the West predominates everything that is not the West, the ship has come to define the culture of modernity. It is an absolute symbol of presence, of belonging and possession.
How does therefore the East imagine a ship? One is indeed appalled by the absence of ideas. A ship that sails the East, and from the East, travels with the intention of always coming back. A journey from the East is marked by a metaphor of returning. In a technical parlance, it is called sedentary travel; one travels only to come back. The West simplifies it by calling it insularity. Since her metaphors of travel are always already designed by a desire to come back, the ship is imagined richly in terms of flow, not from within, but from without. It signifies transaction, mercantilism, riches and fertility. Whereas the East is pregnant with the idea of completion which is defined by returning, the West finds itself desiring a structural incompleteness which it views as a possibility for further development. This philosophy of different imaginations is reflected in the maritime history of these two cultures. The vocabulary of conquest is therefore missing in its entirety from Eastern maritime history.
The oceanic landscape of the world is dotted by the presence of small landmasses breaking the monotonousness of blue water with curious names; many of them are indeed naval bases of western nations, some developed, some underdeveloped, some past the prime in the index of development. A vocabulary of globalisation based on scarce, resource based economics interprets them as strategic geopolitical sites, as sites of hegemony, control. They control and direct the flow of resources and strategies. True. But they are also wastages. Some of the Western nations can ill afford them in an age which is defined by the general decline of West. But, these nations have clung to them. This is perhaps bad economics, a contradiction in terms in the rulebooks of classical and even neo-classical economics. I call them the relics of the past...a resultant of the differential imaginations that have shaped both the West and the East. The outbound journey, which is also an expansion, has exhausted itself with the emergence of a new world with even newer players, and now it exhausts the site of its emergence.

'Opsis' and Optics of Indian Democracy

Simply put, opsis is the Greek word for the element of ‘spectacle’ in drama. It is that which leads to the denouement, the final resolving of crisis, it is that which enthrals, that which binds the audience, and that which produces awe. But the problematic of the word is that it negotiates and skirts the boundary of two meanings. Opsis, quite underwhelmingly, could also mean, “I see”. Stripped off the spectacle and the spectacular element, it reveals the bare reality, and the crudity of it. Opsis is elemental, as the Greek historians said, to the writing of history. Perhaps, for the Greek historians, ‘seeing’ was the preferred meaning for opsis, but the dilemma and uneasiness is evident. It is the same dilemma and the same uneasiness that haunts a chronicler of independent and ‘rising’ India. As the country celebrated her sixty fourth independence day, the chroniclers of her history find themselves increasingly befuddled by the multiplicity and choice of narratives. There is indeed a narrative of ‘spectacles’, of Agni III launches, of multi-payload delivering rockets, of Chorus takeovers, and of ‘Nano’-micro-macro economics, of FII inflows, and there is a narrative of Dantewadas, Bidarbhas, Nandigrams, etc. The choice is discreet and apparent. As we celebrate India’s sixty fourth independence day in a flurry of SMS’s, mails (not to count spams!), in a rhetoric of hubris, as we have done in all the independence days preceding this, the truth stands us in the face, eye to eye, and yet remains so elusive, so near, yet so far. The truth remains; there is not one, not even two, but multiple Indias, each with her own history, each with her own direction of history, and each existing in relative ignorance of the other. And sadly, this theme too, has been much flaunted, exploited, by people living inside, and by people living outside. Real money has been made by exploiting this theme of the multiplicity of our ‘motherland’. But, today, I am not in any way following, borrowing, hijacking, or plagiarising the theme of Rushdie and company. I write in pain.
However, the Prime Ministerial address, on the eve of Independence Day was not spectacular by any means. Dr. Singh has never been very ‘spectacular’, and of course I mean that in a positive sense, as a compliment. His image is, of course, like a space within the government where one feels comfortable in an otherwise ‘spectacular’ cabinet. He began citing a host of concerns, Ladakh, price rise (somehow, I am never comfortable with the word “inflation”, it lacks the reality of pain, and as a kid, I used to think that inflation meant ‘to inflate’, i.e. to grow, growth!!), etc. But the cadence of his speech quickly changed texture and eagerly embraced the rhetoric of celebration. He said, “We were also affected by the global economic slowdown. I am happy to say that we have acquitted ourselves well in these difficult circumstances. Despite many problems, the rate of our economic growth has been better than most other countries in the world. This shows the strength of our economy.” I am however, not quite bemused by the word “acquitted”. How have we acquitted, and of what? I read the word “acquitted” betraying a sense of guilt, and uneasiness in the speech...a desire to wash off. Barely a month back did the cabinet give the people their 64th Independence Day gift, a decontrolled price regime for petrol, with a further promise of decontrolled diesel, and general rise in price of petro products. I watched the T.V., watched the equity price of PSU OMCs go up, private OMCs go down. A few of my friends made money, we met in the evening, had dinner, celebrated. We ‘acquitted’ ourselves.
Perhaps Dr. Singh counts us (and him) ‘acquitted’ on account of the fact that the WPI annual food inflation eased to 10.35% in the week ended Aug 7 from 11.4% a week ago. That is more than a percent, or in the celebratory and convenient vocabulary of economics, a full hundred basis points drop in weekly inflation figures. Inflation figures rose heftily in non food items as fuel prices rose 12.57% from a year ago and mineral prices 45.69% in the week. But the aam admi rarely need petrol, and minerals, and we have a reason to count us ‘acquitted’. The monthly headline inflation eased to 9.97% in July on ‘statistical base effect’, a fact that is conveniently concealed and distressed. But the dark side of the moon says, that the year on year inflation in terms of WPI increased by 10.51%, (July 09-July 10), and I excuse myself from the embarrassment of calculating the rise in terms of “basis points”. And yes, the Monthly Economic Report (MER) (July data is given, as August data is yet to be published) of the Ministry of Finance carries a news of terrible disrepute...the IIP numbers has declined to 7.1%, as compared to 8.3% in June 2009. The centrality of the IIP numbers in the MER, as well as the peripherality/marginality of the core inflation numbers betrays the government’s intentions and allegiances. The slightest southward movement of IIP numbers are sure to draw industry pundits, management gurus, and corporate honchos in a concerted criticism of the government. While, the continual gravity defiance of inflation numbers can only produce a cacophony of disconcerted voices, discomforting bandhs, chakka jams. The only ‘unorganised sector’ in this battle for hegemony is the ‘public’, the mob, the multiple ‘Indias’, hence they are carefully set against each other, stripped off the authority to speak for, rendered inexplicable, and finally discounted. The rising inflation, and prise rise (they are quite different) were explained as international phenomena, and as something resulting from poor monsoons last year. Monsoon, and the absence of it, cannot be easily explained in terms of human responsibility; it is an act of God, and therefore provides the perfect opportunity to liquidate governmental accountability. Also in a globalised economy of money dependency India cannot decouple from the globe as easily she had ‘recoupled’ with it in 1991, under the tutelage of Dr. Singh, the then finance minister. The government therefore had to give in, and accept inflation as a ‘given’ condition. But where does the (much clichéd) buck stop? As a matter of fact, U.S. and nearly all the developed economies are witnessing near zero inflation numbers today, and the Fed expects inflation to be subdued for some time now. Whatever be the macro-economic implications of the fact, the ever increasing jobless claimants of U.S. do not have to face the music of growing prices. Contrasted, we have a declining IIP, combined with shooting inflation; a perfect recipe for disaster. Also, any kid who goes to the local grocer for casual daily shopping knows the difference between WPI and real, retail prices better than our qualified economists. The MER of finance ministry claims that the food inflation numbers came down from last week’s as the government released cheap grains through PDS, an act that ostensibly looks like spontaneous benevolence. Whose grain is it anyway? And this happens at a time when the opposition, as well as people within the cabinet are united against storing of grains in FCI godowns, with much of it even rotting in the rains. Recently news is emerging from the institutionalised propaganda centres of the government that the revenues from increased fuel prices (oil subsidies), as also the huge revenues from 3G auctions will be utilised to implement universal PDS in the country in place of Targeted PDS (TPDS). However, the news is not that recent after all; it made to headlines of newspapers a couple of months back, and today looks like yet another distant dream...a dream that the poor of our land no longer find credible. The first UPA government gave us a dream, the dream of an equitable land blazing it’s way to progress; it saw the elementary realisation of that dream in NREGA, (now MGNREGA, with the father of the nation’s name as a prefix!), SJGSY, JNNURM, civil nuclear bill, RTI act. The nation was ready to imagine and continue imagining (the continued desire to imagine reflected in the resounding electoral victory for the UPA in the General Elections). The UPA II is a rude waking up, a shock. Trouble infests every corner of our land, rising prices, Maoist insurgencies, over assertive neighbours, a habitually derelict Games authority, to name a few. Everywhere we find a fractured image of India. Our sins have come home to roost.
The nation, we say, is a collective imagination; it is an ‘imagined community’. The French philosopher, Ernest Renan said that the nation thrives on a daily imagined plebiscite, a continuation of faith in her existence, her progress. Today’s India(s) are a result of fractured imaginations, one for the poor, one for the rich, one for Maoists, one for the mainstream political parties, and it is no use to go to sleep, or to dream.