Daily Times

What exactly is the role of elite in our society? There are more than one ways to look at it and we will present some perspectives in this article. One of the straightforward ways to look at elite is to point out their “extractive” role of elite in the state and society. Another angle is to analyse how the elite can play a role in development. This is yet rather under-explored area. Yet, another way is to contextualize the role of elite in the development process historically and link it to the maturity of state structures. We refer to some literature (Husain 2018 Wilson Center, North et al. 2013, Book review of Husain 1999 by Viqar Ahmed in LJE, Sebudubudu and Molutsi 2011) to illustrate the discussion.

The elite controls Pakistan’s state and economy. This was the thesis espoused by Dr Ishrat Hussain in his book Pakistan: The Economy of An Elitist State in 1999. This is not a new line of argument in Pakistan’s political economy. Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq popularized it in 1968 that 22 families dominated the industrial, insurance, and banking sectors in Pakistan at that time. The difference is that Dr Husain argues that Pakistan’s tiny elite (about 1 to 2 % of population) not only controls the market but also the state and influences the capital accumulation in the economic sphere through its control of state institutions.

According to this thesis, market operations and allocation of resources is not efficient since market is ‘rigged’ by this tiny elite, often through the capture of state. Accumulation of wealth takes place for the elite amidst poverty and economic inequality for the majority. Public services and goods are distributed through the system of patronage through this elite. Cronies are favoured through partisan and parochial ways, and economic subsidies are used for consumption rather than enhancement of productive capacity.

The state should act to protect that public interest if the market mechanism does not function properly. However, in Pakistan the state is often unable to do so due to it being captured by the elite. Small businesses and small farmers have been ignored by the financial sector. Since market was not competitive, accumulation of wealth by the elite was exercised through state power. It leads to tensions between various classes, groups, and regions due to inequities. Poor governance as manifested in weak institutions is the reason behind the low socio-economic development of Pakistan, particularly in the last quarter century.

The above-discussed line of thinking does not focus on the much-needed stabilization role that the elite need to play in the development of any country. When Dr Ishrat Hussain was asked a few months back at the Islamabad Literary Festival about the constructive role that the elite need to play, he almost drew a blank and instead only credited the civil society in Bangladesh for its better human development indicators. There is another structural problem with this line of thinking that equates the “extractive” role of elite with poor governance without keeping in mind the historical trajectory that the mature countries went through before achieving better governance. We would discuss this in the subsequent article.

There is Naomi Hossain’s work building on her PhD thesis that highlights the role of national elite through the “ruling class consensus” in brining Bangladesh on the development trajectory after being shaken up by cyclone, famine and disasters in the 1970s when it was considered a “basket case” country. Though civil society had a role to play; however, it cannot entirely be attributed to civil society alone. The mainstream national elite played an important role. There is also work of Sebudubudu and Molutsi (2011) where the critical role of the elite has been discussed in the national development of Botswana.

The leaders and elite in Botswana formed ‘cross-cutting coalitions’ as a thought-through political strategy that transformed the country from acute poverty in 1966 to a developmental state. Now Botswana has democracy underwritten by low corruption, economic stability, and learned leadership skills. They used the country’s revenues earned from diamond sales to run broad-based programmes of development that were inclusive of groups and ethnicities and this inclusion gave it a stability to become a middle income country.

These elite coalitions amongst the elite in Botswana were formed cutting across political parties, traditional-modern sector, public-private sector, state and non-state actors, racial-ethnic divisions, and employee-employer relations. It was broad basing of the elite coalitions and distribution of resources that gave it its political and economic stability. The elite worked together to promote the developmental outlook for the country through cooperation, compromises, negotiation, and managing conflicts to avoid alienation. These institutional arrangements delivered stable across-the-board development.

The leaders and elite in Botswana formed ‘cross-cutting coalitions’ as a thought-through political strategy that transformed the country from acute poverty in 1966 to a developmental state

In Pakistan’s case, as one has been saying for years in drawing room conversations that the basic fault-line is between the non-representative and civil/political elite. Till this fault-line continues to sabotage political and economic stability, Pakistan will find it difficult to proper. The military is not only an organisation/institution in the country; it is “Pakistan’s most important interest group” as Akbar Zaidi (2015) calls it. Though, an earlier piece by Zaidi (2008) qualifies that military dominates in Pakistan with the “collusion, opportunism and compromise” by political parties and civil society and Pakistan’s (non-military) elite.

The conflict between the military and political elite is structural and it is not personal; though it is often presented as a personalized conflict. For example, as Aasim Sajjad Akhtar while writing in a section of the press has confirmed one’s own long-held view that tensions between Nawaz Sharif and non-representative institutions are clash of two worldviews: the Punjabi bourgeoisie worldview that wants to develop Pakistan through economic development and having better trade relationship with India (and also Afghanistan), and the national-security-paradigm of Punjab-dominated militarythat views rapprochement with India equivalent to undermining the country or at least the military’s hegemonic role in the country. Now that Modi is so belligerent and has so brutally suppressed Kashmiris and minorities that improvement of relations between India and Pakistan may not be possible even otherwise.

However, the overall point is that the structural factors behind non-representative and civil/political elite tensions are much deeper. It is a clash of economic development versus national security state narratives. The civil/political leadership has to deliver to the constituents to win the elections despite their alleged corruption and “extractive” patronage politics; the authoritarian state has no such compulsions. In the hybrid regime of PTI, there is harmony between the governing party and non-representative institutions; however, it is at the cost of hounding out the political opposition, intensifying the curbs on media, and other civil/political institutions.

Despite overcoming the current account deficit, the inflation is high and the poor, lower middle, and middle class are finding it difficult to cope. In order to fight inflation, the government is maintaining very high interest rates up to the point, whereby those known to me as rational human beings, are keeping all their savings in fixed deposits rather than regular bank accounts. High interest rates might combat inflation, however, it is also leading to government deficit since the government borrows heavily even from commercial banks.

The overall lesson is that elite in Pakistan need to form cross-cutting coalitions to push development agenda going beyond their individual, party, and organizational self-interests. We would discuss the historical trajectory in theory behind development of “elite bargains” in the next article.

The writer is an Islamabad-based social scientist. Email: fskcolumns @gmail.com