Daily Times

“We know what we are,” says Shakespeare, “but know not what we may be.” If we pose the same question to the people of Pakistan, can we expect the same answer? Probably not, “from the depths of their hearts, the masses, secretly know the truth,” Horkheimer says, “and disbelieve the lie, like catatonic patients who make known only at the end of their trance that nothing has escaped them.” For the people, the apocalyptical moment of knowing the truth and seeing the actual face of the parasitic ruling class, a combination of inept, clueless, and indifferent politicians, a bunch of self-preserving praetorian guards and a civil-military bureaucracy which has been conspiring against them from the inception of the country, has arrived. Half a century ago, the combination sliced a part of Pakistan and now they have joined their ranks to write the epitaph of the country.

To win back, the IMF Pakistani ruling class is running from pillar to post. Pillar is its former Arabian allies once called ummah, and post is the US administration. For them no other institution can bail out Pakistan, but what happened to the previous twenty-two bailouts? Do not ask the tough questions, no one will tell you lies, is the answer. In 1958, when the cold war made Pakistan useful for the US, Pakistan, under the Ayub regime, approached the IMF for the first time. Since then, the Pakistani ruling class, controlled by the metropolitan capital and addicted to easy money, has made it a habit. Living on borrowed money without making arduous structural changes helps to maintain the status quo and preserve the perks and privileges of the ruling class, but borrowed money comes at a cost, not only with an interest rate but with strings attached to it. The strings not only compromise the freedom but affect the internal and external policies of the indebted country. The chronic financial dependency on international lending institutions usually leads to permanent slavery.

Since the Pakistani capitalist class did not develop under the logic of the capitalist mode of production but was created, financed, and maintained by the state by selling fully established public assets to the “would-be class,” its dependency on the state has never been seized. The monopoly houses such as Adamjee, Dawood, Isfahani, and others, relied heavily on state finance institutions such as PICIC and National Investment Development Bank of Pakistan (IDBP), which depended upon foreign investment, the tied credits. Those credits had strings attached to them, local markets could only buy the product of industries made in the metropolitan countries.

The current ruling capitalist class is the continuation of the comprador bourgeoisie.

Most of the Pakistani manufacturing products were sold in East Bengal, a colony which absorbed 40 per cent of Pakistani manufacture at exorbitant prices. By 1965, 84 per cent of Pakistani manufacturing relied heavily on protection and, on average, Pakistani products were sold in the domestic eastern wing market at a price 150 per cent higher than the prevailing world market prices. After the succession of the eastern wing, the capitalists not only lost their colony but the possibility of the sale of their products altogether, for they were inherently uncompetitive in the world market and the internal market of the western wing had little or no capacity to buy them.

Under Zia’s fascist regime, the rebuilt bourgeoisie received national assets at throwaway prices. The current ruling capitalist class is the continuation of the comprador bourgeoisie. It hasn’t made its wealth by exploiting the labour and expropriating its surplus value but by taking over productive state units by auctioning its loyalties to the army dictators. This is how things like honour and conscience, with no congealed human labour hence bereft of value gain price. Marx is making sense. Is it a matter of surprise if such a comprador bourgeoisie, in power yields to the humiliating terms of the IMF?

What is the panacea pandered by the ruling oligarchy in the name of saving Pakistan and its economy, to throw the people to the wolves of scarcity, poverty, and insecurity? With fuel prices jacking up to Rs 300 a litre, every commodity worth its name will be skyrocketing. The power outages lasting for several hours in the scorching heat of 45C or above, disruption of gas supply which even in sizzling summer has become a rare commodity, rising food prices and mounting defence budget, falling reserves and dollar running amok and inflation rising above 15 per cent, are these indicators not enough to show that the state has gone beyond repair and no shock therapy will revive it? The state is failing not by enriching its people but by enriching a handful of capitalists, landowners and praetorian guards who have stashed their exploits abroad and will walk away when the inevitable will come which is not far. Today, IMF may bail Pakistan out, but the day is not far when it will refuse to advance further loans and the debt accumulated by the ruling class and unjustly piled on people crosses the redline as happened in Sri Lanka. What will happen then? We will sell our airports, railway stations, land, and rivers, fortunately, we do not have islands which Greece had to sell to the international capital on the dictates of the European troika to pay its debts. Our Rajapaksas will sail to the safe shores leaving the people behind to listen to the proverbial trumpet of the angel.

Why does Pakistan need an elaborate defence budget when it cannot save itself from the wrath of the metropolitan capital? Our economic borders are already under siege, if we cannot save people from the pangs of poverty killing them slowly and painfully how can it be saved from the next-door enemy, by nuking it but every nuke nukes its own people first and what is the bigger nuke if not the nuke of scarcity.

The budget has already taken care of the salaries of civil-military bureaucracy which have risen to 17 per cent protecting the privileged class from inflation. Some super profit tax has been enforced on the banks and the industrial class has received a slap on the wrist, but what about the landowning class and the builders, the parasites that earn money through speculation without contributing to the exchequer? History stands witness how powerful they are; threatened by the emerging capitalist class in Bengal under Mujib they sacrificed half the country and later in 1977, when Bhutto decided to curtail their power by enforcing the second and meaningful land reforms, he was mercilessly slaughtered but now when the ordinary people are laid on the Procrustean bed, isn’t it about time that feudal and builders also make sacrifices demanded of people? Their political party the PPP, Tories of Pakistan is dying for the lack of its historic role but its main constituency, the praetorian guards, is refusing to submit and there lies the existential problem of the Pakistani state.

If Pakistan was created for the people and not for the expropriating classes, the army, and the clergy, isn’t it time that people should start claiming the right of ownership of the state? From Chile to Columbia, people are striving to get rid of capitalism. In Latin America, Columbia was the last stronghold of the US polity, which has finally turned to social democracy. In France Macron has been shocked and convulsed by the Melenchon-led left as he lost more than 100 seats hence the majority in the legislative assembly’s elections. These may be the first small steps, but the longest journey starts from the first step and when the country’s survival is at stake people need to take the first step quickly before the borrowed time runs out.

The writer is an Australian-based academic and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com