A capitalist order, unlike feudalism and socialism, gives workers a unique right to resign, to go on a strike and also seek negotiations with the employers for better remunerations. Here positions are earned and not inherited
Capitalism is an economic system with its own social order. In sharp contrast, feudalism is a social order with its own economic system. Socialism, on the other hand, is a political order that has a hand-to-mouth economic system and a medieval era hierarchy between the masses and the political leadership.
We have some experience of soft socialism in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Of these, the West Bengal socialism is most noteworthy because of its prolonged rule. Soft socialism because the left Front Government couldn’t do a North Korea on West Bengal as the Union Government was there to keep a watch.
In socialism, leaders look more as employers of the masses they rule and worse still, proletariats can’t resign from the state that runs in their ‘dictatorship’. If there is any pronounced commonality between socialism and feudalism, it is the situation where the employee has no right to resign. Trying to do so might attract penalty from the state, including capital punishment.
A capitalistic social order, on the other hand, gives workers a unique right to resign. Moreover, under such a system, workers can even go on a strike and seek negotiations with the employers. In capitalism, however, all things look temporary. The only thing that is permanent is competition. That’s the only thing that is fixed. In capitalism, positions are earned. To rise above others, people work even more. To clinch results, people have to be focussed to their work. From employers to workers, everyone will have to work and follow a work schedule.
This sets capitalism apart from other systems. Be it primitive, medieval, feudal and socialist societies, it’s the employees who have to comply with a work schedule — joining the work/duty everyday on a fixed time and leave the work premise on a fixed hour. Whereas in capitalism the owner too has to follow a schedule. Often, he too would reach the work place at the time his employees report to work. In other words, under capitalism, owners too work. There are no free lunches here. Everyone will have to work. The cutthroat competition under capitalism produces a variety of results. Some succeed. Some succeed even more. Some fail. Some fail beyond recovery. Because this very central feature, people’s position keeps changing. An upper class man can fall into the lower class rank and vice-versa.
As capitalism takes its root in India, there are anxious intellectual enquiries. What will happen to the country’s so-called upper castesIJ By traditional caste codes, upper caste men and women were prohibited from touching farm tools. They were also prohibited from working even on their own farmlands. Such sets of caste prohibitions no longer exist in the manner they were originally laid upon. Changes have taken place and changes are occurring each day.
Breaking free from the caste codes, millions of upper caste men and women now earn their own livelihoods. Even in the countryside, upper caste men have started working on their own lands.
But, that doesn’t mean that everybody from the upper castes has started working. Millions of them just sit idle in the countryside and lead a good life just because they have plenty of land resources. In small towns and big cities as well, millions of upper caste people live on rents they earn from properties rented out to the needy.
At the same time, it can be inferred that capitalism is going to change many things in our society. It will require people to follow certain guidelines:
All able-bodied citizens will have to earn their livelihood
All working people will have to follow a work schedule
All working people will have to seek leave if they want to abstain from work
These three critical conditions that capitalism requires go against the upper caste tradition. Upper castes are known for eating for free. Traditionally, they didn’t have any work schedule. Also, they followed no discipline; rather, they were the leave-granters. No wonder, much of the intellectual opposition to capitalism is coming from members of the upper castes. Now, for the first time in the country’s known history, upper caste men and women might be seen working under the same factory roof with lower caste workers. Besides, they will for the first time follow a common discipline.
Capitalism, as a new social order, will introduce a new kind of social equality where everyone will have to earn their livelihood. This is good news for the poor and the downtrodden.