Our system is based on trust to a large extent. And I don’t mean just monetarily. It is basically how “liberal society” functions right from daily life to the rationale behind systemic activities.
Yet, fake news is basically propagated everywhere with impunity. Facts are alleged and agreed on social media without any deference to proof that says otherwise. There are probably more such examples in media - Prashant Kishore said in his recent interview with Karan Thapar he cannot count on newspapers, he wants a recording of what he said (aside from the fact that this is laughable beyond measure), the fact that people are beginning to claim that newspapers (rather multiple) are not reliable is quite something even for the fascist timeline we are in.
Perhaps what has been most concerning has been the way in which the Election Commission of India has avoided all responsibility for the most basic repositories of trust, the general elections. It does seem like this point in our decay was a long time coming with the fascists in power and them dogwhistling any opposition’s efforts, but some of these effects will be long-lasting. I do not think the political system can recover from a compromised EC.
As leftists, how do we interpret this? What impacts does this have for the working class that is forced to sell its labour in exchange for participating in a trust based economy? We surely are placed more precariously but organising around this will require some acceptance of seemingly contradictory positions regarding the role of trust in a political system (IMO we have to make efforts around thinking of a system without trust in the same way it exists in liberalism and consequently, neoliberalism)
I’m not sure what you mean by the system being based on trust. Can you explain more,?
There are two broad ways I can think of this and firstly it is the trust we place in our financial system. Right from the value of our currency to monetary policy, we trust the government to make fiscal decisions on our behalf. We trust the government to transparently allocate public funds. Not like PM Cares, which we have no relief to now, despite the duplicitous effort by our head of state. Heck, even in a regular transaction, we assume that we will get infrastructure that works rather than fails. All of this is a basic assumption that fails with events like demonetisation when they are conducted unilaterally.
The other way I spoke of trust is the liberal ideal of trust in institutions. Like if the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare says that COVID numbers are of a certain amount, people would report on that. But in states like Gujarat that basic premise was lost and courts had to bring up authorities to correct the numbers. So one institution helped another cover the trust deficit in this case (but we all know the caste class character of these institutions and who they really end up representing in neoliberalism).
I think faith in financial systems is driven not by trust but rather by the fact that what other choice do we have. Current BJP government has allowed full freedom to big capital to plunder the nation as they wish. There is a lack of political agitation against this for a variety of reasons. Two main reasons are that opposition parties not really opposed to Hindutva fascism but rather that they are not the ones profiting off it, and that the government has engaged in heavy handed violent crackdown of any dissent to a degree that we have never seen before.
The gulf between the powerful and the powerless is unimaginable. India is the most unequal country in the world. Couple this with the enormity of our geography and demographic and you will realise that this level of disparity is unprecedented in world history. The median person has no trust in any system because they cannot begin to understand the their workings. If they do they cannot affect in any meaningful way
The median person has no trust in any system because they cannot begin to understand their workings.
This is what I was getting at as well. That maybe the bigger question is should we be considering the inner workings of any political system easily representable to the median person by even the most transparency imaginable. And as a thought experiment, even in a society where everyone has perfect knowledge of the system, can we trust this system to work as it says it will?
Because, even if we consider all requirements of political trust, transparency, accountability, institutional strength et al as worked out, the system still remains oppressive.
Since there are tons of academic papers and political theorisations in the liberal world about these concepts, I am looking for leftist critiques that engage with these ideals that are a facade if anything.
Hypothetically if everyone has perfect knowledge, then no one needs to trust anything or anyone. Because they will know. If the system claims to do one thing but does the other, people will not be fooled by it because of our hypothetical premise of perfect knowledge.
But yeah it does not guarantee that the system will work for public good even if everyone has perfect knowledge. It is possible that the system continues to be unequitable and unjust and stands in contradiction with the interests of the vast majority. This contradiction will lead instability and discontent which will then be quelled through repressive measures.
But given the premise of perfect knowledge, it is more likely than our current reality in India that people have the willingness and tools to fight back against this injustice. As this situation is highly contradictory, it will never attain some sort of stable equilibrium. You have to keep in mind that arrangements like this cannot continue as is as they can be brought to a head by its cataclysmic consequences (like climate change, pandemics).
Agree with everything you said, and I don’t have much more to add except to say that I was thinking of perfect knowledge as in if only the workings of institutions were known to all, not how they occur on a daily basis (let’s say because of an efficient education system, or media giving all the relavent info). Compare this to current day knowledge of people, where they have to depend on a lawyer or agent or someone in the know. In either case, capitalism would succeed in obstructing any legitimate public good because it is capital and financial interests that dictates these institutions workings on a daily basis. So this is an argument against “institutions” we “trust” being for our good.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
