SOCIAL MALFUNCTIONS VS ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS
Max Webber was the sociologist whodiscovered the relationship between mode of economy and structure of value system in the society. He studied the religions of the world to discover the relationship between social values and the rise of Capitalism. Why capitalism arose in a particular socio cultural milieu? In his doctoral thesis ‘Rise of Capitalism and Protestant Ethics‘ , he researched major religions –Hinduism , Buddhism , Islam and Christianity comparatively to find out that none of them had the internal ecosystem facilitating the emergence of capitalism. But,with the rise of Protestant Ethics as propounded and propagated by Martin Luther of England and John Calvin of Germany that historic moment came which created that ecosystem of the rise of capitalism. Protestant Ethics like – Hard work, Happiness as the ultimate value for humans, Humans as the greatest creation of God and God witnessing his own glory in the Happiness of Mankind, God having endowed mankind withinfinite resources for the happiness of his greatest creation, no holiday on Sundays, glory of giving gifts etc. were the foundations upon which the edifice of capitalism was to grow 17th century onwards. He found that none of other religions including Catholicism had the internal ecosystem facilitating Capitalism. (Capitalism here implies the system of economy of scale and scope which generates benefits for largest number of people in the form of Employment, cost effectiveness, profit, and Charity ultimately.)
Even if we take it in general, there could be no denial of the fact that there were relations between socio religious cultural values and the mode of economy. This mode of economy remained stagnant until an external force of technology, colonization, transportation and communication transformations or even political leadership etc. tremorised its foundations. This is the background to precisely contextualize the Bihar’s laggard economic scenario.
A Unenterpreneurial society is characterized by the socio religious cultural milieu disproportionately overdoing the social things and underplaying the economic things. For example, overdoing on marriages, family making , caste maintenance , education system maintained for promoting governmental jobs only, treating businesses as the works of lower social religious cultural values , looking down upon the enterprise and businesses unworthy of social acceptance and respect, respecting corruption from governmental jobs, using the savings for social things rather than economic things, prematureeconomic death of savings and capital in the social malfunctionsof dowry and social rituals rather than economic functions likeinvestments, production and employment generation etc.
An entrepreneurial society doesn’t imply the absence of social functions rather it differs from Unenterpreneurial only in the sense of social malfunctions, where economic priorities are not sacrificed for social priorities. It is not about the superiority of economy over society but only about fine balancing between “economic and social “, based on Koutilyan proposition of balancing between four great PURUSHARTHA (AIMS OF LIFE) – DHARMA, ARTHA , KAMA , MOKSHA. In a Unenterpreneurial society that Koutilyan Fine balancing between the four great Purushartha gets disproportionately tilted towards social malfunctions. The social malfunctions acquire preposterously dominating and serendipitously important role in society.
In Bihar the major businesses are outside Bihari Communities mainly Marwari community originating from Rajasthan living in Bihar for last 2 centuries as also in the case of Assam and Bengal. Although,Bengal due to its colonial enthroning had its social transformation through Bengali indigenization of entrepreneurialism. The same didn’t happen in case of Bihar. The native Bihari community structurally remains extravagantly social and miserly economic! The savings were prematurely misused for social malfunctions rather than economic functions. That is the reason why Bihari castes–both upper as well as lower castes –present a poor business ownership scenario in the economic landscape of Bihar. It is not a coincidence that Bihar’s economic landscape is dominated by Marwari community.
WHY DO CASTES IN BIHAR CHOOSE GOVT JOBS AS THE MEANS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
Social justice could also have been provided through economic justice but that may not have electoral clout and concrete vote bank implications. This is how economic justice as way to social justice was not conceptualizedor thought of into policy making. As such social justice slogan got reduced to caste based reservation into government jobs. Though, it is another chapter that intellectuals of caste based reservation as means to social justice are crying day in day out at the inadequacy of social justice through caste based reservation.
Since the battle for social justice could never be won because of the inadequacy of reservation in government jobs policy , that is why government jobs continue to be citadel of battle against psychological social discrimination. The only way to settle the score against historic social injustice present in the psyche of majority of the people is through government jobs which brings not only economic relief but power also which gives the sense of “score being finally settled. “
Better the marriage, better the social legitimacy. Better the job, better the marriage. And then what can be better than government job which brings with it all round advancement within the community and society! Power, Corruption, Domination, Influence, Immunity, Money of course!
These are the reasons which lead to making of a closed society and socialrepublics of castes based on endogamous caste marriages. This is the institutionalization of governmental jobs as the means to advancement and evolution in life. There are rarest of the rare examples of Govt. jobs opening into entrepreneurialism. Babugiri couldn’t become the facilitator of entrepreneurialism. The battle of social justice couldn’t reach its destination, babugiri killed it midway. The nexus of social malfunctions with Babugiri became lethal against the avowed goal of social justice.
HOW DO SOCIAL MALFUNCTIONS CAUSE ABORTED ENTERPRENEURIALISM
Cases can be taken from following sectors as specimen :
TRANSPORT BUSINESS
Transportation is a huge industry in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra etc. Bihari people developed a stronghold on transportation business in West Bengal. Partly due to communist rule and partly due to Abortive Bihari Entrepreneurialism they hardly managed to take it to the levels where a Punjabi Transporter could take it.
Today, Bihar’s transportation industry owned by private is hugely unorganized and rarely competitive. It is still dominated by government in bus sector and badly localized to Bihar and Jharkhand, unlike Punjab and Haryana transportation which is hugely all India level. Fewer Bihar truckers have interstate transportation than Punjab transports. That shows lower scale of operation. It also shows lower tourism level.
AGRO BUSINESS
Despite 70 % population having been engaged in agriculture, hardly there could be seen prominent agro business companies of some repute. Enterprise could not reach the scale and scope. They could not establish inter state linkages.
Some cooperatives like Sudha are now recently growing in scale and scope and also in inter state linkages. But very few private companies have interstate operations. Their volume is low. Their annual revenue is low.
Vegetable/Fruit enterprises
Nitish kumar’s one of the major economic successes will be counted in vegetable growing revolution in Bihar. He chose this sector as an area of priority and roped Govt. Cooperatives in the sector to spearhead vegetable production and marketing in Bihar. Bihar became number one in vegetable production in India.
But 70 % of Bihar’s vegetables were consumed domestically showing a huge rate of perishability and low profitability. In the end, this sector has also not created recognizable capitalists who could take it to next level of value addition based industrialization in food processing industries.
EDUCATION
Bihar sends the largest number of students to Kota for engineering and medical coaching but despite having its own hugely unorganized coaching centers in Capital Patna and other cities, it has failed to have its own famed Kota as coaching industry center.
Common amongst all the above mentioned sectors as the factors responsible for ABORTIVE CAPITALISM are following :
WHAT IS SOCIAL MALFUNCTIONS
Bihari Business model has been characterized by this SOCIAL MALFUNCTIONING leading to ABORTIVE CIPITALISM in Bihar.
So Bihar awaits its social malfunctions to be replaced economic functionalism so that Abortive Capitalism could be replaced by Constructive Capitalism.
Author – Rajiv Ranjan Bandhu
Senior Faculty, Chanakya IAS Academy Ph.D Delhi University
Picture – Aditi Nandan
