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Money and politics are by no means strange bedfellows. Economists and social scientists the world over have continuously attempted to propound economic theories aimed at maximising national and individual wealth. Ever since the transition of political orders from the old world of kings, emperors or empresses to modern economies based on scientific theories and structures, there is an attempt to make economies stronger relying on domestic production and expansion of commercial interests through cooperation and collaboration with other nations unlike looting and appropriation of colonial resources.
Sure enough on this new journey of economy and politics the colonial powers had the early mileage because of the wealth they plundered from their rich colonies. A series of research papers authored by renowned economist Utsa Patnaik, published by the Columbia University Press, show that Britain siphoned $44.6 trillion out of the Indian subcontinent between 1765 and 1938. Remarkably, this conservative estimate of $45 trillion made on two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade is 15 times more than the annual gross domestic product of the Great Britain today.
The money defrauded and drained from India not only propelled the industrial revolution in Britain but also financed the expansion of capitalism in Europe and European settlements like Canada and Australia. Part of the stolen money even went to build the early settlements in America. Angus Maddison, a British economist's findings that India's share in the world economy in 1700 AD at 27 per cent went down to just 3.0 per cent in 1950 corroborate the view.
The colonisers used guiles, conspiracy and all kinds of notoriety to drain resources from Asia, Africa and South America. Such tactics met reversal in North America because the European settlers decided to make the new-found lands their homes. Fortunately, the colonial powers could not cause rifts among their compatriots settling there on the basis of nationalities. This was a departure from the set pattern of colonisation in other parts of the globe. The birth of a new nation initially brought enormous possibility for the human civilisation but for the subsequent aberrations first in the form of slavery and slave trade from Africa and later on export of so-called democratic values and principles in order to advance trade and commercial interests along with undermining democracy at home by injection of enormous funds from the fabulously wealthy into the election system.
Thus the distortion of the cradle of democracy with capitalism triggering socio-economic inequality and discrimination has now left an adverse impact on the countries aspiring for democracy, particularly since the disintegration of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries with a rival system of dispensation and economic management based on state-owned means of production, collective farming and industrial production. Today, China has surged ahead by way of shuffling between free market economy and command economy.
Thus, with infamous records such as scandalous sex life, tax evasion and a role in Capitol Hill attack behind him, Donald Trump can not only field his candidacy but also looks all set to win the race. Octogenarian Joe Biden with all his American aggressive foreign policies and appeasing overtures to the Jewish lobby has exposed physical and mental infirmity only to alarm the wealthy donors pouring huge money in the campaign fund. These subscribers ostensibly make and unmake presidential aspirants. They are now clamouring for replacing an unviable Biden.
Who says all power lies in the people? If money can buy the world's most powerful position, how this can influence the election processes in the rest of the world following the parent democracy is anybody's guess. This is what countries in South Asia and other continents are witnessing now. The rise of the far right political parties in Europe has been possible by default of the conventional democratic system now exposing its wear and tear. Democratic values, moral principles have long become conspicuous by their absence. It is, however, not the fault of democracy but of the practitioners. Let alone an Abraham Lincoln, not even a Delano Roosevelt is unlikely to have a chance on the present political scene.
The international economic order has long been dictated by the US and its Western allies. The Europeans' colonial legacy of usurpation and extermination replaced by trade and commercial diktat continues in subtle forms. Even the World Trade Organisation (WTO) hardly has any provision for reparation of the wealth appropriated from lands in Asia and Africa by the colonisers of the West. Today, the leaders of the West and international organisations grant generalised system of preference (GSP) and GSP+ as if they are doing charity for the poor forgetting that their economic and social prosperity was made possible with wealth drained out from their former colonies.
Now countries like Bangladesh have to seek trade facilities from the usurpers of their wealth and destroyers of their industries. The cottage industries that produced the finest cloth man has ever crafted in the shape of Muslin and other goods for export were destroyed by the British rulers. If the West cannot make amend for the injustice by way of reparation, it should not at least insist on trade barriers.