Need for Social Transformation
By Dr Arvind Kumar
Transformation of the world in the image of love and justice entails deep social change and social transformation, of democracy versus plutocracy, and of people’s willingness to work together on common problems as full and equal citizens, not as clients or consumers. Any successful recipe for social transformation must include a wellf-unctioning market economy that creates wealth — broadly distributed throughout the population — and fosters technological innovation, directed at socially useful ends. When business puts its own house in order in this way, it can have an enormously positive impact by increasing the social and environmental value of the goods and services it produces, improving the quantity and quality of the jobs and incomes it creates, and acting as a good corporate citizen — which means paying taxes, obeying regulations, ending monopolies, and removing lobbying from politics.
It has always been civil society and government that have pressed businesses to do these things; and to exercise their influence effectively, both government and civil society need to be strong and independent. Only then can they exert sustained pressure for accountability and act from a different set of values and priorities. Otherwise, as Matt Taibbi puts it “organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.” In fact, real transformation will occur when business behaves more like civil society, not the other way around. Energy and creativity of millions of ordinary people can be helpful in creating a foundation for lasting progress that will never come through top-down planning by new global elite, however well intentioned.
