The crux of social activist Rajni Bakshi’s argument is that the free market can — and ought to be — reshaped with a more social context, say ADELINE BERTIN and CAROLE DEITERICHWe created the market, and we can recreate it. The central point that freelance journalist and social and political commentator Rajni Bakshi makes in her latest book, Bazaars, Conversations & Freedom, is that since the market is fundamentally a human invention, its form and shape can be tinkered with — and indeed, improved upon.
She does this by telling us about the financial wizards, economists, business people and social activists around the globe who have been challenging the “free market” orthodoxy. As they seek to recover the virtues of bazaars from the tyranny of a market model that emerged 200 years ago, the point being made is to demonstrate that a more mindful market is possible. Bakshi does this by detailing the adventures of the free thinkers and mavericks, with in-depth reportage and commentary about pressures for change in northern countries.
So-called “market forces” are not completely independent and isolated factors: we, as consumers and producers, are all part of the market. “Human processes, movements, philosophies constructed the idea of democracy. Why is it so difficult for us to grasp that, similarly, the idea of the “free market” is created by us?” she asks. Just as we can improve the democratic model, we can improve the way the market system works. Bakshi says that today “we all have to act separately as citizens, and not only as buyers and sellers”. Harking back to the earliest records of buying and selling, about 3500 BC, Bakshi insists on making the distinction between the bazaar and the “free market”, saying that bazaar is a location “where exchange of goods and services comes second to the need to gather”. She considers the “free market” as an idea where exchanges are more indirect and distant.
“Today we believe that for the market to function efficiently, people must be rational characters, or one-dimensional selfish characters,” she writes. But she considers the term “rational” ambiguous: self-interest is rational, but rationality is not only about self-interest. She talks of the doctrine of self-interest by looking at Adam Smith through the eyes of Amartya Sen. “For the market to work in a truly constructive and creative way, companies will have to account for their social and environmental performances, which is at the moment something that is not even on the cards in India.” This is John Elkington’s “Triple Bottom Line” theory, which originated in 1998, in which profit is not only in money terms, but also encompasses social and environmental profits.
The socially responsible investing movement is the concrete form of the Triple Bottom Line theory. Investors following it look for businesses that also generate social good.. So, this is a kind of “trusteeship”, since it incorporates the idea that all wealth comes with responsibilities. Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom is an open quest for possible futures and different cultures of market in which the market will serve society rather than being its master.
A storyteller and social activist, Bakshi’s other books — Bapu Kuti: Journeys in Rediscovery of Gandhi (1998) and The Long Haul: The Bombay Textile Workers Strike of 1982-83(1986)— are often about grass-roots struggles for an alternative, more creative, model of development. “Many times, the future is shaped by what we think is possible and it is determined by openness and freedom of our imagination”, she says. Perhaps the market too can be recast in a more socially responsible and responsive mode by the strength of our imagination. Although to make it better, we may or may not need the services of St Jude.
