History. Politics and Economics

History. Politics and Economics

“There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.” — Karl Popper

" Words can change their meaning right in front of you"-John Steinbeck

Politics, political power and political leadership are such words.

If we only we can rotate the globe or rewind  chronologically we shall come across at least a few thousand versions or meanings of politics and political power.

Initially, it emerged to replace the role of religion as a rule framer and controller of human behavior.

Its initial role was well intended not to over centralize all powers to religious institutions which were interpreting and extrapolating everything under the sun according to some doctrinaire beliefs and identities ( some try to do so even today).

Politics took over the role of enabling social welfare as well as economic development of human beings.

Politics has 'emerged' as a  predominant and at times, predatory aspect of  socio-economic life.

I would like to emphasize the word ' emerge' with a connotation of inevitable aspect of evolutionary necessity.

Politics, 'emerged' enormously powerful and got institutionalized into government. 

So, politics and governments of various hues and colours, obviously emerged as very prominent players in social engineering and they used history as a reference tool as well as a justification joy stick and economics as another tool to improve the material life of human beings.

Therefore, these three Politics, History and Economics became a collective and effective platform for social engineering using various softwares like cultural activities, technological developments, intellectual advancements in the form of new ideas and thoughts to enable progress of civilization.

So, in a way politics is a very important and inevitable component of social evolution.

Politics, can we avoid it in any domain?

Well. One cannot play an instrument without tuning nor paint a canvass without drenching the brush in paint.

When everything from the price and quality of tooth paste you use after you wake up in the early morning to the electricity charges for your bed room night lamp is determined by political dispensation of some form or other it is rather bad to be indifferent to politics, though one need not or can refrain from active or hyper active participation and also avoid getting entrenched in it.

History is to be used as a reference manual for all good, best, bad and ugly activities, behaviors, events, issues , ideas that have impacted humanity;

Economics is to be used as a blue print to remove the material inadequacies and inequalities and refine the living experience by providing equal opportunities and more comforts for the maximum number; 

Politics is to be used as a enabling platform to execute the blue print as well as ensure that people do not feel alienated from all other non economics related life experiences with which they have sentimental and sensitive attachment like regional and religious affinity based cultural and traditional practices which may give them psychological comforts and a sense of belonging historically to a group and live in a purely psychological comfort zone.

All these three are inextricably interwoven but must be respected only for what they are, and what they are meant for and not beyond or over emphasis of one over the other.

Whenever that happens then the delicate balance is lost as each one of these three may derive their strength, significance, sustenance as well as mileage from the other.

Maria Mitchell says, “The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! We reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us.”

Most importantly all these must factor in and allow two important aspects of evolutionary treads namely, constantly evolving aspirations and trends of life and the emerging new technologies which facilitate many activities to render life more comfortable.

But when either or all of the three i.e. history, economics and politics are distorted, dented or dubiously misused, then, the social fabric is disturbed and it sets on the course of some destructive mode.

Life is an unmapped atlas which gets its maps based on our choices, beliefs, actions, reactions, thoughts, attitudes etc and it is our hands to make each one of these continents as great and as good as possibl

The political players usually assign labels like secular, communal etc and appropriate historically useful names and spice it with media sponsored slogans. This is a very strong intoxicating cocktail instigating idiotic activities.

They create isolated islands of ideologies, mostly negative and made to see the whole world as enemies and promote well furnished identity cages with appealing labels of victimhood.

" We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations"-Anais Nin

Eric  Fromm, “humans have a need for a stable frame of reference. Religion apparently fills this need. In effect, humans crave answers to questions that no other source of knowledge has an answer to, which only religion may seem to answer. However, a sense of free will must be given in order for religion to appear healthy. An authoritarian notion of religion appears detrimental.”

This role has been slowly and steadily taken over by politics.

Politics by extension becomes government and " Government was to be the tool by which to engineer society. Around 1900 this was true whether you were a communist wishing to bring in the dictatorship of the proletariat, a military wishing to conquer your enemies and regiment your society, or a capitalist wishing to build new factories and sell your products. Once again, this notion of the role of government as planner had not been invented; it had emerged"- Matt Ridley

Douglas Carswell writes, " public policy failures stem from planners' excessive faith in deliberate design. They consistently underrate the merits of spontaneous, organic arrangements, and fail to recognize that the best plan is often not to have one".