Defining Crony Socialism - Moo of the Cow Belt of India

Let's start the discourse with capitalism. Capitalism is a system with an emphasis on individual rights and absolute freedom with respect to economic activity. In ideal capitalism, performance is rated over inheritance and loyalty. But when inheritance and loyalty cast a pall over performance, we see nepotism and thus, crony capitalism is said to have creeped in. For example, influential and wealthy people or large corporates use their accumulated resources (wealth) to spin major public policy decisions in their favour…2G Spectrum scam in India is a prominent example of crony capitalism.

Socialism, on the other hand preach equality and every individual’s right of participation in social decisions that affect him/her. But when a few people appropriate (hijack) people's voice with pretentious socialist goals in order to grab power, the socialistic ideals of democratic control and equality takes a rear seat or may even disappear at once. They use socialistic propaganda and talk about the importance of debates, dissent or even a Total Revolution to win over people, but when in power they become another ruthless dictator and connive with nefarious elements and wealthy corporates to establish their hold. They amass wealth through corrupt practices by openly violating the ideals once they  had preached and fought for. A dissent or for that matter even a debate would not be tolerant.Equality remains a myth, democratic control a utopia and a ‘d’ for ‘d’ i.e death for dissent becomes the norm in crony socialism. Stalin’ s rule of Russia is one such example. The CM of Delhi, the Great Socialists of the Gangetic Plains and Cow Belt of India, churned out in JP ‘s Movement are live fine examples of practitioners of crony socialism. Birthday parties of these great Socialists are often celebrated with Bollywood extravaganza in expensive stadiums and hotels when the people of their respective states are dying of cold and hunger. And the fun is- they are still Socialists!

The assumptions  behind  capitalism  and  socialism  are  quite  different. Capitalism assumes that there  exists  equality  and highly  efficient  performance  is  what  that matters. Socialism, on  the  other  hand believes that the society is unequal and equality is what that matters. Both capitalism and socialism, though taking distant positions on a continuum, however, happen to find a common ground in equality. In ideal capitalism, equal efforts are rewarded equally, thus ruling out positive or negative discrimination. In ideal socialism, inequality is eliminated by empowerment and equal say in decisions. However, when equality in respective cases are disrupted, both systems tend to be defined by the use of an adjective ‘crony’.