An Essay Review by Mariam Ahlawat
Monique Pinçon Charlot and Michel Pinçon La violence des riches – Chronique d’une immense casse sociale, Zones, 2013.
Monique Pinçon-Charlot (born 15 May 1946,[1] in Saint-Étienne,[2] France) is a French sociologist, research director at CNRSuntil 2007, year of her retiring, attached to the Research Institute on Contemporary Societies/ l’Institut de recherche sur les sociétés contemporaines (IRESCO).
She works generally in collaboration with her husband Michel Pinçon, also a sociologist; they coauthored the majority of their works. These treat the closing-in within the upper classes of society,
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Warren Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Based on 30 years of research, after the 2007- 2008 financial crisis in France appeared a book by French sociologists Monique Pinçon Charlot and Michel Pinçon not yet translated into English (La Violence des Riches or The Violence of the Rich 2013 ) Their theories may be seen as relevant to the world today and to India in particular. Readers will be able draw parallels themselves .
Using France, Belgium, and other parts of Europe as a background they compiled material on those groups in whom riches, privileges and power are concentrated, to analyze the forms of violence that are perpetrated by them . This is a description of a class struggle which, if it doesn’t lead to the elimination of the disadvantaged, then to the dehumanization of those who are the least privileged.
A primary form of violence, the sociologists state, is objective, or economic, in Europe, with the laying off of millions, following outsourcing to developing countries where the minimum wage laws cannot be imposed and the local salaries are lamentable. Unemployment grows and the companies treat their own countrymen as nothing and the scum of society
Then there are forms of violence that are far more insidious, which reach the mind and the psyche and profoundly affect a persons interiorization of the social, which leads to an involuntary servitude that is the result of various forms of manipulation that the powerful work upon the middle and lower classes
Who then are the Rich ? Or super Rich, actually. Those who have the possibility of living off their inheritance, irrespective of their parent’s professions, which isn’t essential to being Rich. (one can follow other occupations like banking or film direction). Their inheritance is that which characterizes these affluent people, mainly the grande bourgeoisie or very rich, it isn’t theirprofessional activity that defines them.
It is a real social class in the Marxist sense, with excellent living conditions, enough money, social networks, symbolic expressions in external appearance, meeting together in rich localities, recognizing and co-opting each other in their circles– a social class FOR ITSELF alone, that is mobilized in the pursuit of its own interests. This mobilization is on all fronts, from finance, to politics, to the world of media, the world of art, of literature, painting, of heritage buildings, fairs, expositions, landscapes…nothing is left to chance. And here is no orchestra conductor..it’s the capitalist system, and in the defense of their interests, they are in all these fields, complicit with each other, always in the making .
The mechanisms of domination
Class struggle was linked to industrial capitalism, but class warfare is linked to financial speculative capitalism. In the industrial class struggle there was paternalism, meaning that the patron or owner was close at hand, interacting from time to time with the workers, while in financial speculative capitalism there is a complete abstraction of social rapports, a hardness , an opaque quality. With neoliberalism there has been what they term a ‘somnambulisation’ of special rapports.
According to the research, there are various mechanisms for this class warfare of the richest or super rich waged against the common people…which begins with the creation of enormous private debts…( in 2007 in France) making use of completely wild speculation. Totally destructive for the planet and for the people, states Monique Pinçon Charlot. Subsequently come into play the mechanisms of transforming this private debt into a public debt, asking of the people to finance this debt…with austerity measures or the breakdown of public services and social protection in France, for example, or demonetization. This is the psychological aspect of warfare, rendering the people themselves responsible for the misconduct of financial liberalism! These financial arms aren’t exactly financial,because they are linked to political arms, ideological arms, and therefore to an objective violence
An infantilization of economy and ideology, a total intellectual regression, is fed to the people who, after all the ideological and linguistic battering are paralyzed by its brutal, animal character, and unable to comprehend this unexpected manipulation. The control of information systems, where journalists who may expose the system aren’t published or heard, resulting in a breakdown of political conscience, of political contestation, is extremely dangerous according to the writers
The fabric of impuissance
As to why there is no real revolt, no real questioning, they respond that capitalism, which is the theme of the book, is at the same time the creator of riches, and at the same time exist the traps of consumerism: media like TV channels feed on this insatiable consumerism(there is a certain pleasure in this consumerism, however, like with Iphones etc. which cannot be denied) . The media especially television, the manner in which the programmes are constructed, sidetracks critical thinking completely. Critical thought takes, say, XY number of seconds to develop, so immediately before the mind can focus and adopta critical aspect, they jump to another topic ( or are interrupted by a commercial break). People lose the habit of reflection, of thinking things out for themselves.
The neoliberal system with its different kinds of violence doesn’t want people to state or beleive they are just and fair -all they want is that no one should go against the system–and people be powerless to question them: that’s all that matters to the class of the very rich. You may say anything on the moral or religious front–all they desire is that you shouldn’t change the order.
There are many who are individually paralyzed, although horrified by the extent of inequality, but powerless to revolt. The rich want that the hierarchy of which they are at the top, shouldbe considered natural, like the sun that warms us or the moon that shines, and that people should be resigned to the fact that in any case there’s no alternative. Naturally there’s nothing ‘natural’ in this system, the capitalist system is a human construct and the neoliberal phase in all its violence is also the result of the construction of a dominant class, the members of which are like predators on the work they extract , work of middle classes, intellectuals and labourers, and who want everything only for themselves!
These politicians, businessmen, financers and speculators have millions to speculate with and a normal salaried person cannot even imagine the millions they play with..these people live on another planet, from those who work and earn small salaries . An unreal world, which considers only great profits in the shortest time, great debts, couldn’t care less about the poverty of the real world, or even the planet itself. And the riches they have accumulated ought to be ready to be passed on to children and grand children so it doesn’t flow towards the common people!
There are two faces in the identity of the upper classes
Firstly consider the legitimacy of the class, the rejoicing, learned, beautiful people, with cultural and social riches, and symbolic riches all quite visible. Cultural would mean, along with collections, foundations, great fairs and expositions, the world of great fortunes is also the world of great music…! Then of course there are educational riches, the cultural values of this milieu represented in the educational institutes as well in Europe.
In social riches, the authors propose, there’s a face which is seen and one which is hidden, for such power cannot operate as power unless it is concealed: There are the clubs that function in the co opting mode, deciding themselves who can be part of these clubs. Co opting in banks, industrial businesses, everywhere there is a confidence, a complicity in the groups, who render services to each other all the time..from military officers, to politicians. In these circles, different sectors of the economy, all at the top of the social and economic activity…playing bridge, swimming, dining together…talking of mundane things as a form of the mobilization of this class…the power of which is constructed reposing on circles and associations that interpenetrate . These circles which may appear perfectly innocuous are actually places where power is concentrated. Here meet men and women who are in the dominant positions in different universes of social activity, and it’s very useful to have a hold over beautiful spaces to interact. Connections with people in eminent positions in business, but also in administrative positions, in arts and letters, in politics, helps to exercise control over territory, educational organizations, spaces for performances and living. News is circulated in these hallowed circles and decisions most favourable to themselves taken at the highest level of elites. The combination and the juxtaposition of associations together aren’t recognized as a power but they are actually working insidiously towards it all the time. They even include religious organizations.
Although the upper echelons seem to project individualism, liberalism, competition and competitiveness, there’s an ad hoc connivance and actually they are in reality practicing a ‘’practical collectivism’’ to protect their interests and help each other in every instance. The others’ lives are dispensable, to be used and thrown away, sacrificed at the altar of these elite families and their unspoken coteries and associations. It is this class which is actually the only class which exists in the Marxist sense of the word according to the authors.
Against oligarchy
We are in a system, they affirm, that has become a kind of nobility of money…an aristocracy of money…This ought to be denounced, just as the privileges of the aristocracy, of the nobles were denounced. However, you can only revolt if you refuse to respect or take seriously this supremacy..…but there is a kind of decisive symbolic violence, on the possibility of revolt itself.Giving the example of Tony Blair they say that social peace being most important, he decided let the rich put what they want in their pockets…and it’s thus the end of socialism…In Europe there has been a recoil, a capitulation, of not simply revolutionary, but socialist forces…those that wanted to put the brakes on capital… have given in to neoliberalism, which has only one objective: that of money, and that the rich become even richer. It’s a war of one class against all the others, which creates a fiscal hell for others and a fiscal paradise for themselves appropriating for themselves completely public resources and who have a lot of mobility, which isn’t the case of the poor who do not have that mobility. The system can be demolished but it’s very difficult in the face of what already has been created by this class: the capitalist system that has invaded the entire planet.
Capitalism marks the body
In olden days the poor were branded to punish them for even petty crimes, so that they could be recognized at all times if required. They were branded with an image of the cross for example. Today, Monique Pinçon Charlot and Michel Pinçonreveal how they brand the less privileged in an insidious fashion with alimentary strategies: the food the poorer sections can afford to eat is far less nutritious and imbalanced and they are physically marked by this, their bodies become physically of a certain kind, marking their status as ‘dominated ones’ quite visible. The unhealthy in Europe (unlike in third world countries, where malnutrition and overwork has different effects) are marked by obesity. What does it reveal, asks Monique Pinçon Charlot, that when the parliament wanted to reduce the quantities of salt, sugar and fats in industrial foods which are the foods of the poor in Europe there was a huge lobby against it, and it was retracted within a week?!
In the same way we may notice that the bodies of the dominant classes aren’t like the bodies of the middle classes or the lower classes. It is as if each section comes from a different planet.
Monique Pinçon –Charlot and Michel Pinçon declare it is their aim to divulge a unique and violent system , not in a manner of denunciation, but to make readers understand that its complicated, and that all isn’t rotten .But each one in their network must work towards exposing reprehensible systems within and think about the future, because inequality and financial instability are increasing every day.
The question we need, as Indians, to ask ourselves, but to which we already know the answer…is there an upper class or grandebourgeoisie in India, an aristocracy of money, that is consciously mobilized toward protecting its way of life and its interests? Certainly there is. Like it says in the book, the best posts are somehow annexed by the advantaged, the best houses the best landscapes; it is expected that the empires of the rich will be handed over to their offspring, for heritage has more value than talent, and it is a rare outsider who can break into the magic circles of The Inheritors.
by
Mariam Karim,
French scholar, novelist, playwright, children’s author
(Based on texts lectures and interviews of the authors)
