From Moral Economy to Hollow Democracy: The Enduring Struggle Against Enclosure and Exploitation
From Moral Economy to Hollow Democracy: The Enduring Struggle Against Enclosure and Exploitation In the shadow of the Industrial Revolution, historians like Eric Hobsbawm and E.P. Thompson uncovered a profound clash: the "moral economy" of pre-capitalist societies, where community customs ensured subsistence rights, versus the relentless market forces that dismantled them. This tension birthed resistance—Luddites smashing machines, Swing rioters burning threshers, social bandits robbing the rich—all defending traditional ways against enclosure and mechanization. Yet, these battles echo today in modern parallels: lobbying scandals like Greensill and Qatargate expose "new enclosures" of democratic access, while hollow Western democracies offer voting without material security, contrasting China's substantive autocracy delivering poverty alleviation. In India, "survival elections" trade ballots for freebies, masking deeper precarity. This article tr...