It is the politicians who are held responsible in regard to the way a state works, make decisions, formulate and implement policies and handle its various affairs because they are considered the public representatives who have the power and authority in matters of the state. In real it is not the politicians who have the power to take decisions and affect the lives of so many but the real power lies in the hands of the big three; the military, the corporate giants and the bureaucracy. These power elites which dominate the higher circles of military and establishment regiments, along with bureaucrats and corporate giants are the king makers who decide how the state functions.Looking at the power elite of the corporate sector shows us a picture of how they play their part in domination and manipulation of state decisions.
The power elite consist of the top leaders in the domain of military, corporate and bureaucracy. They are in command of the major hierarchies and institutions of the modern state. If the political structure of Pakistan is observed the situation is quite self explanatory. As the ideal function of civil bureaucracy is to implement the policies of the elected government but in case of Pakistan, it has been clearly overstepping its role in order to gain political power. The huge corporations have the primary objective of profit generation which most of the time is facilitated by the military regimes and bureaucratic structure of administration. The corporate elite have their own hidden economic interests, for whose protection they operate as monopolies and cartels and on their way distort the market mechanism, put pressure on the government through protests and trade unions and exploit the power of media extensively. Since the print and electronic media in Pakistan is mostly owned by large corporations or business families, the corporate elite use the power of media to create public opinion in their favor. Secondly, it also protects the interests of the other two components of power elite; military and bureaucracy. The military, bureaucracy and corporate elites are interdependent and keep the interests of each other in mind while pursuing a policy. They need the support of each other for exercising their power. Even if they criticize the working of military or bureaucracy on media, the criticism is only limited to a certain individual not to the institution; and they have to do it because public gets bored of the same drama in which the puppets of power elite are criticized on every channel with little or no change. Thus the corporate elites have more power and authority than one can ever imagine. To sum it up, politicians are always blamed for corruption and rising poverty in the country but let’s not forget that many of these politicians do not have much of a say in number of state decisions and there are greater forces behind the scenes that take all the important decisions and then push forward the political puppets to face the public on their behalf.
1 comment:
Power with the elite class to rule and dominate the masses has persisted since the origins of Pakistan. Their authority has seeped so deep that it now controls every aspect of the common man's life. I like the concept of neoliberalism as its been portrayed here that even the politicians are puppets dancing at the will of corporate powers. The corporate heads run the show and we're all just the clueless audience that only gets what they "wish" to show us through the media that they control and whenever some scandal is released regarding a prominent personality, its only because that person refused to play by their rules so they allowed their dirt to run public. Out current political environment is run at their fingertips and they rule this world, not the marionettes on the thrones.
Post a Comment