Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Renowned political philosopher and member of British Parliament’s House of Lords Bhikhu Parekh spoke on campus about the relationship between Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi on Thursday at the Socialist and Marxist Lecture Series.
He also touched upon the war in Iraq and how checks and balances could ensure executives have representatives’ approval in government before a decision is made to go to war. “War affects the lives of everyone. It makes the country vulnerable. Now if something as devastating as a war is going to happen . the country must overwhelmingly be in support of it.”
He suggested, in the context of the British Parliament, that the executive consult both Houses of Parliament to get approval before committing a country to a conflict and went on to say that a similar process could also be implemented in the United States.
“If intelligence is so critically important, why not devise ways where the interpretation of intelligence is taken away from the executive?” Parekh said, explaining that an independent body of ex-military and government officials should be asked to interpret and certify critical information, such as the flawed intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq.
“It might be a good thing to explore whether something like this may enrich, strengthen and deepen American democracy and prevent the country from being bounced into another war.”
When talking about Marx and Gandhi and the points at which they converged and differed, he emphasized “the basic core of their ideas.”
“Both writers had very well thought-out philosophies of man and a well thought-out model vision of what it is to be a human being, and what a good society should be,” he said.
“Both of them articulate their critique of capitalism and their vision of an ideal society in terms of the concept of freedom . although the two writers understand freedom somewhat differently, the idea of freedom is central to their visions of what it is to be human.”
He said both Gandhi and Marx recognized that economic life under capitalism becomes autonomous and that the economy should be subject to larger moral considerations. They both tried to make sense of how economic domination happens and how does it continue. They were concerned with the nature of power.
According to Parekh, both made the distinction that when one individual or group holds power over another, the dominant power may be better off materially, but is much worse off morally. They surround themselves with defense mechanisms and are dependent on the subordination of the other. “Both have a common enemy . not in each other, but in the system,” he said of the dominant and subordinate figures.
“It is amazing how two people who started so differently can converge in this way.”
Bangor Daily News