From oligarchy to Technocracy

Among the champions of democracy, the United States of America believes that democracy is the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as it was defined by the American president Abraham Lincoln in the latter half of 19 century. But when we look around the elections 2024 in the USA recently, we can see that the elections have been dominated by the wealthy and technically very strong people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who are technically expert and owners of billions of dollars and are seen attempting to establish technocracy. This calls for an attempt to understand what democracy has become overtime in the 21st-century that instead of the significance of peoples’ vote to elect the ruler it is the money and the power that makes the people elected or selected for the government and this is happening in almost around the world. During my childhood, I used to listen in my village that the villagers would vote for that person or party who will be voted by the elder of the village. So, the contestants of elections would meet and visit the village elder instead of the people. It meant that a successful connection with the elder of the village or the tribe can ensure the victory of the contestant. Here again the common man and the word of the common man was not significant. 

It was expected in the 21st-century that the information and awareness spread far and wide would make it possible that the people may be able to elect their representatives on their own responsibility and without taking care of the dictates of the elder or the bigger people of the town. But the 21st-century awareness has only changed the mode of this type of election engineering and has not resulted in the change because of the vote of the people. If one just looks at the globe and its politics on the globe one can see that the biggest democracies in America and Europe are also getting their leaders when a particular type of people support them who have a big sway on the assets and the working of different technical corporations. These are the modern as well as very wealthy technical oligarchs who hold the hugest possible amount of money in their bank accounts and therefore can manipulate the vote psychology of the people and make their desired candidate win the election. These are the movers and shakers of the working of democracies almost in every wealthy country. This syndrome of technical corporations has entered the democratic lives of the people in the less developed countries as well. If you look around the elections in 2018 and then in 2024, it is quite evident that the election contesting candidates could win their seats if they were supported by the wealthy and the rich donations of these people in Pakistan. These people have a sway on the funding and can change the psychology of voting people at least if not by buying the vote with money. There have been some examples of giving gifts to the people, offering food to the people and promising for the jobs and hence attempting to buy the favors of the people to win the election. This amounts to buying the boat with power of money instead of convincing the people for their votes with their performance. It means the more money and the power one has; the more are the chances to become the premiere of the country. Moreover, if we tend to look around us in Pakistan, we can see that most of our rulers or the elected representatives come from elite families and almost continue to do so throughout their life and after them their next generation begins to gear up for becoming the ruler of the country in the same fashion even after the passage of decades of years. 

Although Pakistan does not have the rich technical corporations and their experts the way American and European democracies have but in Pakistan also there are the rich and the powerful people who can or have the capacity to manipulate and exploit the vote of the people. In American and European democracies, the mode seems to be the winning of the election based on the corporate supports. These corporations are, with respect to their money technical expertise and their public holdings, so strong that they can play a major role in the winning of the elections by their favorite candidate, probably to win back there spent money along with the profit from the policies of the elected government. This may be right, or this may be wrong but the fashion of the democracies in 21st-century is going to be government of the corporates, for the cooperates and by the cooperates.