Dear Editor,
I read Pankaj Mishra's piece on the "Age of Anger" (GW 13th Jan 2017) eager for insights but was infinitely frustrated by his piece: It was like someone standing in front of an elephant, describing an elephant but then asking where the elephant is. This was doubly frustrating because Mr. Mishra is Indian and India is a places where globalisation is having one of its deepest impacts by creating a few winners but also very many losers.
Mr Mishra seemed to be in awe of some sacred "rational, liberal thinking" and his refusal (as far as I could see) to recognise that this is in fact where the problem lies was simply weird. Yes, it is the liberal mindset which has sold out the concept of "society" and "community" in favour of an economic free-for-all where the biggest players always win.
Indeed, he says (in the fifth paragraph) the we have (apparently) achieved "the dream" with us now living in a "vast homogeneous market". Excuse me but no, this is not the dream, it is the nightmare and the refusal of mainstream politicians to either grasp or to tackle this is the reason for the rise of the lunatic fringe.
People have realised that the neo-liberal "free market" means carte-blanche for rapacious corporations* but, when they see the captains of the ship taking absolutely no countermeasures, they turn to Fletcher Christian or to Long John Silver (Farrage, Trump and Le Penn) to save the day.
So let's just hope that the ship doesn't sink.
Regards
The double-irony here is that, as the West starts to suffer economic discomfort, we go into political spasms (or meltdown?). But, for all the years during which the system was ravaging other countries in order to serve us (with masses of cheap "stuff"), we didn't give a "monkey's".