Towards Corporate City-States? By Aseem Shrivastava

It is still too early to predict the full political consequences of the SEZ model of economic growth. However, given the speed at which the policies are being enacted and implemented (the latter often in anticipation of the former), it has become imperative to foresee the likely effects and prevent the damage that might result. While the details are unclear, the broad political consequences of SEZs are fairly clear. By shifting the very mode of governance towards the corporate sector, they will render unaccountable and opaque decision-making which will have long-lasting and widespread consequences for the citizens of the country. Not only will the formal success (and consequent expansion)of SEZs threaten more lives and livelihoods in the countryside, they will institute an autocratic labour regime in the workplace. In this and other ways already explored in the essay, they will undermine democracy in India in profound respects and might well pioneer a full-scale transformation of the political system in the direction of formal corporate totalitarianism through the via media of autonomous corporate city-states.

Towards Corporate City-States? By Aseem Shrivastava