Limitations of Micro Social Action: Delusions of Power

The Delusions of Power:
Beauty and the beast

John Samuel



Small may look beautiful. But is such a sense beauty good enough to take on the beast? These days there is lots of talks about micro- as if it is the most desirable and beautiful thing to do. Can aesthetics of the micro face the army of the macro beast? Can the “micro” beauty challenge and change the ‘macro” beast of the market and state? At the core of this is the question is power. What kind and modes of power relationships shape the social and economic policies? How power operates differently in its micro and macro dimensions? How power is derived and sustained? Our predicament is that power can create a sense of delusion of ‘empowerment’ and subjugation of the ‘empowered” at the same time.


Why is that in spite of all “micro credit” magic and the perceived ‘empowerment’, the poor and marginalized fail to influence the macro politics of Bangladesh or for that matter anywhere? Why the celebrated hero of “micro credit” is ended up a zero in the macro party politics of Bangladesh? Why is that in spite of a long history “civil society” initiatives and grassroots “empowerment’ by organisations like SEWA and many Gandhian organisations in the state of Gujarat in India, thousands of people got massacred in the day light, with the complicity of the state? Why most of the ‘civil society” failed to respond to the uncivil behaviour of the organized political forces and that of the state power? Why is that the so-called ‘social capital” in southern Italy failed to counter the rise of fascism? This is where we need to understand the limitations of “micro politics” and “micro finance”. The crux of the matter is that it is often the macro power relationships and macro economics that call the shot, while micro politics can perpetuate a false sense power. Micro politics and micro finance may give a sense of power. But such power becomes more of a delusion when such powers are designed to be subservient to unjust power relationships that perpetuate injustice, inequality and impoverishehment. Often micro power and micro politics are simply bulldozed or consistently subverted by the macro power of the state and market- the beasts of macro politics and economics- deriving their power from a coercive army, media that manufactures consent, and markets that masks as the messiah. .


These days we hear a lot about micro finance, micro enterprises, local governance and empowerment at the grassroots level. The new stress on rights based approach to development, civil society actions, civic virtues, community based mobilizations and grassroots empowerment all seem to stress largely on “micro” and very less on ‘macro’. Micro is for the poor and excluded and Macro is for the rich and powerful. Micro finance and micro politics can be subcontracted to NGOs while Macro politics and macro economics will be controlled by the organized corporate and market power along with the political elite. This is where the delusions of power and delusions of development begin.

What is the problem? The problem is that while the so-called NGOs or Civil Society Institutions are busy.’empowering’ the grass roots, establishing” micro finance” , strengthening “local governance” or ‘delivering development’, the organized macro economic and political powers continue play their power-game of “macro finance” ‘macro economics” and national, international and global governance. They would capture the markets, natural resources or countries through laws, advertisement campaigns, through finance capital market or through bombs- as they like it and when they like it! While every good soul seems to be focusing on the grassroots and local development or empowerment, the rich and powerful seem to be busy capturing the market, consumers and governments. The logic of the neat division of politics and finance into ‘micro” and ‘macro” often helps to sustain and strengthen the hegemonic and unjust power relationships that perpetuate impoverishment, inequality and injustice. While civil society organisation can claim an ethical or political high stand, they simply fail to influence any thing about the war in Iraq or to change the character of the World Bank or IMF or for that matter the nature and character of a coercive state, whether it is in Ethiopia or in Zimbabwe or in the USA.

The problem is that often such initiatives that promote new “micro power” in terms of finance, gender, governance or mobilization fail to address the “macro power”, “macro power relationships” , “macro politics” and “macro economics”. So micro finance looks good as long as you ignore the “macro finance” which drives it. Hence we can celebrate Grammeen and forget about the City Bank or American Express or finance capital markets. “Micro enterprises” looks good as long as you ignore ‘macro economics’; ‘local governance’ is often a favored option as long as national and global governance is for the political and technocratic elites, left unchallenged. While influencing micro power relations and micro politics is a very worthwhile effort, it becomes a means of creating and sustaining delusions of power when the macro politics and macro economics is left to powerful business corporations, rich countries and their institutions to define control and manipulate power in all its dimensions.

This explains that fact that in spite of long history of conscientisation, civil society initiatives at the local or community level and, grassroots empowerment, there has not been enough evidence to show that all such efforts changed or substantially influenced the macro power relations ships of the state or that of the market at the national or international level. The fact of the matter is that in spite of years of community mobilization and ‘grassroots “empowerment” and local governance, in most of the countries of Asia (Thailand, Myanmar, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and to some extend Nepal), macro politics is often shaped by the mix of larger political forces and interest groups along with that of the coercive power of the army. Most of the countries in Africa and Latin America also show the same pattern. In the so called democracies of Europe and America too the situation is more or less the same. In spite of all efforts, it is the state power that decided to launch a preemptive war in Iraq and its disastrous consequences to the people of Iraq and the world.


This is not to argue that micro politics or micro power is not important. On the contrary, micro power and micro politics are very crucial for individual empowerment and women’s empowerment at the level families, communities and local power relations. Indeed, transforming micro politics and the injustice that is embedded in the gender relations; feudal power structures and historical marginalization require changing and challenging unjust and unequal relationship at the level of micro politics within the family and communities. However, the problem is that larger power structures, political forces and corporate interests are so organized in terms of their interests and networks, in terms of the control over the institutions and the interests of the Military, Market and Media. The institutionalized power of macro politics can make the power of micro politics redundant in the larger power play. One of the key reasons for this is that micro politics is most of the time dispersed, disorganized and disoriented in the larger context of the political economy of power and institutions. Hence, the micro politics do not translate into collective power that can challenge and change macro power and the institutions that control and reproduce such macro power and macro economy. The key reason for this is the hegemonic power paradigm that influences and shapes the power relations at any given point in time and space.

At any given point of time there is a hegemonic power paradigm that operates through political economy of institutions, interests, knowledge, technology and state. Even the morality and intrinsic moral tools like human rights are often defined by the political economy of the hegemonic power paradigm. Hence a moral tool like human rights is often misused in the most immoral way by those who control the Power paradigm. This paradigm is still controlled by the power of military, media and markets and sustained by the state and its various institutions at the national and international level. While such a power paradigm gives incremental space for the civil society or civil society organisations or social movements or NGOs (in the name of human rights or democracy) to influence public policies, such “invited space” or “designed” space are largely within the hegemonic power paradigm. That is why in spite of all good intentions and efforts, such efforts have to depend largely on the good will of the media or the institutions of the state in spite and irrespective of all moral and political claims on behalf the poor or that of citizens. In fact, one can argue even such “invited spaces” are more of accommodative arrangements to create delusions of power to the civil society.

The fact of the matter is that even the international campaigns initiated by the so-called civil society or INGOs largely depend on the highly corporotised media to get attention and derive legitimacy as opposed to large scale social or political mobilization of people to challenge the politics of the state and that of the market. Often anything that happens in Washington, New York, London or Brussels or any such cities qualify an action to be “global”. Anything that is appeared in the BBC or CNN is worthy enough to be “global’. Any book that is published in London or New York or reviewed in the Time or the News Week or the Economist is supposed to have “global” influence. Any theory or knowledge that gets manufactured or processed in the northern universities or think-tanks is supposed to have “global significance”. By the same token cities of the South, knowledge from the south and the media in the south are still “local” or “national”. This too creates false sense of power based on location and delusions of power. Then, there is no wonder that even the civil society or NGO campaign often get vulgarized into cheap media stunts, high profile seminars and communication circus in the northern cities (privileged by the hegemonic power paradigm) of the world based more on brand building and less on mobilizing or transforming political power or power relationship at the micro or macro level. Because, such process will have to be within the given power paradigm of “allocated space” to get legitimation as well as to ensure at least an incremental sense of influence. Hence there is a need to understand the character and nature of the hegemonic power paradigm and to challenge and change the very paradigm of 3 Ms (Military, Media and Market) to reclaim the state as well governance to the people and to the marginalized billions of the poor and excluded people both in the rich and poor countries. This requires a much more nuanced understanding about the uses and abuses of power and a political strategy based on a long term approach to power paradigm as well as social transformation.


Power is a contested concept, as much as it is about contestations. Power is also a very slippery notion, with multiple manifestations, process and histories. The notions of ‘Power over’, ‘Power to’, ‘Power within’ and ‘Power with’ often capture different dimensions and modes through which power operates, transform and manifests. Power can have both positive and negative connotations. Power can be visible or hidden. It can have symbolic as well as institutional dimension. Power is often negotiated through and negotiated by different social, political, economic institutional dimensions as well through cultural, historical and technological modes. The questions are how power is derived, how it is used, how it gets manifested and how it gets reproduced or regenerated. The “how’ aspect of power is often more important than the ‘what’ and ‘why’ aspects of power. Power can manifest itself in terms of aesthetics, coercion, consensus, control or networks. The power to create can in many ways signify the primordial notion of power and often the very basis of the omnipotence of the notion of the God is derived from the “power to create” and later on religions as formal institutions transformed this “creative power” to that of the “power to control”. Power can be termed as the process, instruments and ability to create, to communicate, to choose, to decide, to influence, to convene, to sustain, to control and to destroy. Power has individual as well as institutional dimensions. Personal is indeed political. However, it is the institutions of family, religion, state and market that often define, sustain and reproduce power relationships. Often such institutions legitimize the “control” and “coercive” aspect through “power over”. Patriarchy is the most manifested form of power as control. Power is derived from and through guns as well gender; books as well as battalions; ethics as well as economics; religions as well rockets; tactics as well as technology; liberty as well as law; love as well as language; crime as well as punishments; people as well as profits; media as well as mediations; war as well as peace; values as well as visions; community as well as creativity ; advocacy as well as army; missionaries as well as markets and from democracy as well desires. In fact, a hegemonic power paradigm operates through the control of all these modes as well as expression of power; by controlling and coordination the military, law and order, technology and even the political economy of desire (manufacturing new desires and demands through advertisements), democracy (by corporate funding of political parties and political elites), human rights and Civil society initiatives (either through state patronage of development aid or through corporate funding). Hence, the Knowledge of Power is as important as the Power of Knowledge.


The delusions of power through “individual “ empowerment or through “empowerment” of the consumer to choose, or through the “empowerment” of local governance or through the “invited” space for the “civil society” can give a false sense of hope about the whole project of “development” and “human rights”. It is far less complicated to address the micro dimension of power. Hence, the hegemonic power paradigm (which is patriarchal in nature) will not have much of a problem to initiate affirmative action in favour of women’s political participation and leadership at the local self government. This is the same for other excluded groups. However, there is tremendous resistance to allocate 30% or 40% seats in the parliament for women or excluded sections. It is also the same with NGOs. As long as NGOs are small and beautiful, the hegemonic power paradigms of the state or the market will not have any problem to support “micro” credit or “micro” enterprises. The fact of the matter is that most of the NGOs or Civil Society organisations derive power from their institutional sources and through communicative action based on moral premises. However, the very institutional source and communicative source are often located in the periphery of the state, market and media. This is true for fundraising as well as for media strategies. Such a sense of power derived through institutions, network, communicative action, knowledge and technology can be effective to a certain extend at the very grassroots level through community mobilization or delivery of the service. With the advent of information and communication technology and media driven campaign strategies, they may also make a visible presence or profile at the global level. Though such presence and “invited spaces” do not necessarily means power to influence or change. However, because the very character and nature of the institutional premises, located in market as well as in the periphery of the state, many of such initiatives can at best of progressive reformism or tokenistic instrumentalism. Hence, unless such Civil Society Organisations think of a new political strategy as well as a political theory and praxis of action at the all levels of micro and macro power relationships, the chances of transforming the hegemonic power paradigm is less. In fact, after 25 years many of the present local and “global” initiatives for chasing “policy mirages” may prove to be redundant. Many of such ‘beautiful’ efforts and institutions may very well be swallowed by the beasts of markets and the state.


In fact, the major challenge for the present hegemonic power paradigm comes from the emergence of post modern identity politics. The notion of “class’ is getting increasingly mixed up with or play as a subsidiary to the notions of ‘identity”. The unprecedented urbanization, migrations, inequality combined with the new markers of identity based on location, religion and ethnicity can unleash new political forces that can subvert the present state of the hegemonic power paradigm. This can very well be reactionary political forces as distinct from a progressive or transformative political force. The new identity politics has individual, micro and macro dimensions as well as the subversive capacity through new forms of military action and terror tactics. This poses a great challenge to both the beauty and the beast.

At the moment the beauty and beast seem to be in a reinforcing sense of complacent embrace and a conciliatory relationship based on mutual benefits and the desire of self preservation. Though such complacent coexistence of the beauty and the beast create delusions of power and development, as the beast is busy bombing and banqueting over the lives and livelihood of the billions of people. However, the new identity politics and the new hegemonic power paradigms at the global, national and international level may rock the apple cart. The beast may change coloure and even language. It may shift its primary location from Washington to elsewhere. However, the beauty can not afford to be a sleeping beauty complacent with “micro” power. There is indeed a need to create something big as well as beautiful that is relevant at the local, national and international level.

There is indeed a need for new renaissance and new flowering of creativity in the form of new poetry, cultural expressions and politics to build a new aesthetics of power and empowerment that can be relevant both at the micro and macro level. Small may be beautiful. But all beautiful things do not necessarily need to be small- particularly when there is a beast that can easily swallow small beauties in the civil societies at their own convenience for either breakfast or dinner. We need to outgrow the delusions of power and confront the hegemonic power paradigm by creating new sources of power and politics, though broad based mobilizations, new forms of communicative actions, new forms of local and international alliances, new forms of knowledge creation, distribution and reproduction and new forms of democratization. We indeed need new imagination to go beyond the three year project cycles or five year thematic strategies of ‘empowerment” to build a new vision for a new world- a just and joyful world- through new actions and through innovative institutional approaches. Delusions of Power lead to delusions of development. And such frustrations may lead the development actors again to go in search of new approaches and strategies for poverty eradications, without being able to challenge and change the hegemonic power paradigms that perpetuate inequality, injustice and the consequent impoverishment.