Capitalism Article based on Novel/ Nectar novel analysis/ Kamala Markanday novel/ Karl Polanyi, Gunnar Myrdal, and Karl Marx logics/ Inequalities analysis based on Novel

Nectar in a Sieve is a novel wrote by Kamala Markandaya. Through narrating a family’s destiny and the change of a traditional village, this novel depicts multiple problems of Indian society when India won its independence from Britain. The small traditional Indian village first encounters western capitalism, and this invasion entirely changed Rukmani and her families’ life; however, it is in a miserable way. In this essay, I will argue that capitalism will drive significant change in traditional society and usually along with social conflicts, miseries, and inequalities. This essay is organized as follows. The first part is in a micro perspective to analyze capitalism changes people’s living conditions and values. I will follow Rukmani’s and her families’ experience to suggest capitalism break their joyful life and turn it dreadful. As for the second part, I will from a macro angle to argue capitalism changed the traditional market system into a modern market system and generate many inequalities. In both parts, I will draw the points from Karl Polanyi, Gunnar Myrdal, and Karl Marx to reinforce my argument. In the end, I will give a conclusion.

 Physical change 

Capitalism reinforces poverty in poor areas. Myrdal has suggested that capitalism will encourage poverty to grow in poor areas (Isakson 2020b)The early life of Rukmani’s family is poor but they still can sustain themselves. Although they do not own a big amount of wealth, they have a comfortable place to live, land to farm, and sufficient food to eat. After the arrival of the tannery and it represented capitalism, however, their living condition deteriorates significantly. The starvation, illness, and hardship after hardship hit this family severely. The huge influx of workers causes commodity prices to increase in this small village because they are purchasing a big amount of local goods. The increasing price with no doubt makes Rukmani and her family poorer. Moreover, due to the monsoon and drought which is very rough on the crops, Rukmani must buy food from the town. The food price, however, is dramatically increased caused by worker’s consumption. As a result, Rukmani has to face hunger with her family. Rukmani’s youngest son is dead because of this starvation. 

Capitalism changes the way people make a living. Meanwhile, it also generates multiple inequalities faced by impoverished people. Karl Polanyi has brought up an idea called “fictitious commodities” (Polanyi et al., 2001). It suggests that subjecting labor to commodity will lead it to be abused. Commodifying labor will put them in a very weak position which makes them vulnerable to suffer many inequalities. For example, after the bad weather devastated crops and the increased food price caused by the influx of workers, Rukmani and her family lost their access to food. Rukmani’s two eldest sons need to work in the tannery so that they can receive wages to afford food. Their low wages, however, is not equal to their hard work and poor working condition. They joined a strike to fight the inequality they have been treated; however, they failed and finally lost their job. They are too powerless compared to the strong capitalists. The same scenario happened to their father Nathan too. After Nathan moved to the big city and found a job in a stone quarry, he has also been treated poorly. The exhausting work and extreme working conditions destroyed his health and finally caused his death. When Nathan and his two sons are subjected as commodities by capitalism, they become very weak and lost their bargaining power.

The inequalities are beyond the unfair employer-employ relation. After thirty years of hard work, Nathan finally lost the land he lived and farmed. The landlord sold it to the tannery. For thirty years, Nathan does not earn enough to buy the land and he will never afford to own this land even after giving him another thirty years because the landlord takes most of Nathan’s income as rent although he is growing nothing on that land. Nathan and other impoverished farmers like him are all vulnerable to exploitation because the nature that the land they depend on has been subjected as a commodity as Polanyi suggested.  Moreover, their vulnerability also extends to their life security and legal protection. Raja, Rukmani’s fourth son, was killed by a watchman of tannery because he was accused of stealing pelt. He did not receive a judgment or any legal procedure. He just simply slain by a security guard. Also, two officials from the tannery inform Rukmani that the tannery has no responsibility for Raja’s death and warn her do not try to take any legal action on Raja’s death. When Rukmani confronted Raja’s death, she does not have any resources to take legal action.

Change in value

Capitalism changes people’s values. Marx has suggested that the economic process will shape and will be shaped by culture (Isakson, 2020a). When tannery and its capitalist thinking rooting and growing in that village, Rukmani’s and her families’ value are been reshaped significantly. Their value toward Indians culture has remarkably changed. They are all traditional Indians. They grow up under Indian culture and they all respect it. In Hinduism’s culture, the cow is a sacred animal. Hindus will never hurt a cow. The tannery, however, is operating by slaughtering cows and obtaining their fur. This business is a great disrespect to Hinduism. Due to this reason, Rukmani was very dispirited to see two of her sons are working for the tannery. Arjun and Thambi themselves are also unhappy with this job. However, realistic oppression still forced them to accept this situation.

Capitalism changes people’s family values. In Hinduism, family members should stay together and avoid been separated. Arjun and Thambi, however, changed this value after they worked for the tannery. They both leave home to work on a tea plantation in Ceylon and they never see other family members again. The working experience under capitalism changed their value toward family. The completion of their family becomes expendable compare to their wage and better living condition. Moreover, Rukmani’s third son Murugan abandoned his family and his responsibility for his own better living conditions. Nathan and Rukmani have a sacred marriage. They love each other, respect each other, and carry each other during hardship. Nathan indeed made some serious mistakes during this marriage, but he still takes responsibility as a husband. Children who grew up in this family usually will inherit this kind of value from their parents; however, Murugan abandoned this value when he found work in a big city. He moved to a city and worked as a servant. The big city he lived in is far more industrialized than his hometown. He absorbed much capitalist thinking and this new thinking erode his previous values. Differ from his father, he left his wife and his young children. His ruthlessness is extremely against his precious value.

Capitalism changes people’s moral values. Before the arrival of the tannery, people in this small town held strong morality. Although most of them are poor and barely sustain themselves, they still have decent behaviours. However, the morality value has been eroded since the tannery started operating. For example, Kunthi, Rukmani’s neighbour. She is not a friend of Rukmani and she often showing her dissatisfaction with many things, however, she did not hurt others or commit any illegal act. Her value has changed since the tannery's arrival. Due to the increasing food price and other hardship. She became a prostitute to earn her livelihood. For obtaining food, she blackmailed Nathan and Rukmani. Also, Rukmani’s daughter became a prostitute due to the same oppression. Additionally, when Nathan and Rukmani first arrived in the big city, their belongings and money are stolen. Ironically, the people in the modernized city influenced deeply by capitalism do not have a decent morality as people in the less developed village.

Society change

The market system of society has changed by capitalism. Before capitalism arrived in this small town, the economic system was a ‘society with market’ as Polanyi suggested. This traditional economic system “was absorbed in the social system” (Polanyi, 2001). The government, households, and market interact with each other. Also, their economic activities are mostly limited to goods and services. After the invasion of capitalism, the economic system changed to a ‘market economy’. The market now accepts more kinds of ‘goods’ including labor and land. In today’s view, capitalism is the role who transform the traditional market into a modern market.

Capitalism will make the poor area poorer. Myrdal has suggested that capitalism will encourage the wealthier regions to attract resources from the poor areas (Isakson, 2020b). For example, the high-quality labor force in poor areas will out-migrate to the richer regions. In the novel, most of Nathan’s alive sons are chose to work in big cities instead of staying in the small and poor town. Their choice represents most of the high-quality labor produced by poor villages' choice. Because keeping losing these high-quality laborers, the poor region does not have conditions for its development. Besides the labor force, many other resources have also been extracted. For example, the tannery’s products are never for the local people, they are all going to the wealthier regions. The poor area will stay poor or even become poorer due to this outmigration of high-quality labor and resource generated by capitalism.

In conclusion, it can be said that, throughout the whole novel, only the negative sides of capitalism has hit on the brain. How capitalism can destroy a full family individually can be seen in the novel. The individual devastation of the family leads to the ultimate destruction of a group of people of any particular area or the whole country. The price hike causes inflation that is a major problem of most of the developing and under-developed countries of the current world too that happens due to capitalism. This did not just create a financial problem for the people, but it ruined the culture, tradition, religion, social values, legislative rights, and most importantly, the relationships of the family members. That is why capitalism is very much harmful to society as it makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. It should not be practiced anywhere in the entire world. All the people no matter a person is from which religion or have which financial condition, he/ she is to be provided with equal rights and opportunities just like other people of the society. Thus the equality in society will prevail which may lead to a proper balance and ultimate prosperity of all the people together.