Extracts from an interview with the Indian author of The God of Small Things (Die Zeit, 8/9/2011)
We have a world-wide elite that is culturally and economically interconnected and that cares only about one thing: its own survival. In Europe, in America, in China, in India, the elites fight for domination.
From where does China get its raw materials to feed its growth? It will have to fight wars to secure them. Where does India get its raw materials? From the poorest members of the population, in the forests. The old argument that the destruction of nature is necessary for the welfare of society has become obsolete. It was merely an excuse of the dominant middle class.
There now exists a middle-class totalitarianism. For this there are many indications in India. In the last twenty yeas, there has been a radical change in the cultural and economic codes. Take, for example, Bollywood films. There, you don’t see any poor people any more.
A few years ago it seemed as though the Indian middle class was going to turn the country into one vast shopping mall. Since then, there has been a change. People don’t want that any more.
You ask whether the almighty middle class is capable of imagining an alterative to its economic model from which is derives its profit. The answer is no. It is too proud. It cannot save itself. It can only be saved by the people in the forests, in the villages, from whom everything has been taken.
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
A true sign of economic progress, an artsy snob attacking the new rich and their tacky habits.
Ms Roy’s comments are just about totally incomprehensible. Maybe they were over-condensed.
Yes, it was. I did the lady a grave injustice. I picked from the long interview a formulation that seemed new to me: the interlocking elites being at war with the world’s poor. This was out of context. Her overall subject was what she called the “totalitarianism of the [new Indian] middle class”. I was amazed at the radicalism of that phrase, and thought it would be useful to my readers to know what a writer of her stature was thinking.
I liked her book…perhaps she used an editor.