|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Tuesday, 6 January 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Features | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
'Wealth creation' - a response I usually have only a cursory glance at Mr. Ravi Perera"s contributions to your paper, though sometimes I do read the first and last paragraphs. They essentially contain simplistic and obvious criticism of the political and social life of this country with a sycophantic adoration of all that is western .His recent article entitled 'Wealth creation", I did read, as I was fascinated at the amazing naivete, of his views. The opening lines of his article begin thus- "It seems that certain nations of the world are blessed with the knowledge of wealth creation. Using this knowledge they have provided a comfortable life for their people. These countries are also stable and democratic and lie In the Western Hemisphere. Recently we have seen a few nations in South East Asia proudly knocking on the door of the club of rich nations..." To create wealth he suggests, that we improve our education, our transport and communication systems, and that they should be privatized, to make profits and maintain standards and should not be free because there " is no free lunch". Other ways to create wealth, he says is to find oil and apply the new technology or invent things like electricity, the internal combustion engine, "ships that could sail the seas" or computers. If the above is not possible, private enterprise should be encouraged. "Some cultures" ,he says, presumably referring to ours," think of private enterprise as a symbol of greed, and attempt to crib and curb them". Freedom to dream and abolition of corruption are his other suggestions. Like our school Latin master used to say, "facile dicto, difficile facto. (easy to say ,difficult to do). Or, more to the point, Mr. RP, impossible to do!! To illustrate the backwardness of the "old civilizations", he is definitely not joking when he gives two examples. He points out that the Kandyan chiefs who signed the 1815 Convention, signed it free, without negotiating a fee of $ 50, and the American Indians who sold Manhattan for $ 24 worth of "beads and trinkets", did not deposit this money in the bank. He calculates that if they had done so , at even 8% interest, they would have trillions of dollars today. I leave the reader to figure the sense of all this!! It might surprise Mr. RP that these rich nations were not blessed with wealth by any deity, but by the plunder rape and enslavement of "these seats of old civilizations". Taking Sri Lanka as an example, our monarchy and feudal system was replaced by alien western institutions supported by a small proportion of English educated natives, to serve their commercial interests. After 135 years of exploitation they left, leaving us their Westminster type parliamentary system, universal franchise, English speaking civil administration and other "democratic" institutions manned by a bunch of western educated pukka sahibs and British university educated politicians. The almost universal franchise bequeathed to us, meant that politicians were beholden to the uneducated, irresponsible masses, for election to political office, who in return for their votes, promised and attempted to give them the moon and stars. We got free education, free health, cheap transportation, and imported consumer goods till the coffers were empty, and then we borrowed and spent. In the early 70's the government was forced to impose restrictions on consumer goods, which made it so unpopular with the pampered masses, who voted the opposition more than a 2/3 majority in the legislature. Here was an opportunity for an enlightened leadership to act autocratically to develop the infrastructure for sound economic development, protecting our fledgling industries and strengthening the laws of corporate governance Instead we got an "open " economy where state owned institutions were sold by corrupt politicians to cronies and henchman. Nepotism, bribery and corruption flourished. Loans and resources were squandered. A country was set on the road to become the "basket case" it now is. This is the sorry history of democracy in our country which has left us at the mercy of this "rich club" of nations who dictate not only our economics, but are politics as well. The fact is that today's developed countries did not develop under democracy. In Australia and the USA ethnic minorities got voting rights only in the 1960's. Women got voting rights in many countries only after 1945.In Britain, voting rights were restricted to landowners till the latter half of the 19th century. "Democratic" institutions of corporate governance, intellectual property rights, financial institutions, and labour institutions, regarded as essential for economic development emerged after, and not before, a significant degree of economic development. These are not the institutions, these " blessed" western countries, that now control the global economy used to become rich, and which they now impose on the developing counties like ours. Almost all these countries now championing free trade, especially Britain and the US, used tariff protection and subsidies to safeguard their industries, and continue to do so. We have now in a situation where these countries are imposing a new colonialism on us through the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO etc, which they control ,by insisting on free trade and investment, and strong patent laws, which they opposed when they were developing. In fact these policies and institutions have had disastrous economic and social consequences in some developing countries. Thus, the exploitation and rape of our countries' wealth, resources and labour continues. We continue to get poorer, youth are unemployed, our women voluntarily leave the country for slave labour abroad, and there is turmoil in our civil society. We see however a few countries, as Mr. RP says, knocking at the doors to the "rich men's club". These are the countries like Malaysia . S. Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, who do not follow slavishly the rules of the "rich men's club". They use the same policies the western developed countries used when they were in our stage of development, where democracy was bridled, and tariff and subsidies used for stability and uninterrupted development. Understandably, seeing the results, the majority of their citizens acquiesce with these policies, should we not follow their example?. Dr Mahinda de Silva Borella. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
