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Articles |
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!!The 'ifs' and
'buts' of capitalism
By :
Dr. Zafar Altaf
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!!The 'ifs' and 'buts' of capitalism by DR ZAFAR ALTAF
ARTICLE (January 16 2010): Is Pakistan following any reasonable theory or
practice? Earlier one had thought that the donors could do the needful and
fill the gap by meeting the shortfalls. This is incorrect for the donors
have their own agenda. The theories have a western bias and in any case, the
theories so propounded have been developed for their own countries or
countries with that kind of culture and value system.
Gone are the days when one could refer to the prudence of Adam Smith and the
likes of Ruskin, or even George Orwell. All these people were not
economists, but were from different realms. Just to make that point even
more forcefully - Adam Smith belonged to the area of moral jurisprudence,
Ruskin was at Cambridge in Fine Arts and Orwell had been a police officer in
Burma and later became a journalist.
So where is the claim of the economists that this subject only belongs to
them? Ever since that time the morality of the subject has been under
question. Gunnar Myrdal called the young puppies of the WB as economist's
vulgaris. True he was, for the inexperienced young puppies have distorted
the name of the WB and all that was built by the team of McNamara, the real
chief of the WB if ever there was one.
What of Pakistan? Well the Pakistanis are quite capable of hacking their own
feet. Unable to understand the society that is part of Pakistan, they would
rather respond to the queries and the wishes of the west. It is now
established beyond any doubt that the iron structure of the administrative
services was eroded and the reforms that were brought into place merely
eroded the once-existing structured civil service[s].
Why did an unelected government have to do this? Why did an unelected
government get us into a fix by joining hands to kill innocent people. These
are questions that cannot be answered, but civilised nations do a post
mortem on such actions and then if it is warranted to punish such
individuals that is done so.
The disconnects of management decisions are of such a nature that if one
were to look at these disconnects, one would be appalled at the consequences
of the nature of these actions. Take the economic scene. The delays in
decision making makes it impossible to do anything for the country.
There are so many cranks around that they are the followers of the Ten
Commandments which have negative connotation and generally start with 'Thou
salt not do...'. Thus these shall not do has permeated the civil services.
The delays and the formats have been so organised.
Thus a promotion case is with the ministry for 13 months, the person has
been de-motivated and the response is by someone who is not even remotely
concerned with the matter. One used to point out to the commissioner that he
has no role in law and order and the District Magistrate is the sole
authority that is answerable to the High Court.
Administratively, the Deputy Commissioner is answerable to the Chief
Secretary and as Collector, the responsibility is with this Board of
Revenue. The Commissioner merely played the role of a system whereby the
appeals from the court of the collector are made to the Commissioner. That
is all. The pivot of the system was the deputy commissioner.
The law and order situation now speaks for itself. One used to tell our
friends in the corporate sector that should the administrative wing be
demolished what would be the consequences. The heavens did fall on the
families that suffered the consequences of such a policy. The current drift
is again a case in point.
The economic woes aside, the law and order situation dissuades foreign
direct investment. The investor will never be able to come and invest here
simply because the law and order situation has been messed up. Go back to
any time frame and in any country these kinds of reforms, were and are,
never implemented.
The civil service, fed up with this mess, for the first time refused to
fight back and what was achieved in a minute or in a day was to set back the
clock to 1849, when these reforms were brought in by Northcote-Trevellyn.
The continuous battle between the regions culminated into this. In fact, the
real strength of the civil service [s] was lost in the many petty and minor
battle that goes on in the countries, such as Pakistan, duly-supported by
the agencies that are interested in destabilising the country.
Thoughtless leaders, as the henchmen of the West then went for the jugular
vein and cut off the blood supply to the brains of the country. The phoenix
will rise from the ashes and the country will need a systematic reappraisal
of the organisational structure of this country. Tinkering with the system
won't do.
On the economic front, the database was diluted and destroyed by vested
interests. Mafias abound in agriculture and in the agro-industry sector. The
use of seawater had been successfully carried out at Keti Bunder and at Hub,
but that project was closed by the regime of the agriculture minister Junejo
and Musharraf.
The reasons were very personal. Mexico that went in for the same kind of
technology, which at that time is prospering from seawater intervention, in
as much as they have produced their own edible oil, fish and prawn
production has been increased and the coastal belt is now forested area.
Economic activity in that part of the world is very much wanted and would
keep the federation's blood system from rigidity.
Rigor mortis would not set in if the bloodstream is continuous, instead of
getting idiots as ministers. The continuous use of, and demand for money
resources are also built on the premise that money is essential, when money
is not essential but knowledge is.
It is knowledge that is site-specific and built on the basis of knowledge of
the local people. So the money kept pouring in and the patient was kept
alive by the injection of financial resources from elsewhere. That meant the
defeat of national objectives at the convenience of policy makers.
The decision-maker's delay in taking appropriate actions is also a case in
point. Files keep on lying in the section officer's office, where these keep
on accumulating dust. As junior civil servants, we were encouraged to go to
the lowest office to see what was going on and now no one bothers. The
opportunity cost of delayed decision-making is difficult to comprehend,
unless one understands the context in which that decision has to be taken.
That is the case for mental corruption and if it is done wilfully then that
is what has to be understood in its total capacity, not in terms of
corruption in monetary terms. The destruction of the co-operative market and
the instilling of the micro-credit system only augmented the poverty
position of the country and did nothing on the alleviation of poverty.
Sons and daughters of third-raters got into positions where they siphoned
off money from the poor to pay for the cosmetics for the daughters of the
rich. The then State Bank and the current one, too, backed these powerful
but useless forces to destroy what was left of the legacy that Justice
Chotto Ram gave us when he wrote off the debt of the Muslim peasants before
partition.
A Hindu did that for the Muslim peasants and what did a Muslin do when he
had the opportunity, he recreated that very mess that had been got rid off
by the said Justice. Unfortunately, time is always constrained and many
forces that play on the minds of the poor and vitiate his living conditions
have to be properly brought to the notice of the powers that be.
This is much easier under democratic governments than under tyrannical
governments. In fact, one should have to write it in the constitution that
any one supporting illegal usurpers should be dealt with under the
constitution and taken to be a criminal and implement it, just as it was
done after Cromwell in UK. In the UK a woodcutter was asked to severe the
heads of some prominent Cromwell supporters and their heads were hung from
the West Minister steeple.
The head is to be got hold of and then do a mafia-style abduction to make
sure that justice is done to the nation whose very life is at stake. Courage
of one's conviction is required and the nation has to be lifted from its
present depressive mood and taken to its logical position. It can be done.
It has to be done. It will be done. The positive aspects of one's own nation
need not be forgotten. It has to be preserved. The nation state is in
danger, not from without, but from within.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2010 |
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