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Economic Scenario
Leaders anywhere in the world can never resist the temptations of resorting to populist slogans, particularly when faced with assessment from the electorate. Normal perceptions of mass psychology dictate that voter preference is usually accorded to those who promise the most, all other factors, charisma included, being favourable. Emphasis is laid on a rescue act from the “gloom and doom” scenario, with the aspirant office-seekers presenting themselves as glorified versions of Sir Launcelot and Lord Fauntleroy rolled into one, the bottom line being the ability to deliver on all promises made, which are liberally strewn about, pledging everything but the sun and the moon, bread in plentiful abundance, universal housing, free education and medical care, water, gas, electricity, public transportations, etc in whichever order you may prefer it. Very seldom do political parties (or for that matter, military regimes) come up with comprehensive plans to tackle the issues, a total plan to ameliorate the miseries of the common man. Pakistan today is no exception to the given rule, rhetoric being in abundance, the matter of substance in short supply, a scarcity microscoping into oblivion by the lack of credible economic planners who are electable in any of the major political groups. We have seen the tinkering of the economy by those who are least electable in the present regime, a situation of genius gone amok. As much as there is a surfeit of agriculturists in the form of major landowners among professional politicians, the absence of economists and businessmen in the electoral field is always acutely felt and the present election process is no exception.
Converting Garbage into Dreams
One of the perennial problems facing the Third World is lack of energy. This translates into FORCE-MULTIPLIER effect down the line contributing to the many miseries of hapless, burgeoning populations. The primary cause of the acute paucity of energy is the absence of durable energy resources, high price of fuel and the determination of western countries to avoid nuclear proliferation by refusing nuclear technology to developing countries. Even if Less Developed Countries (LDC) have energy sources, they may lack the economic resources, the skill and/or the expertise to convert those sources of energy to useful use. The shrinkage of arable land, increasing birth rate and heightened expectations with respect to creature comforts makes it imperative to have enough energy means to maintain the status quo — sounded economic progress remaining in the realm of possibilities only because energy is the locomotive of economics. Our leaders may be well meaning but in the absence of fuel and power, the populist slogans promising the people everything except the moon, remain what they are, figments of imagination meant for vote-getting and are fulfilled partly by well-publicised show-piece efforts designed to dazzle the populace. Without adequate energy there can be no question of translating promises into reality. As industrial output remains below capacity, workers remain idle, their purchasing power going into a flat spin, depressing the whole spectrum of the economy.
A Reason for Hope
The economic situation in the world is in a peculiar ambivalent state, pressurised by centrifugal forces acting to destroy the monetary system, with overtones of general chaos manifest in its wake. The prolonged financial and monetary instability has had a debilitating effect, particular cause for concern being the increasing of indebtedness of almost all the Less Developed Countries (LDCs). Realizing that concrete steps have to be taken to arrest the explosive situation from deteriorating further, Trade Ministers meeting at a Special Session of Contracting Parties at Punta de Este (Uruguay) decided in September 1986 to launch Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) calling it the Uruguay Round. These negotiations were to be open for participation to all the Contracting Parties of GATT including those that have acceded provisionally. As a measure of bringing more countries into the process, those countries applying for and even intending to apply for admission have been invited to the discussions. This has created a truly world-wide forum intended to draw the maximum number of nations into the mainstream of an acceptable solution to all concerned, cognizant of the fact that the efficacy of any system devised will depend upon maximum participation.
Politics and Economics
Political affiliations throughout the world are made primarily on the basis of mutual beliefs and economics should normally dominate all other perceptions by a long mile. It is only in South Asia that personalities dominate ideology so much that one has a myriad number of parties with the same election plank. Despite the lengthy manifestos of the various parties, the basic requirements of the people are simple and it involves food, shelter, medicine, education and clothing to start with, the 60’s expectation which brought PPP to power now standing revised by the addition of electricity, water, gas and public transportation to the wish-list, not necessarily in that order. The underlying theme must be that the aforegoing should not only be easily available but economically within reach of the common man. If there is any political party which is not promising all this, they should seek votes on the moon because they are not going to get anywhere in Pakistan.
The Crossroads of Opportunity
Iran’s Iraq war has sputtered along violently to what seems to becoming a genuine ceasefire after long years of horrific slaughter and destruction. Mr Perez de Cuellar is hoping that Iran’s Mr Velayati and Iraq’s Mr Tariq Aziz will look each other in the eye during the ongoing Geneva talks and eventually start talking turkey. As wars go, this must rank as one of the most senseless, an unending orgy started due to misplaced Iraqi adventurism a la Saddam Hussain gone astray confounded doubly by Iranian clergical stubbornness. That Iraq clearly was the aggressor is not a debatable fact, it was; that it was Iran’s propensity to be principled on various issues that kept the war booming along is also not matter of doubt. The bottom line is that the material loss is estimated at approximately US$ 400 billion, as if the cost of a million lives, give and take 100,000, can be tabulated in such a manner.
A Concept in Cooperation
The essence of society as we understand it is that it is based on cooperation and understanding between individuals and like-minded groups. Human beings have an inherent penchant to extend help to other human beings and in the ultimate analysis even the basis for Islamic society is mutual cooperation on a comprehensive basis laid down in detail in the Holy Quran. While all this may be natural, the successful harnessing of the cooperative instinct for material benefits and the consolidation of this process along organised, scientific lines is the basis for Cooperative Societies. At the very basics, Cooperatives can be extremely helpful to those that don’t have the inherent ability for either entering into entrepreneurship of any kind or if the ability is there, to expand the scope of its horizons, whether it be in business, industry or in the agriculture sectors. It is an all-inclusive benefit scheme meant mainly for the have-nots of society. Being an agriculture-based economy, Pakistan’s main thrust in the Cooperative field has been in farming and the imperative need to create a suitable monetary system to ensure desperately needed adequate cash flow to the small-unit subsistence farmer.
Stock Market and Yupsters
The dollar took another beating on the world currency markets as a direct result of the US trade figures for February which showed the deficit increase by over US$ 1.4 billion, reversing the trend of the past few months. The US dollar promptly bounced back buoyed by the positive trade figures for March. At the moment it is going both ways. The earlier downturn triggered a sympathetic fall in the Dow Jones Index, the gnomes on Wall Street bringing it down a sharp 100 points or so. On the other hand, the Geneva Accord on Afghanistan fetched nary a blush and served as a significant example of the prevailing perceptions of various forces to paper agreements that (1) the Russians are using the Accord as a mere propaganda ploy as a backdrop of the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Moscow in May 1988, having no real intention to go back and (2) the world of paper currency is increasingly getting divorced from happenings that are not real to them. There was a time when an honest to goodness “happening” on the international scene would act as a stimulant pushing share prices in either direction but the frenetic pace of panic selling/speculative buying is now linked to the vagaries of Corporate behaviour, Superpowers and Multi-nationals included. Having had their bits and chips snipped to the extent of trading within a span of 50 points up or down, computers are programmed to go into a limbo thereafter, while the market adjusts itself to real time. This fail-safe mechanism is meant to avoid a Wall Street meltdown a la Chernobyl, which almost happened on Black Monday last October when programmed computers set off a chain reaction almost leading to economic apocalypse.
Black Money and Power
Pakistan’s economic position is not in the absolute doldrums because the buoyancy of the parallel black economy is keeping it artificially afloat. Operating independently of the country’s banking system, free from the encumbrances of any taxation, it is a tremendous market force and for some Third World countries a cornerstone for economic survival. Without the liquidity of black money fuelling consumer sales there would be a much bleaker economic picture. It is a bitter medicine without which the body economic would shudder to a halt but is a steep price to pay because it degenerates the morality of our society, weakening the fabric that binds it together.
The Brink of Economic Apocalypse
The deteriorating law and order situation throughout the country is having a commensurate degenerating effect on the economy of Pakistan. As civil unrest escalates, industries will grind to a halt and commerce come to a standstill, it will set in motion a chain of events which will rapidly go out of control of any political government. Anarchy invites the imposition of martial law and in the face of civil war conditions even the general public will be resigned to such an eventuality. Martial laws cannot be used as a perennial standby solution to the country’s problems as it tends to degenerate and debilitate society while also seriously demilitarizing the military psyche.
The Limits of Accountability?
Third World media has a reflex tendency to quietly bemoan its impotence as regards corruption within the bureaucracy. Unlike in the FIRST WORLD, the media’s enthusiasm to do investigative reporting is dampened by an administrative bag of tricks which would put Merlin the Magician to shame. Since the Government’s advertising releases translate into economic survival of the newspapers and magazines, the name of the game normally is that “fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.”