Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
What already exists for Pakistan at the global level in a limited scope in cotton, textiles and rice may still function as merely sustaining options, but it must find more active and vibrant platforms of generating rapidly moving chains of products for consumers across adjacent areas where delivery cycles are short and consumption patterns rapid
Communication, trade and finance have far outpaced any other trigger of globalisation and inter-dependence in the modern world. A pervasive 24/7 linkage in each of these has brought unparalleled prosperity to modern man. It has also brought unparalleled challenges. Increasing prosperity has given rise to unequal distribution of wealth since free-market principles govern the focus of economic activity, where a free market is over-rational and without emotive compassion. It must first justify its existence to a capital-oriented philosophy, and then only, having first satiated the human instinct of security, begin to spare a thought for social responsibility. A second major challenge is a mismatched political system in states that have lagged behind global economic integration and reside with intractable political baggage. More permissive societies, reasonably free of the baggage of political inhibitions, have been greatly more successful in adjusting to rapid progress and have assimilated better in the resulting environment; they also seem to benefit the most hence prosperous societies with least social strains. Others unable to adjust because of these failings dislocate and are rendered unstable.
Higher levels of prosperity need higher production. Higher production responds to higher consumption. Higher consumption itself is a factor of greater prosperity. This makes for a non-emotive chain in a free market that feeds on itself and those that partake of the continuing cycle of motion in capital, production, investment and consumption. Those out of it remain deprived. This makes for a two-class society. Better organised and socially mobile societies cater to this dynamic by enabling opportunities for the lesser privileged to move up the fruition ladder by providing education, enabling entrepreneurial options through helpful policy formulation, skill development and poverty reduction measures to gradually develop a middle class that sees hope and promise in incrementally achievable progression. This localised dynamic forms the basis of improving social stability through shared stakes. Politically fragmented and socially stagnant societies are unable to attend to this imperative and remain entrenched in a persistent cycle of socio-economic inactivity.
Globally, the same dynamic holds good. Political entrenchments and isolation will deny a nation a reasonable chance to alter its socio-political inertia and hence the ability to join in this global environment of production and consumption, remaining buried in its unfortunate definition of either a Least Developed Country (LDC) or generally an impoverished third-world nation. The new world order has morphed into an entirely new basis for its relevance. It may have initially been hoisted as a concept based on political similarities of the system of governance and political activity, but found itself changing its garb into a more economic definition. The American consumer drives Chinese production. India facilitates the services needed for the modern world to conduct its business that became the initiating factor of its relevance to the global economic chain. Both China and India are, today, the preferred destinations for profitable production because of cheap labour and lower production costs, as are Bangladesh and Vietnam. Foreign direct investment and relocation of industry in exemplary numbers flows into these countries. By a similar extension, countries that form the source of raw materials in production become relevant to parts of this chain of prosperity. Germany is a major source of technical competence and applied skills in providing essential heavy-duty machinery. Most of Africa Sudan, Angola and others are important destinations for international investment because of their mineral resources and materials that are needed by two of the worlds largest production houses, China and India. Oil producing countries have always been known as veritable repositories of an essential commodity and relevant players in an entirely globalised economic chain. Countries like Pakistan that cannot be consumer societies for being lowly placed in the prosperity list and absent from the list of countries with high profile mineral stocks, will have to find their place in production to be relevant to this global chain.
If Pakistan were to follow this route to improving prosperity, it would need a large consumption base regionally. Its own capacity in recent times has taken an irrecoverable hit. Matching production needs investment capital that will enable it with the requisite capacity to kick-start a stagnated industrial and commodity-growth potential. Since Pakistan has lagged behind in the global race to link into the economic chain (for reasons of political entrenchments, hanging onto archaic formulations of the security narrative, for being embroiled in primordial societal divisions of faith and ethnicity and tribalism denying a unified focus in identifying national priorities), it must now find newer triggers to generate similar cycles of economic chains. These lie in its vicinity before it gathers the resolute strength to tie into the larger global chain. What already exists for Pakistan at the global level in a limited scope in cotton, textiles and rice may still function as merely sustaining options, but it must find more active and vibrant platforms of generating rapidly moving chains of products for consumers across adjacent areas where delivery cycles are short and consumption patterns rapid. This needs a changed mindset.
This brings us into the geo-politics of modern economic functioning. Globalised economics have unravelled traditional constructs in bilateral relationships. Where bilateralism, in the late 20th century emerged as a response to the post-World War II politics of alliances and pacts, it still retained an overwhelming political context. Globalisation has caused bilateralism to be separated into multifarious strands quite like the old copper cable giving way to the optical-fibre cable: economic, security, political, cultural, environmental and social. Modern societies intermingle in an amazingly connected world, making these modes of interaction universal. Only a forced denial to a society like in North Korea, or Iran to an extent, or those that may reside in an oblivious and entrenched political thought, brings a disconnect and hence an absence of the economic dividend and prosperity. Fragmentation of a largely political construct into ligaments of alternative relationships along mutually beneficial axes enables opportunities of engagement on some or all while holding a divergent view on others. This gives bilateralism a totally new meaning, opening up options for multilateral connectivity in areas of common interest. ASEAN, the EC, NAFTA and to some extent SAARC are all children of this newer phenomenon.
So, when the US and China trade profusely and are interdependent by virtue of consumption, production, capital and debt-financing, it does not mean that their competitive political interests have taken a back seat. India and China are virtual adversaries for the coming decades, yet they trade in some $ 60 billion annually 55 billion more than China-Pakistan, declared friends. Iran may be the favourite whipping boy of the world, and the US and the west have inimical reservations on Irans nuclear programme, but the US is willing to engage Iran on seeking a lasting solution on Afghanistan. Can Pakistan learn from the changed world dynamics of modern day interdependence, particularly as it reels from the crippling aftermath of historic floods and a sinking economy? It must, for its own sake. That will need security to be defined differently in Pakistan giving other societal imperatives an equal prominence.
What already exists for Pakistan at the global level in a limited scope in cotton, textiles and rice may still function as merely sustaining options, but it must find more active and vibrant platforms of generating rapidly moving chains of products for consumers across adjacent areas where delivery cycles are short and consumption patterns rapid
Communication, trade and finance have far outpaced any other trigger of globalisation and inter-dependence in the modern world. A pervasive 24/7 linkage in each of these has brought unparalleled prosperity to modern man. It has also brought unparalleled challenges. Increasing prosperity has given rise to unequal distribution of wealth since free-market principles govern the focus of economic activity, where a free market is over-rational and without emotive compassion. It must first justify its existence to a capital-oriented philosophy, and then only, having first satiated the human instinct of security, begin to spare a thought for social responsibility. A second major challenge is a mismatched political system in states that have lagged behind global economic integration and reside with intractable political baggage. More permissive societies, reasonably free of the baggage of political inhibitions, have been greatly more successful in adjusting to rapid progress and have assimilated better in the resulting environment; they also seem to benefit the most hence prosperous societies with least social strains. Others unable to adjust because of these failings dislocate and are rendered unstable.
Higher levels of prosperity need higher production. Higher production responds to higher consumption. Higher consumption itself is a factor of greater prosperity. This makes for a non-emotive chain in a free market that feeds on itself and those that partake of the continuing cycle of motion in capital, production, investment and consumption. Those out of it remain deprived. This makes for a two-class society. Better organised and socially mobile societies cater to this dynamic by enabling opportunities for the lesser privileged to move up the fruition ladder by providing education, enabling entrepreneurial options through helpful policy formulation, skill development and poverty reduction measures to gradually develop a middle class that sees hope and promise in incrementally achievable progression. This localised dynamic forms the basis of improving social stability through shared stakes. Politically fragmented and socially stagnant societies are unable to attend to this imperative and remain entrenched in a persistent cycle of socio-economic inactivity.
Globally, the same dynamic holds good. Political entrenchments and isolation will deny a nation a reasonable chance to alter its socio-political inertia and hence the ability to join in this global environment of production and consumption, remaining buried in its unfortunate definition of either a Least Developed Country (LDC) or generally an impoverished third-world nation. The new world order has morphed into an entirely new basis for its relevance. It may have initially been hoisted as a concept based on political similarities of the system of governance and political activity, but found itself changing its garb into a more economic definition. The American consumer drives Chinese production. India facilitates the services needed for the modern world to conduct its business that became the initiating factor of its relevance to the global economic chain. Both China and India are, today, the preferred destinations for profitable production because of cheap labour and lower production costs, as are Bangladesh and Vietnam. Foreign direct investment and relocation of industry in exemplary numbers flows into these countries. By a similar extension, countries that form the source of raw materials in production become relevant to parts of this chain of prosperity. Germany is a major source of technical competence and applied skills in providing essential heavy-duty machinery. Most of Africa Sudan, Angola and others are important destinations for international investment because of their mineral resources and materials that are needed by two of the worlds largest production houses, China and India. Oil producing countries have always been known as veritable repositories of an essential commodity and relevant players in an entirely globalised economic chain. Countries like Pakistan that cannot be consumer societies for being lowly placed in the prosperity list and absent from the list of countries with high profile mineral stocks, will have to find their place in production to be relevant to this global chain.
If Pakistan were to follow this route to improving prosperity, it would need a large consumption base regionally. Its own capacity in recent times has taken an irrecoverable hit. Matching production needs investment capital that will enable it with the requisite capacity to kick-start a stagnated industrial and commodity-growth potential. Since Pakistan has lagged behind in the global race to link into the economic chain (for reasons of political entrenchments, hanging onto archaic formulations of the security narrative, for being embroiled in primordial societal divisions of faith and ethnicity and tribalism denying a unified focus in identifying national priorities), it must now find newer triggers to generate similar cycles of economic chains. These lie in its vicinity before it gathers the resolute strength to tie into the larger global chain. What already exists for Pakistan at the global level in a limited scope in cotton, textiles and rice may still function as merely sustaining options, but it must find more active and vibrant platforms of generating rapidly moving chains of products for consumers across adjacent areas where delivery cycles are short and consumption patterns rapid. This needs a changed mindset.
This brings us into the geo-politics of modern economic functioning. Globalised economics have unravelled traditional constructs in bilateral relationships. Where bilateralism, in the late 20th century emerged as a response to the post-World War II politics of alliances and pacts, it still retained an overwhelming political context. Globalisation has caused bilateralism to be separated into multifarious strands quite like the old copper cable giving way to the optical-fibre cable: economic, security, political, cultural, environmental and social. Modern societies intermingle in an amazingly connected world, making these modes of interaction universal. Only a forced denial to a society like in North Korea, or Iran to an extent, or those that may reside in an oblivious and entrenched political thought, brings a disconnect and hence an absence of the economic dividend and prosperity. Fragmentation of a largely political construct into ligaments of alternative relationships along mutually beneficial axes enables opportunities of engagement on some or all while holding a divergent view on others. This gives bilateralism a totally new meaning, opening up options for multilateral connectivity in areas of common interest. ASEAN, the EC, NAFTA and to some extent SAARC are all children of this newer phenomenon.
So, when the US and China trade profusely and are interdependent by virtue of consumption, production, capital and debt-financing, it does not mean that their competitive political interests have taken a back seat. India and China are virtual adversaries for the coming decades, yet they trade in some $ 60 billion annually 55 billion more than China-Pakistan, declared friends. Iran may be the favourite whipping boy of the world, and the US and the west have inimical reservations on Irans nuclear programme, but the US is willing to engage Iran on seeking a lasting solution on Afghanistan. Can Pakistan learn from the changed world dynamics of modern day interdependence, particularly as it reels from the crippling aftermath of historic floods and a sinking economy? It must, for its own sake. That will need security to be defined differently in Pakistan giving other societal imperatives an equal prominence.
