Nauman Sadiq |
It is an indisputable fact that the British colonizers built roads and railways in India, they established missionary schools, colleges, and universities, they enforced English common law and the goal of exploiting the natural resources and the four hundred million strong Indian manpower at the time of independence in 1947, and trading raw materials for pennies and exporting finished goods with huge profits to the Indian consumer market never crossed their altruistic minds.
Puns aside, there is an essential precondition in the European Union’s charter of union according to which the developing economies of Europe that joined the EU allowed free movement of goods (free trade) only on the reciprocal condition that the developed countries would allow the free movement of labor.
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Free movement of goods, services, and capital only benefits the countries that have a strong manufacturing base.
What’s obvious in this stipulation is the fact that the free movement of goods, services, and capital only benefits the countries that have a strong manufacturing base, and the free movement of workers only favors the developing economies where labor is cheap.
International financial institutions, like the IMF and WTO, promote free trade by exhorting the developing countries all over the world to reduce tariffs and subsidies without the reciprocal free movement of labor
Now, when the international financial institutions, like the IMF and WTO, promote free trade by exhorting the developing countries all over the world to reduce tariffs and subsidies without the reciprocal free movement of labor, whose interests do such institutions try to protect? Obviously, they try to protect the interests of their biggest donors by shares, i.e. the developed countries.
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The Chicanery of “Creative Destruction”:
Some market fundamentalists who irrationally believe in the laissez-faire capitalism try to justify this unfair practice by posting Schumpeter’s theory of “Creative destruction”: that the free trade between unequal trading partners leads to the destruction of the host country’s existing economic order and a subsequent reconfiguration gives rise to a better economic order.
If free trade is beneficial for the nascent industrial base of developing economies than the free movement of labor is equally beneficial for the workforce of developed countries.
Whenever one comes up with gross absurdities such proportions, they should always make it contingent on the principle of reciprocity: that is, if free trade is beneficial for the nascent industrial base of developing economies than the free movement of labor is equally beneficial for the workforce of developed countries.
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The trouble is that the governments of the Third World countries are dependent on foreign investment that’s why they cannot adopt independent economic and trade policies.
The policy makers of the developing countries must not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by such deceptive arguments, instead, they should devise national policies which suit the interests of their underprivileged masses. But the trouble is that the governments of the Third World countries are dependent on foreign investment that’s why they cannot adopt independent economic and trade policies.
Every balance of trade deficit due to the lack of strong manufacturing base makes the developing nations poorer, and every balance of trade surplus further adds to the already immense fortune of the developed world.
The so-called “multinational” corporations based in the Western financial districts make profits from the consumer markets all over the world and pay a share of those profits to their respective governments as bribes in the form of taxes. Every balance of trade deficit due to the lack of strong manufacturing base makes the developing nations poorer, and every balance of trade surplus further adds to the already immense fortune of the developed world.
A single large multinational corporation earns more revenue annually than the total GDP of many developing nations. Without this neocolonial system of exploitation, the whole edifice of supposedly “meritocratic” capitalism will fall flat on its face and the myth of individual incentive would get busted beyond repair because it only means the incentive for the pike and not for the minnows.
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Technological Progress and Social Reforms:
Regarding the technological progress, I do concede that the Western countries are too far ahead and even the Far Eastern nations, like Japan, South Korea, and China, that attained their independence later than India and Pakistan, have become developed and prosperous nations, while we have lagged behind. The way I see it, however, our failure is primarily the failure of the leadership.
It’s a fact that the European culture evolved in a bottom-up manner during the Renaissance period especially after the invention of the Gutenberg’s printing press when books and newspapers became cheaper and within the reach of the common man, but when we look at the technological and economic development of nations in the 20th and 21st centuries, that happened mostly in a top-down manner, especially in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and in China after the Maoist revolution in 1949.
In the long run, technologically advanced and economically prosperous nations are more likely to bring about a cultural change, too.
Cultures take centuries to evolve and the basic driver is always the level of socioeconomic development of the masses, therefore our primary concern should be to improve governance and invest in the infrastructure development and the technical education and vocational training of our labor force. In the long run, technologically advanced and economically prosperous nations are more likely to bring about a cultural change, too.
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Regarding the contribution of British colonizers to India, the countries that don’t have a history of colonization, like China and Russia for instance, have better roads, railways, and industries built by the natives themselves than the ones that have been through centuries of foreign occupation and colonization, such as the subcontinent.
The worst thing that the British colonizers did to the subcontinent was that they put in place a tyrannical governance and administrative system that catered to the needs of the colonizers without being accountable to the people over whom it was imposed.
The society is stratified along the class lines, most of our ruling elite still have the attitude of the foreign colonizers and the top-down bureaucratic “Afsar Shahi Nizam” is one of the most inefficient in the world.
It’s unfortunate that despite having the trappings of democracy and freedom, India and Pakistan are still continuing with the same exploitative traditional power structure that was bequeathed to us by the British colonizers. The society is stratified along the class lines, most of our ruling elite still have the attitude of the foreign colonizers and the top-down bureaucratic “Afsar Shahi Nizam” is one of the most inefficient in the world.
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Neoliberalism and the Sophistry of Victim-blaming:
Laissez-faire capitalism and the consequent social stratification is taken for granted; thus, if reforming the economic system is out of the question, the next best thing for the chattering classes to espouse is cultural reforms.
Notwithstanding, the basic trouble with the 21st-century social reformers are that they have lost all hope for bringing about economic reforms; nobody talks about the nationalization of the modes of production and labor reforms, anymore. Laissez-faire capitalism and the consequent social stratification is taken for granted; thus, if reforming the economic system is out of the question, the next best thing for the chattering classes to espouse is cultural reforms.
It must be kept in mind, however, that reforming culture is many times more difficult than reforming economic system, which the neoliberals have already given up on because it appeared daunting and impossible to achieve.
After the onset of the Industrial Revolution, when the Western societies had been riddled with social disparity, the response of their intellectuals was to come up with theories of economics, such as socialism, Fabianism, and Marxism; however, in the age of neocolonialism and corporate imperialism, the condition and social status of labor in the developed countries has improved
Truth be told, victim-blaming Indo-Pakistani neoliberals lack any original insight into social and political phenomena and they uncritically imitate the views of Orientalist academics. After the onset of the Industrial Revolution, when the Western societies had been riddled with social disparity, the response of their intellectuals was to come up with theories of economics, such as socialism, Fabianism, and Marxism; however, in the age of neocolonialism and corporate imperialism, the condition and social status of labor in the developed countries has improved; therefore, their focus has shifted from economic reforms to cultural reforms. Our gullible intelligentsia, on the other hand, is fixated on bringing about cultural reforms without the essential prerequisites of socioeconomic development and investment on education.
The public schools of the developed world provide quality education to all the citizens irrespective of their social status, because in a country like the UK, the budgetary allocation for public education is $150 for a population of 65 million, while in a Third World country, like Pakistan, the education budget is only $5 billion for a population of 200 million.
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Thus, the fundamental social axiom of the egalitarian modern world view: that is, the equality of opportunity, which is directly linked to the equality of elementary education, has been ensured in the developed world, but not in the Third World countries where education systems are highly stratified along the class lines.Although the elite schools of the Third World countries provide quality education to the children of the upper
Although the elite schools of the Third World countries provide quality education to the children of the upper classes, their tuition fee is generally so exorbitant that it exceeds the net income of the majority of households in Pakistan and India.
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist, and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism, and Petro-imperialism. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Global Village Space’s editorial policy.