 |
www.simplysomali.com
Somali Social Forum
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Jamaal11
Alifle
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 443
|
 Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 10:05 pm Post subject: Social Discussion: Suicide and Economic Crisis |
 |
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/
Listen to this BBC Radio 4 broadcast to get an idea of the connection between Capitalism's abundance and the probems that arise from its abrupt distruption, especially if an economic crisis occurs.
I have been keenly keeping an eye on the current economic/financial crisis and what psychological consequences that we may watch out for, if the on-set of predicted severe recesion becomes full blown.
The reason why Durkheim's work of 'types of suicides' is of paramount importance to me, is that this writer is more specific, or rather, more relevant in today's turbulent and uncertain economic times. For example, Durkheim categorises suicide into types which are not as percieved (in general suicide is explained by other writers as stemming from an individual's negative fall-out from society).
These types are:
| Quote: |
1) Egoistic, in which the individual is too much on his own, isolated from the community; 2) Altruistic, in which the individual is too little on his own and at the mercy of society, like the Indian wives who committed suttee by throwing themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres; 3) Anomic, in which society's controls over the individual break down, or his adjustment to society is shattered, as by unemployment or another's sudden death.
Freud, on the other hand, viewed self-destruction as a purely psychological phenomenon with the same essential structure as depression. He held that it is a form of aggression against someone loved turned inward upon the self, because the self is identified with the loved one. Later, Freud formulated his famed "death instinct," into which suicide fitted neatly as death's triumph over the life instinct. Many psychoanalysts do not accept the death instinct, but most modern thinking swings between versions of Freud's psychodynamics of depression on the one hand and Durkheim's sociological factors on the other.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843096-3,00.html
|
On the other hand, perhaps it is only right to veer off to Marx and his assertions on capitalism's laisse fair , which he had claimed contains its 'own seeds of chaos' and eventually its destruction.
There has been a great deal of talk about the west's capitalist system failing, and also attendent contradictions within the system, which include a confusion over the role of the state since the whole point of 'free market' meant leaving the market to Adam Smith's 'invincible hand' to correct itself. I remember dealing with this particular issue several years back, regarding the confusion over the role of the state in South East Asia's economic 'miracle' of development and the nature of 'developmentalist' states which economists such as Chalmers et al. recognized as being responsible for regulated and successful development. The involvement of state in direct market regulation has been condemned by western institutions such as the IMF BUT are we today looking at history repeating itself, albeit in the northern hemisphere? A hypocratic repeat of history? Lol.
PS: Listen to the second part of the broadcast which is on obesity lol. Apparently this is the result of capitalism's MORAL collapse loool. Strange things are coming out and at last the west is looking within their societies to understand what the consequences of gluttonous capitalism is!
In a sense, all these issues: Suicide and credit crunch, Obesity, or even moral decay are inter-related and as we go along many other matters come to the fore.
----
Disclaimer ... I wrote the above in hurry because my net connection is breaking up with intervals of connectivity... Insha-Allah if you have something to add please do so. Also I am sure there are alot of spelling mistakes or otherwise in the above writing, so please bear with me.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Jamaal11
Alifle
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 443
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
An old thread I posted in 2007 in another forum dealing with the same subject. That was before the recession. And amusing preoccupation of mine, one could say.
| Quote: | Hello Nomads, economists and non-economists alike.
I am starting this topic with the hope of initiating some discussion of the future of Somalia economic development and the role a future Somali state should play . Should the future Somali state wash its hands off the intricacies and forces of the free market, or mindfully structure it, nurture it and direct it in order to achieve maximum performance towords economic development? How would Somalis, having been operating in unregulate market for so many years, in nature accept even the slightest of the interventionist state's directions or guidance?
Below is an essay I have written on the subject some years ago on the role of the state in South Asia's 'Miracle' economic development in post-WWII. I know it is a rather long essay to some, but if you want to get some insight into this topic, maybe it is advicable you skim through it. Thanks.
.....
Confusion over the role of the state in Pacific Asia development?
Pacific Asian countries have experienced dramatic economic development since the end of World War II. Many attribute this success to a unique “Asian Model” of economic development (Johnson 1982, Amsden 1989, and Wade 1990). However, others other theorists such as Robert Wade, although they concede that such development could be partly due to the interplay of some international market forces, they also cite the involvement of heavy direction of the economy by ‘state industrial development planning agencies’. Even in light of the recent East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, the latter group’s argument did not change their view that East Asia’s success has been resulted by developmental state’s economic development planning.
In fact, Wade (1998, 2000) attributes much of the blame for the late 1990s financial crises to some SE Asian economies’ departure from the state directed economic model. That said the other contrasting arguments that trace the success of East Asian economies in ‘the supremacy of the market’, and the minimalist interventions of the state, are still growing stronger. As a result, attempts to provide objective explanation to the ‘East Asian Miracle’ has only raised confusion over the role of the state. This essay will in the first part discuss neo-statist (of Johnson, Wade and Amsden) arguments, and in the second part, neo-classical arguments so as to shed some light on the source of this confusion. The final part will contain the concluding remarks.
...
Driving the debate over the role of the state is a ‘straightforward neo-classical claim that free market is the distinguishing feature of Pacific Asian economies, and thus the secret of their peculiar dynamism’ (Weiss and Hobson, 1995:139). In the last decade, the term ‘free market’, which is not necessarily not meant with ‘laissez faire’, has at times been called ‘export-promoting policy’ and at others times, an ‘outward-oriented strategy’. However, the World Bank has replaced these terms with ‘neutral incentive policy’ (Woo 1990: 413, cited in Weiss, 139). State neutrality, as neoclassical economists argue, was the key to East Asian success.
If this reasoning is employed, then, the region’s success is due to adoption of ‘neutral trade regime’. In other words, there is ‘broad neutrality between import substitution and exporting’, so that ‘sales from exports are no less profitable than sales in the domestic market’ (Lal, 1983: 46). Neutrality is of importance because of the ‘primacy liberal economists’ attribute to export-oriented industrialisation’ (Weiss: 139). Although the extent of Pacific Asia’s ‘out-ward’ orientation remains contentious (Wade 1990:19); the successful penetration of export markets with manufactured goods has, nevertheless, been fundamental to the region’s vitality. Understandably, then, the burden of neoclassical analysis is to explain why exports expanded in the NICs and the role states have played, or not played.
The neo-classical tale may therefore appear relatively straightforward. As Krueger (1986) asserts, ‘exports expanded because prices were undistorted by government measures’. To support this view, neo-classical economists contend that exports were brought into line with global prices, due to the state trade reforms, which varied from devaluation of the currency and reduction of import barriers’. Unsurprisingly, this very reforms which neo-classical dismiss as being corrective mechanism provided by the states, neo-statist writers such as Wade perceive them as being state endeavours to lead, structure or govern the market. However, as neo-classical economists argue, by introducing these reforms, states ‘got prices right’, which sent appropriate ‘market signals’ to potential exporters’ (Weiss: 134). Such appropriations were made possible to be sent by allowing imports into the economy, and by putting in place favourable exchange rates that allowed prices to reflect real scarcities. The claim is that these governments, far from governing the market, their role was restricted to the creation of a neutral trade regime that has allowed markets to work more freely than elsewhere. It is this that had therefore led to the stimulation of an ‘exceptional export drive and virtually self-sustaining development’ (Ibid.).
The argument put forth by those who advocate for the market-led approach is that the success of the economies of the Asian NICs was as a result of free market agents taking advantage of ‘liberalised’ markets, and markets freed from government controls through the right policies. Thus, the Asian NICs can be perceived as being the product of the neo-classical formula for economic success, in which the state has little role to play. That being the case, the simple formula of unrestricted markets and minimal state involvement used successfully by East Asian countries, as the World Bank purports, should be emulated by other developing countries, such as those in the sub-Saharan Africa.
Although liberals value ‘the primacy of the market’ in explaining economic performance, ‘it is only since the counter-revolution of the 1980s that this has gone hand in hand with an equally decisive anti-interventionist and an emphasis on the incapacity of states’ (Shapiro and Taylor 1990: 863). At best, some neo-classical writers concede the ‘activism’ of East Asian states, but then rhetorically dismiss their impact as either irrelevant or impossible to evaluate. Lal (1983: 46-7), for example, claims that ‘the effects of export-promoting policies has been achieved despite intervention’. Riedel (1988: 36) similarly concludes that ‘governments main contribution to economic success …was… principally in removing the obstacles to growth when they themselves put there in the first place’
As Weiss and Hobson wonder, the ‘assumption that what is difficult to evaluate must therefore be irrelevant is left undefended’. Weiss and Hobson note that some economists, will, without any evidence go as far as claiming that the ‘East Asian performance would have been superior if states had been less active, especially in encouraging particular industrial sectors’ (149). As Wade further adds, if this neo-classical assertion is employed, it would mean that:
Japan’s economy would now been much better off if the Governor of the Bank of Japan had been allowed to have his way in the mid-1950s, when he opposed a concentration on steel and mobiles on the grounds that Japan’s comparative advantage lay in textiles (Wade 1988a: 151-2).
The minimalist view of the state dominates neo-classical works, and considers Pacific Asian states to matter only for their ‘environmental’ function, in that they provide and sustain a suitable environment, in which the markets can operate freely. In this view, planning agencies of the states haven’t made any significant difference at all, since they did not govern the market, foster and channel productive investment and exports. Their only contribution was to ‘remove obstacles –for which governments are created in the first place- to the market’s otherwise spontaneous development’.
Contrary to Neo-classical explanations, however, neo-statist interpretations offer entirely different view of the state’s role in Pacific Asian economic development. For neo-statist economists, ‘states in the East Asian economies had not only determined the character of trade regime’, but they also facilitated and managed the industrial investment and productive profile of the whole nation. Thus, far from the neoclassical view that the states’ role in the rise of East Asia was minimal (and limited to removing the market from obstacles), neo-statist economists point to an evidence of the highly structured nature of East Asian trade regimes; an evidence that weakens neoclassical claims. As this evidence shows, Pacific Asia states were not only ‘active’ interventionist states’ – something which neo-classical economists dismiss - but were in fact ‘developmental’ states (Johnson 1982), in the sense that they had overarching priorities, anticipatory (strategic) policies, and also possessed ‘a capacity to alter economic direction of the nation’.
Building on the core contributions of Johnson Chalmers’ ‘developmental’ state thesis, other subsequent writers such as Alice Amsden and Robert Wade’s ‘guided market’ thesis, have come to the fore to refute the neoclassical claim of minimal government involvement in the development of Pacific Asian economies. Johnson Chalmers’ (1982) ‘developmental’ state thesis, serves the purpose of differentiating East Asian capitalism from the capitalism that prevails in Anglo-American lands. In doing so, Johnson identifies states whose major features include priority of production over consumption. States that create a mechanism that allows cooperation and communication between business groups and ministries and planning agencies, or the rationalisation of vital resources such as finances.
States that were also capable of resisting the demands interest groups, and were able to operate and lead the market via the implementation of strategic industrial policies. These strategic industrial policies are the ones which neoclassical economists confuse with other free market forces, enabling them to debate for the argument states’ minimal the role in economic development. Judging from this minimal state role thesis, it is no wonder that the neo-classical economists to consider the role of the state as being limited to removing obstacles, correcting market failure or offsetting existing market distortions, and creating neutrality in resource allocation. Accordingly, if state policies do neither of these things, then they simply function in support of entrepreneurial activities.
However, contrary to this assertion, Robert Wade and Alice Amsden posit that ‘what is significant in East Asia, with the exception of Hong Kong, is that the state has been firmly in the driving seat’ (Appelbaum and Henderson, 20-1) in achieving industrialisation. Ministries and planning agencies in Japan and NICs have ‘encouraged and directed companies - as opposed to neoclassical arguments - ‘into higher valued added, higher wage and more technology-intensive forms of production’ (Ibid. 21). These states have been able to encourage the adoption of their strategic industrial policies via ‘systems of constraints’ or in the case of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, ‘by rigging prices’. This is to serve as one example of interventionist policies, employed by East Asian states in their role of guiding the market. Similarly, other interventionist policies can be cited in order to counter the neoclassical or liberal market supremacy interpretation of the rise of East Asian economies.
Thus, in the context of East Asian economic development, all neo-classical arguments appear somewhat inadequate to find a way out of the confusion over the role of the state. In contrast, neo-statist arguments seem to offer a realistic approach that has the potential to minimize confusion over state role. Furthermore, neo-statist economic models delineate useful pointers in the future of effective economic development (in other developing regions) through the responsible role of developmental state. As such, neo-statist model summarises the state’s role into three parts: (1) discipline and support, which is intended to exact higher performance standards from companies invested in by the states; (2) selectivity or targeting, which is intended to select most competitive companies so as to achieve competitive advantage and; (3) aiming for market expansion with long-term horizons expectations.
In conclusion, the confusion over the role of the state in Pacific Asian development seems to stem from contrasting interpretations or explanations. While in general neo-classical economists accord the state a minimal role in free market economy and favours non-intervention. However, the application of this preference in explaining the economic performance of Pacific Asia or East Asian region, which has dissimilar circumstances developmentally, at best leads to oversimplification and at worse, confusion of the role of the state. The application of liberal market-supremacy approach to East Asia have since the 1980s been questioned by writers who can be referred to as neo-statist economists. Neo-statist interpretation of the rise of the successful development of East Asian economies disagrees with the neo-classical approach by believing that far from laissez faire market, East Asian markets were indeed state-led, and thus the state’s role in the rise of East Asia was paramount. Neo-statist theorists cite varying examples to evidence and support their claims of the existence of heavy state interventions in these economies. All in all, depending on which approach one employs, to explain the role of the state in the development of Pacific Asian countries, the debate over this issue continues to rage.
Bibliography
Johnson, C. (1982) ‘MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy’, 1925-1975 Stanford: Stanford University Press
Amsden, A. (1989), ‘Asia’s Next Giant: Korea and late industrialisation’, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Wade, R. (1991a) ‘Governing the Market: Economic theory and the role of the government in East Asian industrialisation’, Princeton: Princeton University Press
Weiss, Linda and Hobson, John M. (1995) ‘States and Economic Development: A Comparative Historical Analysis’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Lal, D. (1983), ‘The Poverty of ‘Development Economics’, Hobart Paperback No 16, The Institute of Economic Affairs, UK
Robison, Beeson, Jayasuruiya and Kim (2000) ‘Politics and Markets in the Wake of the Asian Crisis’. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Jones, D. (1997) ‘Political Development of Pacific Asia’, Cambridge: Polity Press
Henderson, J. and Appelbaum, R, (1992) “Situating the State in the East Asian Development Process.” In States and Development in the Asian Pacific Rim, Newbury Park: Sage Publications
Hodder, R., (1992) ‘The West Pacific Rim: An introduction’, London: Belhaven Press |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
