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| Sunday, 2 January 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Planning for development Organisation of Professional Associations, (OPA) President H.H. Subasinghe, introduced a goad in his induction speech, as reported in the Sunday Observer, on December 19, 2004,. It appeared under the surprising headline, "More mature leaders, please." by Wendell W. Solomons Here's the lead question of the Subasinghe speech: While the diversity in the political arena makes Sri Lanka a true symbol of a functioning democracy, do we see a lack of maturity in our leaders in coping with diversity? One jab of the question of diversity might provoke you to recollect the authoritarianism of Sri Lanka's President R. Premadasa. He began his political career with speeches that earned him the title 'Gutter Mouth. However, you would recollect that to suppress diversity the same Premadasa feigned ethnocentricity so as to finger-point at Sri Lanka's great neighbour. India served in the bogey role of the Evil Other for Premadasa's proto-fascist consolidation. To consolidate its own platform, the OPA now climbs to choose post-Independence leadership of the country as the bogey Other. Government leaders do not mature from a separate chromosome pool obtained outside Sri Lanka. Hence, do you not find the OPA adopting a racist posture in relation to Sri Lanka's population? If the OPA claim is not biology-based, there's at least one more explanation for its elephant goad-pointing at successive governments. It could result from the general social belief-system adjustment introduced by the IMF and World Bank from 1977. The pawnbroking trade requires poverty for increasing its business turnover. Consequently, in the 'Open Economy' model in Sri Lanka, the accent was not placed on developing Sri Lanka's domestic resources as erstwhile poorer India did with the policy called Swadeshi. Instead, the Open Economy model induced a neglect of domestic resources so as to promote overseas buying sprees as if on credit card. In this way the IMF/World Bank, like the pawnbroker, promoted impoverishment, indebtedness and dependency of the nation on them. As crisis after crisis hit the trapped population, professionals were tempted to break out in chronic opportunism, what we see today as a 'grab as much as you can' way of life. If Peter practise opportunism, Tom can well repay the compliment. Over time the society is reduced to mutual looting as more and more individuals try to use every trick in the book to increase their own living space. As to food for everyday living in the 'war of each against the other,' a fresh cycle of demand is generated for imports on credit. The international pawnbroker smiles with glee. Professionals may take to shifting responsibility away from themselves with the escapist posturing & quote; "We never had decent leaders. & quote; another favourite catch-phrase in the professional's drawing room today is & quote; Nothing goes right in this country & quote;. That is necessitated especially when a professional explains away his neglect of the social good to his own family. The hurdles for family include dangerous drivers trying to beat their way through traffic as they race to try to meet the increased prices that burden the family budgets. Drift and fire-fighting Since the social good is neglected for just 'making money' (an activity sanctimoniously lauded in the books of Ayn Rand, the social philosopher at the bottom of IMF/World Bank agenda,) the social crises deepen and widen. It becomes the obligation of government, religious bodies and social organisations (such as trade unions,) to carry the load of a society that has been busied with mutual looting. If fighting crisis after crisis pre-occupies country governments and social organisations, then drift and loss of focus must not be a cause for wonder. Central allocation of scarce resources One means of directing scarce resources is to centralise and plan government intervention to cope with anticipated hurdles that has included, for instance, taking action to buffer petroleum price hikes. Earlier, in the 1970 United Left Front government of PM Sirima R D Bandaranaike, Dr N M Perera asked for the finance portfolio. He was among Leftist leaders who noticed the 25-year success of post-war Central Planning in the socialist bloc of nations. To discuss the pros and cons of the local use of the method at least briefly - a state Treasury can indeed be used to plan and control economic activity. Yet, how long can Sri Lanka use Treasury functions for planning and resource allocation? It could be foreseen that IMF/World Bank technocrats could resort easily to raising an axe to government on grounds of leftist "Comunitarism" and Central Planning. The precedent for the IMF/World Bank hatchet exists in the disposal - through it being forced to invoke rationing - of PM Sirima R D Bandaranaike's United Left Front government. Live MITI experience In war-shattered Occupied Japan, the USA, which controls the majority shareholding of the IMF/World Bank, supported the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI.) The MITI did not bank solely on financial control with the Yen. It took a wholistic approach, bringing together business and government to create concentrated focus for national development. From this activity popped out a Japanese car radio for installation in American autos. Much later was to emerge the brand name of producer corporation Sony that won recognition worldwide for innovative products. Sanyo, National, Casio and several other corporations followed suit in using the transistor to carry forward a revolution in the era of vacuum-tube-based audio equipment and TV. Precision engineering was also earmarked for development under Miti aegis. That gave the world Seiko, Nikon and Canon. The backdrop to precision engineering is machine building and it was used for the succeeding wave of motorcycles and cars including Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, Toyota and Datsun. The synergy that Miti developed came from participative management. Synergy & participative management In a local office I found three men tugging a desk through a doorway. I noticed that it was the door that snagged the desk. The door had to yield a few millimetres. I suggested that we tug together on a count of three. I counted 1, 2, 3 and the one concentrated tug moved the table out of the doorway. Here was synergy at work. All of us hearkened. I had invited participation to a common end. In Japan it was participative management that was used to develop and manufacture new products rapidly. Even Scotland's clans have vanished and Western eyes are blind to the cooperation, self-help and stake-holding that remained in the Asian village. In its post-war corporations, Japan had in effect gone forth with industrial villages. Development success through work organisation How many decades have we heard IMF/World Bank patter about making 'the private sector the engine of progress'? After 27 years of wave after wave of reform to the claimed end of the Washington duo, on December 20, 2004 sister institution ADB exploded the claim. An announcement reached the press that the ADB has granted Sri Lanka $135 million 'Towards improving efficiency in private and public sectors.' 'Why did 27 years of physicians IMF and World Bank not provided efficiency for Sri Lanka? In today's USA, a moment of truth has arrived in part due to the crisis of the US dollar. Paul A. Samuelson, famed for his textbook on economics, wrote recently in the 'Journal of Economic Perspectives' Samuelson called to question the theory of comparative advantage of economists because the US becomes defenceless to China and India when factories are set up there. Among most prestigious modern dissenters can now be counted US Federal Reserve Chairman Allan Greenspan as he emits signals to curtail free trade, bring down the import bill of the USA and control the erosion of the dollar. After these 27 years of reform in Sri Lanka, USAid for its part has brought down a 'Competitiveness Initiative' team. Working from the WTC towers in Colombo, the team is trying to glue together fragments created during the 27 years through building industry 'clusters.' For my part, in 1981 in a study published in a management journal in Colombo, I suggested that the Japanese experience would prove valuable for Sri Lanka's development (Sri Lanka's workforce is even closer to the stakeholder relationship of the Asian village.) I had performed an assembly line trial with a Sri Lankan workforce in a Colombo suburb. It resulted in an upsurge of productivity and quality beyond my expectations. I was to find later that SONY produced exceptional results at its UK plants and Chairman Morita was awarded a knighthood for services to British industry. Yet there are more humdrum facts too. Japan's Noritake used some elements of participation in its large scale facilities in Sri Lanka and produced porcelain tableware that sold overseas under its label that is synonymous with quality. Imagine how Sri Lanka would have avoided fire and deluge; imagine how many lives would have been saved if in the two past decades the IMF/World Bank had allowed the use of Japanese industry-proven, participative management suggested right here in Sri Lanka. |
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