On Apr 16, 4:09pm, Fikret Ceyhun wrote:
> Subject: [PEN-L:4733] East-Asia Models
> I am not a China (or East-Asia) "expert." I cannot empirically
> verify or refute the claims made in the discussions. But those
> discussions raise questions in my mind.
> 1. It seems that there is a confusion between "short-term" and
> "long-term" statistical results. Economic development is not only broader
> term but also it is a long term sustainable phenomenon. Some countries in
> the region sustained economic growth for several decades, but the
> evidence in China is not warranted at the moment. We should not rush to
> quick judgment as we have done for some countries elsewhere. Brazil was a
> case in point. After the junta toppled the Goulard government in the
> 1960s, Brazil was viewed as a "model" for less developed countries and
> viewed as a dynamic NIC. And look at it now.
>
> 2. I don't believe we now know what really triggers economic development.
> So, let us not put forward grandiose theories before we know more and
> understand the nature of economic development, not economic growth. Let
> me give an example by re-telling a story an Iranian colleague told me.
> When he was returning from a trip to Iran, at Teheran airport he was
> harassed and humiliated by a baggage checker and passport controller.
> Baggage checker told him that he had excess baggage and they cannot be
> checked in. He tried to reason and talk to the person, but no avail. He
> sweated in warm and crowded airport. This created another problem. So he
> left one baggage with books there to proceed to passport control, where
> the officer told him that his passport is damp (of course, it was wet
> from sweat, he could have wetted his pants too) and he cannot process it.
> The officer told my colleague that he looked "suspicious" and nervous.
> And he has to investigate his situation and until that time he has to
> wait. He was tormented there by this "small" man. And of course, he
> missed the plane. Next day he boarded airplane without any hassle and
> came to Istanbul. While he was waiting for his connection at the airport
> a woman security officer approached him and asked his identification and
> other documents, because she told him that he looked "suspicious". She
> checked his passport and wallet and found $2000. She began questioning
> from where he got the money. Do you want me to tell you more stories of
> "underdevelopment"? The arbitrary power that those individuals have is
> the invisible facets of underdevelopment. Their words are the rule of law
> over there and you cannot question the arbitrary power they have. You can
> multiply these incidences to show how they can cumulatively block
> economic development (even though there may be so much external capital
> infusion). (Mexico is a case in point. As soon as there is capital
> inflow, there is also outflow for equal amount.) There are many, many
> such things and stories. You see them by living. The intricacy of these
> incidences is obstacle to economic development. How do you eradicate
> them? How can you measure these intangibles, which are crucial for the
> assessment of economic development? How do we quantify them? Does GDP per
> capita growth or a rise in average life expectancy tell us about these
> intangible barriers?
>
> 3. I have also noticed for lack of class analysis in our discussions of
> East Asia. Economic development means a change in economic and political
> power. Do we see any evidence of empowered masses in the region? Does the
> working class majority control the means of production and distribution
> and their use for themselves?
>
> 4. I always thought that economic development cannot occur in Third World
> capitalist societies. Its occurrence is a negation to socialism. If
> economic development can occur in capitalism or if we can create economic
> development with capitalist class, then why do we struggle for socialism?
> If capitalism manages economic development without impoverishing the
> majority, then why do we fight against capitalism? Remember friends! I am
> not talking economic growth (per capita GDP growth) from Badlands in
> North Dakota. I am talking economic development. Economic development
> occurs when there is no impoverishment of the many. Development occurs
> when the powerless becomes powerful. Have we forgotten Marx's quote:
> "There must me something rotten in the very core of a social system which
> increases its wealth without diminishing its misery, and increases in
> crime even more rapidly than in numbers." That is what we fight for
> socialism: to diminish the misery of the majority as we increase the
> total wealth.
>
> P.S. For economic development to occur, the internal conditions conducive
> to development must be ready. One of these conditions is that there must
> not be very unequal property distribution, particularly land. The
> post-war progress that Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan have had in economic
> sphere is partly attributable to the limitation imposed on land ownership.
>
>
> -
>-- End of excerpt from Fikret Ceyhun
I second your opinion on the nature of the debate. What are the class
relations in those miraculous countries chaqnging along with rising GNP? How
are working class's lives changing with the fantastic industrialization? Whose
development is this? For people from those countries, with the exception of
the ruling class, a shift from poor agrarian societies to "rich" industrial
societies means only different types of oppression and struggle. Mr. M is
damned right. There must be something rotten there. In Taiwan, where I come
from, you can literally smell the rottenness of capitalist industrialization,
once you step outside our cozy capital and walk around the industrial parks
scattered on the islands. I tell you, it STINKS!
The land reform in Taiwan imposed by KMT did bring us several decades of
relatively equal distribution of wealth compared to other Third World nations.
However, things are changing. Taiwanese people have fought for liberal
democracy for all those years, now we've got it. But it turns out to be
replacing the dictatorship of a paternalistic, pro-capitalist party with the
dictatorship of an entire bourgeoisie. More and more shameless appropriation
of public wealth for the benefit of big capitals are being agreed by all
parties in the "democratic" parliament. So much for the link between
capitalism and democracy.
