Democracy is Too Nice

image from the brilliant Wisdom on Wheels

Democracy is too nice. Everyone has a say and everyone has a in on how to handle things. This, generally, is a very good thing. But when things hit a rut, and quick decisions are needed, democracy can fail spectacularly. Just take whats going on in the Euro zone right now. No one can foresee a proper decision coming out of the region in time to avoid an economic crisis of massive proportions. Cronyism in Europe was helped along by the state. The imbalances created by the Euro zone’s formation coupled with a free spending, free borrowing approach has landed some of its less well off countries like Italy and Greece in hot water.

If they (the Euro officials) had acted fast they could have maybe stemmed everything at the start. They had several options on what to do and arguably any one of them would have worked, the climate at the time just required any action, just something to bring back investor confidence, but instead its powers started bickering. And the Euro-bickering is still going on, with no end in sight. This has led Paul Krugman to predict a massive scale bank run and plenty of other apocalyptic financial predictions from virtually every corner of economic thought.

Or, if you think the Euro example does not quite relate, think back a few months to when people were on pins about the US debt ceiling. From the beginning it was obvious that the ceiling was going to be raised. The US could take no other possible route. But parliamentary opposition from the Republicans created a heavy battle over tax cuts and entitlement reductions. The conditions were ultimately agreed to and the debt ceiling was raised. But the political opportunism probably didn’t help the US one bit when it comes to planning out a viable future strategy to recover its economy from the doldrums.

Poor, third world, developing (you pick the name) countries on the other hand, are always in a rut. They continuously face challenges and opportunities that require quick and intelligent action to mitigate or make use of. They are mostly desperate for hand holds to grow and if properly motivated and managed can become powerhouses very fast. Cases in point are Singapore and Malaysia who rose to stratospheric success in a very short time. Both of the above had intelligent, strategic but autocratic regimes. China is currently a pseudo autocracy (meaning it’s an autocracy but you can’t say it out loud) and it has so far managed its economy remarkably well.

What Do The People Want?

Democracy encourages countries to do what the people want. but in countries urgently in need of development, what the people want and what the country needs can be entirely different. Take Sri Lanka for instance. What do people want? Ideally they want free education, easy subjects and a guaranteed government job. Oh and free food stamps, low transport costs and cheap fuel. They also want no taxes, more subsidies and higher pensions. All this of course cannot happen at the same time.

For the country to develop, conversely, everyone must work hard, and everyone must sacrifice a few things. French-style decadence can come later. When your parent’s generations have become fat on economic riches and you can afford to work just 30 hours a week if you feel like it, or spend your time in roadside cafe’s smoking and drinking coffee on a government dole if you don’t.

In Sri Lanka political parties basically do what people want and skim off the top. At least, this is what they’ve been doing for a while now. If they’re not reducing bread/fuel/fertilizer prices before the election they’re promising more government jobs or cutting taxes. In fact it can be argued that our model of democracy has actually held back progress, by people getting the politicians they deserve. If the people have no long term vision for growth, then it is hardly likely that politicians with a long term vision for growth will arise out of a democracy consisting of these people.

A more centrally powerful government can ignore the short term wants and needs of people and give them what is really needed for long term growth. It can cut government jobs, privatize, cut taxes and increase investment. It can invest more in education, training, transport infrastructure and gross domestic capital.

A strong state is a strong state whatever model it uses to get there. Going by the above hypothesis, stronger states in lesser developed countries are generally autocratic, meaning there is a trade-off between development and liberty. But this doesn’t mean people are necessarily oppressed. All states, even autocratic states, desperately need majority corporation to actually develop, provided development is a strong objective and so will try to please as many people as they can while they work around the ones they can’t please. To paraphrase Bob Marley ‘you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all of the time.’

Democracy is an ideal. It is never really completely achieved, always remaining in its purest form unreachable. But the world remains fascinated by its appeal and the very word is taken to be synonymous with freedom and development. But history has shown that not to be the case and a careful look at past experiences and current events tells us that maybe it’s time we started looking at and accepting the presence of more mixed forms of government that are geared for development, inclusive in their own way but constantly changing and adapting to conditions on the ground.

Un-Meritocratic Police

I have a friend who wants to join the police. He is about 22 and holds a high office in the student council of a local university. He is good in sports and has great leadership qualities. More importantly for him, he has a degree and that is something you definitely need if you, like him, are going to apply for the post of ASP. Assistant Superintendent of Police. He’ll have a 50k plus salary, house and car with driver and other significant perks that come with the job. Not bad.

But you might say hold on, can a twenty two year old actually aspire to such a high post in law enforcement fresh out of university? Apparently yes. You need no on the job experience or previous training. Any fresh faced graduate with a 34 inch chest and above average in height can make it in, theoretically. What happens to the police force here? Incentive structures get skewed. You’re average ralahami will not be inclined to stop taking bribes and clean up his act because he basically has nothing to look forward to, the maximum the majority of them can expect to rise up to will probably be the rank of sergeant.

OK, say the system works. Maybe the police need to make sure that their top echelons are qualified and refined. Intelligence and leadership skills guaranteed from a young age so that they can be groomed early to provide a refreshing effect. But selections here are again not based on merit but on political favor. My friend for instance considers his number one asset to be his political connections. All of the rest are basically secondary. Only around twenty to thirty get picked every three years, so you can imagine the level of wrangling involved. The politicians pick the cops, no going around that one.

Kings for Bureaucracy

Looking at Sri Lankan politics and searching for a method to the madness let alone a science is no easy feat, and certainly it is beyond me; a mere armchair based channel flipper loath to immerse myself in everything but the juiciest of political gossip.

But as a representative then, of the vast majority of Sri Lankans I reserve the right to pass comment on our political sphere by virtue of my ignorance of it. That’s a neat little loophole I challenge anyone to disrupt. I am ignorant, therefore I am. Most of us are ignorant save for a few therefore it is us who are and you who are not. Us who are. Who are? Who’re? Whores.

People deserve the politicians they get. This is true. If the people demand salary hikes from an overly bloated government sector completely ignorant of the damage it will do to the country then they will only ultimately elect a person who can deliver what they need. And that person is a politician completely devoid of understanding of how to run a country. It fits nicely: the only thing completely and fatally under a free market mechanism appears to be democracy.

Suppose the people do elect worthy statesman by some luck then what the intelligentsia can hope for is that person be perpetually in power. But the majority is quick to catch on to what the intelligentsia want, mostly because intelligentsia can’t shut up about it, and is also very quick to become suspicious of what the intelligentsia says. The opposition catches on, and fuels this suspicion and takes down said statesman in next election.

So maybe what we really need is a benevolent dictator? Both in tune with the individual man to keep him happy in the present and also in tune with what the nation needs for economic development? History has shown that true development happens when governance is constant. Note that I didn’t say ‘government’ but ‘governance’.

The US changed governments pretty often. But they stuck by strong ideologies that dictated a constant direction to all their activities that they maintain to this day. More recently India: same. I.e., their system had constants that pushed them along. But some countries have hit the big time by more dubious means. By dubious I mean anti-democratic and we only have Churchill’s word that it is the best system discovered yet. China and Singapore for e.g. rose to staggering power through autocracy.

In Sri Lanka we just keep building up and then tearing what we built down to start all over again. As governments change and each pooh-pooh at their predecessor’s achievements. So in the face of a lack of a perpetual ideology/direction to governance, maybe our next best hope to hitting the big time is to have an autocratic leader with no incentive to engage in short-termist crowd pleasing development. Maybe what we really need is a king, of sorts, like a CEO.

But is Mahinda a Lee Kwan You or a Mao? The intelligentsia are not sure, neither are the people. Seems like a good start. Personally, I’d rather he be a Lee Kwan than a Mao, no cultural revolution for me thank you very much; a sound management of the country will do (lest we may all be forced to don amudeys and drive the buffalo along idyllic paddy fields). But as Spiderman will tell you; with great power comes great opportunities to enrich yourself. Or was it something else? Can’t seem to quite pin it down.

The Common Good (and other Fairy Tales)

Following is a brief synopsis of the history of economics as i understand it together with a subjective viewpoint on its inherently oppressive nature. This viewpoint as written below does not necessarily reflect my personal opinion on economics, it is simply a viewpoint, that should stand alone in its own right.

-The Raj

Since industrialization humans have focussed on getting more efficient, becoming more profitable. I shouldn’t say humans in this regard, for it is mostly the capitalists who expound such thought processes into practical application. Economics after all, cannot be taken away from the self interest of its proponents, and when brought into the fray of politics, self interest largely depends on who is in power. And, money being tantamount to nearly everything in entering politics, most modern democracies flout the interests of capitalism over ‘what is good for the masses’. Of course this is cleverly disguised, more so from the politicians themselves, but GDP is not a measure of quality of life. Getting richer as a country, with it’s complete wealth distributed according to the laws of the Pareto Principle, is questionable as a purpose of being. Most modern economies can be highlighted as examples.

The prevailing ‘what is good for the powerful is good for the economy’ philosophy can be easily illustrated with simple look at the history of economics. Initial feudal establishments (which were centered around the absolute power of the landowning class and its default omni-ownership of all capital) crumbled with the increase of trade and the appearance of ‘marketplaces’. This only exacerbated with colonialism and eventually led to the Merchant class surpassing in wealth the landowning overlords of feudalistic society. Eventually, the reign of Merchants was the norm.

Mercantilism

‘Mercantilism’ was their philosophy. Mercanltilists were of the opinion that to prosper, a nation must sell more than it buys. In other words, its exports must exceed its  imports. This kind of thinking will seem absurd in the modern day world with interdependencies among nations causing more deficits than surpluses. A system like that cannot survive, for the simple reason that were every country in the world to follow identical princples, trade would simply halt! leading to eventual collapse of the system. As it happened Mercantilism survived for a long while, primarily due to cheap resources readily available from colonized nations and also by oppression of its own country’s peasant class, and economies in that day were controlled more by guilds of merchants that functioned more like cartels; monopolizing trade and commanding prices. Not very good for the quality of life of your average peasant, I would say.

Moving on, the rise of capitalism happened when the industrialists got into the game. They were a class of people who believed in the use of capital to control the arena of trade. They would supply capital to small scale artisans and contract merchants to sell them. This practice formed the basis of what would become the modern company.

Capitalism

‘Capitalism’ full blown, had names like the Dutch and British East India Companies as its flag bearers.  They allowed joint stock ownership and modern share markets found their origin here. They used their vast capital and trade monopolies to import cheap and sell dear. Making their owners’ wealth increase to previously unimagined proportions. Along with the emergence of capitalism, the seeds of the destruction of mercantilism were sown. Some advantage was gained to the common man with the abolition of protectionist measures like monopolies. And free market systems ensured competitive prices but along with its advantages the market economy also increased the sense of work ethic. Previously idyllic lives were now to be spent slaving at factories and workplaces eking out a living.

This hasn’t changed much. In the world of globalization and international trade, corporate interest is the main driving force behind ‘growth’. Obama treads lightly with BP because Obama possibly knows who has a fatal but light grip on his balls. The ecosystem and the small people making a living off it are not really significant. And this is not really a one off example. Trade barriers, free markets, international trade agreements, multinationals etc are all ‘good for growth’ but not really good for the increment of the quality of life of the small man. At least, such increment does not make the betterment of the common good its priority. Leading us to question the validity of the whole system, and our perceptions of human nature.

Independence

A friend telling me why she needs her job to keep putting more and more pressure on her. It ‘keeps her on her toes’ and ‘keeps her occupied’. No doubt, it keeps her from spending too much time thinking thoughts she’d rather not be thinking.

We are a brainwashed generation. That said, we are a brainwashed species. There is so much we can learn from old people. An ex president of the Bankers Union, retired, giving a speech at the inauguration of his niece’s Rotaract Presidency with all the aplomb of addressing the president of the World Bank. Where have all his achievements gone? You can see it in his eyes. Not loss, but a sense of being lost.

When you are old, the only difference between you, the retired bigwig and that old beggar on the road will soon be merely the clothes you wear. You ran and ran and thought you were winning, but then you both end up at the same finish line, at the same time; the end of your lives.

Yet the instinct of us the young is to drown thoughts eating at the edge of our consciousness with wave after wave of the present. Push it back, push it back and it will never haunt you. But as our life erodes and our thoughts erode along with it; the rush of unconscious thoughts suppressed through the years come pushing back. May be it wont be too late at least then, if we recognize them for what they are.

The dream is living. The truth is beyond perception sometimes, so we seek to solidify our dreams. Hoping, praying (without admitting it) that they are really real.

Mahinda on the Public Sector

Mahinda’s manifesto admits that he knows that the masses consider the public sector to be more appealing than the private sector. The scary part is that he doesn’t consider this to be unhealthy. His idea of the differences in the public and private sector is a case in point that possibly outlines his economic savvy and political cunning.

If the majority of the masses like the public sector then the majority of the masses are freeloaders. Because that’s what most of the public sector is; a place for freeloaders. People go into work; read the marriage prospects page of the daily newspapers; refresh their knowledge on the prevailing caste system and norms of the marriage market; sign out an hour early and take the train back home. On the train they discuss politics and sing songs with similar people who work in other public sector divisions just like they have been doing with them for the past 15 years.

Also this phenomenon is bad for the job market. If youth grow up wanting a job in the public sector, they will hardly be equipped to handle the stress and competitive environment of the private sector. The more educationally inclined among them for instance, will feel more inclined to do a worthless degree and, once all teaching jobs are exhausted, to protest on the streets demanding economically unviable jobs in the public sector. So when Mahinda agrees to give these ‘poor helpless youth’ jobs in the public sector, he is essentially spending the hard earned money of the people who really put in a hard days of work to make more freeloading jobs. Thats justice, that is.

Somewhere in a corner of his Chinthanaya, he talks about a system of ‘performance based incentives’ to encourage them to work harder. But that is aside from all the other incentives he is already promising them. Which, presumably, they will all get by default when and if he retains power. These ‘default’ incentives are substantial enough for the average public sector worker to not care a damn for any more ‘performance based incentives’ for a good while to come. And if no public servant wants to perform to get incentives. The incentive scheme will simply collapse. If any discerning public sector employee does try to outperform his colleagues in a division populated with slackers, he will promptly be pulled  down and trampled upon, such is the way of the public sector. There needs to be unity among freeloaders for freeloading to flourish.

This pisses me off because i am paying extra when i buy things to pay these fools who are overstaffing what presumably should be ‘efficient and friendly’ government services. What pisses me off worse is being treated like dirt by these same people who i pay to keep fed and clothed. The average man needs to go through some hell and high water to get some basic needs fulfilled at most places. We are currently going through a major hassle trying to get our water meter fixed. For some reason the water doesn’t pass through the meter. We contacted the water board, only to be promised that someone will be along to look at it on several occasions. The water in the tank is not going to last forever and my father is now contemplating the anti social act of bypassing the meter with some S-lon pipes. See how inefficiency breeds public corruption.

The seedy underbelly of our state’s ‘service’ element is still exemplified in its original and most corrupt form in places like the Petroleum Corporation and Ports Authority. We don’t even need to sink out teeth into the petroleum corporation to taste the first nauseas indications of corruption, God knows how many rupees of the extra 80 rupees (figure subject to verification) I am paying for a liter of petrol goes to pay the salaries of slackers. My blood boils.

I know a guy in the Ports Authority who tells me that he goes in to work and watches Nuga Sevana on Rupavahini as he starts his first game of carrom for the day. He gets bottles of imported alcohol and packs of cigarettes for his friends whenever they are confiscated from people who have paid good money to buy them. He, in short is having a ball of a time, and is all for inefficient public services.

I however, am not. I think a 1:20 ratio of public sector people to other people in the country is maintained and developed by a succinct strategy by post colonial politicians to rope in the majority of the people and make them complacent freeloaders. In the meanwhile, they allow the rest to work themselves almost to death in the private sector in order to pay for the ones freeloading. This keeps everyone busy and prevents revolution. And allows the powerful to take what they want from wherever they want it.

Actually i don’t really think that. Even George Orwell wouldn’t think that. Such a conspiracy would require a string of conspirators capable of intellectual feats beyond the wildest dreams of your average Sri Lankan political mike hoarder. The masses are just continuously doped by chances at freeloading jobs and increases in salaries. The ever doubtful possibility of getting something for nothing is forever dangled before their shining eyes and promises are swallowed hook line and sinker. Public Services is now the Opium. Religion is just a pastime.

To Mahinda’s credit though, some of the public sector has shown marked improvement after he took over. The passport office, the RDA (i think) and the educational services industry being some. There is also a government info hotline (1919) that is quite prompt. His suggestion for the future however don’t really strike me as being directed at improving things. He should be making the public sector smaller, not larger. He should be streamlining it, not adding fat. Sarath Fonseka doesn’t seem to have got it either. His proposed plan of a salary hike of ten thousand rupees  (adding 132 billion in spending a year) is impractical to say the least, and @#^$&(^%$^$!! to say a little more.

So will you look at us all strapped for choice.

The Fonseka Bonus

I think it was JR Jayawardene who said that Sri Lankans are a people that are easily satisfied as long as their basic needs are met. I.e, they are satisfactorily fed and clothed. If I have wrongly attributed that quote then i am sorry. But it’s not too far off the truth no?

Politicians have known this for a long time though, JR or no. The ways to the people’s hearts over here have always led mainly through the metaphorical abdominal region. Meaning through satisfaction of immediate needs, temporary or no.  Since independence, the ‘socialist’ part in the ‘socialist democratic republic of Sri Lanka’ has played a key role in the thinking behind most of our economic decisions. The theory has been always to give and give. To buy a man a fish to eat instead of teaching him how to fish. We are a welfare state cast into abject and almost cyclical poverty by anti free market manipulations courtesy our economic managers.

Price Index Bonus

This brand of temporary socialism takes a particularly dastartdly form during electi0n time. Sarath Fonseka, by virtue of his ability to strike doubt at the heart of our incumbent, has already brought us price cuts in petrol and gas. Rural farmers are getting lending rates chopped. Meanwhile, the presidential directive to commercial banks to reduce their interest rates have been largely ignored because of the skewed state of the market. It is a public secret that state banks monopolize commercial markets and their reluctance to reduce rates means that none of the banks in the market will reduce its rates.

Minoriy Bonus

The minorities are also enjoying elevated status now that the climax is approaching. There is talk of detainees under the terrorism act being released, the IDPs at Menik farm being relocated by January, The Northern displaced Muslims being relocated by March etc. Yet, the ‘complications’ associated with fulfilling these promises will probably mean that these words run a dangerous chance of proving empty.

The Dream-on Bonus

What I would like to see is some serious talk on education and language reform. Addressing issues that need talking about like devolution of power and the executive presidency is important because without sweeping structural reforms in our political landscape i really dont think long term prosperity is possible.

A government needs to be lean, mean and efficient. It should have the goal of the country’s economic prosperity at the forefront of its manifesto. Sadly, these ‘idealistic’ things don’t happen. And its obviously because secularism here is a convinient blanket over a governmental structure that is mostly designed around optimizing political power for the political elite well outside the goals of long term national prosperity.

What is also obvious is that for people who crave these solutions, no alternative exists in the election. Because none of the candidates deem these things important enough to even fake promise. But in the meanwhile, we can all chill a bit and enjoy the Fonseka bonus by driving more, eating more, growing more and watching more TV on which people aimlessly rake in the muck all in the name of the struggle for supremacy that is Sri Lanka’s socialist democratic politics. What fun.

Seeing Blue

The Road is bedecked in blue all the way to Galle. Riding in a bus on Saturday blue is all i noticed. It starts from Dehiwala; the new flyover is ostentatiously laid out with blue election stuff. And every single city down the stretch to Unawatuna is laid out in the royal color, its almost as if the opposition doesn’t exist.

A friend insists that the new Rs 1,000 is illegal election propaganda. And his argument is not easy to refute. These days, ATMs all over the country are spewing out the stuff to customers and bank tellers are handing them over counters. The incumbent is everywhere, on our bridges, by the sides of our roads, decorating bus stands, in our wallets, in our faces. I’ve heard about a giant cut out from a few terrified people, located somewhere in Colombo. I’m not too sure if i can take seeing it.

The challenger needs to up his game if he wants to stand a chance. Its like that Hebrew proverb Zack got tattooed on his arm; ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Voters are fickle creatures. And democracy, at least democracy in good ‘ol Lanka, is designed to benefit the loudest screamer. The most in-your-face guy grabs the confidence of the public; a matter of significance this time, since both candidates are contesting more or less on the same platforms.

The general doesn’t seem to have really started on his publicity campaign yet. All his initial efforts are being successfully undermined. Posters with his face on it are covered over in a matter of hours by an efficient publicity grease machine that presumably works for parties not in favor of him winning.

The opposition’s campaign is nowhere nearly as strong or effective as it should be in order for it to reach the average Sri Lankan and in order for it to have a share of voice which is, if not equal, at least reasonably noticeable in comparison to the president’s. I wonder who does their advertising.

A reason for their lackadaisical approach could be an inability to come up with something that will capture the hearts and minds of the people. Some phrase that dramatically simplifies the core message or selling point of the General. But i don’t think they have a core message let a lone a good slogan yet. They still haven’t managed to convey concretely why anyone should vote for Sarath Fonseka and not Mahinda Rajapakse. The suddenness of the election probably surprised them. Here they were, just negotiating their terms and bickering over the small print when bam! before you know it the game is on in five minutes and everyone’s gotta go and get changed.

They need to do a lot of thinking on the feet.

Add to that they may also be disadvantaged in terms of logistics. Sure, money may not be a problem, but access to suitable channels probably is. Key below the line advertising sites and TV airtime etc is all but monopolized by the incumbent. He is shouting loud right now and he’s been doing so for a long time. The Mahinda marketing machine is well oiled, its glitches have been ironed out through years of practice, its on a high after the war victory and is simply rearing to go.

It has taken the corner at 100km’s and whizzed past the starting point while the opposition is only now starting to turn the ignition on their’s. They’ll need one powerful engine and a hell of a driver of they want to catch up.

F*ck the Po-lice

Take some time to reflect on the arch incompetency of the police force. They are increasingly becoming more and more arrogant as the already flaky police becomes more and more uncontrollable.

There is red tape everywhere. The OICs create their own rules and even more red tape to add to the already disgraceful state of affairs. I recently went into lodge a complaint and had to visit 2 different police stations on three separate occasions with no result. The law is the backbone of a nation. The citizens depend on it. Unfortunately the law in Sri Lanka is a premium product. Available only to those with the money/power/ influence to get it.

Officer’s have next to no respect for ordinary citizens. Instead of seeing themselves as servants of the community, they see themselves as its overlords. Their very perceptions of why they exist is all wrong. The police is drunk with power, like all Sri Lankans seem to get when a bit of it is sent their way. They should all watch Spider-Man and learn something about responsibility.

This is in addition to the wasters at the petroleum corporation and other organizations striking for wage hikes. Everyone knows they don’t do a stick of work. Most of our tax money is going into maintaining incompetence and wastage. They are the branches of the problem demanding more leeway from the root; the government, the system, the people.

It’s because of the incompetency of the public servant (from the politician to the cop to the official at your DS, with the possible exception of your teacher) that the public is suffering. They (the public servants) are the intermediary that creates the conditions that is needed for the state and the public to function in harmony. They are the meat in between the slices of bread that is the country and it’s people which together makes the whole of Sri Lanka; the sandwich. Currently the sandwich is full of rotten and cancerous meat. Not a very healthy sandwich.

A Letter to Lankan Journalists

To all Sri Lankan journalists,

Desktop-warrior journalism

Being a journalist in Sri Lanka is somewhat of a thankless job right now. the public disses you cos you don’t put out any anti establishment content and the establishment abuses you if you do.

But if you have controversial stories that need to get out there, putting it up on a blog (anonymously or otherwise) is a good way to get the message across. If you want to fight media oppression then here is an outlet.

The blogosphere isn’t as on the radar as mainstream journalism. Granted, it also doesnt have the same kind of mass exposure. But this way you’re doing your part by telling the public what they need to hear. You are contributing to a better democracy and doing the job of a good journalist.

Now you wont get paid, true. But stories that are time sensitive have only a small profit making time window anyway. So if you find you can’t publish full details due to censorship, here is a more productive option to simply filing information away.

And don’t worry. Tracing you won’t be that easy. You can use various tactics to cover your tracks if you want to. It’ s also very easy to start blogging. Just go to wordpress.com or blogger.com and open your account. And get yourself syndicated on aggregators like kottu.org and achcharu.org  You can also blog in all three languages.

So please, give it a go. We need to know what they don’t want us to know!

Regards

Me