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the country in response to their frequent calls for "bandh" helped
only to make the lives of ordinary people more difficult.
However, economic reforms means that you not only set your objectives,
you also understand why those are your objectives. It is a humanistic
approach to negotiation that utilizes the strategies and tactical
tools of successful reforms to achieve optimal results. Strengthening
independent economic programs can also contribute to stability by
broadening participation and enhancing prospects for democratic
accountability and economic responsiveness. Economy-building can also be organized by external actors such as NGOs, regional or international organizations and governments.
We must remember, the direct causes of per capita income and living
standard increases are the tools, machines, materials, power sources,
medicines, physicians, and manufacturing and commercial practices that
are transformed into consumable goods and services, comprising basic
living standards, that are summarized in per capita income statistics.
Technologies affect living standards in three ways: (1) They create
goods and service that people want, but don't have. Automobiles,
telephones, most medicines and medical care did not exist at an
earlier time. (2) They improve the quality of goods and services that
people already have. Medicines, foods, clothing, medical care are
improved compared to those available in former times. (3) They
increase the availability of goods and services to more people by
reducing the effort, waste, and cost to produce them. Food,
clothing, housing, medicines and medical care became cheaper, while
their quality improves in comparison to earlier times.
Technologies and associated incomes are devoted to preventing people from killing and stealing from each other; i.e., judiciaries, prisons, police and military personnel, as well as institutions restrict the use of technologies from being used to raise incomes and basic living standards. So however necessary they are in a world of aggression and acquisitiveness, they are counterproductive to raising incomes. They are "necessary evils".
A poor country must import technology that produces more and better goods and services for its own people, as well as for producing goods and services for trade with foreigners. This acquisition of technology requires large amounts of money ("capital"), which cannot be accumulated at home
because that requires technology. It is a vicious cycle: technology
depends on capital, which depends on technology, etc. Karl Marx
acknowledged this cycle in his discussion of "M-C-M" (money-capital-technology-money).
Thus, an initial loan or grant of "seed money" is required by poor countries from rich countries. Such loans, as we have seen, from the World Bank, IMF, and WTO efforts, do not necessarily make poor countries rich. There is a complex interplay of technology, geography, culture, economy and polity, that produce unknown, uneven effects; thus preventing guaranteed success of capital and technology inputs. These are discussed below.
In contrast, those regions located in watered plains are the richest.
Scanning the U.N. list from top to bottom, the only rich country that
has too many mountains and too few navigable waterways is Switzerland.
However, its geographical disadvantage is offset by its geographical
location at former trade routes between rich countries that allowed it
to accumulate sufficient capital and technology to "move mountains"
(or, at least penetrate them with tunnels and cross the intervening
valleys with bridges) and prosper.
The use of technologies depends not only on geography, but also on
culture. Nations that have no basic schools will forever be dependent
on the largese of the wealthy nations. In contrast, look at the lower
half of the countries (87-174). With a few exceptions, like China
(102), Philippines (104), Indonesia (114) and India (115), as well as the S.
American countries, the educational systems are abysmally antiquated.
Therefore, even if these countries had adequate technologies, which
they don't, they would not even be able to adequately maintain
imported technologies because of their poorly educated technicians.
With regard to religious practices, again from a materialistic
viewpoint, the rich countries have long ago made the pursuit of
religious values subservient to those of wealth acquisition. Their
schools provide the education consistent with that end. On the other
hand, those countries that prefer to spend time and education on
religious matters cannot expect to enjoy high per capita incomes unless
they are among the fortunate few that sit above precious petroleum,
gold or diamonds required by the rich countries. But what happens
when those riches are exhausted? Finally, in countries where
allegiances are to tribes and clans rather than to all the people of
the country; where these groups fight each other for wealth instead of
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Writer Profile
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Journalist and Story Writer Kamala Sarup is specializing in in-depth reporting and writing on Peace, Anti War, Women, Terrorism, Democracy, and Development. Some of her publications are: Women's Empowerment in(South Asia, Nepal)Booklet). Prevention of trafficking in women through media,(Book) Efforts to Prevent Trafficking in for Media Activism (Media research). Two Stories collections. Her interests include international conflict resolution, cross-cultural communication, philosophy, feminism, political, socio-economic and literature. Her current plans are to move on to humanitarian work in conflict areas in the near future. She also is experienced in organizational and community development. A meeting of jury members held on 21 March in Geneva has decided to attribute Kamala Sarup, The Conservative Voice, writer, with a Honorable Mention of International Award for Women Issue.
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new nepali yourth concerns on opportunities satya N singh | Dec 10th, 2007
hats off to u kamala..keep us know such inforamtive and driving force to understand the situation to fight and win the poverty for economic sound nation
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