well all i can say is that our country(carriage) is being pulled by too many horses. we will have to kill the other horses so that we can move forward.

to solve the problem an Alexander should be born from the provinces raise an army suppress/conquer other provinces eventually the entire country. destroy the military of the elite through his sheer intellignce and charisma. then raise a new order and give that sense of feeling that all of a sudden that the entire country given its vast geograpical politico social differences can be ruled by just one man—just one man.

men may have been created “equal” (we are all born bringing nothing into this world), but “mother nature” is all but fair in terms of individual ability and opportunity, among other “accidents” of fate.

since personal wealth and wisdom cannot be legislated or decreed, the government’s role is limited to trying to provide equal opportunity for employment, private ownership, education, peace and order, and safeguarding basic human rights. more than esoteric economic theories and principles, the ultimate catalyst for the betterment of society is the individual’s willingness to take personal responsibility for his own welfare.

in every society, there will always be a core group of permanently “poor” individuals that will need constant care and protection by the government and the rest of the public. included among these are the mentally and physically disabled because of illness, aged, and their minor dependents. this is where permanent or long term charity makes sense. a strong society should have no problem taking care of such a group.

also, just to add, another area is the implications and extent of technology on industry and labor competitiveness, survival, makeup, and patterns. hence, the importance of a developed educational system.

thank you all.

the truth is something that should have been clear by now, as has been consistently and continuously stated in my blog and my comments in this blog, and that it is my belief to eschew ideologies and essentially go with what works. like rodrik, i have long ago already commented and which i think i commented above … again … that markets can and does on occasion fail and thus the need for a good government to ensure protection in such instances. that is why i have pointed out in previous entries on the insistence by even free trade supporters of a competition policy, in recognition that markets do fail. rodrik called it a softening of convictions, i years ago called it the finding another way in developing economic and trade policy from the restrictive protectionist/free trade paradigm. hence, the context of “for me, in the end, i’ll support whatever gets the philippines going” remark. nevertheless, it is just that so far, evidence seems to point towards the usefulness of trade liberalization but, and i keep pointing this out, any evidence of an alternative would be very much appreciated.

one clear point, however, is that i do not and will not advocate violent revolutions or anything else that undermines our legal institutions. and that is the reason i strongly and urgently encourage economic reform and policies towards equality to precisely avoid the possibility of violent change. please note that questions on equality between states and equality within borders are two separate questions, the latter not really being dealt with trade liberalization but more a question of a country’s internal policies.

again, note that i stopped myself on trade policy and the reason here is that i humbly admit that i do not sufficiently comprehend the complexity of the international financial system, which leaves even the best trade people baffled. i leave comment on that to more, to truly qualified, people. there is a complex and symbiotic relationship between the spheres and while it is exaggeration to suggest that one is useless with the other, nevertheless the connection is there for which its true and complete implications are still trying to be grappled with by the best of minds. rather than view websites or links, i suggest people go read more thoughtful works such as greenspan’s age of turbulence, mallaby’s (on wolfensohn) world’s banker , or sachs and stiglitz’ recent books on globalization for ideas. another area that is also really complex is the area of trade in services and immigration. but that’s another long discussion.

abe, i appreciate your post and yes there really is no contradiction on a general sense. as i said, its just that right now the information i have on hand points me to believe that more and consistent economic liberalization, refinement and strong implementation of the estate tax, and a developed educational system would go a long way as a first step. the bayanihan pact, if upon further examination is a pragmatic, workable, and sustainable framework, then you’d find me a supporter.

i have long long written that the present world is too complex and too fluid for ideologies to govern. that is why i have kept insisting that, although mindful of other countries’ practices and evidences of what works, we go back to our history, examine our own experiences, make our own studies and analysis, and implement our own plan that is specifically suited to our own circumstances, culture, psychology, and environment.

anyway, thanks again.

i think the bottom line is that these people are advocating bloodshed, a violent revolution, that has for its objective the elimination by force of the present ruling class, and what they call the “elite/middle class” that sustains the current socio/political order. in sum, it is the same tired, repudiated, and ineffectual leftist/communist dogma that these people are promoting using the “miseries of the masses” to advance their failed ideology. – bencard

Hillblogger has called my attention re my post above to Judge Richard Posner’s blog about the IMF’s report on the effect of globalization on inequality.

This question by Posner in his blog has particularly bothered me: “Everyone is better off, and why should the fact that the rich are better off by a larger percentage concern anyone?”

That the economy works best when regulated least is a fundamental tenet of classical economics (of free trade and free market) Scottish economist Adam Smith fathered in 1776. That may be fine but were we to realize our unrestrained actions (or for that matter unfettered self-interest, our natural insularity) may have dire consequences to others than ourselves, a society would need more than a “night watchman” state to allocate boundaries or alter existing ones. Some people (like Jose Rizal or our valiant Overseas Filipino Workers) will always be bothered too by the claims of this system that not the wealthy but the poor themselves, or their laziness in particular, is responsible for the latter’s misfortunes.

Among the early supporters of classical economics were the utilitarians who believed that if the greatest happiness of the greatest number is advanced, then the resulting suffering of the rest would be excusable. Judge Richard Posner question above is exactly utilitarian.

Herbert Spencer (1748-18320) was another intellectual who reinforced the classical view by extending Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution to the economic sphere: the fittest would advance and survive but the lower kind would be left behind or possibly perish, a natural inevitability that ought not to strike the conscience of the fortunate ones.

Thus, if religious pretensions or sheer moral arrogance of the older era had been relied on as the excuse for the deadly doctrine of “discovery and conquest,” permitting the extermination of an entire race by supposedly civilized and moral people, “social Darwinism” was drawn upon to assuage the scruples of more recent colonizers, settlers/frontiersmen and imperialists as well as racial supremacists who would cause parallel untold misery to “lesser” peoples.

But the poor were just poor. They weren’t dumb. They always understood the system was nothing but an institutional premise that protected powerful economic interests and promoted a culture of indifference and impunity for brutal and rank exploitation.

Fortunately there were also men of probity who were considered turncoats to their class because of beliefs that human beings were entitled to certain basic measure of dignity. Activism, then as now, either by these radical humanists and or on the part of the exploited themselves, has been the only means of rectifying institutional injustices such as the dreadful plight of workers during the early phase of the Industrial Revolution in the areas for instance of child labor, safety in workplaces and security against disabilities and old age. Among these humanists was Karl Marx who also predicted that the capitalistic system would self-destruct given that the flaws of the system would drive the workers to rise up and overthrew it in a violent revolution.

I do not buy the Marxian inevitability of the proletariats’ violent revolution because I strongly subscribe to the view that there are alternatives to bloody confrontation in order to transform in a revolutionary way, such as the alternative of discourse. I do believe that it is through discourse for example that institutional vocabularies like “market” and “democracy” could be exposed as less than God-terms in the same manner that the Divine Rights of Kings was proved as not all but God-willed.

Similarly, the literature is now plenty about how to re-imagine “entrepreneurship,” another institutional buzzword. To author and MIT professor of political economy Alice Amsden, the “defining characteristic of entrepreneurship is planning, or deciding what, when, and how much to produce.” And by historical standards, when it comes to milestone decisions in big business, Amsden argued, “the entrepreneurial function of planning has primarily fallen to the state,” curtailing in the process the role of the private entrepreneur. Thus, in South Korea according to Amsden, “every major shift in industrial diversification in the decades of 1960s and 1970s was instigated by the state.” The role of professional managers because of their expertise was relegated to implementing those investment decisions. It is only in small firm situation, she further pointed out, that the entrepreneurial function of planning or the initiative to investment in minor project still lies with the private entrepreneur, now “a pale reflection of the heroic figure of the past.”

On the other hand, economist Dani Rodrik, re-conceptualizing the standard literature on “industrial policies,” has called for “the softening of convictions on both sides” in order “to fashion an agenda for economic policies that takes an intelligent intermediate stand between the two extremes” where “Market forces and private entrepreneurship would be in the driving seat of this agenda, but governments would also perform a strategic and coordinating role in the productive sphere beyond simply ensuring property rights, contract enforcement, and macroeconomic stability.”

As thus conceived, the Korean strategy for economic take off, for example, was not as simple as protecting “the so-called ‘winners’ chosen by governments and their cronies,” as our free trader friend jemy would suspect. “Industrial policy is a state of mind more than anything else,” Rodrick has concluded.

So, why a Bayanihan Pact (a people-powered town effort) as the suggested appellation for a new entrepreneurial arrangement that may allow the Philippines to catch up or ultimately propel its economy to take off? Because, to begin with, even the text itself evinces discourse, negotiation, inclusion and collaborative enactment; it also serves to challenge the institutional text of hierarchy, elitism and patrimonialism as well as the sociology of exploitation and impunity or general apathy to the appalling predicament of the less fortunate, our poor or theirs.

When 60 million or so Filipinos are under constant threat of daily terrorism because they live on less than two dollars a day, indeed all possible propositions should be explored. I have then pointed out one barrier-breaking alternative available to Filipinos and perhaps others similarly situated, which does not seem to directly contradict jemy’s post excerpted above:

“Whether the gateway to equitable accumulation and ultimately national development could also be accessed by way of the power of consensus of people power democracy that’s willing to learn from the best practices that work and, based on ongoing experience and rising above ideologies, eschew things that don’t, or change even established notions and practices when concrete realities and the complex necessities for change in the service of the common good require.”

regarding the other information such as agri competitiveness, that was based on collective and accumulated readings. obviously, you have your own info and i have my own info. that is fine by me and and it sets critical analysis of the issues. like you, i try to get my info directly and that is the people who work in agri and agri policy.

regarding the goal of the wto, please note that the organization is really a forum for countries to gather and agree on a set of rules. it does not dictate the rules. the members make the rules. obviously some people will take a different line and refuse to believe otherwise but that’s the wto rules.

the objective of the wto to dismantle protectionism for “foreign goods”? well, please consider that somewhere in many places in the world, philippine exports are “foreign goods” for which the wto helps in opening up through the protectionist barriers it faces there. and besides, and this is something that protectionism has never countered or argued against: protectionism increases prices and decreases the choice for consumers.

the nfa conducive to goals of the wto? please note that state trading enterprises are specially regulated under the wto precisely because they serve as exceptions to wto rules. these enterprises are sanctioned monopolies and allowed qr’s.

regarding companies that seek protection, that is still indeed true, mismanagement is the cause of their sufferings. regarding australia and bananas, please note that if there were no wto around, we’d have no venue and course of action to pursue against australia. the wto did not create these sanitary protectionist regulations, in the same way that the wto did not create the us and eu subsidies. that is why the wto is good, because it serves as an avenue to make better rules for developing countries, where otherwise there would be no other avenue. if there is, please share with us.

in any event, really, if the australian government wants their citizens to pay more for their fruits that is their concern, in the same way as i said that if the japanese and korean governments, as well as philippines, wants their citizens to pay more for their rice then that is that.

our trade officials are not naive. they are highly intelligent and sophisticated people doing a difficult job under difficult circumstances. i may not agree with them always but they have my respect. i know for a fact because i worked on that case that our trade officials did not “swallow the diseased banana statement”. the da, particularly usec serrano, fought energetically in geneva for us.

bottomline is, evidence supporting greater and freer trade is there that it helps poorer countries like the philippines. going directly again to the source, as you say, the world bank in fact just released a study that said trade liberalization helps combat climate change!

thank you all.

That is why the rich WTO members are very creative and crafty to protect their local production. Take the best example of Australian known protectionism of its banana industry which prohibit importation (of Philippine bananas) in the guise of quality issue or diseased bananas. Our gullible trade officials just swallowed the diseased Philippine banana statement.

This statement greatly misunderstood protectionism and the goal of WTO to dismantle protectionism for entry of foreign goods. NFA is importer of rice which is conducive to the goals of WTO.

This is another sweeping statement that local production cannot compete with imports. This can be looked at who determine the price of rice sold by the farmers. Obviously, not the farmers but the millers or retailers who buy the rice at low price, mill the rice into grains and sold the grains at high price.

The low selling farm price to millers/retailers pose no incentive for farmers increase production, hence, local production cannot meet demand. The demand drives the retailers price high (middlemen are pocketing the profit). The country step in through NFA by importing more rice to fill the gap in demand. And this has been going on and on for years. We are always, the importer despite the following basic facts (1) 47% of land area is agricultural, (2) we have the premier rice research institute in Asia, IRRI.