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 Nepal -- there's still hope
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Posted on 03-16-06 4:22 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Nepal Can Be Rich
By Kamala Sarup

source http://newsblaze.com/story/20060314232821nnnn.nb/newsblaze/OPINIONS/Opinions.html

In a 2001 comparison of 174 countries (click here, or see table below), Nepal ranked 150th in per capita income, a universal indicator of material wealth and living standards, since money enables people to buy at least the basic living needs for themselves and their families: food, drink, shelter, clothing, medicines, and health care. Why is Nepal this poor compared to other countries?

To answer these questions, it is necessary to review the direct cause of higher incomes and then review the subsidiary causes of living standards; that is, the geographies, cultures, economies and polities under which the people of the listed countries live.

In that way, some generalizations can be drawn that will be useful to country leaders and their contenders. In doing so, we recognize that we make a significant value-judgment: acquiring material wealth is "good", and not doing so is "bad". This statement acknowledges the values of leaders in countries who eschew th is value, who prefer to spend the studies and labors of their people in the pursuit of spiritual wealth, who consider material wealth a necessary evil that must be tolerated only to the extent of sustaining life and no more.

Note, too, that we are talking here about relative wealth and poverty, i.e., the wealth of the rich countries versus the poverty of the poor countries. There will always be an increase in absolute wealth, in varying amounts by poor countries, because some wealth will inevitably spill over from the rich countries to the poor ones via trade, industrial globalization (the transfer of businesses from rich to poor countries) and repatriated income from nationals working in foreign lands.

However, a continuing state of relative poverty in a nation leads inevitably to revolution, or emigration, or both, or to absorption by other countries.

The Nepali poverty is the result of reliance on an agriculture as a source of food by the poor, Maoists violence that prohibited keeping exportable wheat, the "cash crop", in Nepal and prohibiting the import of agriculture surpluses to support the Nepali landowners.

Although the problem appears throughout South Asia, the reliance of the Nepali poor exclusively on rice as a staple made them particularly susceptible to poverty. This agricultural product grown by Nepali farmers provides more calories per acre than any other staple. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was and is cultivated throughout the world. Nepal used and exported rice to other countries to obtain foreign currencies for international trade. Government policy was to favor city dwellers over the peasants. Thus, Nepali poverty occurred while bringing millions to Nepal to seek a better life.

Productive and prosperous transformation in the development process can become viable only through permanent economic development. The essentiality of today, is to ensure the solidarity of national development, with economic re-strengthening. Is it going to guarantee sustainable peace? Will there be earnest effort in harnessing cooperation from all respective sectors?

Active economic reforms are always needed for leading the social movement because a strong economy is the foundation of democratic development and creation of an equitable nation. In any time of conflict, it is the economy that plays the lead role in bringing about a tangible and lasting solution to the economic crisis facing the nation and the people.

The economic reformers in Nepal should rally for bigger social transformation and to bring about social reforms. If we work together we can help bring about drastic changes because the role of the economy has largely confined. Economic reformists in Nepal must be trained in the skills they will need to organize action, including public speaking, managing people, preparing effective appeals for support, fundraising, and identifying and neutralizing informants and infiltrators.

We can promote the economy through participation in programs that develop a consensus around eco-development issues. To contribute to the definition of a permanent economic policy through action, ideas and research aimed at the construction of a society based on policies of social justice and sustainable, humane development are needed.

Economic development, whether in personal, group, or international relations requires a variety of capacities for self-transcendence: transcendence of one's own interests and perspectives for the sake of understanding the interests and perspectives of the other side, which calls for the virtue of empathy; transcendence of one's pride and defensiveness.

We cannot forget how the violence targeted against the local infrastructure community forestry projects, small hydro plants, bridges, telephone stations, and office buildings. The closure of educational institutions, businesses and cession of ordinary life in 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 also can contribute to stability by broadening participation and enhancing prospects for democratic accountability and economic responsiveness. Economy-building can be organized by extternal actors such as NGOs, regional or international organizations and government.

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 improved since earlier times.

Technologies and associated incomes devoted to preventing people from killing and stealing from each other, i.e., judiciaries, prisons, police and military personal and institutions, restrict their being used to raise incomes and basic living standards, so however necessary they are in a world of aggression and acquisition, they are counterproductive to raising incomes.

They are "necessary evils". Therefore, a poor country must import technology that produces more and better goods and services for its own people and 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's 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 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 largesse 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), and 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 education consistent with that end. On the other hand, those countries that prefer to spend time and education on religion 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 the cooperating for it, money and technology will be used to fight and kill rather than raise living standards.

Subsistence economies, like those of the nations' aborigines, resulted in their subjugation and doom by people with more advanced economies that featured the division of labor, technologies, and trade, i.e., capitalist economies. It is clear that a country with an unfavorable geography, or culture, or economy or polity is severely handicapped to use sufficient technological advances that increase the wealth and living standards of its people.

Geography cannot be changed, but a country's leaders can slowly change its culture, economy and polity, and enjoy greater relative wealth. If it cannot change, then it is likely to remain poor, despite the enthusiastic and sanguine projections of its leaders, planners and would-be leaders. Countries with a combination of unfavorable geographies, cultures, economies and polities that do not change are doomed to remain relatively poor and, like beggars, will continue to depend on the altruism and largesse of the rich.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001 U.N. Table(1):

Rank Country Per Capita Income
(PP US $)

1 Luxembourg 53,780
2 United States 34,320
3 Ireland 32,410
4 Iceland 29,990
5 Norway 29,620

6 Denmark 29,000
7 Switzerland 28,100
8 Netherlands 27,190
9 Canada 27,130
10 Austria 26,730

11 Belgium 25,520
12 Australia 25,370
13 Germany 25,350
14 Japan 25,130
15 Hong Kong 24,850

16 Italy 24,670
17 Finland 24,430
18 Sweden 24,180
19 Great Britain 24,160
20 France 23,990

21 Singapore 22,680
22 Cyprus 21,190
23 United Arab Emirates 20,530
24 Spain 20,150
25 Qatar 19,844

26 Israel 19,790
27 Brunei Darussalam 19,210
28 New Zealand 19,160
29 Kuwait 18,700
30 Portugal 18,150

31 Greece 17,440
32 Slovenia 17,130
33 Seychelles 17,030
34 Bahamas 16,270
35 Bahrain 16,060

36 Barbados 15,560
37 Korea, Rep. of 15,090
38 Equatorial Guinea 15,073
39 Czech Republic 14,720
40 Saudi Arabia 13,330

41 Malta 13,160
42 Hungary 12,340
43 Oman 12,040
44 Slovakia 11,960
45 Argentina 11,320

46 Saint Kitts and Nevis 11,300
47 South Africa 11,290
48 Estonia 10,170
49 Antigua and Barbuda 10,170
50 Mauritius 9,860

51 Costa Rica 9,460
52 Poland 9,450
53 Chile 9,190
54 Croatia 9,170
55 Trinidad and Tobago 9,100

56 Malaysia 8,750
57 Lithuania 8,470
58 Mexico 8,430
59 Uruguay 8,400
60 Botswana 7,820

61 Latvia 7,730
62 Belarus 7,620
63 Libya 7,570
64 Brazil 7,360
65 Namibia 7,120

66 Russian Federation 7,100
67 Colombia 7,040
68 Dominican Republic 7,020
69 Bulgaria 6,890
70 Grenada 6,740

71 Kazakhstan 6,500
72 Thailand 6,400
73 Tunisia 6,390
74 Samoa (Western) 6,180
75 Macedonia 6,110

76 Algeria 6,090
77 Iran 6,000
78 Gabon 5,990
79 Bosnia & Herzegovina 5,970
80 Turkey 5,890

81 Romania 5,830
82 Panama 5,750
83 Belize 5,690
84 Venezuela 5,670
85 Cape Verde 5,570

86 Dominica 5,520
87 St. Vincent & Gren. 5,330
88 Saint Lucia 5,260
89 El Salvador 5,260
90 Cuba 5,259

91 Paraguay 5,210
92 Fiji 4,850
93 Maldives 4,798
94 Guyana 4,690
95 Suriname 4,599

96 Peru 4,570
97 Guatemala 4,400
98 Ukraine 4,350
99 Swaziland 4,330
100 Turkmenistan 4,320

101 Lebanon 4,170
102 China 4,020
103 Jordan 3,870
104 Philippines 3,840
105 Jamaica 3,720

106 Albania 3,680
107 Morocco 3,600
108 Egypt 3,520
109 Syria 3,280
110 Ecuador 3,280

111 Vanuatu 3,190
112 Sri Lanka 3,180
113 Azerbaijan 3,090
114 Indonesia 2,940
115 India 2,840

116 Honduras 2,830
117 Kyrgyzstan 2,750
118 Armenia 2,650
119 Papua New Guinea 2,570
120 Georgia 2,560

121 Uzbekistan 2,460
122 Nicaragua 2,450
123 Lesotho 2,420
124 Djibouti 2,370
125 Bolivia 2,300

126 Zimbabwe 2,280
127 Ghana 2,250
128 Moldova 2,150
129 Viet Nam 2,070
130 Gambia 2,050

131 Angola 2,040
132 Mauritania 1,990
133 Sudan 1,970
134 Guinea 1,960
135 Solomon Islands 1,910

136 Pakistan 1,890
137 Comoros 1,870
138 Cambodia 1,860
139 Haiti 1,860
140 Bhutan 1,833

141 Mongolia 1,740
142 Cameroon 1,680
143 Togo 1,650
144 Laos 1,620
145 Bangladesh 1,610

146 Senegal 1,500
147 Uganda 1,490
148 C�te d'Ivoire 1,490
149 S�o Tom� & Principe 1,317
150 Nepal 1,310

151 Central African Republic 1,300
152 Rwanda 1,250
153 Tajikistan 1,170
154 Mozambique 1,140
155 Burkina Faso 1,120

156 Chad 1,070
157 Eritrea 1,030
158 Myanmar 1,027
159 Kenya 980
160 Benin 980

161 Congo 970
162 Guinea-Bissau 970
163 Niger 890
164 Nigeria 850
165 Madagascar 830

166 Mali 810
167 Ethiopia 810
168 Yemen 790
169 Zambia 780
170 Burundi 690

171 Congo, Dem. Rep. of 680
172 Malawi 570
173 Tanzania, U. Rep. of 520
174 Sierra Leone 470

Kamala Sarup is an editor of peacejournalism.com


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