The form of government determines the choices that beset a country and how to cater to the needs of general masses. The choice of population is excessively important and the events have indicated how these are to be handled. Every individual act involves a choice and these choices culminate in a collective choice that is always complex and requires a response that cannot be simplified.
In a pluralistic society such as Pakistan that would mean that the structures would have to be very complex. The difficulty is that economics methodology cannot be as the one that is employed in natural sciences as in economics the human element has somehow to be included.
Human motivations can only be understood by a degree of introspection and that is why economic requires a systematic not decentralisation of objective decision-making, but a subjective aspect that meets the aspirations of the people that would be affected. That means that the system has to go not in terms of decentralization but the new management concept of subsidiarizaton.
This simply embodies that the resources are to be provided by the authority that does so - provincial or Federal - but then the systematic evaluation requires not only the outcome of the resources provided, but also the accountability in case those objectives have not been met. It is in that sense that the loop is completed.
It was no wonder that the further away the project was from the approving the authority that responsibility was greatest. In other words, the autonomy was dependent on the governance factor for if the governance was fine, then the system of subsidiarization would play an effective part? The complexity that would increase there after was what would one do with the ones that have played poker with the system and abused it for personal benefit[s].
The work is thus dependent on subjective evaluation as well. On this subjective evaluation, one can determine the structures that might evolve. The local circumstances then would determine the general pattern of intervention for all kinds of structures are possible if the local aspirations are to be met. Based on these general responses, predictions can be made to identify general regressive and positive responses that would accrue.
This is not a simplistic intervention and neither is it based on a single calculus model of measurement that is at best pseudo-statistics. Appoint a project director and that will take care of all the matters. All projects beyond a certain cost shall have a feasibility study done. Why? Feasibility studies are not done on the assumption that the costs are more than a certain amount, but on the basis of technological requirements.
The more complex and intricate a project is, the more the requirement for determining where that kind of knowledge is and where can it be utilised for the furtherance of human aspirations and not some idiots view of how things ought to be. This will be crystal clear if you consider all the project directors that have been appointed so far and their inability to deliver.
To make matters more understandable, consider the drought programme and how it was implemented. The fault lies within and we keep on blaming the without. Keep on looking for blaming others. Why were the finances that utilized for the renovation of the room of the Chairman of the Planning Commission? Why were people employed here [relatives of the powers that be in the Planning Commission numbering 87] and why were transports purchased and each one of the top executives given an extra transport for their families?
Why was an accountant employed for this? I can go to each ministry and get you a can of worms that would be difficult to deny. Why do projects fail and this is one of the major reasons. So we have done what the others want us to do for different reason and used the perfectly sane interventions to do what we want to and justify the same. It is to be remembered that limited pattern predictions do not provide the answers to what is required to be done to achieve what we set out to do in 1947.
The subjective honest valuation is far superior to the mathematical precision that one is trying to do in a subject of development that inherently is conspicuously different to the 'marginal' concept of neo-classical economics. Costs in the neo-classical model reduced these to the use of differential calculus and econometrics later on did not help but worsened the situation.
Accounting controls never helped the system and the criminal element will always get by these stagnant controls-employed year in and year out. Repetition is but a signal of resignation and acceptance of nothing better can be found. Discarded alternatives is a different matter altogether for then one is questioning the very premise of decision-making and stating that the approving authority is ignorant of the other possibilities or probabilities.
Past decisions would then have to be re-evaluated and the choices exercised critically examined. An equivalence of knowledge and judgement would not be possible as was apparent when the Ehtasab and NAB bureaus came in to existence and perforce resolved to meet the issues on a singleton basis by trying to target politically. The doers were criminally treated by the ignorant, trying to determine what was corrupt in the innocent and the incorruptible whereas the corrupt were taken on the political bandwagon to meet the demands of the people.
Why not consider all this as part of a subjective phenomenon and consider the recent examples. Have we found a way out of sugar crises? The fault lies in the manner that we have objectively considered market for sweeteners whereas the fallout is because of the subjective factor called greed among the socio-economic class that classify themselves as entrepreneurs [bearers of risk].
Go to any economic zone and the difficulty that Papanek from the Boston University [the architect of the industrial policy during the Ayub regime] and a similar pattern will emerge. Time and again, the cronies or the well to do were given the license to do what they wanted to and robber barons were created as of public right in the textile industry, in the cement and in the edible oil sector.
There can be no private socio-economic forms the perception of other sciences becomes important. These can be in the realms of psychology, law, and the perceptions of liberty and justice. In all, the project works that have been determined so far there are no indications of how these will impact on the society and on the social conditions emanating and to emanate on the population in the country.
How can abstractions of money as the central role be taken to mean every aspect of a society? Humans cannot be crucified on a 'cross of gold' as the presidential candidate to an American election stated in 1946 [Jennings]. He was on the right track, but like everything else that is rejected by the powerful and the candidate lost the election.
As will be noted human action and reaction are constantly in play. The process is dynamic, which the last regime, despite being told in no uncertain terms of the 'moving goal post', refused to accept due to the servility that is found in the hangers on. The servile always win in such circumstances. Junket tours were organised to meet the go of the powerful and to prove that the servile were all powerful they even made a hash of all the presentations [see Davos I 2005-6] and the under-graduate work that was circulated there.
Decisions are to be formulated in a growing social system affected by uncertainty and the more uncertainty the bolder the strokes. Judgement and discretion are not uncertified management tools they are part and parcel of an economic system that is riddled with uncertainty.
There is a potential for error but that error, is unintentional and can be corrected, while the others are intentional errors and cannot be corrected. The potential for error has to be recognised. Entrepreneurship then determines the flux of everything - so back to humans. Prices do not give any cohesion to human actions for prices are supposed to be determined by the market force and where have market forces worked where criminals take charge as CEOs and as project directors.
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