It was bad enough that we made a mess of an already horrible system of selecting a King, now the Americans seem to be following in our footsteps. On a separate note, I for one cannot fathom the obsession we as a nation have with who the Americans elect as their president; the view that a different American president may be more positive towards Pakistan specifically or the Muslim world in general is at best a pipe dream. On the global landscape, for at least the last couple of decades, if there has been one constant - and for the record, economists love keeping things constant - it has been American foreign policy towards Muslim nations.
Before moving on, it is necessary to clarify the phrase "selecting a king"; particularly, on a lighter note, because I fear that not doing so may result in a vacation in the northern areas and I really don't like cold weather. To burst the balloon of those who immediately associated the phrase with the popular conspiracy according to which the Establishment selected and is pulling the strings of democracy - let me be clear, if at all that be true, then that is an improvement upon the defunct system called democracy.
My view that democracy was ab initio a defunct system is no secret. Essentially, there are only two classes, the rulers and the ruled - the latter constituting everybody else. So, in which universe does the ruled deciding who rules them even begin to make sense? Take the case of a corporation: only wealth decides the CEO, the minions don't vote to elect him. And whilst the debate on whether a country is similar to a corporation continues endlessly, I am in the "definitely" corner. Accordingly, as in the case of the corporation, wealth selects who rules a country.
How does wealth do that? Well that is a much longer debate and the preamble has already taken more than half the allotted space for this column. For the moment, let's keep it simple: wealth can buy everything. And to answer those who argue that wealth cannot buy happiness, a very apt joke answers that: it is better to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle!
Finally, we get to the key question for the day: what has making a mess of a defunct system got to do with the economy? Short answer: everything.
In the middle of a big time economic crisis, exaggerated by the worst pandemic to hit the globe in almost a century, the worst strategy would be to create more crises, especially of the political kind, by your action or inaction.
If I had already not used it, this article may well have also been titled Déjà Vu. The script, eerily enough, is exactly the same - and that's the third time around. The Government laments that the country is bankrupt, and the opposition insists that the elections were not free and fair. The Government showcases its economic policy successes using a certain set of indicators, and the opposition screams economic collapse using a separate set of economic indicators. Every time the Casino moves up or down, the opposition or the Government make claims. And despite the two set of indicators and ratio, external debt and total national debt keeps growing, and there is less and less of capital investment, both by the public sector and the private sector. No point elaborating further in detail; all of this is familiar enough for the readers to figure out the rest - as is, the electronic media dreams up one scandal after another on a daily basis.
And admittedly, this column is also once again repeating what was already written multiple times: stop creating more messes and focus on the economy - irrespective of the cost; but there is a good reason for that.
Which businessman in his right mind would want to invest in a long-term project in the current political mess? And if domestic entrepreneurs do not come forward, the economy is not getting out of the woods - irrespective of the quantum of FDI.
The incentives that the government may dream up and offer, even ignoring the FBR's capacity to marginalize each and every such incentive, are directed towards the reward side of the investment equation and do nothing to mitigate the risk. If you are the sixth person in a game of Russian roulette, holding a six shooter, and the rest of the five are still alive, what kind of incentive will coax you into shooting?
On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with the Government's narrative - but then Bane made sense too, on the face of it: "We take Gotham from the corrupt, the rich, the oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you - the people. Gotham is yours."
The Government needs to change the script. The country needs capital investment by the State and the private sector in agriculture and industry, big time. Fire fighting problems like inflation, even if succeeding, is not a long-term solution; neither is relying on workers' remittances and cheap oil. Whatever the cost, internal political rifts have to be put on the backburner - the economy is more important, and we are getting to the point where we may not have many more "Lives" left. Game over.
We have to stop continuously shooting ourselves in the foot!
(The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are personal. The views are not necessarily those of the newspaper)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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