Role of inclusiveness, education, technology, and governance for economic prosperity

Think of your family as a household unit. Keeping other factors constant, how can your family achieve economic prosperity? The key components are:

1. Earning More Income and Creating Wealth

2. Efficiently Managing Income and Wealth

By focusing on increasing their overall income and assets while practicing sound financial management, a family can become economically viable and prosperous, all else being equal.

Comparing a Family to a Country

How can a country earn more income and create more wealth?

The answer lies in several strategies:

Certainly! Here are the points with numbers:

1. Invest in Education and Skill Development with Inclusiveness

2. Improve Infrastructure

3. Develop Natural Resources

4. Increase Productivity and Innovation

5. Establish good governance

Early humans and wealth:

Let’s delve a bit deeper into how early humans created resources and wealth. The answer lies in their use of technology and skill development. Early humans used stones and sticks not only for defense but also to hunt for food. This demonstrates that technology and skills are fundamental prerequisites not only for survival but also for improving quality of life.

Skill Development through Education

Early humans were not educated, so their skills were also primitive. However, a period came when humans started developing their skills through education. Education has always been used to create capacity and a foundation for learning better and more sophisticated skills.

Unfortunately, the tools, means, and communication were not sufficient to provide education and skill development to a significant percentage of society. As a result, skill development remained rudimentary and could not be universalized without the engine and fuel of education.

Steam engine and the first industrial revolution

This universal backwardness and poverty persisted worldwide until the First Industrial Revolution began to erode these impediments with the help of inanimate energy through the steam engine. The invention of the steam engine made it possible to create more steam engines, factories, and trains for communication and transportation.

It’s important to understand that the first industrial revolution was not a product of scientists but the result of technical skills. The discipline of science was not as common in educational institutions as it became in the second and third quarters of the 19th century and afterward.

Advancements in education and industrial revolutions

Education, now based on scientific developments, created an environment and foundation for better and more sophisticated skills. This progression led to the 2nd, 3rd, and so-called 4th industrial revolutions, culminating in the Internet revolution—the greatest of all revolutions.

Inequality in society is a curse:

Consider how many people were engaged in scientific and technological developments during the 19th and 20th centuries. The number increased significantly, but the percentage of such individuals in society remained very low.

While exact data is unavailable, if we consider the populations of Western European countries, the United States, and other regions worldwide, the percentage of educated and skilled people was likely a fraction of 0.1% of the population.

Imagine if at least 10% of the world’s population had been provided with the environment and resources to receive a standard education and develop high-level skills based on that education. The development of anatural resources, including human potential, and economic growth would have been vastly different.

Hijacking of science, technology, and economic development

Unfortunately, science, technology, and economic development were often controlled by a small group of people in power. This concentration of power created a system based on inequality, exploitation of others’ potential, and injustice. Had this not been the case, scientific, technological, and economic developments could have been more advanced, even by the first quarter of the 20th century.

The same individuals who controlled these developments also contributed to global distortions and destruction through the First and Second World Wars. These wars not only destroyed natural resources and derailed economic progress but also led to the loss of millions of lives.

The absence of hot war:

Fortunately, since the end of the Second World War, we have experienced relative peace. This peaceful environment has allowed for the advancement of science and technology, leading to the age we are now in—the age of generative artificial intelligence.

Unfortunate people of Pakistan:

Pakistan has an estimated population of around 245 million. How many people among these 245 million have the opportunity to receive a standard education and develop skills based on that education? Article 25A of the Constitution mandates the State to provide ‘free’ and ‘compulsory’ education to all children aged five to sixteen. However, are the authorities ensuring compliance with Article 25A, or is it being flouted without consequence?

Those in power seldom discuss Article 25A of the Constitution. The judiciary does not seem to take responsibility for enforcing this fundamental right. Although all provincial assemblies have passed laws to enforce this right, they have neglected to implement them. What a pity!

The blind without brains:

Our ruling elite neither learn from history nor enforce fundamental rights and laws. Yet, every day they speak with baseless confidence, claiming to work for the people of this country. Why do they do this? The reason is that they are disconnected from the needs and struggles of the populace. They are selfish and opportunistic, with no genuine concern for the people’s hardships.

Increasing income and wealth:

Like a household, a country’s income and wealth can be increased by creating an inclusive environment where all people have access to standard education and skill development. The growth in income and wealth will always be proportional to the size of the educated and skilled population.

Can a family or a firm be productive, sustainable, and developed if only 10 to 20% of its members are skilled and working efficiently?

We must be abundantly clear in our minds that skills without high-tech education will always remain rudimentary, primitive, unproductive, and inefficient.

It is very simple: tricks and talk do not drive economic development. Only the inclusivity of the whole population, combined with high-tech education and skill development, can achieve true progress. Is this difficult to understand?

Generative artificial intelligence

The ruling elite fail to grasp the potential of generative artificial intelligence and the imminent creation of AI agents. In this age, education and skill development can be provided to individuals 24/7, anywhere, without much difficulty.

However, this requires diverting resources towards providing electricity through, inter alia, renewable sources and ensuring high-speed internet access.

Instead of investing in massive projects requiring billions of rupees, the leadership should first meet these basic requirements to increase income and wealth in the country.

Good governance:

Good governance acts as an umbrella, covering various aspects of administration. It requires:

• Digitization and Digitalization of all government processes, the judicial system, and economic transactions.

• Transparency, ensuring that every decision, action and expenditure is explainable to the public without the need for additional inquiries.

• Efficiency through the effective use of new technologies.

• Reduction of Rampant Corruption, which has eroded the dignity, performance, and efficiency of all institutions.

Inclusiveness

For true progress, those in power must liberate their minds, think independently, and view their people as human beings with inherent fundamental rights. Making society inclusive is crucial. The failed strategies of the past will not suffice.

Let us open our eyes and minds to unlearn what has been taught by unsuccessful western institutions and instead embrace the teachings of the globalization of Information, Knowledge, Research, Innovation, and Development (IKRID) and the Science-technology human power complex.

The lesson is clear; a country can increase its income and wealth only when its entire population is included in the development process and also becomes a beneficiary of that development, coupled with good governance, which ensures the best management of these resources.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024