Debating what to debate

Benigno, the Platform, plez advocate extraordinaire, might have exposed his vacuity as well as his phoney pet project on missing altogether the insights proffered by J_AG at mlq3’s. In his signature punditry, J_AG has posted:

The time will come when a more enlightened citizenry will outnumber the smaller vested interests that control the electoral process. But it will be in a mass movement that will affect changes in the electoral process itself.

That movement need not be based on numbers alone but with a critical mass of committed engaged citizens. Armchair revolutionaries need not apply.

The left shot itself in the foot and it continues to shoot itself in the foot. They have the correct analysis but do not have the solutions. Events will create the leadership for good or bad. Elections will not do it.

I am still kinda hoping that the little one makes a grab for authoritarian rule.

We need something to shake up this country again… What appears to be hubris on the part of GMA will naturally consolidate and hopefully a nemesis will arise.

Authoritarian rule from the right is more likely to happen. During the height of the Great Depression the right in the U.S. responded with massive reforms of the system to prevent the extreme left from taking over. There is no truly leftist party in the U.S.

The capitalists were saved and there grew a more secure institutionalized system where private capital and government integrated.

This version of rightist dirigist system still prevails in all the advanced economies of the world.

The Chinese model is one such example. The CCP is creating their own private capitalist to co-exist with parts of the state capitalist model.

It is not a proletariat based dictatorship. It is slowly transforming itself into a more dirigist model like the other more advanced economies of the world

Benigno has feigned to follow, but what’s come out of his usual riposte was plain naiveté. He was quick to point out the “lack of any meaningful platform among our crop of ‘candidates’” and state his thesis: presidentiables in the Philippines, or their political parties, actually stand for nothing.

Contrary to Benigno’s simple-minded pretext, mainstream politicians in the Philippines, presidentiables or not, invariably all stand for something, i.e., for conserving “market” and (procedural) “democracy.” Indeed, they are not expected to question the legitimacy of the dominant segment of the system in place or press for radical change of the current resource distribution. They debate, sometimes ferociously, but only within the range framed by their superordinates. Contained debates of such nature reinforce the system in place and ultimately are damaging to a people’s emancipatory project.

Now, what I understand J_AG is saying is that the era of fundamentalist market ideology is getting out of fashion fast even as the nanny State, in the French dirigisme tradition (a principally capitalist economy with strong government intervention), gets the upper hand “in more advanced economies of the world.” On the other hand, emergent global economy like China while obviously profiting from the phenomenon of the market is radically reinventing the capitalist wheel in the dirigist model.

In Framing the issues beyond personalities, a post of mine published by inq7.net on March 8, 2001 in connection with the May 2001 elections, I had occasion to expound “how certain issues could be framed for public debate away from the images of the candidates” in the following manner:

In other political societies like the United States or Great Britain, the starting framework is often the political party ideologies. In the US, for example, Republicans have a more market oriented philosophy than Democrats who favor government regulation of the economy. Hence, Republicans draw more support from business interests as well as from Protestants and professionals while democrats have disproportionate following from labor, blacks and urban dwellers. Similarly, the Britain’s Labor Party advocates for social welfare while the Conservative Party pursues laissez-faire agenda. There are of course many instances where political parties echo each other’s platform since many voters are either estranged ideologically or they find themselves at the center, in which case the image of the individual candidates would then matter. In any event, voters are at least presented with some threshold policy alternatives.

In the Philippines, major political parties are still highly ideologically identical; hence, electoral debates are mainly focused on the candidates’ personalities and fitness for office rather than on substantively differentiating public issues. In the towns and provinces, political contests have remained to be the same old squabbles of competing feudal politicians. But the success of some not rooted in political dynasties, a number of them are entertainment and sports celebrities, could be seen as nascent signs of shifting loyalties of the masses to traditional power and wealth. Erap could have been packaged in line with this apparent break from established allegiances.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s opening salvo two days after she was swept into power declaring that “democracy and the market will be the guiding principles of (her) domestic and foreign policies” has so far not been met headlong by any opposition party. In our forum, however, we had raised early on this issue as crucial to the process of nation building, urging that the new government should be able to define clearly the role of the government versus the market over the control of the so-called commanding heights. We thought that a national consensus should be formed to legitimize the resolution of this issue, instead of being simply handed down by the new government whose ascension to power has not been based on the strength of its partiality to either alternative. . . .

True to her market prejudice, GMA now in power taunted the business community: “It is you who will create the wealth, that will produce.” Whereas we, in our forum, have challenged the business class “to build and to compete” or to engage in aggressive profit maximizing capital investments instead of rent seeking—buying cheap and selling dear. . . .

By way of historical perspective, the remarkable growth of American industry at the end of the 19th Century was propelled by the monopolistic practices of unscrupulous industrial capitalists creating colossal family fortunes while forcing millions of wage earners to live in subsistence level. Later industrializing Japan pursued developmental strategy with the state determining what industries to exist and what were not needed. South Korea’s starting point for competing on the global stage was through officially sanctioned cronyism involving protectionism and government subsidies for the ultra diversified businesses, the chaebols . . . .

The big question then for the Philippines in its search for its own economic model could be: Can the country ever catch up in the race for economic progress by simply delivering the reins of the commanding heights to the market, allowing the market free play?

. . . As a corollary to the first question, if the market would be reined in and leading domestic industries were to be protected and subsidized by the State, how should such favored industries be disciplined in order to perform and compete globally? How could it be accomplished without transgressing WTO commitments and obligations? What are the ways big business could be made accountable to the community and to the environment?

Should small business be subordinated to big business in the meantime? If so, what would be the effects in the long term of such an approach to creativity, innovation, or inventiveness especially upon start ups? Is this the way to compete in the New Economy? Should the path rather be for the succession of start ups responding to market signals to drive the force into diversification?

Should workers and business be encouraged into a relationship of co- determination and participatory labor relations? And should the Left be welcomed wholeheartedly into the political theater ultimately to serve as the alternative political ideology? Or should the country pursue sustainable economic growth sans any ideology?

Of the several presidential aspirants today, it appears that (minus GMA) it is Mar Roxas who has on record tackled the mythical dichotomy between market and government which I have noted in the following blog entry:

Exclusive of the variable of individual hard work, self-sacrifice or initiative that Senator Roxas has thoroughly touched upon in his (Jaime V. Ongpin lecture in October 2005), the great debate on how to attain the Filipino good society is also focused, as the Wharton-educated politician is certainly supposed to be familiar with, on whether the vehicle to rely upon on the whole would be the government or the market.

Recall that President Arroyo had been straightforward on this issue at the very outset of her presidential career. “During my administration,” she announced at her first Vin D’Honor on January 21, 2001, “democracy and the market will be the guiding principles of my domestic and foreign policies” (although two years later, Arroyo flip-flopped in a dramatic way saying that “unbridled globalization is no longer in vogue,” globalization being meant, it would seem, as the agency that will carry the ball towards the utopia of the good society built around a free market).

On the other hand, presidential timber Mar Roxas showed his state-interventionist bent as a congressman at least as regards one critical piece of legislation, the Retail Trade Liberalization law: he was accused of inserting protectionist clauses in the law.

As Trade and Industry Secretary, Mar Roxas allowed another glimpse of where he could be on the ideological divide during a brush with then Finance Secretary Alberto Romulo on the question of giving government incentives to investors. Roxas saw “jobs generated,” as well as “foreign exchange” and “technology transfer” created by the incentives whereas Romulo decried the “foregone revenues.” And when Roxas perceived that the Philippine tuna has been subjected to tariff discrimination (by the US) in favor of the Latin American package, still as DTI Secretary he threatened (indeed a gutsy move by a former Wall Street investment banker) to withdraw Philippine membership from WTO.

Is there something more discernible about Mar Roxas’ predilections from his Jaime Ongpin memorial lecture? Let’s vet closer what he said:

Our social compact is premised on the basic idea is (sic) that if people put something into their life, they should get something reasonably gainful out of it. We all “bought” into this bargain and we look to the government as the chief implementer of the same. This is a simple but basic bargain that seems to work in meritocracies like the US and Singapore, but here in the Philippines, the gap between effort and output has steadily widened.

The first sentence I believe is a nuanced manifesto of economic liberalism (which argues that since men are the best judge of their own limits and capacities, it follows that the most rational use of the resources available to them will happen if they are allowed to follow their pursuits under conditions of free competition). This also dovetails with Mar Roxas’ conception of “leader and leadership (being) within us.” The second sentence which “look(s) to the government as the chief implementer of the (bargain)” is therefore a non sequitur (underscoring mine); it smacks of protectionism (or the old policy of mercantilism, the granting of special privileges to merchants and manufacturers to encourage the development of commerce and industry).

Shouldn’t the suggestion that the meritocratic system in the US and Singapore are normative bother us too? (In the US government subsidies to wealthy farmers or aircraft manufacturers are mind-boggling and Singapore, as is well-known, is a single-party government.)

What else did we learn from and about Mar?

Everywhere else in the world today, governments are gearing up to meet the challenges of the 21st century: the challenges of globalization, of integration, of achieving economies of scale. Nations are identifying and building up their comparative advantages—whether these be in agriculture, in manufacturing, or in high technology or science.

…

Or we can decide to truly make the domestic industry competitive: this will mean overhauling our thinking and premises on our economy. This will also mean adjusting our tariff policy, our energy policy, and our agriculture policy, among others.

Now, we are getting the point: government must meet the challenge of globalization in order “to truly make the domestic industry competitive ….”

If we haven not realized it yet, the phenomenon of globalization is the engine of turbocapitalism that is running over the traditional role of government in domestic affairs by the ascendancy of transnational forces erected around free market. Globalization sees the “withering away” of nation-states that surrender their powers to non-elected technocrats and rationalistic global actors like the IMF, WB, WTO and multinational players such as the TNCs. Globalization is therefore the antithesis of Rostovian developmentalism which relies upon governmental intervention “to provide the enabling, nurturing and invigorating environment within which private initiative and industry, meaning people taking responsibility for their lives, can grow and be properly rewarded,” to borrow the language of Senator Roxas

The equivocation of Mar Roxas on the market /government debate is quite understandable from the standpoint of a mainstream politician that he is. U.S. President Obama is no different; he said this on the campaign trail:

Well, look. I am a strong believer in the free market. I am a strong believer in capitalism. But, I am also a strong believer that there are certain common goods that you know — our air, our water, making sure that people are safe — that require us to have some regulation. Now, it has to be well designed.

But, the financial system is a classic example of a deregulation philosophy run amuck. And now, you see the consequences and ironically, had we had some sensible regulation, we would not have now, actually, a much closer approximation to socialism when it comes to the banking system, than anything that any Democrats have been proposing over the last several years. When you don’t guard against excess, then a lot of times government ends up having to step in anyway, in a much more burdensome way.

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