Going Deeper
Charting a developmental path for Bangladesh
IF one were to interrogate Walt Rostow's proposed theory of the stages of economic growth then the time to be taken by the developing countries in reaching stage of developed state would become indeterminate. This is because it stretches from pre-Newtonian traditional stage through preconditions of take-off and take-off stages with expansion of new industries to the fourth stage of "drive to maturity" in which economies broaden their base with advanced technology and complex process and finally arrive at the stage of mass consumption with culture, politics and ethics as prerequisites of economic performance.
Rostow's prescribed journey along the path of economic growth is not short. From pre-Newtonian traditional stage to the stage of mass consumption will need per capita real income to rise to a point at which consumption needs of a large section of the population have to move beyond basic needs. While writing his book in the fifties, Rostow could find only the US, West European economies, and Japan to have reached that stage.
"The term developed country or advanced country is used to categorise countries with developed economies in which the tertiary and quaternary sectors of industry dominate. This level of economic development usually translates into a high income per capita and a high Human Development Index. Countries with high GDP often fit the above description of a developed economy (Wikipedia)." Ordinarily countries having per capita income of at least $ 12000/- are considered as being high-income countries. While IMF identifies 31 countries in that category, the World Bank identifies 60, and the CIA 34, as advanced economies.
As the United Nations has more than 180 countries as members, one can imagine that the great majority of the world's population lives in underdevelopment, and millions as ultra-poor. In such a situation, the term "hidden hunger," that refers not to overt hunger of poor people who are unable to afford enough but a more insidious type caused by eating food that is deficient in essential vitamins and micronutrients, has a political connotation. The term denotes extreme poverty that remains undetected or unacknowledged.
In Bangladesh it is a matter of semantics, as famine, be it silent or overt, is nothing but widespread shortage of food caused by misguided economic policies. Amartya Sen, the proponent of "entitlement theory," notes that famine usually occurs under dictatorship or during war, and rarely under functioning democracy. Demography also plays an important role in food scarcity. Professor David Pimental of Cornell University has posited that the US population for a sustainable economy should not exceed 200 million, and to avert disaster the US should reduce its population by at least one-third. Such a conclusion ignores the contribution of the working population, which must increase in order to support the aging retirees who, due to quantum leap in medical sciences, have a greater life span than before, as well as the technological advances being made in the West contributing to human welfare.
Globally, however, soil contamination and loss of arable land coupled with increase in population will usher in an agricultural crisis that will adversely affect the political and socio-economic conditions. The North-South divide will be sharpened. The possibility of Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" may become a reality, and grinding poverty may deepen intra and international political crisis.
Geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer has predicted that coming decades could see spiraling food prices and massive starvation on a global level never seen before. Since countries like Bangladesh have very little room to maneuver, regional cooperation to get the benefit of instant assistance like food import, when necessary, at preferential price has to be ensured. If foreign policy is what we do and diplomacy is how we do it, then our diplomats at home and abroad should be encouraged to shed the colonial and post-colonial attitude towards our neighbours, and make friends with them and the diplomats of other countries.
In drawing up a preferential schedule for Bangladesh one has to face the difficult choice of choosing between an electoral democracy, despite doubts expressed by some quarters about holding of an election before the end of the year, and a quiet business environment necessary for the economic development of the country. Though Francis Fukuyama was somewhat hasty in declaring the victory of liberal democracy and market economy over other systems that failed to satisfy the global needs, perhaps, the greater part of the world remains to be convinced that capitalism would not mean capitalist imperialism through the exercise of power by major capitalist countries over less developed economies through the medium of multinational companies.
Indeed, it is difficult to ignore Immanuel Wallerstein's world system theory, which he defines as "world economy integrated through the market rather than a political center, in which two or more regions are interdependent with respect to necessities like food, fuel and protection, and two or more polities compete for domination without the emergence of one single center forever." The current world system is a power hierarchy between core and periphery, in which the powerful core dominates the less powerful periphery.
The question that agitates the mind of many is whether the global hegemon would allow others to pursue their economic agenda if there is the slightest threat to its interest. The irreverence shown to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, or the Rome Treaty on International Criminal Court, or the promulgation of the doctrine of preemption effectively categorising the Muslim community as terrorists (24 percent of the US citizens would not like to have a Muslim family as their neighbour), make it extremely difficult to chart its politico-economic goals without the "consent" of the West, regardless of the immutability of sovereignty written in the UN Charter.
Since our voice, unless joined with those of others, would sound faint, it would be in our interest to restore democracy at the earliest so that what we say in the global theater reflects not only the true will of a hundred and forty million people of Bangladesh but, at the same time, also shows the world that we are a disciplined nation which the international community can do business with.
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