A Good Game

Letter from Carlota Perez: 'The world is transformed by transforming it. And to transform anything one has to know how.'

2007-06-25T23:29:00.000+03:00

I will be moving out of Tallinn in a few days' time. I will definitely miss the sights, sounds, smell, taste, and feel of Tallinn (I don't even wear my iPod these days, trying to be present most of the time and cherishing the things that I'll miss - those that have had become a part of my routine in the last 10 months). Tallinn has taught me a lot - academically, professionally, and personally. Thank you, thank you, thank you! The Tallinn experience has indeed been a good game, and will have tremendous impact on the pursuit of my personal legend.

As I pack up my things and tidy up my files for my return to the Philippines and later on settling in Denmark for another upcoming adventure, I came across this letter to me by Carlota Perez, author of the longtime Edward Elgar bestseller Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (2002). To act as her teaching assistant on September 2006 was one of the best learning encounters I had in Tallinn. I have gotten to know closely a serious researcher, a dedicated teacher, and a truly lovely woman. I wish to share with you this thoughtful letter of Tita Carlota, instilling in me that idealism should be firmly grounded on wisdom and knowledge.

7 October 2006

Dear Bonn,

I read your letter now. It holds very similar views to your review and it is also very well written and argued. But of course you now know that I do not believe in those total transformations of the system.

We do not have any alternative theory to capitalism. Certainly Marx ended his critique of the system by saying that the workers should take over. That is not a theory of how to do it. Worse still, the foundations of that tenet are the socialization of the forces of production which he thought was occurring at the end of the second great surge. Many things have happened since then. Among other things his proposal was tried out and failed.

The Soviet experience showed how the workers (or the members of the party that says to represent them) become a privileged caste that uses power for its own aims and to control society but is not capable of setting up a social system of happiness for all. In my view, the best historical example of something really decent was the Swedish social democratic experience, but that (as much as the Soviet one and the Keynesian welfare state) was based on the characteristics of the mass production paradigm, which is now exhausted.

Thus we do not have a theory (or historical experiences) of how growth and social development can be achieved in a manner that is different from capitalism. We do have the experience of modifying capitalism as in the Keynesian welfare state to improve the lot of the great majority of society. I certainly believe in understanding the world in order to transform it for the better. My present understanding leads me to think that we can improve the present world with the present paradigm in ways that will make the lot of the majority of the people on the planet better.

It is not easy and it requires knowledge, knowledge and more knowledge; perseverance, perseverance and more perseverance; creativity, creativity and more creativity. It will not happen with anger, resentment, desperation, impatience, radical criticism or violence and destruction.

One cannot transform the world by "revealing" how awful it is and by wishing it were radically different. The world is transformed by transforming it. And to transform anything one has to know how.

I understand your impatience and I value the very serious efforts you are putting into studying and your acute sensitivity to injustice and inequality. I know, however, that personal experience is accumulated tacit knowledge that I cannot transmit to you. There is no other way than for you to learn for yourself through trial and error.

You can count on me in your journey.

Best wishes,
Carlota

One could just imagine how ecstatic I am receiving this reply from Carlota herself two years after I wrote it in the first instance only as a course requirement. I wrote my letter to her on September 2004 - the first time I read her book as a requirement in the course by J. Gabriel Palma when I was doing my International Masters in Regional Integration (IMRI) degree at the Asia-Europe Institute. Gabriel then required us to write a one-page 'think piece', a reflection of the assigned reading for each day. For that day, I chose to read her book and my 'think piece' style was in the form of a letter to the author. I read the letter in class. I read it again in Erik Reinert's course, as well as in Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka's and Carlo Pietrobelli's, professors who also required us to read her book. Here was the think piece I wrote:

20 September 2004

Dear Carlota Perez:

In your book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages (2002) you have reinvented Schumpeter's concern on financial capital that greatly influences economic growth and technological transformation by interpreting how the changing relationship between technological advances and financial capital shapes the pattern of economic cycles. Avoiding the technological determinist trap, you have argued on the historical specificity of technological revolutions, which represents what you call 'techno-economic paradigms', and showing the interaction among technology, politics, society and culture leading to certain economic pattern.

Providing a historical and empirical account of the link between technology and finance, you have interpreted in detail the major historical breakthrough depicted in what you call 'techno-economic paradigms' that initiated the revolution: the industrial revolution (1771); the age of steam and railways (1829); the age of steel, electricity and heavy engineering (1875); the age of oil, the automobile and mass production (1908); and the age of information and telecommunications (1971). In this long-wave economic cycle phenomenon, you have focused on the crucial role played by social and institutional factors in first resisting the technological revolution, and then facilitating its unfolding potential.

An interesting point you have also made in your book is your distinction between production capital and financial capital not along the lines of the quantity of assets but on the motives and criteria of the agents with the purpose of creating wealth in a capitalist system. In the epilogue, you have recommended for the leadership of production capital (i.e., agents who generate new wealth by producing goods and services and whose objective is to accumulate greater and greater profit-making capacity) over financial capital (i.e., agents who already possess wealth and whose objective is to make money grow).

Far from being revolutionary (i.e., changing the social structure from the unjust domination of capital to a more humane one), you have concluded the need to (re)create institutions that are coherent for continued capital accumulation. While you may have aptly utilized historical-structural analysis in interpreting the dynamics of economics, you seem to fail in putting the social back in to your overall analysis. There is little doubt that the dynamics between technological revolution and financial capital throughout history, and which lead us to the current information society, have made major impacts on the relations between human beings and their environments across different social groups. However, it is in ways that largely enhance, and even recompose, existing relationships in a capitalist system. I am thus interested in asking 'how is the political economy of social relations shifting under the impact of market-led technological revolution?' What are the consequences of technological revolution, and its corresponding economic pattern, in the realm of corporate control and popular use?

I would like to think that the dynamics between technological revolution and financial capital entail both an institutional and ideological intervention toward the strengthening of market-driven social relations. Institutionally, market forces are managed through privatization (i.e., the sale of public assets to private investors), liberalization (i.e., opening up of restricted markets to competition), the reorientation of regulation (i.e., the securing of business interest), and corporatization (i.e., public sector organizations adopting corporate form of organization). In your book, you have questioned socio-political institutions without even questioning the political economy of capitalism in which the information revolution has brought rising inequalities of condition. The widening of social divisions is resonated in ownership of and access to technology and finance. The great unconsummated project of our time is not just to interpret reality but to change it.

Thank you,

BONN BRYAN T. JUEGO
IMRI Student (Philippines)

Carlota gave me a present - an original copy of her book which she personally used in her course at Tallinn University of Technology with the following dedication: 'To Bonn Juego - With good wishes for a brilliant future (30 Sept. 2006)'. Thanks for the inspiration, Tita. Thank you for being part of my nurturing. I'd definitely love your presence in my journey - your valuable accumulated tacit knowledge shall provide a firm grounding on my youthful idealism.

Erik Reinert (2007), 'How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor'

2007-06-18T00:39:00.000+03:00

The new book of my supervisor, Erik S. Reinert, is now available at (online) bookstores: How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor (London: Constable, 2007). I am reproducing the details of the book below.

It is fascinating how this book has sparked both intense and intensive debates in economics, business, and the social sciences already, given that it was only published late April. Find out for yourself why Erik's book has elicited interesting debates as soon as it was published from mainstream economists to heterodox economists to socialists to journalists to bloggers. (Here for Erik's reply to recent debates on his book.)

Do get one for you and for your institutes/organisations/networks/schools/libraries!

*****
HOW RICH COUNTRIES GOT RICH ... AND WHY POOR COUNTRIES STAY POOR
by Erik S. Reinert

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AUTHOR

Erik S. Reinert is editor of Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (2004) and co-editor of The Origins of Development Economics: How Schools of Economic Thought Have Addressed Development (2005). He is Professor of Technology Governance and Development Strategies at Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia, and president of The Other Canon foundation in Norway. He is one of the world’s leading heterodox development economists.

For further information see www.othercanon.org.

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SYNOPSIS

From Renaissance Italy to the modern Far East, the development of the world’s wealthy nations has been driven by a combination of government intervention, initial protectionism, and the strategically timed introduction of free trade and investments. So says Erik Reinert, a leading economist who does not subscribe to the orthodoxy. Yet despite its demonstrable success, when it comes to development in the poorer nations, Western powers have largely ignored this approach and have taken the toughest of hard lines on the importance of free trade.

Reinert sets out his revisionist history of economics and shows how the discipline has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition on one hand and the free market theories of English and later American economics on the other. He argues that our economies were founded on protectionism and state activism and it was long before they could afford the luxury of free trade. When our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of mass affluence.

One country’s medicine could be another country’s poison. A book aimed at a politically aware and progressively minded readership, How Rich Countries Got Rich . . . will bury economic orthodoxy once and for all and open up the debate on why free trade is not the best answer for our hopes of worldwide prosperity.

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CONTENTS

Foreword by Jomo K.S., UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development and Founder Chair of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs)

Introduction

1 Discovering Types of Economic Theories
2 The Evolution of the Two Different Approaches
3 Emulation: How Rich Countries Got Rich
4 Globalization: the Arguments in Favour are also the Arguments Against
5 Globalization and Primitivization: How the Poor Get Even Poorer
6 Explaining Away Failure: Red Herrings at the End of History
7 Palliative Economics: Why the Millenium Goals are a Bad Idea
8 'Get the economic activities right', or, the Lost Art of Creating Middle-Income Countries

Appendices

I David Ricardo's Theory of Comparative Advantage in International Trade
II Two Different Ways of Understanding the Economic World and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations
III Frank Graham's Theory of Uneven Development
IV Two Ideal Types of Protectionism Compared
V Philipp von Hönigk's Nine Points on How to Emulate the Rich Countries (1684)
VI The Quality Index of Economic Activities

Notes
Bibliography
Index

(365 pages)

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PRAISES

'Reinert forces you to think. He reaches deep into economic history and the history of economics - the history of theory, practice and policy - creatively synthesizing an evolutionary, institutionalist, new 'canon', putting technological progress and production experience - 'learning by doing' - at the centre of economic development. '

- Jose Antonio Ocampo, UN Undersecretary General for Economic and Social Affairs

'Warning: this book will forever change your conception of economic development.'
- Professor Carlota Perez, Tallinn University of Technology and Cambridge University

'Disinters those awkward truths the free trade theorists wanted dead and buried. Reinert's brilliant forensics rebuild a convincing economic blueprint for tackling world poverty.'
- Alex MacGillvray, author of A Brief History of Globalization

'Erik Reinert's book represents a breakthrough in our understanding of the links between technology and the wealth and poverty of nations.'
- Christopher Freeman, Professor Emeritus, SPRU, University of Sussex

'A fascinating overview of how contemporary economics came to follow its historic path, and of a different route it might have, and may still yet, pursue.'
- Robert Heilbroner, on Reinert's 'The Role of the State in Economic Growth'

Dengan Cemerlang / With Distinction / Summa cum laude

2007-04-22T22:57:00.000+02:00

The European Union education system has finally recognised the International Masters degree (with distinction) conferred to me by the Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya. As such, I am now eligible to pursue doctoral studies in any European university.

After receiving the call in the office from the credentials evaluator of the academic recognition centre, I had a look at the diploma and transcript of records which I submitted to them for assessment. I glanced at the diploma in an offhand manner. Nothing special; and I thought it was even printed in an ordinary paper. What struck my attention more was that the paper was a bit crumpled due to the careless handling of the courier despite my friend Tina's (who I know to be very particular and caring) all caps notice to the courier in Malaysia when she mailed it to me here in Estonia: ‘PLS. DON'T FOLD. IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS INSIDE. THANK YOU!’

When I got back to the dorm, I thought of sending emails to my former professors - each of them has actually made an original contribution to their respective fields, making them to be among the world’s most distinguished scholars in the fields of development economics, regional integration, and political economy. I sent emails to them, expressing all over again my gratitude to the wonderful learning encounters I had with them when I was doing my MA, and also sharing with them the honour of receiving the ‘dengan cemerlang’, which is truly special to title-obsessed societies like Malaysia.

I never consider myself a great student. In fact, I had each and every mark in the University of the Philippines’ grading system encircled in my undergraduate classcards, from 1.0 to 1.75 to 2.25 to 3.0 to 4.0 to 5.0 to ‘inc’. The only grade I never had was ‘drp’ since I always said to myself then ‘tuloy ang laban’ (the fight shall continue) even though I could have handily opted for this grade when getting a 5.0 in Math 17 was already too imminent. I still keep all these undergraduate classcards in my ‘suitcase of memories’ (which is literally a suitcase where I have tried to keep memorable stuff since elementary and high school - and yes, including those cheesy love letters to my old crushes!). I was not in the top 10 of the graduating class in both elementary and high school. I had also my time in Row 4 (yes, that row for the slow, naughty pupils in the class!), kasama ng mga kakosa ko (with my fellow inmates), our groins always got pinched when I was in grade school. I did not even come from the top section in our high school when I graduated.

I received awards of recognition for leadership though for both the graduations in high school and college - as the highest boy scout leader in the former and as member of the student council and leader of several student organisations in the latter (I was even nominated to the UP Diliman Gawad Chanselor Para sa Pinakamahusay na Lider Estudyante [UP Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Leader] which, I was told, I could have won had it not for the ‘inc’ I had during that semester – long story). But then I do not consider myself to be academically excellent. During the time he was president of UP, my former professor, Francisco Nemenzo, even described me as ‘flippant at times’ in one of the ‘handwritten’ recommendation/reference forms he filled out for me. (Yes, I've kept that recommendation letter in my suitcase)!

In other words, getting a ‘summa cum laude’ for my International Master’s degree feels too good to be true, if not funny enough. Until I received replies from my former professors.... And these lines flattered me but saddened me as well (especially when this wonderful and passionate teacher said his teaching stint is now over):

Dear Bonn,
…[T]he honorific "dengan cemerlang" is entirely merited - whatever...you went through in...Malaysia could never take away from the fact, pure and simple, that you are an outstanding scholar with a tremendous passion for knowledge. You deserve everything, Bonn!
Though you are in my heart for many reasons - not least your high-level monkeying around - I also realise that you were my last great protege as a student and, if I may say so, the best of the bunch. Sometimes I pass a few moments thinking of those whom I have taught - [IP, LC, AN, DK, RR], and the rest. They're all in the academic world, ploughing their furrow, teaching a new generation, writing their findings. But you were the best and you will go furthest in pushing our understanding of critical political economy. I feel my teaching stint is done ... time for other things now.

Thanks for the very kind words, Professor, especially for the reminder that what has been awarded to me is full of meaning. I'll try to carry on. Now I have understood more than ever why my mother was disappointed to learn that I did not attend the convocation to receive this distinction. I have once again discovered how the mundane can be extraordinarily special, how one thing can contain everything, and how the commonplace can be deciphered to understand its beautiful mystery.

I had a sentimental glance at the diploma, embraced it close to my heart thanking those who have blessed, helped, and motivated me, including the Malaysian people, especially the workers, whose sweat has cultivated and fertilised me with so much blessings. And I said to myself that I will never look at that crumpled paper indifferently again! It is a token readily retrievable from memory to keep me inspired especially during times of doubt when a dormant optimism needs to be awakened. Indeed, like any other objects, that piece of crumpled paper is inanimate. It is I who shall give life to it.

Well-meaning friends and family often ask me: Why Malaysia when I could get to Singapore? Why Estonia when I could get to the UK or the US? I thank Robert Frost for providing the answer:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

P.S. The other day I received another beautiful inspiring letter from my first ever boss and former professor, who is well-regarded as a serious scholar with multi-awarded research and who recommended me to do my MA at the Asia-Europe Institute.

Dear Bonn,
It looks like you're living a charmed and charming life out there getting to places we can only imagine and meeting all kinds of interesting and important people. You also work with a very solid core of scholars who are on the cutting edges of unorthodox but compellingly relevant academic and policy approaches to the social sciences.

Indeed, we grow and progress in life remembering what motivates and inspires us, and forgetting the old things of no value that have once stolen our dreams. This, I – we – must take to heart and keep in mind. This is how to play a good game dengan cemerlang, with distinction.

A Meaningful Easter in this Wonderland

2007-04-08T17:17:00.000+02:00

During the Holy Week I've been writing to friends that I felt the Holy Week more when I was in the predominantly Muslim country of Malaysia a couple of years ago than here in the predominantly Lutheran Estonia. But after some heartfelt encounters I had with an old working woman in the laundry on Holy Wednesday and Maundy Thursday, I could say I have not only 'felt' the spirit of Lent here, I have soulfully 'experienced' it. This heartwarming experience I hold between me and my God. I go BAGETS for the Holy Week; thanks to a reminder from Fr. Jerry Orbos, whose reflective message I also forwarded to family and friends for Lent: Balik Panginoon, Alis Galit, Gawa Mabuti, Express your love, Tanggal Bisyo, Sacrifice, Smile, Secret. I thus keep these things a secret, something between me and my Master. As Fr. Jerry wrote:

S-Secret: If you want to experience real joy, do all of the above in secret. Let it be something just between you and your God, and you’ll experience a joy which the world cannot give or take away. Come to think of it, maybe this is the reason I started this column with a note about being a secretary—a reminder to keep our Lenten project of transformation and communication a secret.

As I am not familiar with the changes in the schedule the church here made in observance of the Holy Week, I thought of dropping by the church yesterday to see whether an English mass would be celebrated. There I found myself as the only member of the faithful, aside from the two guys fixing some decorations in the altar. I knelt down and stayed awhile for some quiet moments. I then proceeded to the bookstore where I found myself holding Lewis Carroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass (1871). I bought it, as well as Jorge Luis Borges' The Mirror of Ink (1933) -- both I intend to read when I leave Tallinn and travel around Europe in the next few weeks.

I am a child again. I have started reading Alice in Wonderland this Easter Sunday. I am enjoying it. The book has both pictures and conversations! As Alice said to her sister at the beginning of the book: 'and what is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?' This line immediately hit me, and made me smile, being reminded of those moments when I used to candidly say to my bookworm friends that I don't read novels because I find them too long and all letters! But then a friend once teased me during one of our trips to Puerto Galera when she caught me relaxing in my cottage holding a heavy read, and she said to me: 'Why are you reading Marx on the beach?!'

Thus far, I have now encountered several characters in Alice's Wonderland. The first was the White Rabbit with pink eyes (whose figure is also the illustration in Chapter One) which ran close by Alice uttering, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!', and taking a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket. To her burning curiosity seeing for the first time a rabbit with a waistcoat-pocket and a watch, Alice followed the White Rabbit and there she found herself down the rabbit-hole to experience the adventures in wonderland. (Interestingly, since this classic work the image of a 'white rabbit' in many folklore has been related to a sign of a new adventure and even good luck.)

Upon searching for e-cards to send to friends this morning I have noticed that the images and symbols that are associated with Easter include eggs, flowers, ducks or hens, rabbits or bunnies, and crucifix or the risen Lord. I am reminded of the Philippines where most people observe the Lent in the sorrowful passion of Christ, and hence the images of the cross and the performance of various penance. In other countries, however, Lent is observed with symbols of eggs, flowers and bunnies, which may appear to some to be only about a celebration of the glorious moment of Easter without the sorrowful mystery of the season. I do not want to go deeper into a discussion of this seeming difference in observance of Lent in various places and its implications for peoples' worldviews.

Cultural symbols signify a great deal about the way of life and thinking of people in a given territory. But I must also hasten to say: cultural symbols are not only bounded in space, or in a given territory, but also in time. It is sad to think that important cultural symbols that can be said to comprise a 'good life' only take the spotlight during occasional specific time frames (e.g., the images of rabbit and the risen Lord are only prominent during Lent). Such is the tragic case in my dear country. Rather than being truly integrated into the lifeworld of people, the symbols of Easter -- which all point to the virtues of faith, hope, and love -- will be corrupted by the vicious curse of the materiality of the political economy of poverty and plutocracy. The reason ain't mystery, it's history: people's way of living, or their happiness, is profoundly link to the wider material and social world.

After reading the first chapters of Alice's Wonderland, I flicked through the last pages of the book and there I found this beautiful and timely letter from Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, which I am reproducing here. I imagine this letter to have been written to me, both as a child of my dear mother and as a child of the struggle for change. Too, I wish I could have written these lines to the children of the world, especially the hopeful children in the Land of the Morning, the Pearl of the Orient, my dear country, Pilipinas. Sadly, like many other classic works, Carroll's story endures but the impact of its message is obscured in the history of human relations. Written in the spring exactly 131 years ago, we may cry a la Alice, becoming 'Curiouser and curiouser' and later on find ourselves swimming through the pool of tears we have had wept in the course of our adventures in this wonderland we call our world. But then again, it is the challenges and adventures, and our reflection upon our past, present, and future, that make life worth living.

An Easter Greeting
TO EVERY CHILD WHO LOVES
Alice

DEAR CHILD - Please to fancy, if you can, that you are reading a real letter, from a real friend whom you have seen, and whose voice you can seem to yourself to hear, wishing you, as I do now with all my heart, a happy Easter.

Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling, when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window — when, lying lazily with eyes half-shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or waters rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one’s eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark — to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend who sends you the beautiful sun?

Are these strange words from a writer of such tales as Alice? And is this a strange letter to find in a book of nonsense? It may be so. Some perhaps may blame me for thus mixing together things grave and gay; others may smile and think it odd that any one should speak of solemn things at all, except in Church and on a Sunday: but I think — nay, I am sure — that some children will read this gently and lovingly, and in the spirit in which I have written it.

For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into two halves — to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as to mention Him on a week-day. Do you think He cares to see only kneeling figures and to hear only tones of prayer — and that He does not also love to see the lambs leaping in the sunlight, and to hear the merry voices of the children, as they roll among the hay? Surely their innocent laughter is as sweet in His ears as the grandest anthem that ever rolled up from the 'dim religious light' of some solemn cathedral?

And if I have written anything to add to those stores of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame and sorrow (as how much of life must then be recalled!) when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows.

This Easter sun will rise on you, dear child, feeling your 'life in every limb', and eager to rush out into the fresh morning air — and many an Easter-day will come and go, before it finds you feeble and grey-headed, creeping wearily out to bask once more in the sunlight — but it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the 'Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings'.

Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this — when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters — when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day — and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

Your affectionate friend,

LEWIS CARROLL
Easter 1876

I could so well relate to this letter. I have discovered the child in me again. This, especially, I personally dearly miss:

Do you know that delicious dreamy feeling, when one first wakes on a summer morning, with the twitter of birds in the air, and the fresh breeze coming in at the open window—when, lying lazily with eyes half-shut, one sees as in a dream green boughs waving, or waters rippling in a golden light? It is a pleasure very near to sadness, bringing tears to one’s eyes like a beautiful picture or poem. And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark — to rise and enjoy another happy day, first kneeling to thank that unseen Friend who sends you the beautiful sun?

And this, particularly, for all the children of the 'Sun of righteousness', I earnestly pray:

...[B]ut it is good, even now, to think sometimes of that great morning when the 'Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings'.

Surely your gladness need not be the less for the thought that you will one day see a brighter dawn than this — when lovelier sights will meet your eyes than any waving trees or rippling waters — when angel-hands shall undraw your curtains, and sweeter tones than ever loving Mother breathed shall wake you to a new and glorious day — and when all the sadness, and the sin, that darkened life on this little earth, shall be forgotten like the dreams of a night that is past!

Wishing you and your families all the blessings Easter brings. May we all keep the Easter virtues of faith, hope, and love alive in our hearts. And may we not forget that the greatest of them all is love. Let the invincible love in us conquer the alienating curse of wickedness, anger, hatred, and fear haunting many of us.

Have a meaningful Easter down the rabbit-hole in our adventures for the good life in this wonderland!

A Practicum on Racism (Apologies for Expletives)

2007-03-04T16:12:00.000+02:00

Within a 15-hour period I have had experienced two quite different racist affronts. Last night and this morning. In the streets of Europe. Neither subtle nor hidden. Both received doubly just responses from me. The hatred of these three pale, smelly, filthy, drunkard, aggressive skinhead hooligans backfired on them -- receiving sharp blows they deserve from a force of justice. Educated activists like me always carry with us the swords of justice, ready to avenge whatever insults and offset injustice in all its forms.

Last night at around half past seven in Viru Keskus (perhaps the most popular mall in Tallinn). I met with MQ, a new Filipino resident in Estonia with years of international experience in the shipping industry. On our way out of the mall to have some drink in the Old Town, I sensed somebody passing through my back and uttering some Chinese sounding prattles 'ching-chong-chang'. Nagpantig ang tainga ko (I didn't like what I heard)! It irritated me and instantly reminded me of the racist insult Shaquille O'Neal made in a press conference towards Yao Ming over a couple of years ago. I said 'Kupal 'to ah!' (Such a smegma!); and then I looked back and saw this six-foot-something youngster looking drunk, face gone red, wearing a bonnet on his way up already on the stairs. Our eyes met, I gave him a tiger look and I said to his face 'Hoy, kupal!' and threw a dirty finger at him. He did not react.

This morning at around half past eight. I was with MQ again. We didn't have any plans to go wherever -- just to have a walk. But we happened to pass through this very controversial, highly sensitive monument which has long been a source of serious conflict between the two social groups in Estonia -- the local Estonians and the Russian-speaking community. The monument, often referred to as 'Bronze Soldier', depicts a bronze figure of a lone Soviet soldier with the hammer and sickle emblem behind its head. It was erected in 1947 and said to be in memory of the soldiers who died fighting for the USSR against the Nazis. For some though, this 'soldier-liberator' recognition of the monument defies the real history of Estonian independence because it actually is a tricky relict perpetuating Russia's historical denial. It becomes even more contested because it stands right at the very heart of the city of Tallinn. The issue holds resemblance to the revival of Japan's denial to admit the excesses of its military occupation during World War II with the recent controversy provoked by the categorical pronouncement of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of the absence of proof to warrant Japan's guilt on sex slavery. Interestingly, if not contemptuously, I remember reading in the news that people from both the opposing camps even sent their respective appeals to US President George W. Bush to intervene either for the removal or retention, depending on whose interest, of the monument during his state visit in Estonia on November 2006 (To my mind, what a brazen sell-out of sovereignty!). Such implies the intensity and complexity of this convoluted issue that involves questions of history, ethnicity, legality, politics, and even psychology.

Going back to the story....When we reached the monument premises, MQ took pictures of the monument with some colourful flowers on the ground. There were two other people in the area who we later learned to be mediapeople from the Latvian national television, taking videos of the monument. While we were chatting with the media reporter I noticed three girls who drew closer to the monument but then left the place immediately. After a few minutes, MQ and I decided to go on with our walk around the Old Town. Just about a few meters away from the monument there were two guys walking opposite our lane. And suddenly one guy did a side step towards our path and then spat in front of us! I then reacted and said 'gago 'to ah'! (Such a hooligan!) At first I thought it was not intentional and then I looked back at the two with a frown on my face and with angry eyes. I made eye contact with the spitting guy and he said 'fuck off'! I fired back at him with a louder shout than he did, 'fuck off'! I then threw a dirty finger at him. Both of them proceeded their way and didn't react on my cursing hand gesture. MQ and I continued our walk to the intersection and while we were waiting for our turn at the traffic light we looked back at the two racist nutheads and we saw one of them splattering liquids from the plastic bags they were carrying onto the monument and the flowers (We suspect it was urine). The spitting guy confronted the woman reporter from Latvia with whom MQ and I had a nice chat. While the spitting guy was barking at the Latvian reporter his left hand was trying to block the video camera, which the reporter's cameraman switched on to capture this berserk spitting guy, who I also saw, to have splashed some liquid on the camera. A very sad scene indeed, not only of racism but, based on my conception, of an excessive nationalist sentiment.

While we were walking through the Old Town and turned our backs on the ugly sight of fascist bullying going on a few meters from us, I told MQ how disgusted I am. A father that he is with a military training as well, MQ had been sober all throughout our bad experience from lost souls. MQ said to me that he understands them. I, too, understand them.

The first incident last night with the 'ching-chong-chang' youngster I could easily bear. But the hooligans who spat on our path warrant the painful consequence of their uncivilised acts! I feel I do not deserve such treatment -- and nobody has the right and the arrogance to demean any human being in this world. In my half a year residence in Estonia I have paid my dues to this society. I have had contributed in my own little ways to the development of its education system and to policy advice for its economic development. I pay taxes to the government, give donations to the church, and I even enrolled my bank account to this system in which a certain amount of my purchase goes to charity every time I use my ATM. How I wish I am doing these endeavours to my country, where my home is and my heart truly belongs; and to the millions of my fellow citizens, whose blood and sweat gave me the privilege of a wonderful education from the premier university. Some may think I had stooped down to the levels of these hooligans so young to waste their lives finding meaning in the meaningless pursuit of racism and fascism. But I feel I have given justice to myself, and been able to assert justice over unjust bullying. When we let bullies do their way, they will always contrive to do their way. Justice is there to offset any injustice.

In my first few weeks here in Estonia I have felt how difficult it is for activists like me to live in this young republic. Almost all of the issues of concern of activists and NGO workers are alive here: a neo-liberal economy, a government very supportive of the US coalition of the killing, xenophobia, homophobia, ecological degradation, racism, trafficking of women, increasing HIV-AIDS incidence, petty crimes, etc. True that these issues can be found in almost all societies in this world. But for such a small country, for such a developing economy, for such a young republic like Estonia the intensity and scope of these social (i.e., political, economic, cultural, ecological, gender) issues and ills are extremely alarming for its developmental trajectory as a polity, as an economy, and as a society. For a few years now, before I venture into any challenges I am about to face in life, I say to myself: 'Don't go there if your heart is not strong'.

Do not get me wrong that I do not like this country. I consider the incidents I encountered as isolated cases. A traveller always has to satisfy two thirsts which one cannot long neglect without drying up: admiring and loving. At the end of the day, despite this mad experience of an intolerable reality, I could still feel that happiness, love, and justice are still intact in myself, rediscovering the memory of the beauty of Estonia and its people that has never left me.

The more I experience human-relations-among-different-races-turning-out-badly the more I get to know myself that my mind and my heart could really not tolerate injustice. The advocacies I believe in are not only for a living, they are part of me. Three incidents abroad in the past come to mind. First, in Malaysia I almost hit a drunk man in his face when he cursed my friend in a Chinese language, a really foul cuss word I understood which my friend did not. Thanks and no thanks to my classmates in Malaysia who taught me the cuss words in Chinese and Bahasa Melayu. But much thanks to my classmate who timely pulled my arm to prevent the Manny Pacquiao super punch to hit him and brought me back to sober senses. Second, in Singapore I reacted when this vendor at Lucky Plaza said to me and to my friend: 'You Filipinos you just ask and ask, but you don't buy....' I did not let him got away with it and I answered back, 'Don't be a racist and say Filipinos are this and that'! Third, in Kuala Lumpur's red light district of Bukit Bintang with my international classmates, a pimp was offering us 'young girl, young girl'. I first confronted him and said to him: 'That's disgusting'! He kept on repeating: 'What? What? What?' I also kept on saying: 'That's disgusting'! And then, I said to him, 'We work for a human rights organisation'! He eventually backed off and left the place. Saying 'That's disgusting' has always been my line every time I've been confronted by pimps. I have also done this in Bangkok and in Tallinn.

I am quite versed in the issues related to racism. But racism is stranger in personal experience than in texts. The 'personal is political' dictum of the feminists also applies to the issue of racism. That is to say, one can only fully understand the politics of racism through personal experience. Most of the time racism does not know the victim's class background, academic knowledge, economic status, and professional experience; it only knows colour and physical attributes. Poverty exacerbates it. The history of colonialism, manifested in both material and extra-material aspects, deepens and perpetuates it, letting this monster celebrate its orgies in haunting generations by generations into a world replete with people doomed to die as if they have not lived. I wish that rather than setting up hatred against racist acts done to anyone, the sensibility for meaningful coexistence can strike any human being in the face! Education is key to stopping this vicious assault to humanity, especially in the wisdom offered by the fields of history, anthropology, psychology, geography, sociology, philosophy, politics, arts and humanities.

I cannot say that my acts have instantaneously succeeded in offseting injustice with justice. After all, the spitting hooligans proceeded to harass the Latvian mediapeople even after I showed them I could not be swayed by their bullying pretence. I could only hope that my not being silent at those morally intolerable moments of exchanges with the 'ching-chong-chang' youngster and the spitting hooligans have made them felt the jolt utterly necessary to awaken their souls and realise the indomitable humanity long been slumbering in the nightmare of the dead generations. To paraphrase Marx, the history of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare in the brains, hearts, and souls of the living and the generations yet to come. I could only hope that one day the nightmare of the dead generations of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and all the other tyrants, with their shared worldview of unequal humanity that led to our history of people striving for superiority rather than equality, comes to an end as soon as possible. We all have to work together so as the entire humanity be soon reconciled to what we have always been -- peaceful, loving, and beautiful human beings.

I let these lines from the philosopher Albert Camus in his essay 'Return to Tipasa' (1950) speak for me as a way of concluding this reflective post, lines which are even more apt as a reminder to our time not only in the context of Europe:

'For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving. All of us, today, are dying of this misfortune. For violence and hatred dry up the heart itself; the long fight for justice exhausts the love that nevertheless gave birth to it. In the clamour in which we live, love is impossible and justice does not suffice. This is why Europe hates daylight and is only able to set injustice up against injustice. But in order to keep justice from shrivelling up like a beautiful orange fruit containing nothing but a bitter, dry pulp, I discovered once more...that one must keep intact in oneself a freshness, a cool well-spring of joy, love the day that escapes injustice, and return to combat having won that light....In the middle of winter, I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer'.

To be for justice. To be for hope. To be for love.

A Curious Blend of Good Luck and Bad Luck: The Culture of Political Economy, or the Political Economy of Culture

2007-02-03T02:22:00.000+02:00

'You have a curious blend of good luck and bad luck', said my supervisor, Erik S. Reinert, over the phone on my birthday (17 January) referring to my adventures here in Europe since I left the Philippines on September 2006. 'A curious blend' indeed – some doors have had been closed over the months but not without opening great windows of opportunities!

At the beginning of the new year I sent messages to my family and friends with the theme 'Life is a game of forgetting and remembering'. We win the game when we remember what motivates us, what inspires us, what has helped us, what has made life worthwhile; and when we forget the old things that have stolen our dreams. We lose the game when we remember the things of no value, the things gone and will never come back; and when we forget the lessons of past mistakes.

I have once written to my siblings about the loving and lovely virtue of our mother that we must all imbibe and be mindful of all the time: her secret to being content in all circumstances, 'a gift of peace' I would call – be free from expectations; want nothing from anyone; be generous; do not worry and try to solve everything on your own, pray, leave some spaces for God to come and help you; see the advantages hidden in any unfortunate circumstances.... I actually believe that these values are innate in each and every human being. Not having these only means that they have gone missing in us for whatever reasons, and thus recovering them back would be worthwhile and meaningful.

One of the frustrating experiences I encountered over the last few months was when I had hoped to apply for a fellowship at a business school in Northern Europe on a research project on 'cultural diversity' in emerging markets and developing countries. It was unfortunate that my application documents reached the department a day after the deadline. And it was painful to think that my application documents – written and sent in good faith, with the best intentions, and with all the efforts and hopes put into them – was immediately rejected and sent back to me without even literally opening the envelope. It was totally disappointing at first especially because I believe that notwithstanding the failure of my documents to reach the department on time, it is just proper that the envelope should have at least been opened, and hence been considered for its content, and not simply at face value.

Anyway, frustrations and disappointments – like any other emotions, things, and people – are essentially impermanent; they come and go. Now, my research proposal may have not reached its intended audience, but I am posting a copy of it here with the world as its audience. After all, and especially because of the structural logic of today's world, ideas are not to be enclosed within school walls. The world is their home.

Note: For reasons of space, the sections 'Work Schedule' and 'References' of the research proposal have been deleted in this posting.

The Culture of Political Economy, or the Political Economy of Culture

The Constitution of Cultural Diversity in Southeast Asian Development Strategies*

A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

BONN JUEGO

Introduction

I propose a PhD research project that will examine the constitution of cultural diversity in the development strategies of the developing countries and emerging markets of Southeast Asia in pursuit of competitiveness through an innovative knowledge-based society from the 1990s to the first decade of the 21^st century. Taking contrasting development strategies of the distinctive political-economic-cultural structures, hence social relations, of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore – generally characterized as neo-liberal, neo-statist, and neo-corporatist, respectively (see Table 1) – the research seeks to combine the concepts and tools from critical political economy and evolutionary development economics to produce a distinctive approach in understanding the constitutive role of cultural diversity in political and economic activities, political and economic institutions, and hence development strategies in the emerging markets and developing countries of the Southeast Asian region. In doing so, the research addresses the omission, as well as eschews the reductionism, of mainstream accounts found in the fields of business, development, economics, and international political economy in understanding the challenges of culture, especially of cultural diversity, in the emergence of knowledge-based societies in the dynamic region of Southeast Asia under conditions of globalisation.

Research Questions

The process of globalisation ushers in tremendous reorganisation of production both in the developed and developing worlds towards the consolidation of a new accumulation regime as depicted in the narrative of a ‘knowledge society’ in which development is to be pursued through the promotion of competitiveness, entrepreneurship, and innovation. The consolidation of a new economic regime with distinctive economic regularities may be either ‘organic’ or ‘arbitrary, rationalistic, and willed’ depending on the regime’s success or failure in realising a ‘structured coherence’ among technological innovations, political institutions, economic forms, cultural practices, and intellectual understanding that would reorganise the entire social formation (Gramsci 1971). In other words, the new ‘techno-economic paradigm’ is a product of the interaction among technology, politics, economy, and culture leading to certain economic pattern (Perez 2002). Hence, the emergence of a ‘knowledge society’ constitutes a social relation in which ‘the political’, ‘the economic’, and ‘the cultural’ spheres are organically connected to, rather than separate from, one another. As such, it is sensible to conceive of development as a social relation that constitutes both ideational and material aspects.

The Southeast Asian region is, as ever, marked by national differences on: [a] levels of economic development, [b] characteristics of political regimes, and [c] attributes of culture (see Table 1). These varying domestic configurations from society to society within the globalising geographical landscape in the region give rise to distinct arrays of interests and distinct projects from society to society in pursuit of their shared idea for reform of their respective ‘business climates’ to promote investment and domestic entrepreneurship and to enhance innovation. The combined yet uneven character of development in Southeast Asia thus requires different political approaches and economic policies from society to society in the region in pursuit of development. At the heart of this dynamics is the role played by cultural diversity as an ideational feature of Southeast Asian societies in relation to the materiality of the political economy of the region. The culturally diversed, as well as the politically and economically different, societies of Southeast Asia signify the co-evolution of the processes constitutive in the ideational aspects of cultural diversity with the processes involved in the materiality of political economy. The dynamics of these processes, including their conjoint impact, on development is bewilderingly complex, yet interesting. It is this distinctive and novel feature of ‘culture and political economy’ (ie, the political economy of culture, or the culture of political economy) of the Southeast Asian region that demands explanation, and which is the principal object of enquiry in this proposed research.

How is cultural diversity constituted in the varying domestic development strategies of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore? And how does the political economy of development in these countries, which are oriented towards knowledge-based society, impact on their diversified cultural configurations?

Hypothesis

Given said main problematique the proposed research puts forward a rather general hypothesis that:

While the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore have different political regimes, levels of economic development, and cultural attributes, their development strategies share common goals for competitiveness through the realisation of an innovative knowledge-based society in response to globalisation. The issue of cultural diversity as a constitutive feature of their respective societies, while distinctive in their respective social relations, is inflected to suit the requirements of global competitiveness. Cultural diversity then is regarded both a challenge for political crisis management and a tool for economic development under conditions of a knowledge society.

This general hypothesis is laid down here simply as a guide for the conduct of the research. The foremost aim of the proposed research is to look for novelties in this theme of cultural diversity and development.

Review of Literature

Much of the literature in business studies, development studies, economics, social sciences, and (international) political economy have not addressed the theme related to the challenges of cultural diversity in emerging markets and developing countries at the epoch of globalisation. First, mainstream accounts have omitted the constitutive role of culture (and of cultural diversity in this case) in political and economic activities and institutions; and hence they have approached the phenomenon in the fashion either of essentialism or of reductionism between culture and political economy. And, second, hardly anyone has dealt with this theme seriously with reference to the dynamic emerging markets and the puzzling developing countries in the Southeast Asian region.

In business studies, a number of research have been done providing causality between a culturally diverse work force, on the one hand, and a firm’s organisation, behaviour, and performance, on the other. These are empirical studies addressing issues such as a firm’s motivation in hiring a diverse work force (e.g., Carr 1993; Cox and Blake 1991; Johnson 1999) and the implications of cultural diversity of the work force for a firm’s performance (e.g., Thomas 1999; Hartenian and Gudmundson 2000). Aside from the fact that much of the firms studied are located in the US, such studies, however, easily neglect the dynamic processes and factors exogenous to the firm, providing stories of success or failure as if there is such a thing as a ‘representative firm’ as trivialised in ‘standard textbook economics’. Such studies also lose sight of the fact that each and every firm is unique (Penrose 1959 [1995]); that a firm exists to avoid transaction costs (Coase 1937 [1991]); and that a firm is capable of developing their ‘pool of stability’ through planning, research, and management in responding to the ever changing, uncertain competitive environment within which it operates (Coase 1937 [1991]; Chandler 1990; Best 1990; Lazonick 1991; Chandler, et. al. 1997). Hence, a research that focuses on the complex processes involved in an environment of competitive uncertainty seems to be much more meaningful for firms to guide their provision of ‘pools of relative certainty’ (Penrose 1959 [1995]) within which they could organise their strategic and innovative responses to external volatility.

In evolutionary economics, far more investigation is needed into the roots and trajectory of (uneven) development in the developing countries. The pioneering works on national systems of innovation (NSI) approaches of the Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson persuasion (Freeman 1987; Lundvall 1992; Nelson 1993) have been essentially crafted to understand the synergy among the government, industry, academe, and other social actors in the process of innovation in the contexts of developed, relatively homogenous, and to a large extent Scandinavian societies. Recent improvisations of the NSI approach have however attempted to address the challenges of the globalising learning economy as developing countries become increasingly integrated into this trend towards a knowledge society. Here, the idea of ‘tacit knowledge’ in which culture and cultural diversity may be both essential and crucial for the long-term success of developing countries is worth exploring (e.g., Ernst and Lundvall 2004).

In social sciences and economics, most accounts tend to either resort to the subsumption of economic activities under broad generalisations about social and cultural life (for instance, the ‘culturalisation’ of economic life in the new economy, in Lash and Urry 1994; and the discursive ‘cultural materialism’, in Williams 1980 and in Milner 2002), or opt for reification of the market and at the same time the abstraction of the economy into mathematical calculations as if economic activities are devoid of the larger extra-economic context and supports (e.g., Samuelson 1948; Krugman 1996). The former’s discursive predisposition glosses over the materiality as well as the specificities of economic activities, contradictions, and institutions. On the other hand, the latter provides the theoretical underpinnings of economic reductionism, treating the economy with rigid economic laws in an ahistorical fashion. Hence, the constitutive material role of ‘social variables’ such as cultural diversity, which are traditionally regarded as extra-economic in mainstream economics, is missing in these literatures.

In (international) political economy, the dynamics specific to the region of Southeast Asia is undertheorised, especially in the analysis of the global political economy of development since the post-War (sometimes referred to as ‘Fordist’, mass production – mass consumption ‘régime of accumulation’ [Aglietta 1979; Jessop 2001; Boyer, et.al. 2002]; or as ‘mass production paradigm’ [Perez 2002]). Most literatures on the political economy of development have focused on the US and Europe (Atlantic Fordism), Latin America (‘populist’, import-substitution industrialisation), and East Asia (national developmentalism) to provide various accounts of social structural changes that have occurred in particular phases of capitalist development. Even the powerful narratives of the Aglietta-Lipietz-Boyer ‘régulation schools’, which attempted to develop a deep institutionally sensitive historical and comparative analyses of capitalist development, have missed out the Southeast Asian region (Aglietta 1979; Lipietz 1985, 1987; Boyer, et. al. 2002). The same goes with the ‘post-régulation approach’ being developed recently to understand the dynamics of contemporary ‘knowledge-based economy’ as the post-Fordist accumulation régime that has emerged out of the crisis of the mass consumption – mass production regime (e.g., Jessop 2001; Aglietta 1998, 2000; Boyer 2000). It would be uncritical to hastily assume that these narratives, notwithstanding their powerful resonance in the academic literature, can be inflected to suit the dynamics in the Southeast Asian region. Hence, the dynamism and specificities of Southeast Asia must be given the seriousness it deserves.

These gaps as well as inadequacies in the existing literature in business studies, evolutionary economics, social sciences and economics, and (international) political economy thus prompt at least two main research objectives related to the challenges of cultural diversity in the developing countries in Southeast Asia. First, given the absence in the existing literature of an account of the co-evolution of the ideational (especially, on cultural diversity) and the material aspects intrinsic in the development process, the research hopes to make an original contribution to this largely unexplored, yet significant, terrain. Second, given the selectivity of existing narratives, the research considers the factors, processes, and phenomena left unstated, repressed, and marginalised in the official dominant discourses – that is to say, the question of cultural diversity in the political economy of development and the dynamism of the Southeast Asian region, both areas being marginal in established discourses.

Theoretical Framework

Most theories – through which the literatures reviewed above are examined – would founder on their inability to grasp the significance of the dynamic phenomenon of the co-evolution of the ‘ideational’ and ‘material’ processes and their conjoint impact in the constitution of development strategies in contemporary Southeast Asia. It is for this reason that an alternative approach derived from the combination of concepts and tools of critical political economy and evolutionary development economics will be utilised in this research. Accordingly, this alternative approach will prove useful to examine the relationship between cultural diversity and development in ontological, epistemological, and methodological terms.

The critical political economy approach understands phenomena as ‘social relations’ – in which ‘the political’, ‘the economic’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, and all other spheres of social life are organically connected to, rather than separate from, one another. Through this approach, it can reveal not only the politics behind the economy, but the culture of political economy and the political economy of culture as well.

The non-equilibrium, non-physics based, and non-mathematical approach of evolutionary development economics (referred to as ‘Other Canon Economics’ in the works of Reinert, et. al. 2006, at http://www.othercanon.org) would be able to explain the complexities of cultural diversity in the broader economic development context. Its interest in the ‘economy’ as a real object, rather than the abstractions of ‘economics’, and its consideration of social variables that are traditionally excluded in mainstream, ‘standard textbook’ economics in explaining the uneven process of development are appropriate tools to grasp the significant phenomenon of the constitution of cultural diversity in the development strategies of developing countries.

Combining the concepts and tools from critical political economy and evolutionary development economics thus create an alternative approach viewed from comparative, critical, and inter-disciplinary perspective. Ontologically, the alternative approach does not naturalise theoretical objects such as technology, the economy, culture, and the development process; but regards them as historically specific, socially embedded, and, to a certain extent, socially constructed. Epistemologically, while it criticises the ahistorical, universalistic, and reductionist claims to knowledge of orthodox economics, the alternative approach understands phenomena through an assessment of the constitutive role of the material and ideational aspects in social relations and their impact on change. And methodologically, it takes into account the relevant and significant elements, factors, and processes excluded in mainstream literatures and theories so as to provide a certain degree of predictability vital for economic development strategy, political governance, and firm management.

Through this theoretical framework, the constitution of cultural diversity in the development strategies of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore will be understood. Hence, cultural diversity is taken seriously in the context of social relations, while emphasising on the differences and specificities of national situations in particular historical moment.

Methodology

While the research highlights the role of cultural diversity as constituted in the different development strategies of the distinctive societies of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore from the 1990s to the first decade of the 21^st century, it regards culture as neither comprehensive nor exclusive. As such, the research will analyse the constitution of cultural diversity within social relations in which it is constituted. The general characteristics of these social relations are outlined in Table 1. The spheres of social life to be examined – ‘the political’, ‘the economic’, and ‘the cultural’ – are seen as constituting the ‘social relation’. That is to say, there is no clean separation among the three spheres and their relationship to one another may be seen as interrelated or reciprocal. While the development process and strategy is also to be understood as constituting a social relation, the definition of ‘cultural diversity’ will depend on the respective official development plans of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore.

TABLE 1 *General Characteristics of Social Relations* in Globalising Southeast Asia**
Society	‘The Political’ (State Form)	‘The Economic’ (Economic Policies)	‘The Cultural’ (Cultural Diversity)
Philippines	Neo-liberal	Market-led, service-oriented, and partially agricultural	Homogenous (with peoples acknowledging one Filipino race); cultural diversity based largely on linguistic locales and religion)
Malaysia	Neo-statist	Focus on manufacturing and services	Heterogeneous; internal diversity with three major races: Malay, Chinese, and Indian
Singapore	Neo-corporatist	Strong manufacturing sector and knowledge-intensive services	Largely homogenous, yet increasingly becoming heterogeneous with the incorporation of foreign workers

The research will thus make extensive reference to the official documents and development plans by respective governments of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore in relation to their regard for cultural diversity, especially from the aftermath of the 1997 crisis to the present. In addition, documents from multilateral institutions and regional associations (which are now readily accessible from their official websites) such as the World Bank, IMF, WTO, ADB, APEC, and ASEAN shall also be looked into since these organisations have increasingly become domestic social forces in the arena of nation-states, and are active in policy advice as well as policy-making in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia, especially in the developing countries of the Philippines and Malaysia. In doing so, the research may identify the incorporation of cultural diversity in the broader development strategies to be either ‘organic’ or ‘arbitrary, rationalistic, and willed’ against the background of the structural requirements of competitiveness in a knowledge-based society. Further, an extensive review of literature on the culture and political economy of Southeast Asia will be done to unpack the region’s dynamism.

Significance and Prospective Contributions of the Study

The research hopes to immensely contribute to the inescapable link between theory construction and policy advice for real development, a qualitative improvement to the lives of all. In terms of policy, the research will not only reveal the constitutive role of cultural diversity in social relations and its concomitant dynamics to guide government, firms, and other actors; but it will also open up the exploration of the necessary synergy among political economic institutions and policies in pursuit of alternative development strategies especially needed for developing countries. In particular, it may usher in an idea to be reflected upon about the formulation of a coherent institutional fit and synergy for development among three organically connected spheres in the society: [a ] state form, or government structures and systems (the political); [b] economic policies on the relationship among economic activities and economic sectors, the relationship between financial capital and production capital, and the relationship among the factors of production such as capital, labour, land, and technology (the economic); and [c ] system of ideas and values , which includes way of thinking and lifeworld (the cultural).

And in terms of theory, it hopes to contribute to the broader debate, argument, and communication of innovative findings in the social sciences, business studies, development studies, development economics, evolutionary economics, (international) political economy, cultural studies, and Southeast Asian studies; as well as in the ‘post-disciplinary’ research agendas on ‘cultural political economy’ (http://www.lancs.ac.uk/ias/polecon/index.htm), ‘politics of global competitiveness’ (Cammack 2006), and ‘technology governance’ (http://hum.ttu.ee/tg/) recently set out by various academics and institutions.

* 7 December 2006

Development as a 'Social Relation' in Southeast Asia: Reflections on the Methodologies of Post-structuralism for Critical Development Studies

2006-11-03T17:22:00.000+02:00

[On September this year, I was so lucky to be granted a scholarship to participate in a Conference and PhD Workshop with PhD students from the Nordic, Baltic, and Russian universities for the period 5-9 November 2006 at the University of Turku, Finland. But due to some frustrating complications regarding my immigration status here in Estonia, I have sent my letter of regret to the conference organisers that I cannot make it to Finland this time. This sad news comes today, the 14th anniversary of my father's death. A part of my long time plan seems to have died as well. Well, life is...life! And I know that this frustrating experience is telling me something -- some of life's lessons that must be instilled in me. A good game continues. Nevertheless, below is a copy of the paper which I submitted to the workshop organisers a few weeks ago. This is a proofread version of the one I earlier submitted to the organisers, which is also available on-line at the conference organiser's website.]

DEVELOPMENT AS A ‘SOCIAL RELATION’ IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Reflections on the Methodologies of Post-structuralism for Critical Development Studies*

BONN JUEGOb

The good is the most accurate measure of all things.
Aristotle, Politikos

Introduction

Social sciences today – its associated theories, methodologies, spatial-temporal boundedness, and vocabularies – is being reconfigured by, if not under assault from, multiple hegemonising intellectual currents: from the fad of post-structuralist sensibility, to the project of ‘social sciences colonisation by economics’. Post-structuralism poses a great challenge to the sacrosanct values and assumptions of the disciplines under the social sciences, namely: anthropology, psychology, history, sociology, politics, and geography. Proponents of these respective disciplines have responded to the post-structuralist current in various ways. While some have launched ruthless criticisms against it in defense of their disciplines, some have either wholeheartedly or partially incorporated it in their discipline. For almost half a century now since post-structuralism assumed prominence, the field of economics seems to be untouched from the theoretical challenges posed on by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. This is rather ironic, especially that a careful understanding of the post-structuralist methodologies (i.e., not simply looking at the conventional understanding on its disregard for ‘systems’ as well as its privileging of contingency over historical causality) would pose a great theoretical challenge to the hegemony of neo-classical economics. In particular, Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ and Foucault’s ‘power-knowledge’ nexus would certainly empower the counter-hegemonic (ideological) potentials of proponents of alternative development to the dominant model by current mainstream (mathematical, neo-classical) approach to economics.

Academic disciplines are always for someone and for some purpose. In this case, development studies are commonly understood to be carried out for the development of the developing world. The general social sciences discourse on post-structuralism has tremendous implications for development studies and area studies as sub-disciplines of the social sciences – in particular, to the search for context-specific development prescriptions for the Third World countries in Southeast Asia under conditions of globalising capitalism.

This essay reflects upon the usefulness of specific post-structuralist methodologies for development studies, viewed from a critical perspective. First, it sketches out ways on how Derrida’s methodology of ‘deconstruction’ and Foucault’s idea on the inescapable link between power and knowledge could be conducive to a critique on the dominant discourse of the neo-liberal development paradigm. In doing so, it could reveal a reality in the history of economic development that has been concealed through the years by the neo-classical economists and neo-liberal forces in order to impose their authority and hegemony. Second, it provides an account for critical development studies to recognise specificities of social situations – specifically, the combined and uneven character of development in Southeast Asia at this historical moment of the universalisation of capitalism that would require distinct development strategies from society to society in the region. Third, it outlines an example of a development studies research that recognises the usefulness of specific post-structuralist methodologies, yet viewed from critical, historical, and inter-disciplinary perspectives in understanding development as a ‘social relation’. Finally, it concludes with a progressive challenge to development studies, as well as an appropriate classical reminder from the Greeks that a theory’s basic focus must be on the lucrative, the conducive, and the good life.

Deconstructing the Mainstream, Revealing the Power Behind the Development Model

Today’s dominant development model – as prescribed by rich economies and by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the Third World – is founded on neo-classical economics that essentially frames the neo-liberal policies of an open market economy through privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation, and the pursuit of global competitiveness since the crises of the 1970s. One of the great-unconsummated theoretical projects for development studies today, if it is to be a tool to usher in real development to the Third World, is the deconstruction of this mainstream, standard textbook economics, as well as the exposition of the power behind its rise to hegemony.

Derrida’s Deconstruction for Development

In the utilisation of the methodology of Derrida’s deconstruction, one does not create a new reality. Rather, one highlights the reality that has been present from the very beginning. In this sense, development studies have to rediscover the contributing factors to development that have been marginalised through the years. Therefore, an essential task for an alternative development economics as a constitutive discipline of development studies is to understand the history of economic development. That is to say, development is to be seen as a process of cumulative causations which are the joint effects of factors excluded by the neo-classical equilibrium metaphors, namely: [i] qualitative difference between economic activities (across and within manufacturing, services, and agriculture); [ii] diversity (the degree of division of labour); [iii] synergies (linkages and clusters between manufacturing, services, and agriculture sectors); [iv] institutions (to safeguard the common good); and [v] novelty (significance of innovation, learning, and science). This will, in turn, discard the mother of all assumptions in neo-classical economics: the assumption of no diversity and no qualitative difference in economic activities; hence the equilibrium metaphor that portrays the market as a mechanism creating automatic harmony.

Using the method of deconstruction this way thus challenges the neo-classical economics’ view on science as ‘a compression of reality’. It does so by focusing on the relevant factors that led to the economic development of rich countries in history. In the end, the theory is to be shaped by reality; instead of the vicious propensity of mainstream economists to shape reality on the terms of neo-classical economics. The foremost interest for theorising would therefore be ‘the economy’ as a real object with people’s lives as its real subject, more than merely the abstracts of ‘economics’.

Foucault’s Power-Knowledge Nexus on the Development Discourse

This deconstruction of the mainstream development paradigm has to be extended to an understanding of the politics behind the emergence of neo-liberal policies, which is patterned after the ideology of mathematics-based neo-classical economics, to be the dominant development paradigm for several decades now. Here, Foucault’s approach to knowledge claims would be very useful to development studies. For Foucault, it is not only the case that knowledge is power; but power is knowledge as well. In particular, knowledge about development is not only a question of epistemology or rationality, but of ‘authority’ to impose one’s will to power.

At least three inter-related, reinforcing factors can be attributed to the project of neo-classical economists and neo-liberals to create the conditions for their hegemony. First, the pro-capitalist political forces in the West during the Cold War found ideological refuge to the factor-price equalisation theorem (which ‘proof’ is based on scientific mathematics) of the most prominent neo-classical economics figure, Paul Samuelson, that under the capitalist system wages in the world will eventually converge in which all wage earners will become rich. This became the West’s ideological counter-offensive against the communists’ promise that everyone will receive according to his/her needs. Second, this has had since led to the essentialism of mathematics in the field of economics in general, and hence reducing the scientific as well as the social-historical into mere quantitative abstractions. Third, the recent emphasis put on ‘social capital’ by the proponents of neo-liberalism aimed at colonising the social sciences. ‘Social capital’ entails non-market responses to market imperfections. It therefore enlarges the circuit of ‘capital’ to include and incorporate in it ‘social’ variables – such as the state, civil society, institutions, and trade unions – that are traditionally outside mainstream economics.

Specificities of Southeast Asian Development: Combined, Yet Uneven

Regional dynamic of contemporary Southeast Asia is, as ever, marked by national differences on levels of economic development, characteristics of political regimes, and diversities of culture. The combined and uneven character of development in the region suggests that there are still pre-capitalist relations coexisting with features of modern capitalism in almost all of the countries. For instance, the persistence of constitutional monarchies in Brunei, Cambodia, and Thailand; of pre-capitalist relations in the states of Malaysia; and of political power rooted in land ownership in the Philippines as well as of conflicts over land. Alongside the universalising tendencies of neo-liberal policies, there exist actually resisting forces in defense of the locale.

Born out of the crisis of the 1970s, a neo-liberal global political economy has evolved, restructuring the impoverished domestic political economies in Southeast Asia which were vulnerable to the constraints and pressures imposed upon by the oil crisis, the internationalisation of financial markets, and the structural adjustment programmes attached as conditionalities to the heavily-indebted Third World. This new configuration of capitalism has dramatically reorganised production through the intensification of new technologies and the introduction of financial innovations.

While development is a universal ideal, the strategies needed to realise it would depend on the specific economic, political, and cultural contexts from society to society within the region in a particular historical moment. Mindful of the historical and social specificities of development strategies, the respective societies then have to collectively define their understanding and their meaning of development. This premise is essential to development studies, if it is to be serious in its social task of ushering in real development to the Third World.

The following section is a sample research project for a particular kind of development studies in Southeast Asia that is founded on the theoretical premises outlined above. It views development as a ‘social relation’, in which the political, economic, and cultural spheres are organically connected in search of social development. As such, it has an inter-disciplinary and a critical approach to the question of development in Southeast Asia. Its ultimate goal is to examine the coherent fit not simply between ‘politics’ and ‘economics’, but especially on the appropriate institutional fit between ‘the polity’ and ‘the economy’ that could potentially uplift the lives of the peoples of developing Southeast Asia.

Progressive Potentials, Regressive Realities: A Critical Political Economy Approach to a Social Innovation System in Southeast Asia

Perhaps a great paradox that lies at the heart of the intensification of technological innovation depicted in the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution as the enduring techno-economic paradigm is that of technology's progressive potentials, on the one hand, and of regressive social realities, on the other. While it can be said that the intensification of the wealth-creating power of technology comes at a time when material inequality in the world is increasing, the apparent phenomenon that of technology becoming a source of perpetuation of this regressive reality is yet another contradiction. The research thus attempts to investigate this conundrum: Why, despite its progressive potentials, technology is resulting in regressive socio-economic realities? And it runs the hypothesis: That the progressive potential of technological innovation is regressively constrained by its dependence on the capitalist, neo-liberal market.

The research explores a ‘critical political economy approach to social innovation system’ that critiques the disembedding of the market from the society, on the one hand, and that attempts to offer an alternative through a progressive project of re-embedding the market forces to the society, on the other. It does so in three inter-related general sections. First, it lays down propositions for ‘a critical political economy approach to social innovation system’. This critical political economy approach improvises from the established national innovation system (NIS) approaches of the Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson persuasion, with emphasis on the developmental needs of the developing countries and the indispensable role of the workers; and the Other Canon reality economics, which is mindful of the intrinsic uneven character of economic development and the need to find alternative, innovative responses relative to specific social situations. Second, it examines the contradictions of the progressive-potential-but-regressive-reality characteristic of today's techno-economic paradigm by juxtaposing the promises of technological innovation vis-à-vis its capitalist market-dependent nature under conditions of neo-liberal globalisation. Finally, an alternative ‘social innovation system’ is being proposed, deriving the alternatives from the very structural contradictions of market-dependence (i.e., the internal logic of the capitalist market competition itself) that constrains the progressive potentials of technological innovation, and not merely out of normative or ethical prescriptions that are devoid of reality. It is exploring the necessary structure conducive for real development, a development as a social relation where ‘the economic’, ‘the political’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the ideational’, and all the other spheres of social life are organically connected to – not separate from – one another. In particular, it is examining the coherent institutional fit and synergy for development among three organically connected spheres in the society: [a] state form, or government structures and systems (the political); [b] economic policies on the relationship among the factors of production (capital, labour, and technology) and the relationship between financial capital and production capital, which will include an investigation of the appropriateness of the stock market as the financial system for innovation and industry (the economic); and [c] system of ideas and values, which will include a critique on and an alternative to the defunct assumptions of neo-classical economics and the outmoded values of neo-liberalism (the cultural). This proposed alternative recognises the fact that the combined and uneven character of development that characterises the geographical landscape of contemporary global political economy would require different innovation strategies and economic policies from society to society in Southeast Asia in pursuit of real development, a qualitative improvement to the lives of the multitude.

The research hopes to immensely contribute to the inescapable link between theory construction and policy advice for real development. In terms of policy, the research will not only reveal the wounds of modernity – the widening social divisions and increasing poverty – that are just sealed, and not healed, amidst the tremendous productive capability of technological innovation; but also the exploration of the necessary synergy among political economic institutions and policies in pursuit of alternative development strategies. And in terms of theory, it hopes to contribute not only to the reconstruction of the theory of uneven development in particular, but to the broader debate, argument, and communication of innovative findings on the fields of political economy, technology governance, development economics, and evolutionary economics in general.

Conclusion

Specific methodologies of post-structuralism such as Derrida’s deconstruction and Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus could contribute a great deal to the essential objective of development studies to understand and critique the outmoded ideas of the dominant neo-classical, neo-liberal development discourse. Much has been written about the pitfalls of post-structuralism. Hence, development studies must be conscious of this, and be guided by the classic reminder of the great Greek theorists: the basic focus must be on ‘that which is lucrative and that which is conducive’. After all, ‘the good is the most accurate measure of all things’.

But a progressive and critical kind of development studies, one that is for changing the intolerable realities of the status quo into a better life for all, must also be responsive to the hegemonising, and even to the reactionary, predisposition of post-structuralism. Critical development studies must dare to enrich and rediscover productive activity that is being displaced by ‘discourse’ as the constitutive practice of social life; the material reconstruction of society that is being replaced by the intellectual deconstruction of texts; the terrain of progressive politics that is not enclosed within the walls of the academy; and historical causality that is purposefully being dissolved in postmodern fragmentation, ‘difference’ and contingency.

REFERENCES

(These are the specific articles read upon which the reflections in this essay are based. These articles are in the ‘List of the Reference Material’ provided for by the Conference Organiser to the the PhD workshop participants.)

General

Buck, D. (1991), ‘Forum on Universalism and Relativism in Asian Studies – Editor’s Introduction’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1, February, pp. 29-34.

Dutton, M. (2002), ‘Lead Us Not into Translation: Notes toward a Theoretical Foundation for Asian studies’, in Nepantla: Views from South, Vol. 3, Issue 3, Duke University Press, pp. 495-537.

So, A.Y. (2003), ‘The Challenge of Globalization to Social Sciences and Area (Asian) Studies’, in Hong Kong Journal of Sociology, No.4, pp. 13-26.

On Southeast Asia

Jackson, P.A. (2003), ‘Space, Theory, and Hegemony: The Dual Crises of Asian Area Studies and Cultural Studies’, in SOJOURN – Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 1-41.

King, V. (2005), ‘Defining Southeast Asia and the Crisis in Area Studies: Personal Reflections on a Region’, Working Paper No. 13, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden.

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* An essay for the ‘Asian Studies at a Turning Point Conference and Ph.D. Workshop’, to be held on 5-9 November 2006 in Turku, Finland. (16 October 2006)

b Bonn Juego (Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia); and Research Centre on Development and International Relations, Aalborg University (Denmark). Email: bonnjuego@yahoo.com.

Progressive Potentials, Regressive Realities: A Critical Political Economy Approach to Social Innovation System (A Proposal)

2006-10-13T23:12:00.000+02:00

[I have been in Europe for almost a couple of months now to participate in the Technology Governance Programme at the Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). I feel so honoured learning with some of the world's leading scholars who hold some of the most important ideas on development. Thus far, I have been able to attend great lectures of these brilliant minds, namely: Erik S. Reinert (the leading exponent of 'The Other Canon' reality economics); Carlota Perez (the prominent theorist of 'techno-economic paradigm shifts'); and Wolfgang Drechsler (the classical Hermeneutician student of the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer). What a truly worthwhile learning encounters with these lovely personalities indeed! Below is the proposed research I submitted to Prof. Rainer Kattel, director of the programme, on June this year which I would have wanted to work on in the coming months. In my application letter, I indicated that I wished to work on this topic under the supervision of Dr. Erik S. Reinert, an acknowledged expert on technology governance and development strategies. Photos L-R: Bonn Juego, Wolfgang Drechsler, Carlota Perez, Rainer Kattel, Erik Reinert]

Progressive Potentials, Regressive Realities:

A Critical Political Economy Approach to Social Innovation System

BONN JUEGO

Perhaps a great paradox that lies at the heart of the intensification of technological innovation depicted in the ICT revolution as the enduring techno-economic paradigm is that of technology's progressive potentials, on the one hand, and of regressive social realities, on the other. While it can be said that the intensification of the wealth-creating power of technology comes at a time when material inequality in the world is increasing, the apparent phenomenon that of technology becoming a source of perpetuation of this regressive reality is yet another contradiction. The proposed research will thus attempt to investigate this conundrum: Why, despite its progressive potentials, technology is resulting in regressive socio-economic realities? And it will run the hypothesis: That the progressive potential of technological innovation is regressively constrained by its dependence on the capitalist market.

The proposed research will explore a ‘critical political economy approach to social innovation system’ that critiques the disembedding of the market from the society, on the one hand, and that attempts to offer an alternative through a progressive project of re-embedding the market forces to the society, on the other. It will do so in three inter-related general sections. First, it will lay down propositions for ‘a critical political economy approach to social innovation system’. This critical political economy approach is seen to improvise from the established national innovation system (NIS) approaches of the Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson persuasion, with emphasis on the developmental needs of the developing countries and the indispensable role of the workers; and the Other Canon reality economics, which is mindful of the intrinsic uneven character of economic development and the need to find alternative, innovative responses relative to specific situations. Second, it will examine the contradictions of the progressive-potential-but-regressive-reality characteristic of today's techno-economic paradigm by juxtaposing the promises of technological innovation vis-à-vis its capitalist market-dependent nature under conditions of globalisation. Finally, an alternative ‘social innovation system' will be proposed, deriving the alternatives from the very structural contradictions of market-dependence (i.e., the internal logic of the capitalist market competition itself) that constrains the progressive potentials of technological innovation, and not merely out of normative or ethical prescriptions that are devoid of reality. It will explore the necessary structure conducive for real development, a development as a social relation where ‘the economic’, ‘the political’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the ideational’, and all the other spheres of social life are organically connected to – not separate from – one another. In particular, it will examine the coherent institutional fit and synergy for development among three organically connected spheres in the society: [a] state form, or government structures and systems (the political); [b] economic policies on the relationship between financial capital and production capital, which will include an investigation of the appropriateness of the stock market as the financial system for innovation and industry (the economic); and [c ] system of ideas and values, which will include a critique on and an alternative to the defunct assumptions of neo-classical economics and the outmoded values of neo-liberalism (the cultural). This proposed alternative recognises the fact that the combined and uneven character of development that characterises the geographical landscape of contemporary global political economy would require different innovation strategies and economic policies from society to society in the world in pursuit of real development, a qualitative improvement to the lives of all.

The research hopes to immensely contribute to the inescapable link between theory construction and policy advice for real development. In terms of policy, the research will not only reveal the wounds of modernity – the widening social divisions and increasing poverty – that are just sealed, and not healed, amidst the tremendous productive capability of technological innovation; but also the exploration of the necessary synergy among political economic institutions and policies in pursuit of alternative development strategies. And in terms of theory, it hopes to contribute not only to the reconstruction of the theory of uneven development in particular, but to the broader debate, argument, and communication of innovative findings on the fields of political economy, technology governance, development economics, and evolutionary economics in general.

Constitutionalising 'Authoritarian Liberalism': The Political Economy of the Charter Change Now Agenda

2006-07-18T15:03:00.000+03:00

We have initial perceptions of what reality constitutes. Those perceptions in turn lead to the construction of a set of beliefs, ideologies to explain that reality and explain the way we should behave. That in turn leads to the creation of an institutional structure, or an institutional matrix, which then shapes our 'world'. And as our beliefs about that reality incrementally change we enact policies that incrementally modify that institutional structure. An incremental change is always constrained by path dependence. That is, the existing institutions always constrain our choices. As we make those choices which are incrementally altering policy, we are changing reality. And in changing reality, we are changing in turn the belief system that we have. That circular flow has gone on ever since human beings began to try to shape their destiny.
- Douglass North (1999)

A deeper logic underlies the Charter Change Now agenda. It is the logic of providing the fundamental institutional framework, with constitutional effect, that would guarantee the global and domestic rights of capital. At the heart of the project is to constitutionalise 'authoritarian liberalism' as the de facto state form that promotes a (neo)liberal economy in an authoritarian political framework.

The Southeast Asian political economist Kanishka Jayasuriya coined the term 'authoritarian liberalism' at the advent of the new millenium to describe the emergent state form in East and Southeast Asia in the epoch of globalisation. This state form is quite similar to what Barry Gills, Joel Rocamora, and Richard Wilson referred to as 'low intensity democracy' in the early 1990s and Paul Cammack's 'state-managed democracy' in the late 1990s where the democratisation process is an outside-in approach in which the structural imperatives of globalising capitalism compel nation-states to be more responsive to the exigencies of the market than to the requirements of democracy.

The triumphalist pronouncements that the most appropriate formula to attain development is a market economy combined with a liberal democratic polity; and that globalisation is creating conditions for the consolidation of a world of liberal democracies are barren and indeed rhetorical. Empirically, the realities of the free market economies of (soft) authoritarian states especially of China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam are tangible manifestations that these pronouncements are false. As in the respective cases of these Asian states, globalisation may in fact mean the end of liberal democracy – characterised by limited accountable government, relatively unfree and unfair competitive elections, partially curtailed substantial civil and political rights, and compromised associational autonomy. Theoretically, the market economy – liberal democratic polity formula alienates the idea of democracy from its social connotation as popular power, in favour of 'formal' and procedural criteria that safeguards the dominance of the elites and of the market. Historically, if there is any cogent lesson that we could draw from the past decades about the relationship between democracy and political-economic regime, it is that capitalism can thrive and survive even without democracy; and that socialism cannot survive without democracy.

GMA's Head-in-the-sand Politics

Politics with ethical consideration is not only about 'who gets what, when, and how', but most importantly, about 'for whom' one gets and shares power. All throughout her reign in Malacanang, the character of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as a politician could be described as head-in-the-sand politics – that is, I will pursue my personal political interest and to hell with all the rest!

GMA's self-indulgent and brazen destruction of the democratic institutions in the Philippines are morally intolerable. With her appointments of saboteurs of democracy, the Commission on Elections has lost its credibility. Like a master of patronage politics, she has taken good care of the well-entrenched local patrons in Congress since she assumed power in 2001 and especially for the 2004 elections. As a quid pro quo to their benefactor, the horrible 'representatives of the Filipino people' are spending most of their time and institutional resources 'in aid of Mrs. Arroyo'. The Supreme Court has failed to act timely on pressing constitutional issues, partly a result of GMA's well-paid throng of legal acrobats. There is no doubt as well that the integrity of the other Constitutional Commissions such as the Commission on Audit and the Civil Service Commission, together with the entire Philippine bureaucracy, have terribly suffered with GMA's self-indulgent politics. And with all the warnings on human rights violations the Commission of Human Rights has been issuing to her administration GMA does not even care, making the CHR appear inutile before the public.

Even the 'bastions' of democracy like the military (which is supposed to defend democracy, but does not internally exercise it), the media, and civil society have been destructed and disciplined – all for GMA's survival. This has become more evident at the time GMA's administration issued Presidential Proclamation 1017 declaring a state of national emergency in February when the assault on democracy and its forces has even become publicly obvious – visualised, read, and heard in the media. The Armed Forces and the police have been deeply divided and politicised – with some factions of the military corps themselves claiming that some of the marines have been used in the elections, and hence validating the truthfulness of the Garci tapes. More than that, GMA has almost perfectly learned the art of establishing an authoritarian rule: that is, discipline the media and the civil society! Among others, the closure of The Daily Tribune under the direct supervision of Malacañang, the coercive force the police unleashed to violently disperse Laban ng Masa's commemoration of the EDSA revolution in defense of an illegitimate regime, the various cases of inciting to sedition charges filed against GMA's critics, the practical unconcern of the government to the series of killings of mediapeople, and the recently pronounced billion-peso threat to crush the left do not only send a chilling effect to the democratic forces. These are signs of the times that a foreboding project to construct an authoritarian social order is emerging.

With the destruction of the democratic institutions, GMA's train is leading the way to authoritarianism. She is making possible undemocratic practices – like the heartless dispersal of peaceful assemblies and rallies, the series of warrantless arrests among activists, the surveillance on mediapeople and human rights activists, and the restrictions of trade union rights a la Thatcher and Reagan – democractic, while 'extra-constitutional', 'extra-parliamentary' popular politics as 'undemocratic'. Indeed, there is no other president in the history of the Philippines who has ever destructed democracy the way GMA does. For the sensible Filipino people, all these are destructive destruction of democracy. For GMA, it is creative destruction for her authoritarian project.

Gloria's Irrational Exuberance, Palliative Economics

GMA's self-indulgent politics is even more ridiculous when it is extended to her economics. When her administration is under threat on grounds of her political illegitimacy, she immediately finds refuge to the economics argument. When she claimed victory over those she labels as 'destabilisers' who are 'sabotaging the economy', she boastfully proclaimed that the market is on her side – as evident in the impressive performance of the peso against the dollar and of the indices in the stock market. GMA claims that the relatively commendable performance of the economy amidst political chaos is a product of her administration's 'right economic fundamentals'. Yet, another self-indulgence: 'because of me, huh'! But when she protects and promotes neo-liberal policies – of government non-intervention in the affairs of the market – she is quick to resort to the classic capitalist argument separating 'the economic' from 'the political'. Yet, another contradiction!

But the reality is: GDP growth rate is above all propelled by the dynamic development of productive forces, that is by increased in labour productivity – more output per unit of labour. Among the essential reasons – and definitely not because of GMA's economic policies – GMA makes no stable economy, no improving GDP, no stronger peso. These are essentially products of the Filipino workers! Care and concern of the OFWs to their families back home converted into remittances. Continuous productivity of workers, even under poor and alienating labour conditions, here and abroad transformed into GDP. They (increasing growth rate and peso appreciation) are hardwork and care and concern of Filipino workers here and abroad quantified!

OFWs continue to send remittances to their beloved family back home not because of Mrs. Arroyo, but in spite of her. Indeed, the GDP is improving and the peso is strengthening against the greenbucks. This is precisely the reason the workers are out on the streets – raging outrage on this very system of elitism in which once the economy develops, its fruits are only enjoyed by the few, marginalising the majority of the people who comprise the workers. The workers are all too aware that when the capitalist system is in crisis its internal logic inflicts most of the suffering on them. The same goes when the elitist system is in crisis: the masses suffer the most. This is contrary to GMA's label on the workers and the masses who join rallies as 'destabilisers'. Clearly a head-in-the-sand politics – she only sees herself. She is blind to the reality that changing this unjust system of elitism is a legitimate demand and aspiration of the Filipino people. Trained in some capital-obsessed school of economics, she fundamentally regards labour as a cost, and not a source of value and wealth.

Only market fundamentalists like GMA think and confidently argue that the market reflects reality. But the market does not reflect reality. Market, in fact, creates reality – the reality of heightening social antagonisms, grinding poverty, and intolerable social injustice. Gloria Macapagal, with a doctorate in economics, misleads the people in making them believe that the rising indices in the stock market is a reflection of a functioning efficient market. This is especially wrong when applied to the financial market – an economic space for exchange riddled with manias, panics, and irrational exuberance.

The crucial factor in determining the relationship between economic progress, on the hand, and the stock market system, on the other, is the nature of the stock market pricing process and the actual prices which emerge from this process. For GMA and her orthodox financial economic advisers, actual prices generated by the process of buying and selling of shares on the stock market will generate prices which obey the so-called efficient market hypothesis. The fundamental basis for this belief is that share prices always accurately and exclusively reflect the true long term expected profitability of firms. GMA's financial economists think that the postulated pricing process in the Philippine stock market is based on rational expectations of investors who have similar beliefs about the future prospects of companies. But, from the sensible lens of 'reality economics', the philosophy behind GMA's high regard on the relatively impressive merits of the stock market as a reflection of an efficient economy is fundamentally flawed. Under the auspices of sloppy economic managers led by GMA, most, if not all, professional investments are decisions based on irrational exuberance and other psychological factors – and least on the bright profitable prospects of 'efficient' firms in the Philippines.

Sensible economists who are firmly grounded on business and financial realities do not forget Keynes' famous beauty contest analogy as regards the pricing process in the stock market. In his General Theory written in the mid-1930s, Keynes well argues the intrinsic mispricing of shares in the process of share price determination because stock market players base their investment decisions not on the basis of 'fundamentals' (on efficient firms with perfect information) but on speculative and gambling considerations. In other words, professional investments in the stock market are not about who the efficient and promising firms are, but about what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. In this sense, an inefficient pricing system that characterises the Philippine stock market could favour those who are inefficient rather than those who are efficient. This reality in the financial market has been pronounced and validated at the aftermath of the 1997 Asian economic crisis even by the 'organic intellectuals' of capital such as the celebrated MIT economist Paul Krugman and the eminent defender of free trade Jagdish Bhagwati. Krugman notes that foreign exchange markets behave more like the unstable and irrational asset markets described by Keynes than the efficient markets described by modern finance theory. Bhagwati accepts that the dominance of short-term, speculative capital flows is not productive, but rather riddled with panics and manias that will lead to considerable economic difficulty. Hence, even from both the corporate and social perspectives the reliance on the stock market-based system as the primary financial system for the economy and the determinant for economic progress is not at all a sensible basis and objective.

With all her irrational exuberance about the rising indices in the Philippine stock market, GMA is even more putting the country through instability and the precariousness of the global financial market. The Philippine economy is susceptible to high degree of volatility in prices, which includes arbitrary pricing, because of its poorly regulated market, deficient private and publicly provided information, and a number of suspicious firms listed with no long enough reputable records. Moreover, the lessons of the 1997 Asian economic crisis is readily accessible: that in a crisis the stock market is likely to interact in a negative feedback loop with the market for foreign currency generating basically a meltdown not only in the financial sector, but also in the economy as a whole. Notwithstanding GMA's overly optimistic pronouncement about capitalist market reality, the latter contrasts even more sharply with people's experience of it.

Governance in a Neo-liberal World

It is against this background of GMA's predisposition to authoritarianism and market-obsession amidst the enduring social crisis in the Philippines, and combined with the structural requirements of neo-liberal globalisation, that the proposed revision to the 1987 Constitution was crafted and is being advanced. When Charter Change proponents talk about the need for a new Constitution that is fit for globalisation, they are honest about it. They mean it, and they unashamedly argue for it. It is for this reason that the argument against Charter Change must not only be limited to the issue of timing and to the exposition of the 'vested interests' of GMA, House Speaker Jose de Venecia, and their clientele. While the issues of timing and vested interests are valid arguments against the Charter Change Now agenda, a more important endeavour for progressive forces is to argue against the neo-liberal ideas, and the elitist philosophy that comes with it, being institutionalised in the proposed Constitution. Keynes aptly puts it: 'Sooner or later, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil'.

The Consultative Commission's Proposed Revision of the 1987 Constitution, finished in December 2005, is a blueprint for the institutionalisation of a neo-liberal kind of governance – a kind of governance that is more responsive to market forces than to popular democratic forces. In particular, it outlines the fundamental institutional framework for: [a] market-led development through the strengthening of market-driven social relations; and [b] a strong state able to manage the contradictions of the capitalist system.

Market-led Development Through Market-driven Social Relations

From the perspective of capital, the 1987 Constitution is a burden and a threat to capitalist hegemony – especially to its current configuration, neo-liberalism. Among the other essential reasons, it is a threat to the neo-liberal offensive because of the prominence of the role of state in the spheres of social life, the affirmation of labour 'as a primary social economic force', the provision of an industrial policy in which the development strategy is to be pursued through industrialisation, and the 'jurassic' political economic provisions that constrain free capital mobility and the completion of competitive capitalism.The Charter Change project of GMA comes at a time when the neo-liberal revolution is intensifying. States are being reorganised in such a way that the requirements of international competitiveness are internalised. The proposed Charter seeks to institutionally embed what the Philippine government has long been doing from the Cory Aquino administration to the present: the pursuit of an 'open market economy' through macro-economic structural adjustments in the policies of privatisation, deregulation, and liberalisation. Further, it aims to create a globally 'competitive' Philippines through comprehensive institutional reforms and behavioural change (which includes change in values) in relation to the market and the creation of ‘competition cultures’, labour market flexibility, and the development of ‘human capital'.

[a] 'Market! Market!': The Institutionalisation of Capitalist Ethos

In any Constitution, the article on 'Declaration of Principles and State Policies' (Article 2 in the case of the Philippines) outlines a nation's values. National values as enshrined in the Constitution are things, ideas, principles, and policies that people in a given territory regard as important to national life at a particular historical moment. The proposed changes in Article 2 asserts a new set of values for the Filipino people, deleting each and every provision on the state's responsibility on social entitlements as asserted in the 1987 Constitution – in particular, the role of the state in the provision of education, health, youth development, communication and information, and balanced and healthful ecology. The removal of these provisions means something profound, much more profound than the very narrow legal critique about the verbosity of the 1987 Constitution. It means the introduction of new set of values for a neo-liberal world.

What is left unsaid in the proposed 'state declaration' is that all those social entitlements are better left to the market forces. Central to this is the abandonment of state's promotion of 'total human liberation and development' (as asserted in the 1987 Constitution) in favour of market values. They are now tasked to be satisfied not by the state; but by the market. It must be emphasised however that the neo-liberal development paradigm is not an issue of ‘state versus market’ for nothing is as simple as a zero-sum game in this complex world. Active state involvement in making markets work has been present from the very beginning, ever since the Washington Consensus in the 1980s.

Even more striking is the brazen provision in the proposed Constitution asserting the capitalist ethos as regards property that would disembed the market from the society. The proposed Constitution (Article XIV, Section 5 [National Patrimony]) deletes the significant sentence in the 1987 Constitution which affirms that the market is firmly embedded in the society: 'The use of property bears a social function, and all economic agents shall contribute to the common good' (Article XII, Section 6, 1987 Constitution). The deletion of this declaration only means the institutionalisation of a system of appropriation that is very much private; and hence concealing the fact that the system of private appropriation in capitalism implicates the whole of society. In addition, while the proposed Constitution recognises the 'authority' of the state to promote distributive justice and to intervene for the common good, it does not anymore see these functions as the 'duty' of the state. Yet public institutions, including the proposed Constitution, must all be mobilised in order to sustain this system of private property that carries no public responsibility.

The framers of the proposed Constitution then went on to spell out the duty of every Filipino citizen in a new article called 'Bill of Duties' (Article V). The article enjoins the citizens – needless to say, most of whom are workers – to contribute to 'good governance' and the 'vitality and viability of democracy'. But 'good governance' for whom? In a neo-liberal world, 'good governance' is for the capitalist market. In 2002, the World Bank explicitly defined its neo-liberal stance on good governance:

Good governance includes the creation, protection, and enforcement of property rights, without which the scope for market transactions is limited. It includes the provision of a regulatory regime that works with the market to promote competition. And it includes the provision of sound macroeconomic policies that create a stable environment for market activity. Good governance also means the absence of corruption, which can subvert the goals of policy and undermine the legitimacy of the public institutions that support markets.

Good governance then is for market transactions and for market activity, one that works with the market and that supports markets. What we have now are the Philippine elitist and capitalist class in alliance with transnational capital crying, 'Market! Market!' But there is an alternative critical hypothesis. If they are providing a prominent role for the market that implicates the lives of each and every Filipino, why not provide a bill of duties as well for the market? The market fundamentalists have a quick answer to this: capital does not have citizenship and it is only loyal to profit. As such, market cannot contribute to the 'vitality and viability of democracy' because it is not simply a space of freedom and choice, but of domination and coercion.

[b] The Neo-liberal Offensive: An Ideological Assault to the Workers

The institutionalisation of capitalist hegemony is not complete without launching an ideological assault to the workers. In particular, it must change the society's consciousness towards labour – from the existing social declaration that labour is a source of value and wealth, to a new capitalist mindset that regards labour only as a cost. It is for this reason that the 1987 Constitution's declaration that: 'The State affirms labor as a primary social economic force. It shall protect the rights of workers and promote their welfare.' has to be revised in such a way that provides the platform needed for the project of creating the conditions for the hegemony of capital over labour, upon which capitalist reproduction ultimately depends.

In the proposed Constitution, the word 'responsible' is added to describe the role of labour as a social economic force. And it then guarantees not only the rights of the workers, but the private sector as well. It says, 'The State affirms labor as a primary and responsible social economic force. The State shall protect and promote the welfare of both workers and employers.' (Article 2, Section 11, Proposed Constitution).

The revision is consistent with the emphasis put forward by the World Bank, the architect of neo-liberalism itself, in the mid-1990s on the role of workers in an integrating world. The Bank promotes 'effective' unions, and indeed 'responsible' labour, that would work with the market and help firms extract more profit; but not to protect jobs, distort markets, and oppose reforms and structural adjustment programmes. The Bank then proudly asserted in the late 1990s that 'nothing is more significant to economic growth than the private sector'.

It is true that the framers of the proposed Constitution still provide for affirmative actions as regards the liberation of women against oppression and the rights of indigenous peoples and all the other identities. The capitalist system they are trying to constitutionalise can tolerate the rights and liberation of these identities because the system is in fact resistant to them. What they cannot affirm and tolerate however is the liberation of the working class.

[c] Neo-classical Economics Redux, Neo-liberal Policies Institutionalised

The article on 'National Economy and Patrimony' in the 1987 Constitution outlines a Keynesian kind of economics. It stresses the goals of the national economy to include 'a more equitable distribution of opportunities, income, and wealth; a sustained increase in the amount of goods and services produced by the nation for the benefit of the people; and an expanding productivity as the key to raising the quality of life for all, especially the underprivileged'. Hence, it provides for an industrial policy in which industrialisation is the core development strategy – providing adequate social services, promotes full employment, a rising standard of living, and an improved quality of life for all. The key idea of an industrial policy is not simply about protectionism, but the systematic 'coordination' among economic actors (state, business, workers, and other social actors) and economic sectors (manufacturing, agriculture, and services) toward economic development. The proposed Constitution (especially in Articles II and XIV) discards these Keynesian provisions altogether, paving the way for the institutionalisation of neo-classical economics (with its equality assumptions that all economic activities are qualitatively alike in contributing to economic growth) and neo-liberal policies (with its excessive market optimism that could usher in development).

Apparently, the injunction for industrialisation has not been put to practise. Since the 1987 Constitution, the managers of the Philippine economy have violated this injunction for industrialisation in the country; and they have practised market-led development consistent with the metaphor of a harmony-ensuring market of neo-classical economics.

Interestingly, the framers of the 1987 Constitution must have known the history of economic development and thus the powerful analytical tool of development economics. They discarded the mother of all assumptions in neo-classical economics: the assumption of no diversity and no qualitative difference; hence the equilibrium metaphor that portrays the market as a mechanism creating automatic harmony. The 1987 Constitution understands development as a process of cumulative causations which are the joint effects of factors excluded by the neo-classical equilibrium metaphors. It recognises: [i] qualitative difference between economic activities (across and within manufacturing, services, and agriculture); [ii] diversity (the degree of division of labour); [iii] synergies (linkages and clusters between manufacturing, services, and agriculture sectors); [iv] institutions (to safeguard the common good); and [v] novelty (significance of innovation, learning, and science). It regards the manufacturing industry as key to economic development, and that a combination of manufacturing activities and a large division of labour is crucial in creating a wealthy nation – reducing unemployment, increasing the tax base by creating high-income individuals, helping solve balance of payments problems, and increasing the velocity of money circulation. The 1987 Constitution thus aims to copy the development strategies of wealthy economies characterised by increasing returns, specialising in activities where the opportunities for innovation are the largest with a large division of labour and diversity, dynamic synergies and strong institutions, and intensed innovation.

The idea of development economics in the 1987 Constitution is now being subjected to obsolescence, even if it has not been implemented at all. The 1987 Constitution values synergy – specifically, the priority the state has to put on comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform (agriculture), a dynamic manufacturing industry (manufacturing), and the development of Filipino skills and talents for science and technology (services). The idea is to achieve a diversified economic sector besides agriculture and raw materials. Agriculture, or services, may serve as an engine of growth but not alone in monoculture without a manufacturing sector. This synergy among economic sectors is embedded in 'policy coordination' intrinsic in any industrialisation strategy and in the history of economic development: the coordination of education policy, industrial policy, innovation policy, trade policy, and competition policy. But the neo-classical sensibility behind the proposed Constitution is unable to register synergies and linkages. It is also unable to register qualitative differences (including the different potentials of economic activities as carriers of economic growth) and to cope with innovations and novelties (especially how differently these are distributed among economic activities).

For a long time now, the government has prioritised the service sector simply because it is the country's 'comparative and competitive advantage' over the rest of the economies. In addition to the deletion of the provisions mandating the state to promote agricultural and industrial development, it is striking that the proposed Constitution also deletes the mandate for the state to pursue a 'trade policy' that serves the general welfare on the basis of the principles of 'equality and reciprocity'. Among the economic sectors, the proposed Constitution spells out the focus on services. In this regard, it is acting a la most developed economies in the WTO in their primary concern on free trade in services under the Doha Round. This is not surprising at all since GMA is an ardent proponent of the accession and subjection of the Philippines to the WTO!

But the kind of services the government promotes are not even knowledge-intensive; and this includes most of the economic activities of the OFWs and call centres. Take for example the call centres. Apart from several alienation most call centre agents suffer (such as alienation from one's own labour, geography, family and friends, and educational attainment), it only requires a handful of skills: communication skills and consumption of coffee to keep one awake. Services may be at par with the significant role manufacturing once did in the developed world. However, the service sector, even if it is knowledge-intensive, cannot grow and thrive without demand from a diversified manufacturing base. In this sense, synergies among economic sectors (ie., the dynamic interaction among manufacturing, services, and agriculture), which is regarded as one of the greatest discoveries in the history of economic development, are also important. Without regard for this significant insight from development economics, the Philippines remains to specialise in being poor.

That is why even if the latter articles and sections in the proposed Constitution define the role – let alone, responsibility – of the state in education, health, protection of labour, social justice, strengthening of family, among others, it is hard to believe them. The market-led, service-oriented development strategy enshrined in the proposed Constitution simply cannot fulfill these injunctions. Indeed, to constitutionalise requires constitutional lies. Take for instance the proposed Constitution's regard for the promotion of all citizen's right to quality education and the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation.

Under conditions of market-led, service-oriented development strategy, massive investment in education for the development of human resources feeds emigration. Without creating a local demand for the same human resources (just like the development strategy of most East and Southeast Asian states), education would be a sure recipe for mass migration. This is not to suggest however that education must be responsive to the needs of the industry. It only shows how 'policy coordination' of education policy, industrial policy, and other policies are indispensable to economic development. This, however, is no problem for GMA and her economic managers for this is precisely their palliative economics: for thousands of Filipinos to emigrate every day and for them to send back remittances to boost the economy's GDP.

In connection to this palliative economics is another constitutional lie as regards the maintenance of the provision in the proposed Constitution (Article XVII, Section 1) that 'The State recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation. Accordingly, the State shall strengthen its solidarity and actively promote its total development.' The fact of tremendous social costs of migration is well-known and is available to those who want them. But the implication of the government's migration policy for family relations is best captured in the words of Marx more than a century ago. To borrow Marx's perfect description of family relations under conditions of market-driven social relations, the policy for mass migration 'has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation'.

An industrial policy still makes sense for the developing world in this era of globalisation. There is a need for developing countries like the Philippines to pursue industrialisation which could address the issue of redistribution, and usher in civilisation and long-term development; in particular, a very strong and efficient manufacturing sector that is able to perpetually enhance its technological capability, and able to create local synergistic exchange between different economic activities in the urban and rural spaces, as well as possessing diverse economic base, a dynamic division of labour, and specialising in increasing returns activities. Indeed, a strong case could be made for the proposition that industrialisation strategy has a great potential to uplift the untold suffering of millions of Filipino people. But there is a sensitive, fundamental class issue that (transnational) capital and pro-capital political forces would hardly dare to take risk: only a dynamic industry is able to create formal employment – let alone, full employment – in which a 'critical mass' and a countervailing power of labour unions are socially formed.

[d] A Project for Capitalist Modernisation

The resurgence of neo-classical economics in the Philippines as outlined above is accompanied by neo-liberalism's project for capitalist modernisation, which is often sugarcoated in the 'good governance' buzzword of capital's transnational agencies. The project is to catch up with resurgent capitalism in most of the developing world through the creation of a genuinely competitive capitalism in the Philippines, and hence sweeping away all the inherited evils and vestiges of pre-capitalist, feudal relations. For capitalists and pro-capitalist political forces, the reproduction of capitalism in the Philippines suffers from the incompleteness of capitalist development because of limited, if not lack of, competition and market access for 'global' capital. This vision for capitalist modernisation is the central reason the proposed Charter allows for 'foreign' capital to operate in the country; provides mechanisms for easy 'entry' and 'exit' of capitalist enterprises; maintains the pursuit of flexibility and productivity through labour market reforms for competitiveness; and restructures the Philippine geography into competing sites of accumulation under a federal system.

First, the proposed Constitution promotes capitalist competition by allowing foreign ownership to industrial, commercial, or residential lands and assets (including the mass media); and it guarantees as well the rights of 'foreign' capital to explore, even in large scale, the minerals and natural resources of the country. As such, the sentence in the proposed Constitution that says 'a sustained increase in the amount of goods and services produced by the nation for the benefit of the people' as one of the goals of the national economy has been deleted. The national economy is then envisioned to embrace production for profit more than the production for needs. In doing so, the proposed Charter guarantees the right of capital, in greater scope and depth than ever, to impact on the lives of Filipinos. After all, when capital comes in, it does not merely come as money; it comes as a domestic social force at the core of national life.

Second, the proposed Constitution removes policies it regards barriers to easy and quick entry and exit of firms. For instance, the limits imposed by the 1987 Constitution on private corporations, individuals, and 'foreign' capital in terms of time, area, and scope of landholding, lease, co-production, and joint ventures have been deleted. This framework for a reduction of policy-related barriers to easy 'entry' and 'exit' of firms is important especially for firm-level competition; in particular, for a firm's productivity growth. However, this guarantees the untrammeled adventurism of free capital mobility known for its short-termist predisposition. Rather than enhancing the efficacy of the country's macroeconomic policy that will encourage longer-term investment and at the same time raise some tax, the proposed Constitution places the developing Philippines on too a precarious situation highly vulnerable to capital flight.

Third, the proposed Charter maintains the provision on labour productivity, now under the neo-liberal agenda of labour market reform. This implies the creation of a 'flexible' labour force as a key strategy to the establishment of competition cultures and the promotion of competitiveness. At both the national and firm levels, increasing labour productivity – hence, the increase in capital/labour ratio – is the essence of competitiveness and the key to ensuring survival and long-run growth. Yet, competition and expansion depend not on workers' salaries but on unit labour cost – ie., a combination of effective cost per worker and the productivity of labour. In the context of intensifying global competition that generates pressures to lower wages and poor labour standards across the world, the asymmetry between the goal of increasing productivity, on the one hand, and rising real wage, on the other, is logically apparent in the competitiveness rhetoric. Hence, under such conditions, the proposed Constitution has another sweet talk, another constitutional lie, that says 'expanding productivity' is 'the key to raising the quality of life for all, especially the underprivileged'.

Fourth, the project to reconstruct the Philippine political geography under a federal system also implies an economic logic for capital (Article XII, Proposed Charter). Central to this is the creation of 'autonomous territories in the country' to be transformed into centres of accumulation. That is to say, competing sites of accumulation. The uneven character of development in the country in which primitive/feudal/pre-capitalist relations coexists with modern features of the society suggests that different territories require distinct strategy for capital accumulation from autonomous territory to autonomous territory within the geographical landscape of national capitalism. As such, the proposed Charter provides for a more comprehensive primary legislative powers for every autonomous territory to include socio-economic activities such as 'planning, budget, management, finance, agriculture and fisheries, natural resources, energy, environment, technology, transportation, housing, health and social welfare, and labour and employment' which are excluded in the narrow and limited administrative-socio-cultural scope the 1987 Constitution provides for local government units. The ambitious vision will thus turn the Philippine landscape into a huge bazaar with localities competing for investments and markets and hence peddling their workforces, offering the lowest prices for doing business. It would make not only localities but also businesses compete with one another. The idea is that businesses under intensed domestic competition would be able to cope with the rigours of international competition. This is the politics of a genuinely competitive capitalism: it is not simply about satisfying business' wants, it is also about forcing businesses to be competitive. And here lies the system's inherent contradiction: capital is completely dependent on the market, and the logic of competition must be perpetually realised for its survival and self-reproduction.

Indeed, one must recognise that it is intrinsic in the capitalist modernisation project to create a new ruling class that would compete with, and could even replace, the old trapos, landlords, bosses, and capitalists. But one must also recognise that the social relations would be the same: capitalist and elitist. Still the hegemony of capital over labour, and the real subsumption of the masses to the elites. Accordingly, one must also recognise that it is intrinsic in the project to alleviate poverty not simply through the traditional neo-liberal strategy of market 'trickle down' effects; but through the innovative contemporary neo-liberal strategy of 'accumulation of human capital', that is the productive utilisation of the most abundant asset of the poor: labour. However, one must also recognise the limitations of such project that leaves the system unchanged – the very same system that reproduces poverty, upon which the secret of its survival ultimately lies.

A Strong Republic, But Not Democratic

Apparently evident in the crafting of the proposed Constitution is the fact that globalisation does not bring about the end of the nation state. States are in fact authors of globalisation by the way they sign international agreements, legislate policies, and promulgate constitutions to effect their internal reorganisation for global capitalism. The nation state remains the world's universal political form and the indispensable medium of global capital. The market, on the other hand, is a blind force which needs supporting governments and social institutions and a stable political order and legal framework that would provide a certain degree of predictability for capital. At the same time, there is no 'invisible hand' that automatically corrects market failures; and as such, there is need for non-market responses (ie, from states and other social actors) to market imperfections. Against this background, the idea of a strong state or a strong republic is not at all incompatible with neo-liberalism so long as the dynamics of capitalist competition are promoted without fear or favour.

While the proposed Constitution is a project of capital (and pro-capital political forces) and the elites (and the pro-elite forces) who vehemently believe in capitalist market-led development and elite rule; it likewise reflects the surrender of the Philippine state to a genuinely global capitalist system – not anymore of the old-style imperialism of the rich robbing the poor, but of a new variant of subjecting poor countries and the workers to the imperatives of the market. It would be uncritical however to assume that the local managers of the global capitalist system, together with the elites and pro-elite rule forces, are not critical. GMA and her political economic advisers need to be 'critical' as their opponents in the sense that they need to be mindful of the complex processes at work in making the system run smoothly and that they are able to find innovative responses as crises and conflicts arise. After all, the maintainance of the status quo is not an easy task. They are all too aware of the fact that crises, contradictions, and clashes of interests are inherent in both the capitalist and elitist systems. In order to compensate for their limited, and even their loss of capacity, to manage the affairs of the economy they have to manage the polity instead. Managing the polity conducive for a neo-liberal economy involves the containment of conflicts and class struggle, as well as the assurance of state legitimacy through the ballots. Thus, a strong republic could actually be a positive asset for neo-liberalism.

Indeed, the complexities of the capitalist and elitist systems, the crises they induce, and the conflicts they provoke would even require much more intrusive state intervention and much more comprehensive state planning, coordinated at the international scale, than the Bolsheviks and the most orthodox socialists could imagine. Having this in mind, the framers of the proposed Charter find it imperative to reform the public sector in order to promote an attractive investment climate; set-up a decision-making institution like the parliamentary form conducive for capitalism's need for periodic adjustment; and institutionalise an elitist republican virtue that is not democratic.

[a] Public Sector Reform for and with Markets

The 1987 Constitution enjoins public officers and employees to serve the people, to whom they are at all times accountable, with 'utmost responsibility' among other virtues (Article XI, Section 1). The proposed Constitution, on the other hand, enjoins public officers and employees to serve the people with 'utmost efficiency' (Article XIII, Section 1) consistent with its institutionalisation of market values. The emphasis on 'efficiency', in place of 'responsibility' and even 'justice', by which public service is defined in the proposed Constitution thus recognises the need for greater government efficiency as a precursor to creating the environment right for business and the requirements of productivity. The logic is clear: the public sector forms a substantial part of the economy; and as such productivity in this sector has an important and direct impact for the productivity performance of the economy as a whole.

Government institutions do not merely provide certain degree of predictability for capital. To a large extent, they also manage market forces through policies of privatisation (ie, the sale of public assets to private investors) and liberalisation (ie, opening up of restricted markets to competition). Equally important for the system is that market forces are institutionally managed through the reorientation of regulation, in particular a regulatory framework in a regime of 'de-regulation', privatisation, and liberalisation. However, the central task of this regulation under a neo-liberal regime is to secure the interest of business, and not of the people. This is the context within which public sector reform is introduced, one that works for and with the market. But again, as has been mentioned above, the accountability of the market – whose conduct of business implicates the rest of the society – is not defined in the proposed Charter. It therefore enforces the separation of 'the economic' and 'the political' in capitalist discipline as well as the paradox at the heart of capitalist production: the exclusion of the poor and workers from wealth and yet their inclusion in the circuits of its production. Further, it implies that the state, and hence the Filipino multitude, shall be the absorber of risks as well as failures of market adventurism.

This does not mean, however, that the public sector should not be reformed and that public officers and employees should not be efficient. Of course, public service productivity and efficiency is important for the needs of the people and the legitimate demands of taxpayers, and the building of infrastructure for education, health, and transportation. It is simply to point out how market forces are also institutionally managed through 'corporatisation' (ie, public sector organisations adopting corporate form of organisation as well as corporate values). It is also to simply point out that contrary to the philosophy of the market fundamentalists that markets are always efficient and that state intervention is wrong; markets are not always efficient, and governments are not necessarily inefficient.

[b] Parliament for Markets

Taking into account contemporary political conjuncture and the configuration of power relations, especially the seeming absence of alternatives clear to the people and the apparent lack of a vibrant political party dynamics in the country, the shift from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government at this time would provide a formidable institutional guarantee for lifelong political leadership of GMA and her clientele. If this shift were constitutionalised, sooner than later, the opposition groups will be incorporated in the regime, or their dream of electoral victory over the incumbent may be nearly impossible. That is a clear political logic. But there is also a deeper political economic logic that underpins the need for a transformation of the institution for decision-making. It is the link – often broken in contemporary discussions – between globalisation and a parliamentary form of government.

The premises are straightforward. First, the global capitalist system does not run smoothly, but is inherently insecure, precarious, and crisis-ridden; it is subject to periodic adjustments which states need to enforce for it to perpetually thrive and survive. Thus, globalisation is presented not only as a blueprint for continuing market-led development, but also as a set of conscious policies and initiatives for the management of its contradictions. Second, the foremost strength of a parliamentary form of government lies in the fusion of the executive and the legislative functions which makes decision- and policy-making relatively fast and smooth compared to the presidential system's prone to policy paralysis. Thus, a parliamentary set-up is conducive to the institutional requirements of the exigencies of (global) capitalism.

This need for responsive institutions under conditions of the crisis-ridden system is evident at the aftermath of the 1997 Asian economic crisis when the task of 'surveillance' has become one of the core responsibilities of the IMF and the World Bank as managers of global capitalism. The IMF, in particular, does ‘surveillance’ of the financial and economic issues of a universal membership of 184 countries. Why is surveillance then important for the management of global capitalism? In today's globalised economy, where the economic and financial policies of one country may affect many other countries, international cooperation to monitor economic developments on a global scale is essential. By doing surveillance, the global managers of capitalism would then be able to detect the vulnerabilities and risks of the global capitalist order at an early stage. This, in turn, would allow them to prescribe the restructuring of the policy frameworks and institutions of member countries in the guise of improving transparency and accountability. In this case then, a parliamentary institution, which is not constrained with too much checks and balances characteristic of a presidential form but one which is responsive to the system's recurrent crisis and needs for periodic social restructuring, is essential.

In theory, the parliamentary form of government has its important merits for governance, and even for a vibrant democracy. However, the parliamentary project in the proposed Constitution is a normative alternative being offered – the 'must be' and 'should be' – based on the needs and interests of capital and the (incumbent) elites. In this context, the parliamentary system would be functional to the capitalist and elitist systems. What is lacking in the provision of an alternative form of government is the realpolitik in the Philippine society – that is, a political and economic alternative grounded in the country's culture, history, and developmental needs, and based on the transformative power of reality.

[c] Republicanism Against Democracy

The first section in the article on declaration of state principles and policies means a great deal about the Consultative Commission's elitist stance. It says, 'The Philippines is a republican state', full stop. As such, it has ceased to declare the Philippine state as 'democratic' as in the 1987 Constitution. This only means that the Philippine state remains a republic, but not democratic. The members of the Consultative Commission are serious about this. Some of them have strong background in political philosophy.

In political theory, republicanism is pitted against democracy; in particular, to the 'excesses' and 'dangers' of absolute democracy. In the history of political thought, republicanism is intrinsically elitist, and even capitalist. In contemporary politics, the United States often asserts its republican virtue as a justification for its 'exceptionalism' in international law. In the period of antiquity, among the available models of political organisation a republican virtue is most closely associated with the aristocratic (mixed) constitution of Sparta and Rome, instead of the democratic Athens. In modern political theory, the central organising principle of republicanism is the concept of citizenship, which implies not simply the passive enjoyment of rights as in liberal democracy but the active participation of citizens in pursuit of a common good. Active citizenship however was reserved for men of property, and not for women nor those men who 'lacked the wherewithal to live of themselves' – indeed, not for men who depend his livelihood by working for others. The republicans, as well as the liberals, agree about the exclusivity of the political nation. Hence, their core conception of citizenship is divided between propertied elites and the labouring multitude.

For the framers of the proposed Constitution, the country's history of 'people power' must now be an event of the past. It is for this reason that the republican virtue of representation is enshrined in a doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. That is to say, there is no legitimate – let alone, constitutional – politics outside the parliament. While the proposed Charter maintains the word 'democracy' in the preamble and in some sections, it is a democracy that enables elitism and capitalism to survive. Accordingly, the coercive arm of the state, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, is to be mobilised to protect capital and the incumbent elites in office – not anymore as 'protector of the people and the State' as in the 1987 Constitution. The maintenance of the first sentence 'Civilian authority is, at all times, supreme over the military', while deleting the following sentences that define the role of the military as the 'protector of the people', suggests a mandate for the preservation of elite rule. In political science, 'civilian authority' does not refer to ordinary civilian, but rather to the political elites elected into office and appointed by duly constituted authorities.

Indeed, democracy is dangerous to elitism and to capitalism. It is dangerous to these unjust social systems especially if we mean 'democracy as a social relation' in which 'the political', 'the economic', 'the cultural', and all the other spheres of social life are not separated from, or merely reflective of, one another. Rather, these spheres are organically connected to one another. In this sense, political democracy does not only mean the enjoyment of liberal freedoms and an equally weighted votes among enfranchised citizens, it also means the rule of the 'demos' and its original signification as 'popular power'. Cultural democracy is about being and not about having, in which every human being is respected for who one is and not for what one owns. Economic democracy is not simply about equitable distribution of wealth, but democracy as the driving mechanism of the economy. In a word, democracy is an ideal in complete opposition to capitalism and elitism.

Conclusion

The Consultative Commission's proposed Constitution must be given the seriousness it deserves. It may be harder to reveal than to conceal the exploitative nature and the opportunistic character of GMA's Charter Change agenda, or even to capture it in theory. But the overarching idea of the agenda is already spelled out in the preamble: that the sovereign Filipino people are to ordain and promulgate a Constitution not anymore 'to build a just and humane society' but simply 'to establish a Government that shall embody our ideals'.

The proposed Charter targets to reverse the 1987 Constitution, which forces of elitism and capitalism regard as a burden and threat to their hegemony. The project aims to get legitimacy for the great transformation it seeks to institutionalise for the Philippine society, one that would guarantee the right of the market forces to be the sole director of the fate of human lives. The proponents are brazen and unapologetic about their capitalist and elitist stance. This could have not been done in most European and Latin American states where neo-liberal projects must in the first instance be embellished with 'populist' appeal because the project that would put life in the market, hence the corruption of life in its entirety, hardly gets legitimacy from the people. As always, the structural condition upon which the incumbent regime depends its survival is through its brazen promotion of chronic mendacity. In this case, the mendacity that Charter Change is panacea for social ills. To constitutionalise requires constitutional lies.

The Charter Change agenda is indeed overly ambitious, seeking a kind of social change that simultaneously and systematically restructures the political, the economic, and the cultural spheres to catch up with capitalist development. But it is real. This is not an easy task especially under the auspices of an elite political class like GMA whose economics ends when her politics begins.

GMA's regime uses the Charter Change project as a response to the crisis of the political system. While her critics think that the political system as a whole is in crisis and that a systemic change is most urgently needed, GMA only regards it as a crisis of her popularity and that an alternative is still available within the system. But whichever way one may regard the crisis – systemic, institutional, or popularity – GMA exerts every effort to make the crisis functional to her as well as to the entire elite system. With her disruption and indeed 'creative destruction' of the failing 'EDSA institutions', GMA is doing a favour to both the capitalist and elitist systems. All social institutions are to be oriented toward the survival of GMA's regime in particular, and the preservation of elite rule and capitalism in general. GMA may leave her post soon but she is making sure that the neo-liberal institutions and its associated elitist institutions are in place. The proponents of Charter Change are even using state power, resources, and institutions to shape the will of the multitude, rather than the latter shaping the former. Hence, the Charter Change agenda constitutes the reconfiguration of new institutions that are more likely, and could better, secure the conditions for elite and capitalist reproduction in the Philippines.

But the Charter Change project at the present conjuncture offers an imperfect response to the burgeoning crisis of the system. Even if the proposed Constitution is to be ratified – either through by-pass of existing institutional procedures or through successful deceptive campaigns among the Filipino electorate – neo-liberalism in a framework of a strong republic is inherently unstable and crisis-ridden. The reorientation of capitalist reproduction through the promotion of competitive capitalism on a national scale and the preservation of elite reproduction through a shift to parliamentary form of government at this time would not only perpetually reproduce capitalism and elitism in the Philippine society. Above all, they will generate the reproduction of social antagonisms across the Philippine geography. These are social antagonisms directly resulting from the heartless assault to democracy, the workers, and the masses constitutive in the proposed Constitution. These are social antagonisms that spring from the very logic of 'authoritarian liberalism' itself.

The Charter Change Now project is to be confronted head-on by a democratic will to power. To be for democracy. To be for the workers. To be for the masses.

To Be 'Übermensch' Is To Be Superman

2006-05-22T12:24:00.000+03:00

The child in me suddenly came out. At this very moment, my mood is saying that I post this here. I have just taken an on-line personality test, 'Which Superhero are you?', and it revealed that my personality is predominantly (that is, 85%) 'Superman'. The result said 'You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others'. Honestly, this is what I think of myself. This, too, is what some say about me. But I'm also wondering whether it has a counterpart, something like a 'Which villain are you?' personality test.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman
85%
Green Lantern
70%
Iron Man
70%
Supergirl
65%
The Flash
65%
Robin
52%
Spider-Man
50%
Hulk
50%
Wonder Woman
45%
Batman
35%
Catwoman
20%
You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the 'Übermensch' in his 19th century philosophical text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is often interchangeably misconceived as 'Superman'. Yet, as I understand it, Nietzsche's 'Übermensch' does not actually refer to an individual, but to a process of overcoming oneself as well as nihilism.

These days I always come across discussions about post-modernism, even from among the left activists with Marxist, let alone progressive, background. While I do not consider myself as a post-modernist because of my Marxist orientation – especially because of post-modernism's refusal to accept that there is a basic process at work in social life at this historical moment, which is the global capitalist system with its totalising scope and implications – I find post-modernism's analytical tools useful at times. In particular, the methodologies of 'double reading' and deconstruction.

I have completed a course on the Sociology of Post-modernity in 2002 under Prof Randy David so I could say I have done quite a number of readings about both the modern and post-modern sensibilities. In the last months, I have attended several left discourses, dialogues, and discussions and I have always heard the argument that post-modernism poses the greatest intellectual challenge to socialism. I have always argued against this because I think that capitalism, with neo-liberalism as its new configuration, remains the greatest intellectual challenge to socialism. First, there are very few people who know about post-modernism – one could even count them in his/her fingers. In the University of the Philippines, for instance, I could perhaps say that only a minority of students and faculty members have a good grasp about post-modernism, even from the Colleges of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Arts and Letters, and Architecture where post-modernism may have been taught – not to mention whether or not they agree with its theoretical claims. Second, espousing post-modernism's principles of heterogeneity, contingency, and as I have mentioned, its refusal to accept the systemic nature of capitalism would indeed be an intellectual assault to socialism – especially at this moment when the development, enrichment, and refinement of the critical programme of socialism is most urgently needed. Here, I don't intend to further dwell on this issue about post-modernism and socialism. I am reserving this for a future discourse.

Going back to the process of becoming an 'Übermensch'. My heterodox development economist supervisor, Dr. Erik S. Reinert, once argued that Joseph Schumpeter's notion of 'creative destruction' – or 'innovation' in the parlance of evolutionary economics – was borrowed from Nietzsche. In this light, it would be best to understand the process of becoming an 'Übermensch' as a process of one's will to power for 'creative destruction' in three inter-related steps. In particular, the will to power, in the first instance, to 'creatively' overcome the nihilism of some defunct religions or outmoded institutional ideals in order to create new ideas. Second, the will to power to 'destructively' reject corrupt(ed) societal codes and morals. And third, the will to power to overcome one's self, or the continual process of self-overcoming.

The process of becoming is actually a process of overcoming. It's a dialectics between becoming and overcoming. What I want to become is a function of what I need to overcome, and vice versa, 'What must I overcome in order to become that person?' This would thus entail an acknowledgement of one's limitations and shortcomings. This sensibility is in fact common sensical. (Here I am reminded of Ka Dodong's comment about post-modernism – that is, post-modernists tend to profoundly intellectualise even the things that could simply be understood by common sense!)

On a personal note, I know what to overcome – fear, anxiety, pain of the past, among others – but it seems that I still am grappling with what I want to become. When I was a child, the career I wish to take was clear to me. These days I appear to be too cautious, wary, and somewhat indecisive about my career track. But still, I could feel something big is in store for me. Hence, I must face each and every moment with cheer, happiness, and a warrior's heart.

It is so hard to become a 'Superman' as described in my personality test – mild-mannered, good, strong and altruistic – especially in this world of malicious people, a world 'as if' governed by the moral universe of the 'contract of mutual indifference', of practical unconcern to others (i.e., we only do something good so that others would also come to our aid when the time comes we are in need). Yet, I will still opt to be 'Superman' in the process of becoming an 'Übermensch'. We must have the will to power to 'creatively' overcome the nihilism posed on the world by the capitalist, elitist, fundamentalist, and individualistic ethos. We must have the will to power to 'destructively' reject the outmoded values, practices, and ideals in the society. And we must have the will to power to overcome ourselves, ours being creatures of habit, and be mindful that we can make things happen – for it is only in first conquering ourselves that we could conquer the future. Indeed, we must have the will to power to unashamedly embrace 'utopia'; lest this world and our very own selves will be far worse.

We must remain mild-mannered even if others are rough and rude; good even if others are bad and vile; strong even if the circumstances pressure us to be weak; and as human beings who love to help even if others appear self-indulgent and selfish. In this sense, to be 'Übermensch' is to be Superman – the will to power to remain mild-mannered, good, strong, and someone who loves to help others in order to creatively destruct the morally intolerable realities of today towards the realisation of a much more caring world.

A Path With A Warrior’s Heart

2005-12-09T07:11:00.001+02:00

I began this blog exactly a year ago with an entry Pursuing My Personal Legend when I was still in KL. Now that I have gone back here in Manila on August this year, with a masteral degree and a new job, I am still figuring out which path to take so as to pursue my personal legend. But I understand that the first question to ask is ‘what is, or what should be, my personal legend’? Should I examine this question at all? Or, am I asking the right question?

For several weeks now I’ve been pondering on the thought shared by a local artist in a television interview where he said that we should have pursued our childhood dream/ambition. I think he is right because when we were a child it was when our intentions were pure and pristine; and our inner courage was whole and intact. All of us still know our childhood dream, which - for one reason or another - many of us have now been alienated from. In fact, we have several reactions every time we are reminded of that childhood dream. Perhaps some of us feel sad of being reminded of it out of frustration or resentment. But for some, I included, being reminded of this dream succeeds in drawing a smile from the heart - what a lovely feeling this is indeed. From time to time, I find myself happy seeing and being with kids, especially babies. With their innocence and charming smiles, they never fail to give me strength, energy, inspiration, and happiness. At a personal level, I ask myself: can I still attain my childhood dream? Kaya pa, at kayang kaya! (Or, in the Malaysian English way of putting it: still can, and very much can!)

I, too, must admit though that I’m suffering from this seeming personal alienation, of a detachment from my true self. I am now in the process of re-discovering, and hence re-uniting, with this true self, hoping that soon I will wake up with my inner courage that knows no fear and be re-united with it.

I first learned this concept of alienation from my reading of Western political philosophy in the works of the romanticists Rousseau and Marx in their respective views on the essence of a human being whose true self and passion have been misdirected due to the evolution of the structural constraints and the values that come with it in the historical social structure. This learning has truly been helpful. But these days I appreciate this thought more deeply and at a more personal level by discovering Eastern philosophy - in particular, from the ideas of Buddha on anicca (impermanence), happiness, courage, contentment, mindfulness, enlightenment, and emptiness.

Indeed, I’m playing a relatively new game and venturing into a new path. But we can only play ‘a good game’ in life if we play it, and pursue its path, with a heart - in particular, a warrior’s heart, yet full of loving-kindness and happiness.

Conversation With A Fellow EDSA II Activist

2005-07-17T08:17:00.000+03:00

My life seems dry at this twilight moment of my MA programme here in KL. I am feeling some form of alienation which I, unfortunately, don't have the courage to write here. Nevertheless, I would have wanted to write a thoughtful piece on the current political crisis in the Philippines but my programme is nearing its end, and hence, there are so much academic requirements to deal with.

I owe a lot of friends responses from the e-mails they have sent me and the comments they have posted here in this blog. These days they have been urging and asking me to write about the ongoing political crisis in the Philippines. Of late, one of my ka-blogistas, Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX, mentioned me in his recent post entitled ‘The Definition of Elite Rule’ referring to my 12 July 2005 post here expressing my solidarity to the Laban ng Masa outcry to put an end to elite rule through a transitional revolutionary government. (Please also see a recent comment by an anonymous ka-blogista on a previous post here on 2 February 2005 entitled ‘Another Philippine Society is Possible’.) Thank you for all your notes. I'll find time to write here soon a discourse on elitism that is so well-entrenched and pervasive in the Philippine society in political, cultural, and economic terms. In particular, I hope to address this problematique: why, despite its internal crises and contradictions, elitism thrives and survives in our society?

In the meantime, I am pasting below an excerpt of my last week's (10 July) Yahoo! Messenger conversation with Ryan, who is a fellow EDSA II activist and who is currently a bar reviewee, in which we had a brief chat on the current Philippine political crisis. Ryan was the Chair of the UP Diliman College of Social Sciences and Philosophy (CSSP) Student Council during EDSA II in 2001. I was then Representative of the Department of Political Science to the Student Council. I hope that my ka-blogistas could somehow follow the discussion below, bearing in mind of the informality of an on-line chat. Too, I hope Ryan does not mind posting this unedited conversation....

(Chat between Bonn Juego and Ryan Tan [aka 'bradpwitt'], 10 July 2005, around 3pm)

bonnjuego: pare!
bonnjuego: kumusta na?
bonnjuego: ayos lang ba sa review?
bonnjuego: all the best to you atty!
bradpwitt: very distracted by the state of affairs of the country. I am sure you miss being here hehe... di ba dapat nasa tabi ka ni ka dodong?
bonnjuego: well, sinabi mo pa!
bonnjuego: hehehe
bonnjuego: am bored here!
bonnjuego: am in the wrong country at the moment!
bradpwitt: hehe... ewan. bakit kasi ngayon lang ako nagbar hehe...
bonnjuego: ka randy david wrote to me when i was in europe... he said everything is collapsing in our country
bonnjuego: but this should not despair me... i should enjoy my stay in europe hehehhe
bonnjuego: true.. too bad... still the perpetuation of elite rule as i see it...
bonnjuego: gma has to go soon but elite compromise has already been made... this is my fear..
bradpwitt: i am not in total agreement with Randy David. But I see that he is very disappointed to point of giving up
bonnjuego: randy is not giving up... as for him, cynicism would be the worst state of mind for a nation....
bonnjuego: suwerte pa ni gma.. umuulan hehehe
bradpwitt: hehe... are the civil society groups united? parang hindi eh
bonnjuego: i'm just waiting for the momentum.. i believe in the power of numbers.... sana mabuo ni bro. eddie iyong million niya uli... pero.. nakatatakot gagamitin lang as canon fodders ang masa ng mga eliltista
bonnjuego: as always, civ soc is not united..
bonnjuego: this will be a politics of compromise and negotiations na naman among various actors.....
bradpwitt: i am threatened by the instability... FVR is putting his mark really good.
bonnjuego: .but i do hope.. jp captures this moment... and that he must use kule as an instrument for social change......
bonnjuego: as always si FVR...
bradpwitt: ive been telling him that. he has a mind of his own. Yeah, its his time to shine...
bonnjuego: come to think of it... these elites would rely on the instability and even violence that must be created by the masses and civ soc in the streets... without this violence the incumbent will be very complacent
bonnjuego: i'm in touch with JP lately... he wrote to me when i was in denmark last month... binabanatan pa rin pala siya nitong mga RA
bradpwitt: kaya naman nya yan. Tell me what bonn... Do you agree with ka-dodong's position?
bonnjuego: yeah.....
bonnjuego: this is the most daring call you could have at the moment
bonnjuego: when you ask people... kung ano problema ng bansa.. laging sagot ng halos lahat na sensible na tao... sistema...
bonnjuego: ngayon.. ito na... kung kailan systemic change ang tawag ayaw ng tao...
bonnjuego: practically pare.... mahirap talaga... building institutions has never been easy... but it must start somewhere....
bonnjuego: na-overshadow nga ng grupo ni ka dodong ang mga CPP-NPA... medyo na-insecure sila... as ever, daring si dodong eh.. unlike them, tinatago pa nila sa 'national democracy' ang hangarin nilang komunistang lipunan!
bradpwitt: I have only one critique though... Kelangan nyang magcompromise with FVR group... That is also systemic change, in a way. We have to ground it in strict legal terms to facilitate the changes we want... Compromise... that is the only way I see how we will get ka dodong's plan into action...
bonnjuego: yeah... ka dodong knows it.... whether we like it or not the elite is so well-entrenched in the society... this is now a matter of political will, a question of political skill... i hope the masses won't lose their ground....
bonnjuego: fr. bernas' discussion of constitutional and extra-constitutional discourse is interesting
bonnjuego: i hope u buy fr. bernas' idea
bradpwitt: I hope the demons... the dark force of the elites won't sway the masses. Mabuti na lang fragmented ang Estrada group.
bonnjuego: btw, had the chance to be taught by bernas?
bonnjuego: problema rin tol.. ang media.. elitist pa rin ang framework...
bonnjuego: incumbent vs opposition pa rin ang tingin ... pati alternatives - boil down pa rin noli, susan, etc...
bradpwitt: Yup. He's my guru. I know where he's coming from. It is not really totally different from Dodong and FVR proposal. Playing safe lang
bradpwitt: elite will always be elites bonn
bradpwitt: you know that..
bradpwitt: but i know u havent forgotten that elitism has several categories
bradpwitt: where are the intellectual elites?
bradpwitt: the moral elites?
bradpwitt: it seems they are not in agreement still...
bonnjuego: i know .. still ... basic for us politics students.. iron law of oligarchy........
bradpwitt: but that is the political terrain. this is the political space we operate on... i see only one soution... take the common denominator...
bonnjuego: i fear that this will once again be a circulation of elites..... the now counter-elites will soon be elites, and vice versa
bradpwitt: that is the political terrain. this is the political space we operate on... in fact that is the operational definition of "elite" di ba, hehe... i see only one solution... take the common denominator...
bonnjuego: sometimes i feel bad on what we did for edsa 2... wen we were so passionate to oust erap... but we have replaced him with a cheater and a lame duck leader for a hopeful nation
bradpwitt: common denominator is constitutional change. every sector in society should come into terms as to how we shall draft the fundamental law...
bradpwitt: don't despair... time has come to realize that systemic change must be done... asap
bonnjuego: maganda sinulat ni randy ngayon:
bonnjuego: 'It is one of the supreme ironies of our time that it may sometimes be necessary to step out of the Constitution's iron grip in order to preserve its spirit.'
bonnjuego: but as always, i do hope that when we struggle we should not only struggle politically, but economic-wise as well....
bonnjuego: it is this tremendous material inequality that perpetuates elite rule and grinding poverty
bradpwitt: good luck na rin sa atin pare hehe...
bonnjuego: galingan mo atty!
bonnjuego: maghihintay ako sa top 10 ha!
bradpwitt: sana nga makaconcentrate... i suddenly realized that politics is still closer to heart hehehe

I thank Ryan for a conversation like this which I truly miss. I miss the Philippines amid its contradictions, and I am looking forward to be back home soon. But I miss my friends even more. As the description of this blog - quoted from Will Durant - goes, ‘Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us; Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game’.

In Solidarity...

2005-07-12T14:48:00.000+03:00

...to the most daring and urgently needed political project at this historical juncture in the Philippines: END TO ELITE RULE!

The masses will march to the streets tomorrow not as canon fodders of warring elites but as a force for structural change. We demand the legitimate call of ousting the illegitimate political leaders - GMA and Noli - now holding office in Malacanang! Laban ito ng masa tungo sa isang transitional revolutionary government!

'A Good Game' in Europe

2005-05-20T09:33:00.000+03:00

No. 'A Good Game' is not signing off despite of the recent surveillance conducted on to this site by the US State Department and the World Bank. The site meter of this weblog has noted and recorded the respective visits of these institutions, which I call global panopticon. They must have detected in their powerful search engines the previous post here on 'The Emergent Bush-Wolfowitz Project'. It is nice to be visited by these global surveillance institutions, and to know that 'A Good Game' is serving its purpose as a tool to critically analyse and discuss the dynamics of contemporary global political economy.

The struggle and resistance continue. At the moment, 'A Good Game' is in Copenhagen at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) studying yet another dynamics of resistance: 'Emerging Oppositions to the Liberal-Conservative Malaise in East and Southeast Asia'. Click here for the news. I hope to blog more on this soon.

The Emergent Bush-Wolfowitz Project: From New Imperialism To 'Post-New Imperialism'?

2005-03-17T11:39:00.000+02:00

There is an emergent Bush-Wolfowitz Project. The White House has nominated US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as next head of the World Bank to replace James Wolfensohn. This development has implications for the rest of the world. Surely, nothing much substantial will change in the global political economy of development as capitalist market-led development shall continue anyway. But the changing of the Bank's leadership may also mean the changing of the strategy in managing the global capitalist system and its contradictions as well as in promoting continued capital accumulation.

In the essay I submitted a few months ago to Professor J. Gabriel Palma of Cambridge University, entitled 'Governing Global Capitalism: The Politics of Ideology and the Economics of Information', I argue that it would be analytically useful to think of the Bank, in partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as ‘problem-solving institutions’ geared at the management of the general conditions for capitalist accumulation and at resolving the contradictions capitalism induces. ‘Problem-solving’, in this sense, does not adhere to Robert Cox’s narrow conception of a ‘problem-solving’ orientation as the management of the status quo, which appears to be uncritical and unreflective of current realities. This is because, as Paul Cammack rightly points out, ‘there is no moment at which a “problem-solving” orientation aimed at maintaining the status quo is enough. The managers of domestic and local economies need just a “critical” a perspective as their opponents, if by “critical” we understand an analytical perspective which is mindful of complex processes of change, the clashes of interest they provoke, and the need to find innovative responses as new situation arise’. Beyond their own triumphalistic rhetoric, the global managers of globalising capitalism – the Bank and the Fund – are all too aware of capitalism’s contradictions and crises. It is for this reason that globalisation is presented not only as a blueprint for continuing development through the market but also as a project of crisis management.

The Bank and the Fund are not welfare institutions that prioritise distribution function. In reality, they cannot anymore also be viewed as Keynesian institutions prioritising stabilisation function because they have become bastions of neo-liberalism as they call for, if not forces, the restructuring of the world economy, targetting the policies of welfare and developmentalism along the conditions that satisfy capitalist profit. Neither the view that the Bank and the Fund are regulatory institutions – which prioritise regulation function of correcting market failures such as monopoly, negative externalities, and asymmetric information – would be adequate in analytically capturing the complexity of the governance of global capitalism.

There are at least two models of neo-liberalism that have emerged since the early 1980s: the Washington Consensus (1980s - early 1990s) and the post-Washington Consensus (mid-1990s - present). The two models contrast not along the ‘state versus market’ debate as active state involvement in making markets work has always been present in the history of political economy. The contrast lies in their respective strategies and focus in the management of the global capitalist system and the drive for accumulation. The Washington Consensus focused on an ‘open market economy’ through macro-economic structural adjustments in the policies of privatization, deregulation, and liberalization. The post-Washington Consensus, on the other hand, focuses on ‘competitiveness’ through a comprehensive institutionalization of ‘competition cultures’, especially on labour market reforms and the development of ‘human capital’. This post-Washington Consensus is the so-called Wolfensohn-Stiglitz project. Wolfensohn is the outgoing head of the Bank to be replaced by Wolfowitz. Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the Bank, is a nobel prize winner for his 'economics of information' scholarship. This Wolfensohn-Stiglitz project focuses on the use of institutions (including the state), policy coordination, and the ‘information-theoretic approach’ as the strategy pursued by the Bank and all pro-capitalist political forces in the management of global capitalism, in particular the utilisation of non-market responses (that is, not merely setting prices right and the faith in the magic of the invisible hand) to address market imperfections.

The world now awaits for another neo-liberal offensive to be carried out by a military hardliner defender of American interest. My fear is that ‘new imperialism’ may be transformed to what I would call 'post-new imperialism'. New imperialism, as depicted in the process of globalisation, is a unique way of capital to dominate without exercising direct extra-economic power such as the political institutions and the military. Under new imperialism, uneven development does not anymore mean a system of the rich robbing the poor. All that is done is to subject and subordinate the workers and poor countries to capitalist market, and hence in a geography where majority are proletarianised and impoverished, and where both capital and labour are dependent on the market for their survival and self-reproduction. Post-new imperialism may go back to the old, pre-capitalist system of appropriation where capital accumulation is carried out through direct ‘extra-economic’ coercion.

The emergent Bush-Wolfowitz Project is about imposing the imperial hegemony of the US in particular and global capitalism in general through the subjection of everyone to the imperatives of the capitalist market that is sustained by direct extra-economic power of imperial political coercion and military rule. What Wolfowitz and the pro-capitalist forces are about to face is how to protect the interest of American capital in particular vis-a-vis the fastest-growing and strengthening economies of China, the European Union, and East Asia, and how to manage global capitalism in general vis-a-vis the increasing rage of the billions of people in misery around the world.

A Student's Tribute To Ka Dodong

2005-02-09T07:50:00.000+02:00

I just watched the on-line video of a tribute to President Francisco Nemenzo (PFN), the outgoing 18th president of the University of the Philippines. It is a tribute by people who have worked with Ka Dodong for over 40 years in the University. Not a single student was however interviewed to share a story how great a teacher Ka Dodong is. As a former student of Ka Dodong, I would therefore like to pay tribute to him as he retires from UP and as he leaves his post as president today, his 70th birthday.

Ka Dodong is perhaps the most influential person to my continued passion for political science. I was his student in Political Science 11 (Introduction to Political Science) in 1998, and in Political Science 190 (Practicum on ‘Citizen Participation in the Legislation Process’ when we lobbied for the passage of the Clean Air Act) the following year. He is the only professor I have given ‘the best’ commendation in the Student Evaluation for Teachers (SET). I cannot imagine myself having this obsession in the discipline of political science had he not been my professor in the introductory course. I learned from him the basics of politics with analytical astuteness and conceptual clarity. It’s really a great achievement having his signature in two of my undergraduate classcards as well as in my diploma. He is a very engaging teacher whose diction is too powerful to behold. He welcomes debates and constructive criticisms. He always succeeds in exciting the students with ideas. And he comes to class well-prepared, always with a computerized lesson plan uniquely crafted for each and every session.

I learned from Ka Dodong the values of critical thinking and intelligent activism, the basics of Marxism and especially the humanism of Marx, the significance of political theory, and the power of the ‘word of mouth’. He made me realize more that my youthful idealism must be guided by wisdom.

I am proud to say I made the right decision of supporting him when he was nominated to be UP president six years ago, leading UP into the 21st century. No regrets at all. I had then several disagreements and even confrontations with fellow activists and students over harsh and unfounded criticisms thrown at him, especially when I supported his administration’s modernization programme and when I co-convened the UP4RGEP in support of the Revitalized General Education Program.

Ka Dodong is a visionary leader who lives up to the principles of democratic governance where people have access to the corridors of power. A few years ago, I learned of the cry of the janitors and personnel in Palma Hall who were being unjustly compensated by their agency. I organized these people, sought the help of Ka Dodong, and without any hesitation Ka Dodong himself found time to meet up with them. After the meeting, these workers told me they were touched by the simple humanism of Ka Dodong who earnestly let them speak up their concerns right in the Office of the President, who sincerely listened to their call for justice, who swiftly acted on their legitimate resentments, and who made them feel as human beings whose work are truly regarded with value.

Yet, far more than his greatness and brilliance as a teacher, Ka Dodong is a very endearing human being who is unconscious of his charisma. I truly appreciate and admire his simple thoughtfulness, humility, and good sense of humour. He finds time to reply to text messages and e-mails of his former students. I was touched when I received a personal, congratulatory text message from Ka Dodong, the UP president himself, just before I marched for my graduation. He is a simple academic who continuous to live a humble and modest life. He does not resort to the outmoded values of clientelistic relations that is still sadly practised by many senior academics.

His sense of humour is also remarkable. A few months ago, he came here in KL to attend the EU-ASEAN Rectors’ Conference. Together with Joe, we welcomed Ka Dodong in the KL International Airport. He was on a backpack. (Yes, the president of the country’s premier university in a backpack! Cool!) After checking-in in his hotel we went out to eat late at night. Ka Dodong does not fancy eating in posh restaurants. He likes eating at the sidewalks, in hawkers’ stalls. We went to Jalan Elor, a busy street of Chinese food hawkers. A Chinese vendor approached us speaking in Chinese, sounded like he was convincing us to eat in his stall. Ka Dodong spoke to him in Tagalog for quite awhile. They had a Chinese-Tagalog conversation. After the conversation, I asked Ka Dodong, ‘Kinausap n’yo po ng Tagalog?’ He replied to me, ‘Oo. Pareho lang iyon. Kahit mag-Ingles ako hindi rin kami magkakaintindihan’. We burst into laughter. Ka Dodong is impressed of ‘street smart’ people. Actually, he is a street smart himself.

To Ka Dodong, thank you so much for everything. Thank you for the learning I got from you and the meaningful moments I shared with you, learning and moments that could last for a lifetime. Thanks for the kind words in your recommendations to me. Thanks for always being supportive of me – for supporting my successful flagship project, the ‘Political Discussion Series’ when I was Representative of the Department of Political Science to the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy Student Council; for attending the Anniversary Night of the UP Samahan sa Agham Pampulitika (UP SAPUL) when I was its Chair; for supporting the Department of Political Science Debating Team when I was its coach during the Centennial of the Silliman University; and for keeping your lines open to all my social and personal concerns and advocacies.

A few days before I left for KL on September 2004 to pursue my graduate studies, I visited Ka Dodong in his office to thank him for everything, and to wish him well in his future endeavours. I know that he is looking forward to this day when he can now spend more time reading, writing, travelling, and sharing precious moments with his beloved family and friends. Yet, I think that he deserves to be professor emeritus, and he should be, so that many more students will enjoy a truly wonderful and inspiring learning experience with him in a classroom – and even in a cyber classroom – from time to time.

In solidarity, I join the people gathering today paying tribute to Ka Dodong at the Abelardo Hall, University of the Philippines Diliman Campus in singing ‘The Internationale’:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.

I know that Ka Dodong does not want to be reminded of his birthday. But people like me whose lives he has dearly touched love to be reminded of one of our lives’ most valuable moments – the birth of a truly good human being, Francisco Nemenzo. Happy Birthday, Ka Dodong! Maraming salamat! Mabuhay ka!

Another Philippine Society Is Possible

2005-02-02T08:50:00.000+02:00

The method of dialectical reasoning is perhaps the most neglected, yet very useful, revolutionary ideological tool of our time. It starts from the proposition that everything changes, except the necessity for change; and that a theory about social change must therefore change with changing times. What Marx wrote over a century ago still holds true today: 'the present society is no solid crystal, but an organism capable of change, and constantly engaged in the process of change'.

Over a month ago, I posted here 'The Nightmare of the Philippine Left: The History of All Dead Generations' as a wake-up call to the Philippine Left, especially to the dominant Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), that suffers not only from the living, but from the dead generations. It is so sad to think that alongside the modern evils of globalising capitalism and increasing elitism in the Philippines, the Left and the people it hopes to liberate are oppressed by the whole series of inherited evils, arising from the endurance of outmoded forms of struggle and thinking. While the CPP continues to bully and threat the groups and individuals it tags as 'counter-revolutionaries', the forces of capital are celebrating their orgies and the political elites having a laugh, and the masses in deep misery.

It is pathetic that the ongoing debate within the Philippine Left has become a discourse that could somehow signify a sense of 'insecurity' among progressive forces -- that is, 'who are the real agents of change?' A statement of concern on the threat of violence in the resolution of political difference has just been issued by the global civil society, World Social Forum (WSF), to which I am in solidarity with:

The last few years have seen a very large number of diverse groups and organisations coming together in spite of their differences to confront neo-liberal globalisation. However, we are deeply concerned that there are still some groups in the world today that attempt to deal with political differences using physical attacks and death threats. A recent example of this is the situation which has emerged in the Philippines where a number of individual intellectuals, activists (Walden Bello and Lidy Nacpil) and organisations engaged in various forms of struggle against militarism and globalised capitalism have been listed by the international department of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as 'counter-revolutionary' and as 'agents of imperialism'. Some individuals named on this list have already been assassinated and, based on past experiences, this list constitutes a credible threat of assassination.

Therefore, those of us gathered here in the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil and others in the world, inspired by the pluralism and inclusiveness of this global process, believe that when the security of activists is at stake we cannot act as if the problem is a local one. In our efforts to consistently build an international movement for fundamental transformation we strongly reiterate that the resolving of political differences must be done through the struggle of ideas and democratic dialogue and not through the politics of individual assassination.

We call on everyone within the global justice movements to re-assert this principle and express solidarity with all those who are victims of such threats.

This statement has been signed by respected left intellectuals and activists around the world such as Alex Callinicos, Leo Panitch, Naomi Klein, Susan George, and Tariq Ali.

I could imagine the CPP labeling the WSF as another international 'counter-revolutionary' (reactionary) movement. This thinking is plain and simple dogmatism. Wake up, CPP! The world has changed! The WSF may not have the blueprint for a utopian alternative world order, but we must be united in the essential common task of resisting the inhumanity of capitalist globalisation. Mao may have been right to say that 'political power grows out of the barrel of a gun', if and only if political power is understood as coercion, fear, and terror. In the long run, however, it is ideas which are more powerful than guns. Guns may kill people. But ideas can only be killed by a better and an overwhelming one.

While I am aware of the objective and necessity of armed struggle, the CPP however has the history of using its arms a la criminals. An armed struggle, I believe, must be guided by this dictum: 'Peacefully if we can, violently if we must'. Indeed, another Philippine society is possible as much as another world is possible; but this could only be realized through a passionate struggle of organized and unified progressive movements that are founded on the principles of humanism, justice, and democracy.

Reminders For The New Year

2005-01-08T12:58:00.000+02:00

It’s been exactly a week now since we entered the new year with renewed promises and resolutions to ourselves. Yet, for some of us there’s nothing new in the new year, but only the continuation and perpetuation of old, vicious habits. There are some however who are determined to live up to a renewed commitment to liberate the inner self from boring and unproductive routine. I admire those people who have this discipline. As the saying goes, ‘before you conquer the future, you must first be able to conquer yourself’. What is the way out then of outmoded habits and repressive routines? Since nobody has the right to compel the way we are supposed to live our lives, it is perhaps helpful to be ‘reminded’ of some of life’s important lessons from people we admire - from our parents, family, friends, and teachers - aside from our own personal learning. Reminders have liberating force. They are aids to free us from our habitual incarceration from debilitating routines. Hence, I would like here to share these very inspiring ‘Fifteen Reminders ’ from my comrade and former professor in sociology, Randy David - who, I think, is celebrating his birthday today. I have already heard most of these thoughtful reminders from him in our class in the Sociology of Post-Modernity three years ago and in his various writings and speaking engagements over the years. I learned from Ka Randy the sensibility of balancing the quest for personal perfection and the commitment to social solidarity.

Though our lives may be limited by circumstances not chosen by us, we nevertheless make choices all the time. Doing nothing, letting events dictate our lives, is also a choice. Be mindful of the choices you make. Do not abandon your actions; answer for them.
It is necessary to look after our selves. Try to look good always so you don't add to the world's gloominess. But do not forget that you also have a duty to live well with others. Give cheer, offer solidarity. Never be the cause of another person's humiliation.
Take care of your body, listen to its needs. It works in powerful ways, but it is not infinite in its capacities.
We each have our goals, big and small. Our goals are a mirror of our values. Always be conscious of what your goals are, and what it takes to achieve them. Do not hesitate to review and revise them by going back to the context that gave rise to them.
Living is essentially problem-solving. The solutions that work are often formulated from new ways of looking and describing. Observe how others look at life. Read and expand your moral vocabulary. Re-describe your life.
To understand a thing, science says, is to measure it against a standard. It is also to comprehend the context from which it sprang, and to know its uses. But remember: not everything is worth knowing.
Everyone has values. We acquire these in the course of our lives. Make sure your values serve you well; treat them as your "personal defense and necessity." Once you've settled on your values, live by them relentlessly.
The main purpose of living is to turn yourself into a beautiful and strong human being, a worthy link in the chain of generations. Each one of us is given a chance to be an artist: our selves are our first raw material.
Too often we become the slave of habit. Take time to pause and be silent, so that you can hear the voice of the inner self that may be struggling to free itself from mindless and debilitating routine.
There is no sure-fire formula for achieving anything. Armed with knowledge, you may also draw strength from having a lot of hope.
Live without resentment and guilt.
Love unconditionally and without expectation.
Be mindful of the world around you, and learn from Nature.
See clearly and act with grace.
Face each day with cheer.

May these reminders perpetually refresh our consciousness each and every day. And may this new year ushers in a much more caring world for all of us. Happy New Year everyone!

Closing 2004, Closing A Cycle, Moving On

2004-12-31T12:11:00.000+02:00

In a few hours time, we are bidding goodbye to 2004. New year's resolutions are again made. Even the ‘creatures of habit’ are resolved to reinvent themselves. Self-reinvention however is constrained by habits, which are the accumulation of practices that have become integral into our human system. The society or environment in which we find ourselves in also poses constraints in this process of self-reinvention.

I do not believe that habits determine actions and predispositions of an individual. I believe that people – in this case, adults – are capable of self-reinvention. People learn how to learn. Habits are in fact the subject and object of self-reinvention. Habits constrain, but not uniquely determine, individual predisposition.

Overcoming old habits, and hence accustoming ourselves to new ones, is not an easy task. This would involve forgetting and realization – forgetting some of the past that are better forgotten which are necessary for us to enjoy life more, and the internalization of a consciousness (a deeper personal realization) to ‘move on’.

Apparently, I have the consciousness about the possibility of self-reinvention. But I still find it difficult to forget some of the regretful past. Perhaps I am not yet conscious at all; I am just cognizant of it. There is therefore a need to elevate this cognition into the level of a consciousness, in which realization is deeply internalized into my system. Likewise, forgetting is too difficult for sentimentalist people like me. Was it Nietzsche who wrote about the sensibility that individuals become sad because they have memory? To a greater extent, I think he is right. Memory, especially bad ones, just makes us sad. (Meanwhile, I’m reminded of one of the lines in Pablo Neruda’s famous poem on love – ‘Love is so short; forgetting is so long’.) But as we forget and leave in the past those finished moments, learning must be permanent and must be integrated in our self-reinvention.

To friends who are having reflections at the moment and who are resolving to reinvent themselves for the coming 2005, it would be fitting to reflect on this beautiful text by Paulo Coelho entitled ‘Closing Cycles’:

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end.

If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.” Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

And so, I must stop being who I was. I must recover myself from alienation. I must ‘move on’ - so basic in life, yet too easily forgotten; so common, yet too easily neglected. I’m closing 2004, closing a cycle, and moving on.

The Nightmare Of The Philippine Left: The History Of All Dead Generations

2004-12-27T11:17:00.000+02:00

As Asia experienced the massive underwater earthquake yesterday, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) – the longest running armed guerrilla ‘revolutionary’ movement in Asia guided under the ideologies of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism – marked the 36th anniversary of its re-establishment. But the Party needs the kind of jolt that hit Asia yesterday to wake it up from complacency and the nightmare of the past.

In its anniversary statement, the Central Committee of the CPP calls on its force to ‘avail of the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system and the domestic ruling system of big compradors and landlords’ as well as to ‘intensify the guerrilla offensives to advance the new democratic revolution’. Read the statement released yesterday (December 26) here. But how can the Party exploit the crisis and contradictions of the world capitalist system if it is burdened with its own crises and contradictions?

On 7 December, the Party released a diagram entitled ‘Kaugnayan ng mga Kontrarebolusyonaryong grupo sa mga Trotskyista at Sosyal-Demokrata’ (‘Connections of the Counter-revolutionary Groups with the Trotskyites and Social Democrats’), showing the connections with various Trotskyites factions abroad of several ‘pseudo-revolutionary petty bourgeois grouplets in the Philippines’. These groups include the party list Akbayan, the socialist organization Bukluran sa Ikauunlad ng Sosyalistang Isip at Gawa (BISIG), and the democratic think-tank Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD), among others. Several key personalities in the Philippine social movements are also named ‘counter-revolutionaries’ including my former professor Walden Bello and Akbayan Representative Etta Rosales. Bello is a respected scholar in the Philippine academe and a recipient of the ‘alternative nobel prize’ for his advocacy against neo-liberal, corporate-driven globalization. In my work in the Philippine House of Representatives in the 12th Congress, Rosales is regarded as the most esteemed and credible progressive, left legislator in the chamber. Click here to see said diagram.

The Party, being the only left movement in the Philippines that has the monopoly of the use of force with the New People’s Army (NPA) as its armed wing, is historically notorious for subjecting to assassination those people it labels as ‘pseudo-revolutionaries’ or ‘counter-revolutionaries’. Just recently, two former leaders who have defected the Party, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, have been punished to death. Read a statement on this issue from the founder of the Party himself, Jose Maria Sison, here.

The CPP has its gloomy and horrible past. In the early 1990s, it was on a ‘state of war’ - comrades killing one another. It was a tragic moment for the Philippine Left, leading to its division between those who re-affirm the Marxism-Leninism-Maoism ideology of struggle and those who reject it. Several progressive social movements have also emerged.

While it is true that the world capitalist system is, as ever, in crisis as well as the ruling domestic class in the Philippines, the Philippine Left is also in crisis. As the capitalist social structure limits - but not uniquely determines - the social formation and the social struggle; the kind of social struggle we could advance ultimately depends on the kind of social formation we have. At the moment, the progressive social formation in the Philippines is beleaguered with conflicts among one another, and with crises of their respective institutional and ideological capacities. Hence, the prospects are dim for a social struggle that could transform both the capitalist social structure and the capitalist-dominated social formation into a truly democratic, socialist one. Antonio Gramsci aptly puts it, ‘the old is dying, but the new cannot be born’.

The Central Committee of the CPP asserts in their anniversary statement - ‘As always, we pay our highest respects to our revolutionary martyrs and heroes who have made the supreme sacrifice in the service of the people’. Let the Communist Party of the Philippines be guided then with the true revolutionary ideals of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Che – who are among the revolutionary martyrs and heroes to whom the Party pays its highest respects. It must save itself from further alienation, and from suffering what Mao calls as the ‘contradictions of the onions’ (that is, people who are red in the surface but counter-revolutionary inside). Most often, progressive movements become alienated because they have forgotten the cause and objective of their very existence. It is then necessary to remind the Party of the ideals of the revolution.

Mao and Lenin have preached the ideals of ‘democracy’. Mao once said ‘let a hundred flowers bloom; and a hundred schools of thought contend’. Lenin reminded the people that nobody has the monopoly of ideas. This is what is to be a revolutionary – someone who upholds the democratic ideals of free articulation and thought. Too, Che Guevarra, one of the greatest romantic guerrilla revolutionary leaders in history, reminded the people in one of his letters to his children that the heart of a true revolutionary is one that is able to feel deeply any injustice committed against anyone in this world.

When will the CPP ever learn? While the state and capital continue to celebrate their orgies, the Party is still traumatized with the nightmare of the depressive past of the Stalin-Trotsky conflict, the rectifiable errors of Stalin, Mao, the Soviet Union, and other revolutionary personalities in history, and the failures of the Party itself. In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx wrote about the dialectics between agency and structure in the making of history, which could also be said in the case of the Communist Party of the Philippines in particular and the Philippine Left in general:

People make history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves; but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The history of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

Let this reminder of Marx serve as a learning to be lived with by all revolutionaries. To the extent that the radical potentials of all exploited groups are coordinated at the domestic, regional, and global levels in advancing unified struggle against the undemocratic neo-liberal system, a truly democratic change could be realized. Hence, without a credible, humane, democratic, and unified counter-hegemonic force, the progressive movement cannot sustain the revolutionary momentum and become a force for structural change.

Absurdity Of The Most Powerful Earthquake: From A Traumatic Society

2004-12-27T06:22:00.000+02:00

Yesterday morning Southeast Asia (specifically Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Burma), Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Somalia experienced one of the most powerful earthquakes in history with a magnitude of 9.0 in the Richter Scale. As of this posting, more than 12,000 people have been reported dead, many are still missing. This is the first time I have learned of an earthquake being experienced across countries – a real natural disaster regional in scope.

In view of the fact that this earthquake is the strongest in 40 years, this is the most powerful earthquake I have felt since my existence. Living in the 16th floor of an 18-storey building here in Malaysia, the tremor felt in the country was truly nerve-wracking. You could feel the building swaying. I was still sleeping when the earthquake happened. The tremor woke me up. Initially, I thought I was just dizzy. Knowing that Malaysia is not within the ring of fire, I even doubted the engineering of our building as I was reminded of the building that collapsed in Divisoria, Manila due to poor and corrupt construction about five months ago. But this thinking could be absurd as Malaysia is reputable in being stringent in building infrastructures (I am however not undermining the issue of corruption also prevalent in the country). Now I realize that this dubious thought was a by-product of my Philippine upbringing.

I used to think of the Philippines as a stressful nation. But now, I have realized it is also a traumatic society – with its street crimes, its inefficient infrastructures built on corruption, and its natural disasters aggravated by man-made disastrous egoism.

Meanwhile, my deepest sympathy goes to the bereaved families and nations of those who have untimely died. I am in solidarity with them in calling for a much more cooperative, humane and caring world especially at this moment of natural crisis.

First Christmas Away From Home: Some Reflections

2004-12-25T06:56:00.000+02:00

I love Christmas. It is actually part of my values. Today is my first Christmas away from home, especially away from my dear family and close friends, and from lovely kids (especially from my godchildren) for whom I enjoy preparing presents.

For 24 consecutive years since my birth, I have been accustomed to the lively atmosphere of Christmas season in the month of December. When it comes to celebrating Christmas, there is really no place like the Philippines. I’m trying to get over with the culture shock of observing the Christmas season in a non-Christian society. Now, I wonder how many more Christmases in the future I’ll be spending away from home.

****

Last week, I was in Singapore with two Filipino friends. At Orchard Road, on our last night in the city, I was teary-eyed watching kids and teens on one of the stages along the road singing Christmas songs. It just hit me that I miss Christmas in the Philippines. But I know that I also share this sentiment with millions of Filipinos around the world missing their families back home. It is sad to think of the contradictions and the seeming inhumanity in this reality. Overseas Filipino Workers send money to families in the Philippines to be able to ‘materially’ enjoy the celebration of the season. But we all know that the psychological and social pains in this contradictory relationship are just sealed and concealed. It also reduces the ideal of the ‘family’ into mere money-relations.

****

For regulation theorists of political economy, Christmas season is one of the modes of regulation that contributes to the stability of the regime of accumulation in the capitalist system. The season calls for consumerism – that is, for people to consume in proportion to what is produced. There is a tendency towards overproduction in this system of unregulated production. For capitalism to be stable, production and consumption must be in equilibrium, and class conflict must be regulated. This would involve increasing the purchasing power of the people. For advanced economies like Singapore in Southeast Asia, for instance, the system tends to be stable because of the high purchasing power of the workers. In the case of the Philippines, the billions of pesos of remittances sent by the over eight million OFWs during the Christmas season somehow contribute to the stability of the system. The remittances prop up the purchasing power of their beneficiaries. But of course, this structure is not without contradictions; it is still precarious and susceptible to class conflict between rich and poor especially in a plutocratic society such as the Philippines.

Studying Christmas as a cultural norm – a mode of regulation – within the general system of capitalism, is indeed one interesting intellectual endeavor for students of political economy. Another equally interesting endeavor would be to study the strategies of capital in appropriating surplus from culture in general and from cultural differentiation in particular. For example, capital has ways of extracting surplus from the observation of people on cultural holidays such as the Christmas of Christians and the Hari Raya of Muslims, in which practices of these occasions may vary in some ways from society to society within the capitalist geography, and hence promoting the principle of market choice.

****

Yesterday, I sent Christmas e-cards to family and friends saying in general: ‘Merry Christmas Greetings from KL! This is my first time to spend Christmas away from home. It's sad. But it's not sad at all. Christmas is not about me anyway. It's about God. (",) My Christmas wishes for you are success, peace, happiness, love, good health, and more blessings. MARY Christmas!’.

Indeed, there is a need to bring ‘Christ’ back in Christmas because there is a terrible hunger for love in this uncaring world. Merry Christmas everyone!

Pursuing My Personal Legend

2004-12-09T14:01:00.000+02:00

Three months ago I ‘physically’ left my hometown, resigned from my relatively distinguished post in our office, and bid goodbye to my dear family and close friends. I said to myself I must miss my hometown, family, and friends so that I may not miss other wonderful opportunities and beautiful things the world is offering for young dreamers like me. Indeed, I have to go; I also have to pursue my ‘personal legend’. Life is, after all, about letting go and letting God.

Leaving the Philippines, a country that could be characterized as a sentimentalist ‘society of families’, is truly heartfelt. Yet, I hope that the teardrops of my loved ones were tears of joy. I would like to share with them this beautiful Prologue from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist:

The Alchemist picked up a book that someone in
the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages,
he found a story about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth
who daily knelt beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty.
He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell
into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower
was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the
story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the Goddesses of the
Forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh
water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.
"Why do you weep?" the Goddesses asked.
"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.
"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they
said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you
alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."
"But..... was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.
"Who better than you to know that?" the Goddesses said
in wonder, "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each
day to contemplate himself!!"

The lake was silent for some time.

Finally it said:
"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus
was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my
banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty
reflected."

"What a lovely story," the alchemist thought.

As I’m giving a good game in pursuit of my personal legend, I do hope that my family and friends – people dearest to my heart whose existence are truly part of my nurturing – could see in the depths of my eyes, my heart, and my spirit their own beauty reflected.

Starting 'A Good Game'

2004-12-09T13:41:00.000+02:00

And now I'm starting 'A Good Game' - a reflection of my thoughts and sentiments as I play a good game to the the greatest game of all, LIFE.

'A Good Game' is for someone and for some purpose. In this Game, there are neither winners nor losers, only learners. It is hoped to be a game of learners of politics and the social sciences in particular and of life in general. In a word, 'A Good Game' is dedicated for learners and for learning.

As reflections from me and from ka-blogistas are posted on 'timeless time' at this 'spaceless space', 'A Good Game' comes into being. Looking forward to a challenging good game with ka-blogistas that will stay with us all our lives, let 'A Good Game' begin....