Burma is changing, and so are the lines of argument deployed to explain what’s going on.
With this in mind I have enjoyed Elliott Prasse-Freeman‘s three-part series on Burmese politics in the transition era; here are parts one and two. Part one is, many New Mandala readers will want to know, followed be a bit of push-and-shove centered on the always robust Maung Zarni.
Prasse-Freeman finishes his series with a call to arms against the potential for a “neoliberal sweep” of Burma. He argues that:
Development is here the sacred object, led by ‘experts’ from outside who could (perhaps unwittingly) usher in a quasi-authoritarian neoliberalism where key social and political decisions over the future of the economy and its development would be quarantined in the hands of a narrow elite. The ritual activities of free voting and assembly would be given as so many crumbs to the masses kept outside of real politics.
He then flags some alternative strategies for the country to consider, including Bhutan’s oft-invoked, but little studied, Gross National Happiness model. Somehow I doubt that is the path the country will take but I like the fact that such debates are now possible.
Long-time readers may recall the times I have endorsed the prospect of (real, not fake) Western fast food chains getting to Burma. Not everyone would agree with my take. And that, of course, is a very good thing.
For now, it looks like the new debates and battles to define Burma’s future are really only just beginning.
“Development is here the sacred object, led by ‘experts’ from outside who could (perhaps unwittingly) usher in a quasi-authoritarian neoliberalism where key social and political decisions over the future of the economy and its development would be quarantined in the hands of a narrow elite. The ritual activities of free voting and assembly would be given as so many crumbs to the masses kept outside of real politics.”
The later part sounds like a description of the way the country operates now but that is not a product of “experts from the outside”. The current failed system has its roots in 49 years of isolation, lack of inflow from the outside of ideas, knowledge, technologies, goods, etc.
From the minute the country shut itself off from the world in 1962, it slowly and literally turned into a time capsule running on memories (2nd hand books of Pansodan book peddlers) and decaying capital stock (supplemented by second hand cars, buses, taxis, rolling stock, video players and just about everything else imaginable, castoffs from Japan, Korea and China).
“He then flags some alternative strategies for the country to consider, including Bhutan’s oft-invoked, but little studied, Gross National Happiness model..”
“Alternative strategies” ? The utter failure 49 years later of what was known as the “Burmese Way to Socialism” was an “alternative strategy”. Probably better stick to the well-beaten track this time around.
Hypothesis: Burma’s failed political system stemmed largely from a failed set of ideas called the “Burmese Way to Socialism” and constitutes clear evidence of the danger of allowing intellectuals to dream up a system too far divorced from the way things actually work. Hayek, not Marx, would be the one to look to for guidance this time around.
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While much of Myanmar’s present challenges stem in large part from the centralised, authoritarianism of the so-called socialist era, it is nonetheless missleading to suggest that a neoliberal order presents the only viable route for the country to address its present challanges. It is also relevant to point out that Myanmar began economic liberalisation over 20 years ago at the end of the 1980s, and the effects of this have included a significant increase in income inequlity (as to be expected) but also a signifcant increase in absolute poverty for property-less labourers (See Fujita et al’s The Economic Transition in Myanmar After 1988). Older Myanmar workers I’ve talked with have said that at least during the socialist era they could feed their families, despite being cash poor. Whereas now it’s difficult to do even that.
I hope to see our Myanmar colleagues rescue the more libertarian socialist voices from their country’s rich socialist history, as these might positively inform contemporary discussions of viable and humane alternatives to a radical neoliberal order.
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Well said, still the cart moving the horse.
“More importantly, the decisions – the politics – must be owned and driven by Burmese themselves; rule by external experts runs the risk of short-circuiting the necessary internal conversations Burmese need to have, abdicating the politics of ‘development’ to the technocrats.”
The problems to this utopia created by the west and the successive military government of Ne Win and now SPDC, are virtually insurmountable.
Problems that need to be address in Myanmar 101:
1) Education
At least during Ne Win time besides BSPP push for 100% literacy there were always availability of the West effort to upgrade all aspect through fellowship, scholarship and outright grants that allowed the brightest ones in every fields to learn the necessary advances and thoughts to be brought back to Myanmar.
During almost 3 decades of SPDC/West useless careless era, not only the government is out right against education, has also help by the west sanction that has presently degraded at least 2 generation of future leaders to concepts/teachings only from Military Institutions at Pyin U Lwin, in Russian, China and N Korea, if not for the exception of Singapore.
2) Heath Care
Besides the oft mention 20% childhood mortality, the scourge of common diseases such as cerebral Malaria and constant malnutrition that deprive the survival to a limited capability in every respects.
3) Economic Potential
The most essential part for “hope for the future”, thoroughly destroyed by induced poverty, especially combined with #1 and #2. Making, destructive addictions/escapism of every kind seem reasonable and good.
Not until these 3 fundamentals are addressed soon and effectively the future of Myanmar and the debates here at New Mandala is nothing more than meaningless words like Neolibralism.
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Gross National Happiness is like caviar – everybody says it’s a delicious delicacy, but nobody eats it regularly because it’s too expensive. While I’d love to see countries take environmental and social issues into account when managing growth, we currently don’t have good incentive structures to give leaders and citizens reason to adhere to a GHP economy.
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There is little doubt that the president said a lot without any track record at all.
I would suggest that the eager take up Ms Su Kyi humble suggestion to first amend the constitution.
Then the situation will indeed become clearer.
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From today’s Bangkok Post about Burma:
A massive US$8.6 billion (272 billion baht) port and industrial complex is also under construction in Dawei in the south by Italian-Thai Development Co, which has a 60-year concession. The industrial park is massive, 16 times bigger than the largest of any such project already built in Thailand.
“Looking ahead 20 years from now, 2030, the economy around the Indian Ocean would be growing more than it is now given the fact there are at least two major countries located nearby _ China and India,” said Somchet Thinaphong, managing director of Dawei Development Co. …end quote
Considering how top executives from many multi-national companies so misjudged the environment as to have their facilities trashed by the predictable great flood in Thailand in 2011 who will be so rash as to believe Dawei’s prediction?
Seems he has not heard of the looming climate catastrophe, which if it is to be avoided will require sudden and massive “de-growth” and an end to the bulk of international trade.
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Stephen: “Myanmar began economic liberalisation over 20 years ago at the end of the 1980s”
Whatever economic liberalization there was only momentary, Burma has remained thoroughly cut off in ever way from the west. (Note: The owner of the Central Group in Thailand told me once about how when the wave of economic liberalization he participated ended, he towed his hotel in Yangon harbour, to Timor for the UN peacekeepers (lucky him), US investors eventually had to withdraw by law, leaving perhaps Taiwanese toy manufacturers and their factories (I met one) not surprising that living standards would drop).
On the other hand, China’s growing economic power in Burma, something that been developing for several decades now, is cited as one of the reasons for the recent opening to the West:
“…the motivation for change is credible. There are three parts to the answer of why Burma is changing now. The first is nationalism and an existential sense of needing options to balance perceived Chinese dominance of the economy, military acquisition, and infrastructure. Burma’s leaders privately describe tacit Chinese control of their economy as suffocating and encroaching on sovereignty. Local business leaders complain of Chinese companies’ ability to virtually flood their market at will with inexpensive goods. Unsurprisingly, Burma wants options and space.” (CLINTON IN BURMA: Visit seeks real reform by Ernest Bower)
Here is the wikipedia definition of “neoliberalism”:
“Neoliberalism is a contemporary form of economic liberalism that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets to promote globalization. Neoliberals therefore seek to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the world.”
That doesn’t sound so bad compared to what Burma has now. Pretty much corresponds to the actual, albeit imperfect, way that things work in the existing world that we live. To think that somehow socialist intellectuals from the political chaos of Burma’s past, albeit intellectually rich, are somehow going to anticipate the needs of 50 million+ people in Burma would maybe make Hayek turn in his grave.
Democracy serving the interests of business can also be serving the interests of the people. Example, back in about 2001 small business person I knew had just recently imported fertilizer, government stockpiles oil for war with Thailand. Oil price shoots up, exchange rate depreciates, that fertilizer trader lost a lot of money. Unstable prices, unpredictable government actions, nepotistic business dealings, etc, etc make for an impossible business environment for all, large and small and never underestimate the importance of small business people in the economy. I am optimistic about recent changes in Burma.
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jonfernquest #1:
I guess the Burmese will ignore both Hayek and Ne Win (nothing to do with Marx). Industrial policy, East Asian style, is the obvious choice, being both well established within the region and the most successful development policy anywhere so far.
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It is not correct to compare the reform in China with what has happened in Burma,in China,the reform was genuine and initiated by leader Deng whose power was never under any threat,it was totally different from Burma when basically military government response to hold on to political power.
So far it was all claims but the last winner of 1990 elections Ms Su Kyi has said she trusted the President,so the ball in now in his court.
Ms Su Kyi has asked for constitution amendments to exclude provisions that give the military wide-ranging powers, including the power to occupy a quarter of the seats in Parliament, appoint key cabinet members and seize total control of the government in a state of emergency.
It is prudent to watch the generals’ response carefully.
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Jon, my concern is that neoliberalism is often associated with a rejection of equitable public provisions of education, health care and other social services, increased inequality, restrictions on organised labour, and increased power for corporations and financial elite to set political and economic agendas.
To clarify my earlier point, the choices facing the people of Myanmar regarding their politico-economic concerns cannot be reduced to a false dichotomy of authoritarian state socialism vs. an absolute form of neoliberalism.
Consider the important and thoughtful speech delivered by economist U Myint at last year’s poverty reduction conference in Naypyidaw. Amongst other things, U Myint stated that:
In response, “libertarian” pundit David Shellenberger from the US who seems to have absolutely no connection with or knowledge of contemporary Myanmar put out an ill-informed critique of U Myint’s speech, suggesting instead that for the sake of “prosperity” in Myanmar there should be no public health or education provisions and that the issue of inequality should be not be taken into account.
Thankfully U Myint is the more respected voice in Myanmar. And I’ll add that the October 2011 legalisation of labour union formation in Myanmar is a positive step for the country.
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Stephen: “Another issue which has not received much attention is that something like the enclosure movement that took place in England just prior to the Industrial Revolution is taking place in the Myanmar countryside. Every village has what are called the village commons, such as forests where village people can fetch firewood, meadows where their cattle can graze, and streams, lakes and ponds where they can catch fish. Now these are being fenced off by some local authorities to generate revenue for themselves and the common rights are no longer available to the village folk.”
Very similar to the land seizures by rich business people that have been happening in Cambodia in recent years or the more high-profile land seizure incidents in China. Both countries have powerful local elites and how to secure the rights of local poor against them is a good question (how were those rights protected in the past? has there really been some discontinuous change recently? or has this actually been a problem for a long time?). Land tenure is a tricky area involving legal traditions and laws, whether the laws are even enforced, whether people just ignore the laws and have a common accepted practices (in Thailand people often occupy land nominally owned by the central government with very little title to the land at all, sometimes the central government takes it back (like recent “land encrochment” incidents in national parks, sometimes they respect those rights (like Tai Lue next to the river in Mae Sai who were going to have their land seized for a riverside park but the government backed off).
I just find invoking blanket terms such as “neo-liberalism” (“libertarianism” too) to not be very productive since it is individual problems that must be solved, not mass replacements of a whole economic system and I think changes have been a lot more continous and gradual than you would suspect. Local economies in Burma vary widely. For example, some places for example, only have a market a couple of times a week at a certain time of day, still use horse carts and hardly have electricity. When I lived in Burma (circa 2001-2, if you went to public hospital in downtown Yangon for a wide variety of life threatening problems you would probably simply die, e.g. acute kidney failure due to a downstream blockage in the ureter, the actual case I experienced firsthand with my mother-in-law). Education, at least when schools were actually open, was then affordable (the research assistant I hired when universities were closed was able to afford Yangon University tuition and was the son of a Upper Burma Mon Ywa farmer). As for the future, I am sure Burma will probably encounter the full spectrum of problems that their neighbours in Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, etc) have experienced. The important thing is that they are starting to head down that path, instead of remaining isolated and cut off from the world for decade after decade with a population getting more and more poor by the year. I am sure it is this 49 years of isolation that has made Burma so poor not “economic liberalization” (the meaning of which I find unclear given Burma’s tortuous recent history)
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Well Jon, I recognise the validity of your concern about everything and the kitchen sink being placed under the banner of neo-liberalism (this was heavily debated in a previous New Mandala post), but I nonetheless feel the term retains analytical usefulness.
Regarding your question about land confiscation and whether “there has really been some discontinuous change recently?”, as I understand it, it relates to the rise in land value due to increased profit potential from export crops like green gram, rubber and palm oil, stemming in part from the removal of restrictions on export to foreign markets since the turn of the 1990s. Green gram, for example, mostly went to India, so wasn’t affected by sanctions.
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Stephen: “Regarding your question about land confiscation and whether “there has really been some discontinuous change recently?”, as I understand it, it relates to the rise in land value due to increased profit potential from export crops like green gram, rubber and palm oil, stemming in part from the removal of restrictions on export to foreign markets since the turn of the 1990s. Green gram, for example, mostly went to India, so wasn’t affected by sanctions.”
Nice! I am familiar with the term neo-liberalism in the context of the US economy (e.g. Stiglitz’s critique) but didn’t realise you would use it in the context of agricultural policy. Agricultural markets here in northern Thailand and Laos are affected by supply and demand from China on the northern border (e.g. corn and garlic) and supposedly large Chinese-owned plantations are an issue in Laos. Strict laws on proxy ownership of agriculture by formers make it a non-issue in Thailand. It would nice to see balanced and rigorous academic research on these issues done outside of organizations with a political agenda. I would love to go back to grad school and do this
I am always hoping that some Southeast Asian studies people will get engaged with issues such as agricultural policy and start posting to New Mandala to break the monotonous mono-focus year-after-year on lese-majeste and red shirts (who never seem to be engaged with the actual economic issues of poverty).
I was imagining that your references to neoliberalism referred to the export-drivenness of Asian economies. Burma had a textile industry of fluctuating size over the last decades, for example. This is a topic I am very interested in, especially South Korea’s indsutrialization under Park Chung Hee. Attempts at alternatives to export driven growth such as import substitution largely failed, for example in the Philippines (See Growth and development in the Philippines: the role of the state and industrial policy, in Emerging Asia’s Growth practices, 2009, a wonderful little essay in a wonderful hard to find little book published by Chula Univ in Thailand).
One major benefit of Burma’s opening up will be the development of the media, anotehr subject of interest. Practices such as seizing of land by local elites should be fully exposed, though such exposure doesn’t seem to have discouraged Hun Sen and his cronies in Cambodia. The Filipina Sheila Cornell (now head of investigative journalism at Cornell) has been a pioneer in local investigative media. Her Investigating Local Governments: A Manual For Reporters (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism) is a classic. But the same problems exist in the Philippines as in Thailand, local strongmen who will simple kill truth-revealing local journalists. How the media can be activated to bring about local change is very much an interesting and important issue. Media light being shed on problems in the healthcare sector would help too in the future, perhaps. Medical ethics seemed to be wholly lacking when I had my interactions with it on behalf of my mother in law in Yangon a decade ago. The owner of the large private hospital effectively tried to sell me a kidney from a Bangladeshi for $30,000 along with lifelong dialysis when a cursory examination would have revealed cancer of either uterus or cervix . Found out that many Burmese faced the same problems and sell the family home and all their assets and go bankrupt to generate the cash to save their loved ones . Thanks for the stimulating discussion
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Jonfernquest writes: “I am always hoping that some Southeast Asian studies people will get engaged with issues such as agricultural policy and start posting to New Mandala to break the monotonous mono-focus year-after-year on lese-majeste and red shirts (who never seem to be engaged with the actual economic issues of poverty).” Try these, for starters:
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/09/09/thailands-low-agricultural-productivity/
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/09/10/more-on-thailands-low-agricultural-productivity/
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/07/23/more-on-the-garlic-roller-coaster/
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2009/07/14/the-garlic-roller-coaster/
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2008/06/18/privatise-the-profits-socialise-the-losses/
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2011/12/08/cambodias-rice-conundrum/
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2011/10/16/rice-mortgage-scheme-underway/
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2011/03/04/china-and-the-mekong-region-beyond-the-territorial-trap/
And another coming very shortly on the rice price support scheme.
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Stephen,
Any information on the geography of these enclosures? Are they happening throughout rural Burma, or are they concentrated in, say, the Delta?
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Andrew Walker: “Try these, for starters”
Thanks. Looking forward to the article on the rice price support scheme
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aiontay
There is not a single significant swat of land that has not been enclosed from Pago to the most southern tip of Myanmar.
This enclosure has been ongoing since Ne Win era awarded to the military, active and retired.
In the delta regions most none titled land are simply made available to private ventures with the military blessings and participations to start acres of fisheries. The titled one are bought and sold openly. Since the delta area is flooded 1/2 of the year, as well as similar areas else where, making the usefulness of that area requiring intense labor which the military cannot/will not afford. Therefore remain productive in the hands of the most traditionally poor farmers.
Most of the blatant land taking has been in the dryer regional for the purposes that Stephen described plus, especially mining, commercial orchards and farms that benefit the military as well as Thailand, Korea and Singapore.
This proof is one of many enduring testimonial to the failure of the useless careless policy of last 4+ decades!
So does it make sense that working with this present entrenched entity will make any difference +/- DASSK ?
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