Taking economic growth at centre-stage of politics
Monday, 15 September 2008
Economics and politics are forces not independent of development. On the contrary, they are highly interdependent. The world has witnessed different forms of societies following growth paths characterized by the kind of politics the respective systems of government had pursued. One is not unaware about the grand debate between the capitalistic and the socialistic systems of political economy since the middle of the nineteenth century until the collapse of Soviet Union in the early 1990s. However, there is yet no conclusive answer as to which path of growth provides the best answer to the issue of sustainable development. This is more so in view of the latest trend about the public intervention in the economy even in countries like the USA, the so-called champion of free enterprise to bail out their ailing financial sector in the wake of housing sector credit collapse. Yet then, there is no denying of the fact that since then the march of the market economy driven by the private sector has been claiming its indisputable superiority even in what can be termed, as the last ramparts of the socialist world. At the moment, the private sector-led growth has, thus, otherwise become the mantra of development.
The controversies in the intellectual arena over the issues of growth and development do involve more complex issues than it may appear on the face of it. From the success of the private sector-led market economy even under the command economies provides fresh food for thought in both the camps of development thinkers. For it has been observed that many Third World countries, which are still struggling to resolve their partisan-political disputes along the ideal path of democratic transition as shown by the advanced democracies of the West, are also failing miserably on the front of their economic growth. In sharp contrast to this situation, some countries have been able to leapfrog the gulf between the states of backwardness and advancement, of poverty and prosperity without having to waste their precious energy and time in endless experiments along the line of the western model of pluralistic democratic governance. The recent surge of growth in Vietnam, which is still not a democratic polity, in the sense that the Western countries would like to interpret it, or the continuing growth and affluence of the island nation of Singapore with its mainly one-party system and not to speak of the awe-inspiring economic success of China are to name some of the instances of success that do not follow the pure "democratic" model of growth.
Against this backdrop of developmental polemics all around, Bangladesh will have to resolve its own debate on its distinctive choice of political governance and the corresponding economic growth model. The issue has become especially pertinent in the present context when the caretaker government is going to hold the parliamentary election scheduled in next December. That the incumbent government is concerned about growth path to be adopted vis-à-vis the choice of the political system of governance has become evident from the pronouncement of the finance and planning adviser upon his return home from the UK-Bangladesh Climate Conference. Identifying a healthy law and order situation, business climate and communications system as the pre-conditions of unperturbed economic growth, he pinned his hope on their continuity even after the political changeover in the wake of December election. The general expectation on this issue is that the post-1/11 developments have left their sobering impact on the parties so far dominating the political scene of Bangladesh. All concerned would only hope at this stage that the same parties would not again engage themselves in, or create, a confrontational situation, by either default or design, that caused the economy to suffer heavily.
The controversies in the intellectual arena over the issues of growth and development do involve more complex issues than it may appear on the face of it. From the success of the private sector-led market economy even under the command economies provides fresh food for thought in both the camps of development thinkers. For it has been observed that many Third World countries, which are still struggling to resolve their partisan-political disputes along the ideal path of democratic transition as shown by the advanced democracies of the West, are also failing miserably on the front of their economic growth. In sharp contrast to this situation, some countries have been able to leapfrog the gulf between the states of backwardness and advancement, of poverty and prosperity without having to waste their precious energy and time in endless experiments along the line of the western model of pluralistic democratic governance. The recent surge of growth in Vietnam, which is still not a democratic polity, in the sense that the Western countries would like to interpret it, or the continuing growth and affluence of the island nation of Singapore with its mainly one-party system and not to speak of the awe-inspiring economic success of China are to name some of the instances of success that do not follow the pure "democratic" model of growth.
Against this backdrop of developmental polemics all around, Bangladesh will have to resolve its own debate on its distinctive choice of political governance and the corresponding economic growth model. The issue has become especially pertinent in the present context when the caretaker government is going to hold the parliamentary election scheduled in next December. That the incumbent government is concerned about growth path to be adopted vis-à-vis the choice of the political system of governance has become evident from the pronouncement of the finance and planning adviser upon his return home from the UK-Bangladesh Climate Conference. Identifying a healthy law and order situation, business climate and communications system as the pre-conditions of unperturbed economic growth, he pinned his hope on their continuity even after the political changeover in the wake of December election. The general expectation on this issue is that the post-1/11 developments have left their sobering impact on the parties so far dominating the political scene of Bangladesh. All concerned would only hope at this stage that the same parties would not again engage themselves in, or create, a confrontational situation, by either default or design, that caused the economy to suffer heavily.