Syed Ahmad Fathi's Blog, page 23

Surat Dari Praha

IMDG Rating : 7.3/10
Author Rating : 8.5/10

Sebuah filem oleh Angga Dwimas Sasongko dan diterajui oleh Julie Estelle dan Tio Pakusadewo yang saya rasa antara filem bergenre historical & love terbaik dari Indonesia. Pembawaan watak yang begitu menyerlah dari Tio, selaku seorang sarjana nuklear yang puluhan tahun bekerja hanya sebagai janitor, membuatkan filem ini penuh dengan emosi yang berjaya disampaikan ke jiwa penonton.

Plotnya berkisar tentang hubungan kekeluargaan yang pudar, penolakan Orde Baru Suharto dan survivability sekelompok nasionalis di bumi Prague.

Income inequality by Matthew P. Drennan – Book Review

What was missing in the economic
theory that lead to the financial crisis in 2008-09? This was the first
question Drennan want to answer in this book. His thesis is that income
inequality plays a role in the lead-up to the financial crisis by maintaining
consumption through surging household debt. The second question he asks was
‘Why the economist get it wrong?’. Drennan’s answer to the second question is
that the consumption theory of neo-classical economics does not include income
distribution to their economic theory.

To prove his points, Drennan brought
forward econometric evidence to link income inequality with the financial
crisis. He also used various set of data to show that many people resort to
debt to maintain their consumption, meaning that people borrow more money to
buy the necessities to maintain their lifestyle. He also present historical
data as evidence to show that the 2008-09 crisis is not something new and has
happen before.

Drennan also noted that the two
feature that were on the rise leading to financial crash were the stagnant
growth of income and income inequality – although this two do not necessarily
occur together. Although Drennan try to back his argument with data and statistics,
layman reader will not find this useful, understandable, and almost definitely
lost in the process.

What are the possible causes of
rising income inequality? Asked Drennan. Economist pointed out that one of the candidates
is globalization, but he cast doubt to this theory as other countries such as
Japan, Germany, and France were exposed with the same globalization forces but
does not produce higher income inequality. Other candidate favoured by
economist to explain income inequality is skill-biased technological change
(SBTC). This include higher order specialization, for example box mover can learn
to operate forklift easily, but factory worker might have problems changing
their career to higher-order specialization such as a programmer. Some economist
listed SBTC as the cause of the rising income inequality.

But all these candidates do not give
the whole picture. The more compelling cause, is the institutional structure.
Drennan noted that as the economy turn from manufacturing to service economy, the
labor union diminished. This is because the service sector does not have a
strong labor union traditionally. The structure of the law also plays important
roles in containing the labor union force, without them worker have a lower
protection and had to accept lower wages as they don’t have any bargaining
power.

Then there is government
intervention. Contrary to free-market ideology, that income stabilize in its
current level due to rigorous market forces, there are many government
legislation interferences that favors the rich and enlarge the income
inequality gap. Among the law includes treatment to corporate stock option
award, access to bankruptcy, copyright and patent protection, to name a few.
Various conservative think-tanks served as an advocacy lobby to ensure
government keep policies for the benefit of the rich, their objective is
rent-seeking – spending money not on production of product or service but to
take advantage and enlarge their own economic pie at the expense of someone
else’s share.

After presenting his theoretical
background, Drennan continue with the data to back his theory. Although he
emphasized in the introduction that the role of the data presentation is ‘not
to obscure the fact’, he did just that for a layman reader as they lost in the
jargon terms and various graph. Drennan drew from Federal Reserve’s data that
there are a huge build-up of debt-to-income ratio for the bottom 95 percent
whilst consumption remains more or less the same, which means that consumer are
shifting to debt to maintain their consumption, this lead to financial burst
eventually. These consumptions include shelter, health care, and education
which are a necessary expenditure which cannot be postponed, such as taking a
vacation trip.

In the book, Drennan also help explain economic principle such as the Pareto efficiency principle which stated that “any change that make one people better off, without making any other worse off, is an improvement”. This principle is a fundamental tenet of neoclassical economics, which describe the gain of top 1% of the income distribution as Pareto efficient. This is one reason why economist turn away from income inequality.

Other theory, such as Kuznets’s
inverted-U hypothesis, also made economist less worry on the income inequality
and its effect. Drawing from various historical data from numerous countries,
Kuznets argued that the economic shift from agriculture to industrialization
will lead to the rise of income inequality for some time, but as countries
develop, democracy expands and more protection were given to labor causing the
inequality to fall back. He also discussed Arthur Okun’s tradeoff theory
although Okun provided no strong evidence.

In analyzing the data, Drennan also
drew his criticism towards Milton Friedman model for theory of consumption,
noting that the theory does not true for the period 1984-2007 and for the early
twentieth century. He went further to underline the basic flaw of Friedman,
Modigliani, and Brumberg’s model which become the mainstream theory for consumption,
the models devoid of motive and proclivities, whereas in real life human behavior
play an important role in their daily choices and consumption.

In his final chapter Drennan drew attention that this crash has happen before, and in his conclusion, he argue for the need to drop traditional economic theory that did not stood the empirical test from the data. Unless we take into account other element such as ‘behavior’ in our economic theory, we will be chasing unrealistic economic development using unrealistic theory.

Tenaganita – Attorney-General’s office failed to bring justice for Adelina!

Employer acquitted of domestic worker Adelina’s death, walks free
Where is JUSTICE for ADELINA?

Adelina Sao, 21, died in Bukit Mertajam hospital on 11th February 2018 from organ failure. When she was rescued, she was found sleeping outside the employer’s home with the employer’s dog. Her employers reportedly didn’t want the pus oozing from her body “dirtying their home”. Her arms and legs were covered in burn marks. Her face was swollen, and she was terrified when rescuers came to help her. Nurses and doctors at the hospital were in disbelief over the extent of her injuries.

Malaysians were rightly horrified and outraged when news of Adelina broke. On 14th February 2019, Minister of Human Resources M. Kula Segaran, citing how shocking Adelina’s case was, said he is launching a “war” against human trafficking and forced labour. On 18th April 2019, Adelina’s employer, S. Ambiga, was acquitted by the High Court. Where is justice for Adelina?

Tenaganita learned of the acquittal through an article in Kwong Wah Daily (dated 19th April 2019). The newspaper reported that the case was fixed for a continued hearing on 18th April, but S Ambika was granted full acquittal although the prosecution requested for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA).

We understand that neither Adelina’s family nor her representatives in Malaysia were informed that the court date was brought forward. This is unacceptable.

On 12th February 2019, Adelina’s mother, Yohana Banunaek, said “she (her daughter) did not die because of her sickness, but because she was tortured”. We are extremely shocked and shaken by the High Court’s decision. Tenaganita and our partner JPIT in Kupang are distraught with this news. We cannot imagine the unbearable grief of Adelina’s family.

The Attorney-General’s office needs to explain why the prosecution has failed to bring justice for Adelina when there was substantive evidence in this case.

Adelina is dead. She was a young woman made to work for two years without pay. She was a young woman whose body was brutalised. Her death has to mean something. Why have our courts failed her? Why has the Malaysian government failed her? Where is justice for Adelina?

Tenaganita
Press Release
19th April 2019

Peranan satira dalam mencorak arena politik

Antara program satira yang saya minati adalah program yang dikelola oleh John Oliver di HBO dan Stephen Colbert di CBS.

Colbert lebih memfokuskan satiranya kepada daily political commentaries, jadi programnya berterusan dan hampir setiap hari. Dia hanya perlu mengolah semula sebarang peristiwa semalam dan dalam bentuk satira.

Oliver pula sirinya lebih memfokus berkenaan dengan sesuatu isu, isu yang mungkin berada diluar kotak politik, tetapi setiap isu yang diangkat mempunyai unsur-unsur penindasan yang diperjuangkan, seperti penindasan syarikat rokok terhadap negara kecil, isu MLM menindas pengguna, siri Oliver tidak terikat dengan isu politik domestik.

Satira mereka berkesan kerana mereka berjaya unpack setiap isu dalam pembawakan komedi yang mana selepas habis ketawa mesejnya akan kekal dalam minda penonton. Jadi satira sangat berkesan sebagai agen propaganda kerana ianya mudah dihadam, selesa (unsur humour), dan mudah tersebar. Berbanding dengan tulisan akademik yang dipenuhi bahasa jargon.

Walaupun satira berbentuk komedi, ia tidak semestinya kosong, ia boleh lahir dari fakta, cuma olahan dan penyampaiannya sahaja diberikan sesuai dengan kemampuan masyarakat awam.

Namun siri satira seperti Oliver dan Colbert mungkin tidak sesuai dengan konstruk sosial masyarakat kita, kita mempunyai sistem nilai yang tersendiri. Oleh itu kita mempunyai instrumen satira seperti TTKM. Walaupun dilabel sampah oleh golongan pemerintah, bahan mereka akan terus beredar dan sampai ke masyarakat kebanyakan. Ia lebih mudah, simplistik, menjadikannya sebuah propaganda yang baik.

Dengan hasrat kerajaan ingin menurunkan had mengundi kepada 18 tahun. Bahan-bahan satira ini lebih mudah disebar kepada generasi muda. Ia tidak memerlukan analisa yang membosankan, malah menjadi satu bentuk hiburan generasi muda dalam masa yang sama, sedar atau tidak, hiburan itu membentuk persepsi minda mereka.

Mudah untuk melebel satira sebagai sampah, tapi sukar untuk melawan pembinaan persepsi yang mereka bawa. Dan jika dengan satira dan jenaka pun kerajaan sudah meloncat, maka ada masalah besar pada kerajaan tersebut.

Yuran UTM-MJIIT naik 529% – Mahasiswa Bangkit Boikot Kelas

SUDAH pelbagai cara dan alternatif yang dibangun mahasiswa UTM – MJIIT Voices, berkaitan isu kenaikan yuran yang meningkat sebanyak 529% di universiti mereka namun penguasa, pihak pentadbiran masih gagal menjawab persoalan yang dilontarkan mahasiswa.

Maka, esok (Selasa), Jam 10.00 pagi akan diadakan Aksi
Demonstrasi dan Boikot Kelas MJIIT di hadapan pagar UTMKL untuk membawa tuntutan
mereka dan melawan ketidakadilan yang berlaku kepada ramai pelajar dan ahli
keluarga yang terkesan akibat ketidaktelusan ini terutama bagi mereka yang
berada dalam B40 dan M40.

Gabungan Pembebasan Akademik akan turun bersolidariti
bersama mahasiswa UTM-MJIIT Voices serta menyeru rakan mahasiswa cakna untuk
turun bersama kerana kebenaran tidak datang dari langit, ia mestilah
diperjuangkan.

Jika keadilan direbut, kita pertahankan!

Jika keadilan direnggut, kita rebut kembali!

#MahasiswaBersatuLawanPenindasan

Solidariti Bersama,

Gabungan Pembebasan Akademik.

Membaca – berbicara dengan hantu

When Books Went to War cover.

Otak manusia merupakan satu ciptaan
yang mengkagumkan. Kita bukan sahaja boleh mengawal pergerakan badan dari
dalam, tetapi mampu menganalisa dunia luar. Otak kita berbeza dengan makhluk
lain seperti haiwan yang tidak mampu mencipta konsep dan teori abstrak
melangkaui batasan dunia fizikal. Contohnya konsep kenegaraan tidak dapat
difahami oleh monyet, jadi monyet dari Indonesia tidak berasa takut atau
bersalah merentasi sempadan hutan dan memasuki hutan negara Malaysia.

Namun otak yang kompleks ini mempunyai
batasan, kita mempunyai batasan dari sudut memori sebagai contoh. Kita mungkin
dapat mengingati sesuatu peristiwa sebagai contoh, tetapi kita akan melupainya
beberapa tahun akan datang. Atau kita mengingati peristiwa tersebut, tetapi
kita lupa akan setiap perincian peristiwa itu. Contohnya kita ingat bahawa kita
pernah memasuki sekolah rendah, tetapi lupa akan warna beg sekolah kita pada
masa tersebut.

Disebabkan keterbatasan otak dan
memori, manusia mula mencipta sistem tulisan, agar peristiwa, maklumat, dan
ilmu dapat dikumpulkan, dipelihara, dan diwariskan kepada generasi akan datang.
Seorang tabib yang hidup 100,000 tahun yang lampau sebagai contoh, ilmu
tabibnya akan mati dan hilang selepas matinya dia. Generasi selepasnya perlu
mengumpul semula maklumat dari sifar, membuat kesilapan yang sama, mungkin
hanya sedikit ilmu yang dapat diwariskan secara oral. Tetapi tabib yang hidup
pada tahun 2019 boleh mewariskan ilmu dan pengalamannya dalam tulisan jurnal,
buku, blog dan sebagainya. Manakala generasi seterusnya boleh mendapat ilmu
dari tinggalan tulisan ini, dan pengumpulan ilmu itu boleh ditambah pada
peringkat baru yang lebih tinggi, tidak perlu dimulai dari sifar semula.

Penciptaan tulisan dan pembukuan
merupakan satu revolusi yang mengubah bagaimana manusia hidup pada hari ini.
Carl Sagan ketika membicarakan berkenaan dengan buku dan pembacaan menyatakan
bahawa buku merupakan sesuatu yang bersifat magikal, yang membolehkan seseorang
manusia berinteraksi dengan manusia di abad lain, yang mungkin sudah ratusan
tahun meninggalkan dunia. Sebagai contoh, kita boleh mengetahui apa yang
difikirkan oleh Annelies Frank 74 tahun yang lalu ketika dia bersembunyi dari
tentera Nazi. Kita dapat tahu apa perasaannya, bagaimana emosinya setiap hari
walaupun kita mungkin belum wujud pada ketika itu, kita tidak pernah berjumpa
dengannya, malah kita tidak fasih berbahasa German. Perkara ini dibolehkan
dengan penulisan diari, melalui usaha penterjemahan dan pembukuan.

Namun mungkin kebanyakan dari kita
merasakan bahawa menulis dan membaca merupakan sesuatu benda yang biasa. Apa
yang magikal tentang pembacaan sedangkan kita sudah pandai membaca sejak dari
tadika?

Kita telah terbiasa dengan menggunakan
membaca dalam aktiviti harian, seperti membaca papan tanda untuk mencari arah,
membaca arahan kerja untuk melakukan tugas, tiada yang unik. Seperti kita telah
terbiasa mengangkat gelas berisi kopi latte, ia tidak ajaib kecuali jika tangan
kita telah diishtiharkan lumpuh oleh doktor. Kita akan merasakan ia sesuatu
yang ajaib, seperti yang dirasai oleh Sagan jika kita menggunakannya untuk
membaca bahan ilmu yang dikumpul manusia zaman berzaman melalui penulisan dan
pembukuan.

Kita tidak perlu menjadi panglima perang untuk mengetahui bahawa dalam peperangan sistem logistik merupakan antara faktor penentu menang atau kalahnya sesebuah tentera. Kita tidak perlu mengambil risiko menyertai perang yang mungkin boleh mengorbankan nyawa kita. Kita boleh belajar dari kesilapan orang lain melalui pembacaan. Kita boleh membaca kisah kegagalan Jeneral Alexander Samsonov dalam pertembungan di Tannenburg dalam buku yang ditulis oleh Barbara Tuchman dalam bukunya The Gun of August sebagai contoh.

Kita juga tidak perlu mencipta mesin masa untuk kembali melihat peradaban manusia zaman silam, kita dapat memahami kehidupan tamadun silam dengan membaca tulisan pengembaraan Ibnu Khaldun dalam bukunya Muqaddimah. Atau mungkin kita hendak membaca nasihat tentang kehidupan dari seorang tua yang sedang terlantar sakit, kita tidak perlu ke hospital, kita boleh membaca buku Tuesday with Morrie.

Jika manusia yang telah mati tetapi
masih hidup digelar hantu. Kebanyakan buku sebenarnya adalah hantu, ia
merupakan cebisan minda manusia yang masih mampu berkomunikasi dengan manusia
lain, walaupun jasad asal penulis telah mereput lama di makam-makam perkuburan.

Does China Invented Industrial Espionage?

I was discussing a project today with my manager. Along the way, he mentioned that China is a “copycat” country rather than an innovation country. It made me think. Is this statement reasonable?

Have you ever wonder how did the west get the great inventions such as the compass, gun powder, movable block press, or even paper?

How about porcelain making? The truth is that China was one of the first victims of industrial espionage by none other than the “great Greek civilization” that westerners love so much.

Monks smuggled silkworms from China to the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), which formed its economic foundation for around 650 years.

A delegation of eastern orthodox monks under Justinian broke two monopolies in the East – China on silk production and Persia on the silk trade routes to the West – by smuggling silkworms to the West.

The resulting monopoly was the foundation for the Byzantine economy for the next 650 years until its demise in 1204.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Chinese alone possessed the ability to produce high-end “hard-paste” porcelain, an expensive material beloved by Europe’s elites. In the 1680s, a French Jesuit, Pere d’Entrecolles, traveled to China, where he saw the kilns and likely read technical works on the subject.

In September 1712, he wrote that while visiting Jingdezhen, then known as the porcelain capital of China, he had compiled “a minute description of all that concerns this kind of work.”

Within a few decades, a porcelain factory in Sévres, France, was producing hard-paste porcelain on par with the Chinese product. In a further twist, the British managed to swipe the secrets from the French, inaugurating Britain’s high-end porcelain industry.

China didn’t invent industrial espionage

China didn’t Invent Economic Spying.

Some might say that there were no international laws or intellectual property laws back then.

What about Britain stealing Chinese tea making secrets?
It is one of the greatest acts of corporate espionage ever committed.

The British East India Company faced the loss of its monopoly on the fantastically lucrative tea trade with China, forcing it to make the drastic decision of sending Scottish botanist Robert Fortune to steal the crop from deep within China and bring it back to British plantations in India.

Strange. It says that Britain sent a botanist to steal a unique crop from China. Does it sound like “honorable white people” are breaking laws?

Alternatively, it was just one of the thousands “isolated event”?

The U.S., and for that matter, almost every Western nation, might wish to remember their own, no-holds-barred campaigns to swipe industrial secrets.

Throughout the 18th century, every European power attempted to rip off industrial secrets.

One nation, in particular, was known for using the illicit methods to great advantage: the U.S.

In the country’s very first years, aspiring industrialists looked to Europe and quickly learned to take the easy way out, stealing instead of inventing.

Over the past 15 years, the FBI has chronicled numerous cases involving France, Germany, Japan, Israel, and South Korea. An FBI analysis of 173 nations found that 57 were covertly trying to obtain advanced technologies from U.S. corporations. Altogether, 100 countries spent some public funds on acquiring U.S. technology. Former French Intelligence Director Pierre Marion put it succinctly when he said,

“In economics, we are competitors, not allies. America has the most technical information of relevance. It is easily accessible. So naturally, your country will receive the most attention from the intelligence services.”

Glenn Greenwald in his book says the NSA eavesdrops on 20 billion communications a day — and planted bugs in Cisco equipment headed overseas.

Did you still remember the former CIA employee Edward Snowden?

Snowden claimed that the NSA planted backdoors in Cisco products

Why don’t you complain about them? Is it because when the west and its “allies” (who are militarily occupied against their will) does it, it’s honorable and just?

To summarize what had we been discussing so far, the West has been stealing from China for over a thousand years to further their economies. From silkworms to tea, until the late Qing dynasty, the West was still in an inferior trade position with their demand for Chinese products like tea and porcelain being well known.

The West ended up compensating with barbarism and drugging China at gunpoint with the Opium Wars. Hilariously, the West is perpetually in an inferior trade imbalance position. In the past, it was due to strong demand for expensive Chinese products with no reciprocal demand for western products. Today, even when China is labeled with low quality and cheap products, the West STILL suffers from a trade imbalance.

Although typically glossed over in high-school textbooks, as a young and newly industrializing nation, the U.S. aggressively engaged in the kind of intellectual-property theft it now insists other countries prohibit.

In other words, the U.S. government’s message to China and other nations today is “Do as I say, not as I did.”

In its adolescent years, the U.S. was a hotbed of intellectual piracy and technology smuggling, particularly in the textile industry, acquiring both machines and skilled machinists in violation of British export and emigration laws.

Piracy and Fraud Propelled the U.S. Industrial Revolution

Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures,” submitted to Congress in December 1791 mentioned that to procure all such machines as are known in any part of Europe can only require a proper provision and due pains. He also added that the knowledge of several of the most important of them is already possessed. The preparation of them here is, in most cases, practicable on nearly equal terms.

Notice that Hamilton wasn’t urging the development of indigenous inventions to compete with Europe but rather the direct procurement of European technologies through “proper provision and due pains” — meaning, breaking the laws of other countries.”

When Charles Dickens arrived in Boston in 1842, he was startled to see what Americans would do for profit. He found the city’s bookstores rife with pirated copies of his novels, along with those of his countrymen. Dickens would later deliver lectures decrying the practice, and wrote home in outrage: “my blood so boiled as I thought of the monstrous injustice.”

Dark side of American “innovation.”

In the chaos following World War II, some of the greatest spoils of Germany’s resources were the Third Reich’s scientific minds. The U.S. government secretly decided that the value of these former Nazis’ knowledge outweighed their crimes and began a covert operation code-named Paperclip to allow them to work in the U.S. without the public’s full knowledge.

Joint Intelligence Objective Agency, or JOIA, had decided that these scientists were too valuable to the U.S. to allow to fall into Soviet hands. This American covert operation was one of the most guarded U.S. government secrets of the 20th century. Some of the scientists who were part of it were Otto Ambros (a chemist who served as director of the German corporation that produced the gas used in the death camps), Arthur Rudolph (rocket scientist who played a vital role in the V-2 rocket program),
Kurt Blome (virologist who pioneered Hitler’s secret germ warfare program).

To recap, America supported a nation-wide policy of intellectual theft and sheltered the 20th century’s two most hated war criminals in order to gain technology that was paid for by the blood of thousands of horrifically tortured and murdered victims – while preaching breathlessly about international law, innovation, freedom, and justice.

So tell me again, does China really invented industrial espionage?

Sources:

Philology report, Stanford University. (2011)Silk, Power & Diplomacy in Byzantium, Anna Maria Muthesius, Cambridge University. (1992)For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World’s Favorite Drink and Changed History, Sarah Rose (2009)No Place to Hide, Glenn Greenwald (2014)Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, Annie Jacobsen (2014)The Growth of Economic Espionage: America Is Target Number One, Peter Schweizer (1996)

23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism – Book Review

This article is a review of Cambridge Economist, Ha-Joon Chang’s book titled ’23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism’ published by Penguin Books in 2010.

If you have read ‘Freakonomics’ by
Dubner & Levitt and searching for a kind of book that provide the same
unconventional, myth-busting analysis on economics occurrence, this book is
definitely it!

Written in layman term without heavy
technical terms, Chang open the access gate to wide range of ordinary readers
about the working of economics. As he himself noted in the introduction, you
don’t need to be an economist to understand his book. He lay out his aim
explicitly on what he intended to do, which is to exposed free-market
capitalism, he still believes that capitalism is the best economic system, his
problem lay on specific type of capitalism which has dominated the world
economy which is the free-market capitalism.

Chang argues that free market does
not exist. Every market has rules, boundaries, and restriction which govern
them. As we accept all these rules unconditionally, we fail to see them as
market restriction. Labor market has many restrictions, you can’t hire child
laborer this day. Also, most countries have immigration control to protect
local labor market, and to hold the wage standard from falling. All these
restrictions were not been put based on sound economic reason, they are
political decisions. That is why Chang argues that the free-marketeer was as
political as the one who opposed them. 

Workers in rich countries doing the
same job are paid more compared to their counterpart in poor countries. Why is
this so? It is not because of the people in rich countries are more productive,
brilliant, or creative. It is precisely because of the immigration control that
retain the wage standard. The gap also presented not because individual in rich
countries are highly educated, it is because they have better technologies,
better institutions, and better infrastructure. This line of analysis is
consistent with what was presented by Turkish American economist, Daron
Acemoglu and British political scientist, James A. Robinson in their famous
book ‘Why Nations Fail’.

Chang discussed about Alexander
Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary and the architect of the modern American
economic system. Hamilton laid out protectionism strategy to protect American
industries ‘in their infancy’. Have he come up with the same policy that
develop America then today, Chang argued that he will be criticized by US
Treasury Department and denied loan by IMF and World Bank. Chang brilliantly
argued that developed countries forced market liberalization on developing
countries, whilst they themselves used protectionism policy when they were
developing. In other words, the rich countries said to poor countries “do what
we say not as we did”.

Why do European migrated to the U.S.
in 1880-1914? – asked Chang. He argued that the New World lack of feudal legacy
which led to higher social mobility compared to the Old World. The U.S. also
had a massive tract of land and a shortage of labour, thus wages are three to
four time higher than Europe. But he argued, today American does not have the
highest living standards. They worked longer hours and had inferior healthcare
system. Average income also did not gave an accurate living standard in the
U.S. as she had a bigger unequal income distribution, with bigger size of
underclass.

Chang also criticized many economist
approaches on the question of Africa’s poverty. Chang argued that  rather than blaming free-market policy failure
to develop Africa, free-market economist shift the blame towards Africa’s
geography, climate, history, demography and ‘resource curse’. While all these
factors are not all irrelevant, the outcome can change, for example, there are
many resource-rich countries that were well developed. Some factors like
geography and history cannot solve the question as they can’t be change. The most
important factor, Chang noted, is policy. Policies can be change when they
failed, especially and evidently in Africa.

On trickle-down economics, Chang
brought evidence that the policy failed to deliver its promise and failed to
accelerate growth. The book also discussed the failure of micro-credit, as a
system to finance small enterprise and lift people out of poverty. The idea was
famously attributed to the economist who won a Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammad
Yunus and his Grameen Bank. Factors for the micro-credit failure includes the
used of the funding for consumption, not for their initial intended purpose.
While some used the funding for their business, the business failed to develop
and re-create itself once their market was overcrowded and profit fell.

One of the most profound idea I
found in the book is on how we limit our choices to make decision. Chang
brought this idea base on Herbert Simon’s thought. Human cannot easily make
decision when they were flooded with seas of information. That is why we
develop routine, although they might be a better way to do things, people stick
to routine so that they don’t have to make too many decisions. Market, Chang
argued, were far more complex with billions of product, people, and companies.
So, government intervention using regulations is justified, to limit the
uncertainties and risk in the market, so that we can make a more rational and
easier decisions.

Switzerland is one of the top few
richest and most industrialized countries, but it is by far the lowest in term
of university enrollment. Chang argued that excessive education does not lead
to more productive economy. Subject such as history and biology does not much
needed for average factory workers. He argued that knowledge-based economy is
an exaggeration with many rich countries still rely on their manufacturing output,
so, developing countries cannot skip manufacturing phase of the economic
development.

Equality is not enough, said Chang.
It does not make any sense if a rich boy and poor boy given the same
opportunity to attend school, but the poor need to compete with a hungry stomach.
So, its not just the opportunity to enter competition needs to be given, but
the condition must be equalized.

His logic about big government is a
compelling one. Big government he argued, make the economy more dynamic. When
basic income was guaranteed, people will not be afraid of changing jobs from
sunset industries into sunrise industries. When government provide re-skilling opportunities,
people can more easily shifted from less productive industry into more
productive one. People don’t afraid of loosing job because they know it will
not be the end of the world, they have a safety net, and can move on.

Overall, the book is very rich with myth busting, facts, case studies, jokes, that will transform your understanding about economics. You know that the system is broken, but it is broken for a wrong reason and can be fix. The fix, as argued by professor Chang in his concluding remark, will not be comfortable or fair, but it is needed to give a chance for billions of people, and alleviate them from poverty.

Hikayat Din Kapal : Pahlawan Yang Kehilangan Keris

gambar ihsan Flickr

*Tulisan ini adalah dari sudut pandang penulis sahaja.

Saya ada seorang kawan. Nama panggilannya Din Kapal, kerana dia juga datang dari bidang kerja yang sama seperti saya dahulu, di syarikat perkapalan walaupun dia dan saya tidak lah bekerja di bawah satu bumbung.

Di waktu lapang, kami gemar meluangkan masa bersama di kedai mamak, menghirup kopi panas bercawan-cawan, diselang seli dengan asap tembakau import (sebelum di ban kerajaan Malaysia). Macam-macam yang kami bualkan, boleh jadi hal sukan, boleh jadi hal ekonomi semasa, malah hal politik pun boleh menjadi agenda kecil kami.

Din Kapal mempunyai pegangan politik yang cukup kuat, suatu pegangan yang corak politiknya jauh berbeza jika dibandingkan dengan saya. Saya masih ingat lagi sewaktu beberapa minggu sebelum pilihan raya umum yang lepas, Din Kapal dengan yakin memberitahu saya bahawa mereka akan menang besar dan nasib rakyat akan lebih terbela dengan adil dan saksama. Malah, isu “kleptokrasi” yang sering diperkatakan beliau itu bakal diselesaikan dengan segera dan seterusnya bakal sekadar menjadi titik hitam yang lama-kelamaan akan dilupakan oleh rakyat di negara berdaulat ini.

Apa yang Din Kapal katakan pada malam itu sedikit sebanyak menjentik perasaan ingin tahu saya. Apakah benar sudah tiba masanya negara ini memerlukan acuan dan haluan yang baru? Saya hanya tersenyum dan saya katakan pada Din Kapal, jika benar apa yang beliau katakan, jika benar bahawa kerajaan baharu boleh mengubah kehidupan rakyat menjadi lebih baik, jika benar ekonomi negara berterusan berkembang pesat berlandaskan wawasan ke arah negara maju, dan badan kepimpinan baharu akan mengurus tadbir negara berpaksikan pada teras adil tanpa mengira agama dan bangsa, apa salahnya?

10 Mei 2018, Din Kapal merupakan salah seorang dari ribuan rakyat Malaysia yang bersama-sama berkongsi kegembiraan atas kemenangan perjuangan mereka, yang sekali gus menandakan bermulanya era baru negara dengan kepimpinan yang baharu, dengan azam dan matlamat yang baharu, atas nama Malaysia Baharu. Beliau malah sempat menghantar pesanan ringkas kepada saya pada pagi itu, yang antaranya masih saya ingat berbunyi “rakyat bijak, rakyat memilih”. Saya berfikir, ada betulnya kata Din Kapal itu. Dalam sesebuah hierarki kerajaan, rakyat berada di tapaknya, di kumpulan paling bawah, yang paling besar. Hilang tapak, runtuhlah semua. Tak tertegak rumah, kalau hilang sendinya. Jadi pada hemat saya, Din Kapal berkata benar. Kuasa “rakyat memilih” ini bukanlah perkara yang kita boleh pandang kecil.

Hari demi hari dibawah kerajaan baharu, Din Kapal semakin rancak berbicara soal politik. Ada kesempatan dan waktu, kami pasti berjumpa di kedai kopi dan berdiskusi tentang isu-isu semasa walaupun kadang kala perlu berganjak 3 meter dari meja. Adakalanya, saya cuba mencelah dan memberi buah pandangan kerdil dari mata seorang rakyat. Yang peliknya, hampir semua hujah yang saya berikan tidak lagi valid dimata Din Kapal hanya kerana ia datang dari kaca mata seorang pembangkang.

Minggu berganti minggu, dan secara tiba-tiba Din Kapal menyepi. Tidak ada lagi pesanan ringkas, tidak ada lagi kopi, tidak ada lagi politik. Saya pernah mencuba beberapa kali untuk bertanyakan khabar kepada beliau dan bertanya kalau-kalau beliau dalam kesusahan dan kerunsingan yang boleh dikongsi bersama. Namun hingga kini, beliau lebih selesa untuk mendiamkan diri dan menonton drama TV tiga dari duduk semeja.

Menilai Campur Tangan Kerajaan Dalam Ekonomi

Park Tae-Joon (Kanan) merasmikan pembukaan kilang POSCO pada April 1970.

Kita sering diberitahu bahawa tugas kerajaan adalah mentadbir, kerajaan sepatutnya tidak terlibat dalam bisnes. Bisnes perlu dibiarkan kepada orang bisnes. Logik kepada perkara ini adalah kerana keputusan bisnes biasanya dilakukan untuk mendapat keuntungan, tetapi keputusan kerajaan mempunyai kepentingan politik dan kemungkinan tidak menguntungkan. Kerajaan juga tidak mempunyai maklumat industri untuk membuat keputusan yang betul, perkara ini menyebabkan bisnes yang dicampuri tangan-tangan kerajaan tidak efisyen dan tidak menguntungkan. Oleh itu, pasaran perlu bebas dari campur tangan kerajaan. Ini adalah asas kepada free-market capitalism.

Saya ingin berkongsi satu cerita menarik yang dikongsi oleh ahli ekonomi dari Cambridge, Prof. Ha-Joon Chang dalam bukunya “23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism”.

Korea Selatan merupakan antara negara yang paling miskin di dunia pada tahun 1965, dan mereka mengeluarkan idea bodoh untuk membina integrated steel mill (kilang besi keluli). Sumber ekonomi utama mereka pada ketika itu adalah eksport barang mentah seperti ikan, bijih tungsten dan lain-lain. Juga perusahaan yang menggunakan tenaga buruh intensif seperti pembuatan baju. Jika dinilai dari segi teori ‘comparative advantage’, negara yang mempunyai tenaga buruh yang tinggi dengan kapital yang kecil tidak sepatutnya menceburi perusahaan yang berbentuk kapital intensif seperti pembuatan keluli.

Korea juga tidak mempunyai bahan mentah asas untuk menghasilkan keluli iaitu bijih besi dan coking coal. Suasana perang dingin ketika itu tidak membolehkan Korea mengimport bahan mentah dari China. Bahan mentah perlu diimport dari Amerika, Australia, atau Canada yang jaraknya 5 ribu hingga 6 ribu batu, yang mana akan menambahkan kos pembuatan.

Walaupun
Korea menawarkan pelbagai insentif seperti subsidi, kemudahan infrastuktur
percuma, pengecualian cukai, kos penjanaan tenaga yang rendah, tiada negara
mahu melabur dalam idea mereka. Lebih menakutkan pelabur, syarikat Pohang Iron
and Steel Company (POSCO) yang ditubuhkan pada 1968 merupakan syarikat kerajaan
dan ditadbir oleh Park Tae-Joon, seorang bekas jeneral tentera. Korea merancang
untuk membuka industri negara terbesar dan diketuai oleh seorang yang bukan
ahli bisnes!  

World
Bank menasihati pelabur untuk tidak turut serta dalam projek bodoh Korea ini.
Pada tahun 1969 semua bakal pelabur termasuk Amerika, UK, German Barat,
Perancis, dan Itali menarik diri dari projek ini. Tidak berputus asa, Korea
meminta Jepun untuk menyalurkan bayaran ganti rugi perang kepada projek besi
keluli mereka, juga membantu menyediakan mesin dan nasihat teknikal.

Industri keluli Korea maju dengan pesat, mereka memulakan pengeluaran pada tahun 1973 dan sekitar tahun 1980 berjaya menjadi pengeluar low-grade steel yang paling cost-efficient. Mereka naik menjadi pemain industri utama pada tahun 1990 dan sehingga hari ini menjadi pengeluar keluli ke-empat terbesar di dunia.