Politics and Economics

Suicide Tourism

2008-12-27T06:44:00.000-08:00

Switzerland has a lot of things that foreigners associate it with. For example, it is known for its generosity for the mega-rich foreigners to allow them to keep their money in banks fronting their accounts. But, only few people know about its generosity to permit the terminally ill and permanently disabled foreigners to hasten their death in Switzerland.

Every year, more than 100 terminally ill and the permanently and unacceptably disabled from France, Germany, USA, United Kingdom, and others come to Switzerland to commit a suicide. On average, a foreigner comes to Switzerland to die twice a week. They kill themselves by drinking a glass of water mixed with sodium pentobarbital. They choose to do so in order to avoid suffering from the disease that inevitably leads to their death. They fall asleep five minutes after they drink it, and die half an hour after.

In 1942, a law was introduced in Switzerland to allow the terminally sick and the permanently disabled to kill themselves. Switzerland is the only country in the world to allow foreigners to kill themselves. There are very few countries that have a law to allow the terminally sick to kill themselves. They include Netherlands, Belgium, and two states in USA (Oregon and Washington). The promulgation of such a law in these countries is very recent.

The question of whether such a law is good is controversial. Some argue against it. They argue that those who are neither incurably ill nor permanently disabled are likely to take an advantage from it by killing themselves to avoid facing the depression. It is said that the organizations working for the terminally ill to enable them to kill themselves are not transparent. Those who are opposed to such a law or at least those who are opposed to the possible disadvantage of such a law prefer to call the entry of the terminally ill foreigners into Switzerland “suicide tourism”.

Reference
AP, SCHWERIENBACH
Dec 14

Foreign Aid: Rich Countries’s Promises and Actions

2008-12-20T00:03:00.000-08:00

There is no denying the fact that pure foreign aid – as opposed to the so-called foreign aid provided with some kind of vested interest by the rich countries – help the poorest countries accelerate the pace of their economic development. Jeffrey D Sachs, in his treatise “The End of Poverty,” argues that only if all of the rich countries follow through on their promise to help the poorest countries by providing aid equal to at least 0.7% of their GNP, extreme poverty characterizing the poorest countries can be ended by 2025. Although it may be logically impossible or at least difficult to say with a high degree of certainty that if all of them keep their promise, extreme poverty can be ended by 2025, it is true that it can certainly be at least alleviated to a certain measure after a certain period of time, which can only be specified arbitrarily. But, the poignant fact is that not all of them have followed through on their commitment yet. The United States has been the laggard of them all. Now, official development assistance is roughly 0.25 of donor GNP.In 1961, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the objective that the level of official development assistance should increase appreciably “so as to reach as soon as possible approximately 1% of the combined national incomes of the economically advanced countries.” At that time, foreign assistance was about 0.5 % of rich country income. Despite this, foreign aid continued to decline. At various summits, say, the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development in 1995, the rich countries promised to reach 0.7% of their GNP. World leaders, including the US president George Bush, adopted once again the target of 0.7% of GNP, with the US being a signatory as part of what was termed as “the Monterrey Consensus” when they met in Monterrey, Mexico. It appears that the promises and actions of many rich countries contrast sharply. This is evidenced by the fact that by the early 1990s, official development assistance was still around 0.33% of donor GNP, and by the early 2000s, it had declined to around 0.2% of GNP. Now it is roughly 0.25% of GNP. It is also evidenced by the fact that the US government often declares these days that it is not bound by any arbitrary numerical target such as 0.7% of GNP. What is more surprising than this is that top US officials even declare that the US never signed on to such a goal, despite the fact that it and other rich countries did sign the Monterrey Consensus. Alas, the US has shown absolutely no concrete efforts towards keeping this commitment. US official development assistance amounts to just 0.15% of America’s GNP, which is less than one forth the global target whereas it spends 4% of GNP on its military, which is roughly $500 billion this year. Thus, the US spends around 30 times more on the military than it does on peaceful development aid for the poorest countries.But, unlike the US, some rich countries have followed through on their promise, and some other rich countries have determined the year by which they shall have reached the global target of 0.7% of GNP. The countries that have reached this target include Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Six European countries have, of late, set a time table to reach 0.7% of GNP by the year 2015. They include Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Note that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his report in advance of the UN Summit of World leaders in September, has called on all donor countries to reach at least 0.5% of GNP by 2009, and 0.7% by 2015.
(This article was originally published in TakingITGlobal Online Publication on 22 June 2005)

Potential success of peace talk in Nepal: Beyond the influence of self-centric or unbalanced logic

2008-12-19T23:51:00.000-08:00

For an analytical purpose, the present political crisis that my country, Nepal, is beset by may be split down into two parts. At one level of analysis, it may be said that first part has stemmed from the significant armed attempt by the CPN (Maoist) to establish a People's Republic accompanied by the significant armed resistance by the state to that attempt. The second part has resulted from the strong opposition of the move of the king by major political parties, or “regression’’ to use the term frequently used by major political parties.

This article confines itself to the former.The history of the former dates back to 2052 B.S. (1996 A.D). In the early years of the history of the former, the armed attempt to establish a People’s Republic by the CPN (Maoist) was not significant enough to make the then governments take it as seriously as it is taken at the moment. The then governments were either unaware of or overlooked the fact that it was potentially significant enough to take it as seriously as it is taken now. The governments reacted to that attempt as if it were possible to neutralize it by means of the armed resistance. The way they reacted to that attempt produced the opposite, unexpected and devastating result.

It is only after the emergence of this devastating result that the governments formed thereafter recognized that the problem that the armed struggle between Maoist armed rebels and Royal Nepali Armies has caused cannot be resolved by the use of the military force.The way the present government is reacting to the attempt to establish a People’s Republic by the CPN (Maoist) seems to be a radical shift from the way the governments in the past (governments formed prior to the realization on the part of the government that peace talk is the only best possible way to settle this stand-off) reacted to that attempt.

The success of peace talk hinges upon the being ready of both sides involved in the conflict to give up some of their demands. The second round of the talk between the state and the CPN (Maoist) failed because although the CPN (Maoist) gave up its demand for People’s Republic which contradicts every demand that the government has, the government did not become ready to give up any of its demands that contradict the demands of the CPN (Maoist). The whole of the demands that the CPN (Maoist) is waging what it calls 'people’s war’ for, and that of the demands that the agent of parliamentary multiparty democratic forces i.e. government has been mobilizing armies for can be broken down into two parts for an analytical purpose.

The first parts of the whole of their demands revolve around socioeconomic transformation of the country. They do not contradict each other at least at the present level of discussion on the kind of socio-economic transformation they advocate. The second parts of the whole of their demands are fundamentally opposed. The second part of the whole of the demands of CPN(Maoist) is made up by the demand to establish a People's Republic whereas that of the whole of the demands of the government is made up by the demand to make the existing parliamentary multiparty system continue to exist. The second parts of the whole of the demands are mutually exclusive. The existence of one means a lack of the existence of another. One exists because another does not exist. The success of the peace talk would become possible only when both the government and the CPN (Maoist) become ready to give up some of the second part of their demands to allow some of the second part of the demands of the other to exist.

That the government and CPN (Maoist) should become ready to give up some of the second part of their demands to allow some of the second part of the demands of the other to exist is another way of saying that the government and CPN (Moist) should become ready to accept some of the second part of the demands of the other. The fact that the second round of peace talk ended without concrete progress can be rightly explained by this assumption. The then government acted either knowingly or unknowingly in the second round of the talk as if there were standoff over the first parts of the whole of its demands and the demands of the CPN (Maoist). They insisted that because the standoff over the second parts of these demands is not important, CPN (Maoist) should forget it. The CPN (Maoist) insisted that at the time of the second round of the talk that a constituent assembly is the demand it can not overlook like other demands that are inconsistent with what is usually called philosophy of democracy. This means that it then became ready to give up some of its demands making up the second part of the whole of its demands (e.g. People’s Republic). It became ready to give up some of its demands making up the second part of the whole of its demands is another way of saying that it became ready to accept some of the demands of the government making up the 'second part' of the whole of the government's demands.

The real attempt to ensure the success of the peace talk involves being ready of both the government and the CPN (Maoist) to give up some of the second part of their demands to allow some of the second part of the demands of the other to exist. In the second round of the peace talk, only part of this real attempt was made by the CPN (Maoist). It is the government who should have made another remaining part of the attempt. The government did not become ready to give up any of its demands contained in the second part of its whole demands. It means it did not make the remaining part of the real attempt to ensure the success of the peace talk, despite the fact that the CPN (Maoist) made one part of that attempt. In the second round of the peace talk the then government should have given up its demand not to create a new constitution by a constituent assembly (the demand forming part of the second part of its whole demands) to give the demand of the CPN (Maoist) to create a new constitution by a constituent assembly (the demand forming part of the second part of its whole demands) a chance to be fulfilled. But it did not do so, and the result was that the peace talk failed.

In the end, I would like to say as the crux of this article that it is usually true to say that the end of armed conflict is subject to the agreement by both sides involved in the conflict on a set of things consisting of two sub-sets, the first including things one side has been being opposed to, and the second including things that another side has been being opposed to. The fact that the end of armed conflict through peace talk hinges upon such an agreement between both sides involved in the conflict forms the logic that the peace talk usually or even inevitably operates on. If peace talk is not allowed to operate on its own inherent logic, the peace talk can never end with concrete progress. It is more likely that both the government and the CPN (Maoist) endeavor to the best of their ability to replace this usually inherent logic with the kind of logic that is incompatible with this inherent logic and that is self-centric and therefore would benefit one side only. Therefore, it should not be forgotten that the peace talk between the state and the CPN (Maoist) should be allowed to operate on its inherent balanced logic but not on an intentionally created unbalanced logic.
(This article was originally published in TakingITGlobal Online Publication on 13 Oct 2004)

Agitation against the intellectual corruption in nepal:rethinking of its purview

2008-12-19T23:38:00.000-08:00

A group of young but educated people have been agitating against the agreement the government made with part-time teachers at Tribhuvan University (TU) to appoint them on contract basis without further procedure. A committee by the name of "TU Struggle Committee" has been formed to ensure that the agitation against the agreement is carried out in organized manner. This group encompasses both the students who are currently studying as master level and those who have already completed their Master's Degree. There is a preponderance of students in this agitation. In this sense, it is essentially student movement. If this agreement is translated into action, those who are not working as part-time teacher now, especially fresh graduates do not get a chance to work as a teacher at TU.
Many teachers are now working at TU, the oldest university in Nepal, and at different colleges affiliated to TU on a part-time basis. Four rounds of talks have been held between the agitating group and the TU executive body since November 18. But these rounds of talks failed to change the mind of those who give protection to the bad intellectual culture through the power they wield. The executive body is still remiss in the demand of the agitating group for the cancellation of the agreement the government and the part-time teachers reached in August. Its cavalier attitude towards their demand made them take some further actions. Doing so is the only option they have to pressurize upon the concerned body to have their demand met. They locked the main gate of the office of the Vice-Chancellor (VC), the VC office, and the offices of the Register and the TU Service Commission. Though they unlocked the main gate of the office of the Vice-chancellor some days ago, they said they would not stop locking the VC office and the offices of the Register and the TU Service Commission until their demand is met.
The way they were employed on a part-time basis was arbitrary. Nepotism, favoritism, and cronyism were used as the criteria for employing them. They were employed without "selection". They were not selected from a mass of competitors but were directly employed by the college administration as if the college were owned by the college chief. They are not the best of those who are willing to pursue an academic career. This is why those who think they are capable of working as an ideal university teacher are expressing their disagreement with the agreement in the form of movement.This is historic not only in terms of time consideration but also in terms of issue consideration. It is not similar to other student movements Nepal witnessed in the past in respect of the demand it has raised. If it is similar to them, it is only in the sense that it is being launched by the students and they were also launched by the students.
This movement cannot be criticized on the grounds that the issue it has raised is unimportant. However, this is bound to attract criticism if it confines itself to the demand it has raised now. The demand it has raised is that the agreement reached between the part-time teachers and the government should be rescinded. Prima facie, it would seem that they are worried about this agreement in that they take it as the end of the possibility or little possibility of them getting an opportunity to be employed as university teacher. But, I believe that they relish rescinding the agreement not because they are worried about their career but because they are worried about the future of the university education as a whole. Their worry stems from their having gained the apprehension of the fact that the implementation of the agreement will result in the retardation of intellectual progress in the country. The way university teachers at TU are employed forms just part of what I prefer to call "intellectual corruption". As is obvious from this, this movement is not against the intellectual corruption in Nepal as a whole but against part of it only.
Let me explain what I mean by the phrase “intellectual corruption" to help you fathom my argument. Corruption is a term applied to a kind of behavior, which is personally advantageous but socially detrimental, and therefore socially unacceptable. I have used the term “corruption” in this sense. By the term “intellectual corruption” I mean a set of demeanors shown by intellectuals, or those who are wrongly regarded as intellectual and also those who wield the official power to influence the educational sector, which make it impossible for what may be called “intellectual progress” to take place.
The set of behaviors that characterize those who wallow in the intellectual corruption appertain to the way university teachers are appointed, the way they are promoted, the way they teach, and the way carry out their duty other than teaching.
Now, let me discuss intellectual corruption in Nepal in brief. If we are to think without going beyond the fact that university teachers in Nepal are appointed and promoted through a competition, we may think that there is nothing wrong with the process involved in their appointment and promotion. To understand that there is something wrong with that process, we must go beyond this rather misleading fact, and enter into the question of what lies behind this competition. The kind of competition through which they are appointed and promoted is not the competition proper. This may perhaps be rightly described as “the so-called competition”. It is no more than a cover used for concealing the impartial appointment decision made without taking into account the competitive strength of the applicants.
Teachers at a university have a responsibility not only to teach knowledge already produced but also to produce new knowledge. Those teachers who are not capable of producing new knowledge have no moral right to occupy the most challenging and sensitive position of a university teacher without doing the most important thing they are expected to do-the production of knowledge. Most university teachers in Nepal have not proved to the intellectually conscious people that they produced new knowledge and also that they are likely to produce. If they had not been allowed to occupy the position they are holding now, and those who are capable of producing new knowledge had been appointed in stead of them through the competition proper, as opposed to what I call “the so-called competition”, perhaps there might not have been the knowledge gap we see now, or at least, the knowledge gap we see now might not have been as big as it is now.
They do not teach knowledge already produced in a way that is as complete as “practically possible”. The nature of knowledge they are required to teach is, in general, so comprehensive, and deep that it is impossible to teach it within the period of time fixed in the course of study in such a way that there will be nothing left to be taught. What is left after their teaching is still comprehensive and deep. Teaching “in a way that is as complete as practically possible” means teaching seriously as much as it is practically possible within the period of time specified.
They explain their inadequate teaching by saying that it is the responsibility of an ideal student to lean what is left after they finish teaching without taking help from their teachers. By the “inadequate teaching”, I mean the teaching in which they teach less than it is practically possible within the period of time fixed in the course of the study.
They do not want to account for their inadequate teaching by saying the reason why they teach in a way that is “deliberately inadequate”. They argue for the inadequacy in their teaching by putting forward the ostensible reason behind this in such a way that implicitly implies that it is not necessary for them to teach in a way that is “practically adequate”. Why do they ostensibly explain the “deliberate inadequacy in their teaching? They want to explain this by saying what they do not really think because they are fastidious about proving to others that they are an ideal teacher. It would not be an exaggeration to say that their ostensible explanation for the inadequacy for their teaching is an endeavor to distract our attention from what may be called “intellectual corruption”. Their false explanation is an effort to take our attention away from the kind of a university teacher envisioned by great statistician Karl Pearson. As Egon S. Pearson puts it, “Karl Pearson used to say that he believed that a university teacher ought to give every year one new course on a subject which he had not prepared for lecturing before; only so would he prevent himself from becoming stale and talk with a freshness of approach (Pearson, 1978, preface)”.
They do not teach students even the old course-the course that has yet to be updated - in a way that is as complete as practically possible. What I call “the deliberate inadequacy” in their teaching is a precondition for their being able to give time on other remunerative activities other than teaching, and also on teaching at many private colleges to the detriment of the students studying at the university or the college where they work as a permanent, or “so-called” full-time teacher. What made me think that it is appropriate to use the adjective “so-called” before the phrase “full-time teacher” is that they take fewer classes even than part-time teachers. Teaching in a way that is deliberately inadequate, and being the kind of a university teacher Karl Pearson envisioned are obstacles to their desire to benefit from the intellectual corruption.
There are many cases in which those teachers who have an authority to appoint new university teachers made unfair appointment decision. What underlies behind the intellectual corruption in such a form? One of the reasons is that they want to ensure that they produce university teachers as their heirs who share with them a tendency to be silent adherents of the intellectual corruption. Producing the heirs who do not share with them this tendency is great threat to their existence as a university teacher. It is only through the so-called competition that they can produce teachers with a desire to perpetuate the culture of the intellectual corruption” for personal aggrandizement.
University teachers in Nepal do no more than teach a very insignificant portion of the subject they are required to teach. Generally, it is true to say that they do not get involved in the process involved in the production of genuine future scholars. Teaching a very insignificant portion of the subject without doing any other thing is not what an ideal university teacher does. They neither think themselves nor cause the students to think. I have used the term “think” in its strictest sense, or in the sense of what is called “reflective thinking”, or in the sense implicitly implied in the following statements:
“In the widest sense of the word “thinking”, everyone thinks. In the strictest sense in which “to think” means “to think logically”. Some people never think, and none is always thinking even when he appears to be doing so (Stebbling, 1950, p 5).”“ Thinking, we have seen, essentially consists in solving a problem. The ability to think depends upon the power of seeing connexions. Reflective thinking consists in pondering upon a given set of facts so as to elicit their connexions…The mere addition of one fact to another would be of little value for reflective thinking (ibid. p 4)”.
Almost all of the major political parties (Maoist, royalist, democratic, or otherwise) seem to be reluctant to countenance this movement. Most of them except CPN (Maoist) wielded power in the past through which they institutionalized intellectual corruption. Most leaders in the present royalist political party were in a position of authority during the 30-years-long autocratic Panchayat regime. The intellectual corruption that is extant now in Nepal is also attributable to their certain behavior. Likewise, most of the leaders in Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (UML) also deserve bitter criticism as a response to their action that consolidated intellectual corruption. Once they found themselves in a higher position of authority, which was a golden opportunity to wipe out intellectual corruption. But, they preferred intellectual corruption to intellectual progress. Because opposing intellectual corruption that exists now is opposing their own past bad behavior, these political parties do not want to take part in this movement, and also do not want it to gain momentum. Student leaders are also turning their blind eye to this movement. The reason is self-explanatory. They have also played a crucial role in appointing most of the part-time teachers without selection. I think they are not so stupid that they agitate against their own irresponsible past action.
There can be no doubt that there are some leaders in all political parties and in their sister organizations who are strongly opposed to intellectual corruption. They fear to oppose intellectual corruption because their opposition may lead to their exclusion from the organization. So, it is hard to believe that they do something to add some force (force in the form of pressure exerted by the involvement in the movement) to the ongoing movement.Works CitedStebbing, L. Susan.1950. A Modern Introduction to Logic. New York and Evanston: Harper Torch Book/ The Science Library, p 4 and 5 Pearson, E.S. (ed). 1978. The History of Statistics in the 17th & 18th Centuries against the Changing Background of Intellectual, Scientific, and religious Thought: Lectures by Karl Pearson given at University College London during the academic sessions 1921-1933. London& High Wycombe: Charles Griffin & Co.Ltd, preface(This article was originally published in TakingITGlobal Online Publication on 18 May 2007)

Global Economic Crisis and Nepalese Economy

2008-12-17T02:48:00.000-08:00

The world economy now suffers from great crisis. A large number of US and European financial institutions have failed. The first expression of this crisis was seen in the failure of US financial institutions in September 2008, which soon evolved into a global crisis affecting the European countries to a great measure. This has led to a serious unemployment problem, inter alia. Though Nepal has not experienced the impact of this global crisis yet, it will not remain unaffected by it. Economists say that though Nepal is unlikely to suffer from this crisis in the immediate future, if it continues to exist, it will definitely have an adverse effect on the Nepalese economy.

The influx of remittances into Nepal from different parts of the world and its contribution to Nepalese economy gives rises to one of the linkages between the global economy and Nepalese economy. A large number of Nepali people are currently working in different parts of the world. Most of them are working in the Gulf countries. Their number is around one million. Though in Nepal, the amount of remittances has not surpassed the amount of foreign aid like in most of the developing countries, their amount is big enough to contribute to Nepalese economy to some measure.

The global economic crisis is more likely to affect the Nepalese economy by bringing down the amount of remittances. The remittance occupies great importance in developing the economy. Economists observe that every dollar remitted will generate economic activities worth 3$ in the receiving country. Around 90 percent of those Nepalese who are employed in different countries are working in construction sector in the Gulf countries where the effect of the global economic recession has already been seen. This has taken the form of the reduction of the workforce, among others. It is obvious that as this kind of effect deepens even further, there will be a heavy downsizing of the workforce. It is very hard to believe that Nepali workers will remain unaffected by this heavy downsizing. This means the decrease in the amount of remittances Nepal receives now. This, in turn, will have a serious repercussion on the Nepalese economy.

Theorizing Underdevelopment in Nepal

2008-12-10T02:57:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to say who first used the term “underdevelopment” in a systematic written expression. The difficulty stems from the fact that not all written expressions draw the attention of many readers. When a written expression in any means, say, a book or a journal , has a small readership, it is more likely that the ideas of which it is composed do not spread at all or spread very slowly among a large number of people. The difficulty also results from the fact that the idea expressed by a less known or an as yet completely unknown writer is dismissed as unimportant. I do not think these two sources of the difficulty in question rule out the possibility of other sources being identified. If there are other sources as well, then the magnitude of the difficulty at issue is more severe than is generally expected.The adjectival form of the term “underdevelopment” was first used in 1942 by an ILO functionary, William Benson in his article “The Economic Advancement of Underdeveloped Areas” (cf. Rist, 2002). This form also appeared at the end of the first paragraph of the fourth point in the Truman’s Inaugural speech made on 20 January 1949. As Rist (2002) observes, “this was the first time it had been used” in a widely circulated text.What is underdevelopment? None of the writers who used this word first defined it before using it as if they were well aware of what it means. Though they did not define it at all or their definition is not vague, the analysis of the contexts in which they used and the dispassionate interpretation of their uses of it would help us figure out whey they meant by it.Without being able to answer the question of what the basis for defining it is, we can not say anything with confidence as its definition. In defining it, if we are to be guided by the fact- which linguists set forth- that a language is arbitrary1 , there will be as many definitions of it as there will be its definers. But if we are to argue that it should not mean something other or more than its first definition, it will have only one definition. I think al least most definitions have been put forward without being informed by the answer (whatever the answer) to the question about the logical basis of definition. They do not know even the question in question, let alone its answer.Though the term “underdevelopment” has acquired wide currency in the academic field, most of those who use it lack a concrete understanding of it. However, their understanding is specific enough to clearly suggest that it is economic in nature, though it is so specific that it explicitly implies what this economic phenomenon constitutes.Many scholars have perceived underdevelopment in many ways. The difference in their perception is explained by their being incognizant of, or their disregard for, the answer to the question I have mentioned above or probably even the question itself2. Those who are not logical enough that they sense a semantic chaos in the world of the hitherto set forth definitions of underdevelopment have tended to accept one, or a set of some of the definitions others have set forth. To them, there is no need for a critical examination of the hitherto put forward definitions of underdevelopment. There is also a tendency for some of them to arbitrarily add a new definition of their own to the set of definitions already put forward rather than to accept one of the many definitions other have posited. But, those who are logical enough to understand that there is an urgent need for addressing the problem of semantic chaos that characterizes by the world of definitions of underdevelopment neither take one of the already available definitions for granted nor arbitrarily add a new definition of their own to the list of the already set forth definitions. They tend to revolutionize the world of definitions of underdevelopment by answering the above-mentioned question and basing the definition of underdevelopment on the answer this question to end the chaos in question.Underdevelopment is not something like a concrete object of a particular size. There is no such a thing as what may be called fixed-sized underdevelopment. Now that a stone exists in different sizes, by stone we mean a multi-sized and shaped object. Similarly, for underdevelopment, which shares something with a stone in a physical and structural sense, exists in different sizes, it could be thought of as a multi-sized entity. It exists to varying degrees in different times. That such adjectives as political, economic, social, cultural, educational, ecological etc. are added in such a way as to precede underdevelopment implies that underdevelopment only means a particular condition characterized by different things; it suggests that when we say underdevelopment, we only understand that it is a condition in which we lack what we need or we do not have as much of what we need as we want. The concept of underdevelopment is not specific enough that it enables us to know what the nature of something we lack is.It is important that we acquire an understanding of underdevelopment before we attempt to analyze the whole process involved in its emergence. At the same time, it is also important that our understanding of it be critical, systematic and broad. The word “underdevelopment” has been used in different ways by different scholars. The discourse analysis of the ways in which it has been employed leads us to say that some use it to mean a product of a particular process while some others to mean a process rather than a product3. The process that leads to underdevelopment is not the same as the process that has led to underdevelopment in a particular country. Though the phenomenon of underdevelopment that exists in many countries may not be the same, the totality of the process that it results from may not be the same. The totality of the process that has given rise to underdevelopment in one country may either narrower or broader than the one that has given rise to underdevelopment in another country.Why is it that there are many definitions of underdevelopment? Are they different from one another in form only and the same in essence? If it is true that there are many definitions of underdevelopment, is it possible, or logically appropriate to say which of them is good and which of them bad by assessing them against a certain criteria? Or, is it logically appropriate to regard the definition of underdevelopment as being cumulative?It is not logically possible to say that which of them is/are right, and which of them is/are not. If I am asked to define underdevelopment, what I would say may be either one of them or a new addition to them. There is no universally accepted definition of underdevelopment. I do not know if those who have given their own definition of underdevelopment think, as I do, that their definition is fraught with doubt, and is the result of their having defined it with certain level of hesitation. But, as for me, I think if we are to be logical, we must feel some level of difficulty and hesitation and doubt in defining underdevelopment.What is underdevelopment? I hesitate to answer this question. My hesitation continues to exist until I am clear about the answer to another question: What does the phrase” what is” mean?What do we mean by underdevelopment? Underdevelopment is not the same thing for all. This means different things to different people. That this is true is evidenced by the fact that various definitions of underdevelopment have been set forth by different scholars. I have used this term to mean a condition in which an individual, a family, and a community are unable to fulfil their needs, which are not unrealistic. The needs may be physical, political, cultural, or otherwise. Underdevelopment means a condition that we may find ourselves in that stems from our inability to fulfil our needs on all fronts (economic, educational, cultural, and political). I will be discussing the economic dimension of underdevelopment only. I will be giving a panorama of underdevelopment in Nepal below.What is the process involved in the development of underdevelopment? Is this process the same as the one involved in the development of underdevelopment in Nepal? What is the process by which underdevelopment in Nepal manifested itself? For analytical purpose, let me “operationalize” underdevelopment to refer to a phenomenon that a particular process gives rise to. I will be delineating the structure, or the defining features of the process that resulted (or results) inn the emergence of underdevelopment.The Structural Organization of Nepalese UnderdevelopmentThe cause of underdevelopment lies at all levels (individual, family, community, national, international etc.). It arises out of the process that occurs on all fronts (economic, political, cultural, social, scientific etc.) Let me clarify here that I am not arguing implicitly by saying this that all causes of underdevelopment are equally responsible for causing it.Is it true that an individual himself/herself responsible for the problem of underdevelopment that s/he suffers from? I think this question is specific enough to make me answer it categorically. This question is so broad in expression that one may understand it that it is the question of whether the fact that the problem of underdevelopment one faces is attributable to him/her only is true. If this question is to be regarded as meaning something similar to this possible apprehension one may get from it, the answer to it is not definitely in the affirmative. Does this question ask about the truth of the fact that an individual forms part of the cause of the underdevelopment that she/he is beset by? This question is not concrete enough to say with certitude it is about the truth of this fact. If it is really about the truth of this fact, the answer to it is in the affirmative.Let us suppose that there are two individuals from the same family, which treats them equally, or from two separate families, which are not different in the way they are brought up and treated.Why is Nepal poor? Nepal is described as one of the poorest countries in the world4. What was and is a stranglehold on development? What are the underlying causes behind this? The complete, or at least by far the most complete answer to this question is not easy. The sophistication of the answer results from the fact that a multiplicity of factors is involved- if not equally- in the process that gives rise to poverty. Is it true that what political economists say about the underlying cause of poverty applies to Nepalese context? Is it true that what physical ecologists say about this can be justified by the history of underdevelopment in Nepal? Is it true that at least all of the factors that are believed by different theorists to account for poverty-the set of the factors that one may abstract from all of the explanations of poverty put forward to date-explain Nepalese poverty? I argue that the problem of underdevelopment in Nepal has passed through a series of historical stages to find itself in its present form. Is it logical to trace the origin of underdevelopment in Nepal back to the time modern Nepal 5came into existence? And does the barter system retard or make it impossible for development to take place? Had a serious effort even under the non- ideal socio-economic system that existed in the past been made to bring about development from the time Nepal entered modern age, Nepal would have been more developed than it is now, though this developed stage would be far below the one the ideal socio-economic system gives rise to. The king Prithvi Narayan Shah was not sympathetic towards the problems of the majority of the people. Kathmandu valley was affluent during his reign because of its being the main trade route between India and Tibet, the phenomenon that existed long before he conquered Kathmandu6. But this affluence that resulted from the “entrepot trade with Tibet” was out of the reach of the general people because “the bulk of foreign trade”, reported a Christian missionary7, “was controlled by the royal family and nobility”.When did underdevelopment originate in Nepal for the first time in history? Chaitanya Mishra, a leading sociologist in Nepal, wrote in 1987, “It is difficult to precisely locate the onset of underdevelopment in Nepal”8. Despite the difficulty, he tried to locate its beginning during the middle of the 1880s on the basis of, in his own words, “a number of guideposts”. However, he doubted the exactness of the point of time he mentioned as the starting point of underdevelopment in Nepal. “Like most other historical markers”, wrote he, “this [the middle of the 1880s] is only an approximation”9. As is implicitly implied in Mishra’s definition of underdevelopment, underdevelopment is a broad process, which subsumes many sub-processes. Because underdevelopment as a process is broad enough to include many sub-processes, it is abstruse to answer the question of when underdevelopment first originated in Nepal. Stated in a more explicit way, the difficulty in answering such a question arises out of the fact that not all sub-processes subsumed under the broad underdevelopmental process came into being at the same point of time. Besides, the sub-processes in question do not last for the same length of time. By “underdevelopment”10, I mean a set of consequences of a broad process, which also encompasses the process Mishra considers to be underdevelopment, inter alia, as one of its sub-processes. #what are other sub-processes? # The question of when underdevelopment in Nepal as conceived by Mishra is another form of the question of when part of what I call “comprehensive underdevelopmental process”11 in Nepal.Political economy studies the relation of the state with market. The kind of the relation of the former with the latter determines whether there exist economic and social problems in the society where the relation manifests itself. What is the nature of the interaction between politics-state- and economics-market in Nepal? What was it in different historical periods? When did state come into being in Nepal? When did market come into existence in Nepal?One of the overriding reasons why Nepal is far behind developed countries of the world is poor governance. The past rulers in Nepal governed the country to gain personal rather than social advantage. Someone may try to argue away the lack of good governance exhibited by the past rulers by saying that the time they governed was an age of intellectual blindness. But, this argument cannot justify their irresponsible governing behaviour that put the country in a state of developmental stagnation. Let us suppose for some time that their bad governance is justifiable given the fact that they lived at the time when people were not aware of the real or complete process involved in the brining about of development. Implicitly implied in our such a supposition is that the present rulers or the rulers who ruled the country at the time when people were already aware of the process in question have no any excuse for the way they governed that resulted in the backwardness of the country.Nepal’s present underdevelopment is nothing but a cumulative whole of the consequences of bad governance on the part of our past rulers at least since the time when modern Nepal came into existence following the unification of small sovereign and autonomous principalities by Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1769. Though it is said that “the establishment of the kingdom of Nepal was due primarily to the “nationalist” spirit of Prithvi Narayan Shah…. who believed that the country’s progress and security would be assured if it was kept free from the influences of European colonists”12, there are many cases in which he was obsessed with personal aggrandizement or the aggrandizement of those who were close to him. As Mahesh C. Regmi has put it,“…It was in the economic field that lack of national integration was most evident…Roads were no doubt constructed, and ferry services established in different parts of the country. However, these transport facilities only served military needs: there is little evidence that they helped to promote trade and commerce. The energies of the government were concentrated primarily on the collection of revenues to finance its growing military and administrative expenditure. Concern for the well-being of the people seldom found a reflection through the disbursement of public funds.”13Nepal’s present underdevelopment is something cumulative. In subsequent chapter, I will deal with the cumulative character and structure of underdevelopment in Nepal. In a sense, development is a “temporal phenomenon” by which I mean something that has a temporal limitation in terms of the time it takes to be materialized. For example, we can not achieve any developmental goal as soon as we wish but only after a certain period of time passes. There is the fastest possible speed at which development activities are carried out to achieve a particular social goal. Development is a product of the passing of a certain period of time during which developmental activities are carried out. Let me emphasize here that by conceiving development as something temporal, I am not implicitly arguing that factors other than the passage of time have nothing to do with development. My belief that development may be spoken of , in a certain sense, as being “a temporal phenomenon” stems from the fact that time cannot be overlooked when there is a talk of development. Development planning has a temporal limitation. There is the shortest possible period of time taken by the materialization of the development planning. Nepal would have been developed now if our past rulers had realized that development is a temporal phenomenon in a sense. Many centuries passed without a serious “social” developmental effort on the part of our past rulers. This means that Nepal has lagged far behind by many centuries, and the now developed countries are more developed than Nepal by many centuries.A Look Back into the Macro-Developmental Efforts in NepalNepal was closed to outsiders until 195014. It is about two century and half since Nepal entered a modern age. It took its present geographic form towards the end of the eighteenth century. Underdevelopment in Nepal in its present form is a cumulative historical whole of consequences of a broad system15. That underdevelopment is also historical means it is a cumulative whole of effects caused by the hitherto social systems. One may raise a question of when the first social system existed the repercussion of which also figure in what I call “a cumulative whole of effects of social systems Nepal has experienced thus far. This question is a Herculean one. Without critically scrutinizing the history of social system in Nepal, it is not possible to answer it. The difficulty involved in answering it stems not from the problem with the securitization of the history of social systems in Nepal as one would think. The difficulty in question results from the difficulty involved in identifying a complete array of factors involved in the causal relationship. Because the hindrances to underdevelopment were not eradicated by the past rulers, the underdevelopment existed in different historical periods and still exists. It now finds itself in worse state than before. Nepal is both undeveloped and underdeveloped. The present problem of underdevelopment is the totality of the adverse effects of the way the country was ruled in the past. The way in which our country is governed now is not essentially different from the way in which it was governed in the past. Why is it that our past rulers did not govern the country in such a way as to bring about development? The answer is simple. They could not take themselves above their strong desire for personal rather than social aggrandizement.It is about six decades since Nepal started attempting to solve the problem of underdevelopment in a planned way. Many periodic plans were implemented in the past. But, no significant change has taken place in the country. Is it because of the fault of the plan itself or because of the poor implementation of the plan?Many scholars-both national and international-have endeavoured to explain underdevelopment in Nepal from a multiplicity of angles. The researcher aims at critically scrutinizing the explanations of underdevelopment set forth by them. The proposed research will be carried out in order to answer the following research questions:Before it assumed its present geographic form, i.e. during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Nepal was divided amongst numerous petty but autonomous hill states. Most of the rulers in these states belonged to Thakuri caste, believed to have descended from the Rajput families who ruled Rajasthan16 before they were defeated by the Muslims. In most cases, people of Indo-Aryan extraction were the ruling classes and people of Mongloid extraction and low caste artisans blacksmiths, leather workers and tailors.When did underdevelopment come into being for the first time in Nepal? How did it evolve over time? What accounts for underdevelopment in Nepal? Is there a knowledge gap in the field of development thinking in Nepal? What weaknesses do these explanations demonstrate? What are the factors that have contributed to underdevelopment in Nepal to different extents? Which of them is essential? Is it possible to develop such a development model that makes it possible for the countries to bring about development within a period of time less than the normal period of time?In his book “The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure of Nepal”, Baburam Bhattarai defines development and underdevelopment in the following way:“Development and underdevelopment may be considered antithetical to each other in that, whereas development within a given social formation would be full realization of productive potentials of the society or transformation to higher social formation, underdevelopment would be the opposite condition of non-realization of full potential of development and/or blockage to transformation to higher formations under the cumulative impacts of prevailing endogenous and exogenous conditions”17The proposed research aims at critically examining the inadequately available Nepalese economic literature as part of the attempt to explain underdevelopment in Nepal18.The historical facts will be interpreted in the light of critical understanding of philosophy of history, one of the sub-fields within a broad discipline known as philosophy.There are various theories that attempt to explain underdevelopment. They differ as regards the perspective from which they look at underdevelopment. If we closely observe these theories, we find that they are partially true. If we are to merge all of them into a unified theory, I think there will be a theory, which is complete. It is to be understood that the theory that applies to one society is not universally applicable. It is necessary to look at the problem of underdevelopment from all possible perspectives in order to arrive at a logical conclusion regarding the question of what accounts for underdevelopment in a particular society. The recommendation we give regarding the best way to do away with the problem of underdevelopment must be informed by all the theories propounded to date.All of the factors, which have been put forward as the underlying causes of underdevelopment do not exist everywhere. Put it differently, though it is true that all theories of underdevelopment exhibit some relation with reality, it is not true that the underdevelopment in a particular society are a product of all of the factors different theories posit as the causes of underdevelopment. Those who think underdevelopment is caused by only one factor give us an incomplete advice on the question of how to address this problem. Because they regard underdevelopment as stemming from one factor only, their advice on this question does not pay heed to the eradication of another factor or other factors responsible for causing underdevelopment.Nepal lacked an ability to prevent itself from moving towards a quagmire of underdevelopment. The writers of Nepal in Crisis regarded this inability of Nepalese state as part of the crisis that they thought Nepal found itself in. They implicitly stated that what they meant by “the crisis that Nepal was in and the future crisis they had predicted Nepal would find itself in” is not “static point” towards which it moved and it was moving19. They did not elaborate on their concept of crisis in this book. This definitely leads us into a state of mental confusion in which we are unable to categorically answer the question of what constitutes the whole of their concept of crisis. Their statement that “crisis is a complex process; a changing manifestation of underlying structural contradictions which reveal themselves in a variety of forms, from the chronic to the acute” is so broad that it is not feasible to fathom what they mean by crisis in more specific and concrete terms without further elaboration20.I perceive underdevelopment as a product to evade the antinomy inherent in its use both as a process and product. How can we use the same word to designate two things? Do we not have another word that can be given one of the two meanings-a process and a product that underdevelopment refers to? Why is it that we are so attracted to the word “underdevelopment” that we give it two different meanings, which create a confusion in communication? However, I have nothing to say for its use either as a process or as a product. But when the same term is used to mean a contradictory set of two meanings (a process and a product), the problem arises with the communication. Its total existence is made up of a welter of products of a larger process, or what I prefer to call “a process with multi-faceted nature. The distinctive feature of this process is that it finds its existence on many fronts such as economic, political, cultural, educational, etc and at many planes such as local, national, and international. Put it differently, underdevelopment in the fullest rather than partial sense of the term is a set of repercussions of certain systems, which are political, cultural, economic, educational, technological, etc in character. This is not to say that they are equally responsible for the development of underdevelopment. I hold that they differ as regards the extent to which they contribute to underdevelopment. Underdevelopment is not such a thing as stems from a single factor. It is nothing but a totality of effects that results from a welter of factors. But, this is not to say that all effects that make up underdevelopment are equal in their strength, or in the extent to which they are severe. This inequality in their strength or the degree of their severity arises out of the discrepancy in their capacity to give rise to underdevelopment. The question of which of them is the salient cause of underdevelopment is not easy because the way they influence development and the extent to which they influence it is not the same everywhere. Also, the way development is influenced and the degree of the influence of development are not the same in all times.The lack of an intellectual ability demonstrated by the hitherto development/underdevelopment thinkers to look at development/underdevelopment in its entirety is the main reason why many countries are still underdeveloped and even the so-called developedTowards a New Developmental ParadigmUnderdevelopment stems not only from the system itself but also from those who work under the system. A question would arise of which of the two-the system and those who run the system- is primary cause of underdevelopment. It is wrong to say that one of the two is always primary and another always secondary. The system may be primary cause and its runners secondary cause in one situation while round in another situation The answer to this question depends upon another question- the question of what kind of the socio-economic system there is. Every socio-economic system has a capacity to bring about development to a certain measure21. It is not the system itself that ensures the realization of its full potential to bring about development. While the socio-economic system has a relation with development, it has no any relation with the full realization of its developmental potential. The full realization of the developmental potential of the socio-economic system hinges upon how its runners run it. Underdevelopment may exist even though there has been a socio-economic system that is adequately capable of bringing about development. Underdevelopment in such a situation may be spoken of as resulting from its runners, more specifically, the way they run the socio-economic system. In such a situation, those who run the system – of course, their behaviour affecting the effectiveness of the system by implication- are the primary cause of underdevelopment. Consider another situation. Let us suppose that there is no such a socio-economic system as is capable of bringing about development adequately. If underdevelopment exists despite the fact that “system runners” are as honest as possible in running the system. In this situation, the primary cause of underdevelopment is the socio-economic system rather than its runners.The socio-economic systems that prevailed prior to the unification are also responsible for the emergence of the present underdevelopment. It would not have been as severe as it is now had they been capable of bringing about adequate development. Though it is true that these systems account for the present underdevelopment in Nepal, it is wrong to blame them for it. One must be able to distinguish between attributing the present underdevelopment to these socio-economic systems and blaming them for it.We have many economic needs. If we lack an ability to fulfil these needs, we find ourselves in a condition that is called “underdevelopment”. Our inability to fulfil our different economic needs stems from different factors. Our inability to fulfil one economic need results from a different factor than the one that our inability to meet another economic need results from.Countries are still far from being “an ideal developed country”22. Nepal is not an exception to this reality.The main reason that Nepal is underdeveloped is that there has never been a fundamental change in the nature of the political and economic system. However, the extent to which Nepal is underdeveloped now might not have been as acute as it is now despite no change in it had other problems (e.g. cultural, educational, technological etc.) been done away with.Nepal’s underdevelopment has been explained by many scholars in different ways. The nature of the explanations for it ranges from capitalist to Marxist. Many explanations lie between them in terms of analytical framework by which to look at underdevelopment. Though there has been an effort to account for Nepal’s underdevelopment from almost all possible perspectives, not all efforts to explain it are very systematic. Marxist and neo-Marxist endeavours to explain it are more systematic than others.Endnotes1 Linguists in general agree that the nature of a language is such that it is an arbitrarily created system.2 I think they are probably unaware of even the question in question because being aware of the question usually means having something in mind as the answer to that question, which may not be necessarily logical, complete etc.3 “The analysis of discourse is necessarily analysis of language in use…. While some linguists may concentrate on determining the formal properties of a language, the discourse analyst is committed to an investigation of what language is used for” (p4) …..” “Philosophical linguists and formal linguists are particularly concerned with semantic relationships between constructed pairs of sentences and with their syntactic realizations” (preface) Gillian Brown and George Yule, Discourse Analysis, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1983. My effort to analyze different meanings given to underdevelopment to date with a view to identify the broad levels of expression they can be subsumed under has been informed by theoretical insights derived from the science of language, that is, linguistics and even the philosophy of language, one of the subfields within a broader discipline known as a philosophy.4 One may get surprised if someone raises such a question: is Nepal really poor? Dor Bahadur Bista implicitly argues that Nepalese people are not poor in absolute terms. He observed, “Nepal may be poor by international standards but the Nepali peasants are self –sufficient and largely content. Because of their isolation from international affairs, Nepalis had no idea that they were relatively impoverished until a few decades ago” Dor Bahadur Bista, Fatalism and Development: Nepal’s Struggle for Modernization, India: Orient Longman Ltd., 2001, p 133. Those who feel surprise at such a question are bound to say that the answer is not in the affirmative. I do not feel surprise at their surprise. The kind of answer they give to this question is shaped by the kind of the understanding they have of poverty. They are right in answering that question in the negative, given their understanding of poverty. Someone may be surprised to see their surprise by thinking beyond their apprehension of poverty, that is, by thinking in terms of his/her own apprehension. But, their surprise does not amount to what I prefer to call “rational surprise”. Their surprise at the question I have stated above inevitably stems from the kind of apprehension they have of poverty. Nepal is not poor at least potentially. As someone has said, Nepal is like a beggar with a golden dish in his hand who begs money from people. If we are to keep in mind two things only-the availability of natural resources and the potential positive change in the lives of Nepalese people that the proper and adequate utilization of the abundantly available natural resources leads to, Nepal is not poor. But, if we are to use the question of whether the extent to which these resources have been utilized to date is adequate enough to benefit all the populace throughout the country as a yardstick, it must be accepted without any element of doubt that Nepal is poor. Historians say that Nepal found itself in its modern phase in 1769, the year when many small but sovereign principalities were merged into a single large sovereign country by the King by the name of Prithvi Narayan Shah.5 Historians say that Nepal found itself in its modern phase in 1769, the year when many small but sovereign principalities were merged into a single large sovereign country by the King by the name of Prithvi Narayan Shah.6 “Commercial relations between Kathmandu valley and Tibet had been reorganized during the reign of King Pratap Malla(1641-1674) of Kathmandu. A treaty signed between Kathmandu and Tibet at that time stipulated that Tibet should use no other route in its trade with India” (p 24, Mahesh C. Regmi, A study in Nepali Economic History).7 Quoted in Mahesh C. Regmi, A study in Nepali History, p 258 Chaitanya Mishra, Essays on the Sociology of Nepal, Kathmandu: Fine Print Books, 2007, p 539 Ibid, p 5310 If we examine all the different ways in which underdevelopment is used, we find that it is conceived both as a process and as a product a particular process results in. It is, therefore, essential that we guard ourselves against the proclivity for some people to understand underdevelopment only as one of them and to wrongly interpret the idea of others based on their own understanding of underdevelopment, the understanding contradicting the one they have. This is not to say that one must conceive underdevelopment as a set of these two. One must, I think, be free to deem it in any of these two ways. But, when we come across the term in question in any form of communication, we must be able to know in which of these two ways it has been used and to understand the term accordingly. If we fail to understand the term in question in a way in which product, tend to ask: when was the underdevelopmental process first seen in Nepal? And when were its those who have used it understand it, our apprehension of their idea surrounding underdevelopment is bound to be misleading # refer to books dealing with semantics# I use this term to mean a set of products that result from a certain process, which I prefer to call “underdevelopmental process”. Therefore, for me, the question of when underdevelopment first originated in Nepal is not the same as what those who perceive underdevelopment as a process think about this. It is more likely that these for whom underdevelopment is a process do not ask the question, which those, who deem it as a consequences seen first in Nepal? I felt it was necessary to add the adjective “comprehensive” to the phrase “underdevelopmental process”. The addition would help us look at underdevelopmental process in a broad way, or would help those who understand underdevelopment as a process, which is only part of the complete underdevelopmental process, to question their “parochial understanding” of underdevelopmental process.11 I felt it was necessary to add the adjective “comprehensive” to the phrase “underdevelopmental process”. The addition would help us look at underdevelopmental process in a broad way, or would help those who understand underdevelopment as a process, which is only part of the complete underdevelopmental process, to question their “parochial understanding” of underdevelopmental process.12 Regmi, Mahesh Chandra, A Study in Nepali Economic History, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 1999(second reprint*, p 913 Regmi, Mahesh Chandra, A Study in Nepali Economic History, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 1999(second reprint*, p 1414 Dor Bahadur Bista, Fatalism and Development,2001 p 13315 As you will see in the subsequent chapter, the system that is responsible for the present underdevelopment in Nepal is so broad that it is made up of many sub-systems which are political, economic, cultural, educational, technological etc.16 Rajasthan is one of the provinces in India. In the distant past, it was an autonomous state.17 Bhattarai, Baburam, The Nature of Underdevelopment and Regional Structure of Nepal, Delhi: Adroit Publishers, 2003 , p 49418There exists a huge gap in the economic history of Nepal. Most of the historical works are about dynastic chronology and political relationships rather than economic phenomena. About 36 years ago, Mahesh Chandra Regmi, a formidable Nepalese thinker, wrote:“Nor is the present lacuna in the field of Nepali historiography limited solely to methodology. From the viewpoint of substance too, the persistent disregard for the economic aspects of Nepal’s historical problems is inexplicable and inexcusable.”19 In the recently republished book, Nepal in Crisis ,these writers have dealt with the question as to whether their views expressed, or based on the phenomena that existed, twenty years ago are still relevant or not. They opine that their political-economic analysis of Nepalese society-the first systematic analysis of the political economy of underdevelopment in Nepal as the writers themselves claim, which I also think is correct- is still valid.20 They define crisis in the following way: “We do not see a crisis as some static point towards which societies move….We would also include in the concept of Nepal’s crisis the direction which the nation as a whole is taking. In other words, Nepal’s inability to change a direction (or rather a slide) to catastrophe is part of the crisis. Crisis is therefore a complex process; a changing manifestation of underlying structural contradictions which reveal themselves in a variety of forms, from the chronic to the acute. Nepal’s crisis is, we argue, rapidly becoming acute”. (p 5).21 This is not to say that all of the socio-economic systems have the same level of capacity to bring about development. They differ as regards the extent to which they are capable of bringing about development.22 I may be understood as implicitly saying that all of the hitherto thinkers in question are of the same order. It must be accepted that they are heterogeneous in terms of the quality and validity of their explanation for underdevelopment. Notwithstanding this, the arguments set forth by some are more tenable and logical than those put forward by others. Besides, the sense in which I have ascribed the lack of a particular intellectual ability to underdevelopment in underdeveloped world and the absence of ideal development in the so-called developed world is that the policy informed by the insights of those who lack such ability is bound to exacerbate the problem of underdevelopment. It would be wrong to extrapolate from my having ascribed underdevelopment and the absence of ideal development to the dearth of that intellectual ability that I assume that looking at underdevelopment in a way in which I look at is sufficient in order that development comes about. My ascription should not be mistaken for the fact that I assume that the implementation of the policy that is guided by my understanding of underdevelopment has nothing to do with development.

How much wealth do the wealthy have and what do they do with it?

2008-12-08T22:52:00.000-08:00

According to Ed Doveton, the author of an article entitled “Who Owns the Wealth and How they Spend It”, a report published by United Nations in 2006 shows that the world's richest two percent own more than half the total global wealth while half the world's population own only one percent. The bleak economic trend that epitomizes contemporary society is that “the rich are getting richer; the mega rich are getting richer quicker than the rich; and the poor are getting even poorer”.
How rich are the rich around the globe? The concrete answer in the form of a figure is given in the World Wealth Report published in 2007. This report estimates the aggregate wealth of the rich around the world at $ 37.2 trillion. This calculation is based on individual investments. Therefore, it is not exact. "This [$37.2 trillion] is a staggering amount, and difficult to get your head around", observes Doveton. He further adds, " But think of it this way: the old Wembley Stadium football ground held 100,000 people; to reach just one trillion you would need 10 million stadiums" .
Doveton explains that the figure in question may be greater than $37.2 trillion. Some rich people keep their money in banks fronting their bank accounts. Switzerland was the first country setting up such banks enabling the mega rich to invest and hide their wealth. Now there are many other countries except Switzerland. Abu Dhabi is probably the most recent one. At the other end of scale, as the World Development Report states, 1.2 billion people, who form one fifth of humanity, are living in poverty.
There are two main areas in which the wealthy spend their wealth. They include financial investment and private consumption. Financial investment can be further split down into four categories-real estate investment, investment in equities (stocks and shares) and "investment in alternatives (e.g. hedge funds)". Of the 37.2 trillion of private investment in 2006, 52 percent went on equities (21 percents on bonds giving a fixed income and 31 percent on shares), 24 percent on real estates, and the remaining 10 percent on what is called "alternatives". Prima facie, the breakdown of financial investment of the wealthy might appear to mean little to us. But, if we go a little deeper, we find that the power of the wealthy to move their money around (i.e. from one area to another or from one country to another) does affect our lives. It “subjects economies to the whim of the gambling table” (Doveton).
Doveton describes another other use to which the wealthy put their money: private consumption. They consume super luxury goods and services (e.g. a plasma TV with a screen size of 142 inches, which retails at $87 500, the new Natalia SLS-2 motor car from Dimora, which costs $ 2 million etc.). The increase in the level of their consumption of such goods and services is evidenced by the exponential expansion of the market for such goods and services. Paraphrasing the finding of the survey conducted last year by the Wall Street Journal of 198 people who were worth more than $10 million, Doveton writes in his article that, "yacht rentals topped the bill at an average of $384,000 per annum followed by villa rentals at $106,000, and at the bottom of their shopping list was summer entertaining, which came in at a lowly $ 56,000".
The private consumption of the wealthy is not confined to consumption of luxury goods and services. It goes beyond it to include what may be called "political consumption" (that is, consumption of political power). They purchase political power from those who wield, or are more likely to wield in the immediate future, it to ensure that they remain unaffected by the possible political change. Many examples can be cited to substantiate their purchase of political power. Doveton gives two examples from the two countries of the world-UK and USA. 7 million was raised by Lord Levy from wealthy backers for Tony Blair's private office prior to the 1997 general election. Likewise, in the 2000 cycle of elections, the Democrats raised $219,343,172 in "soft money" (that is, outside the restrictions); Republicans collected $243,780,583 in unregulated funds.
Doveton elaborates on how the rich can influence those who wield political power by buying it at a very big (if not expensive for them given their total wealth) price. He writes, "In 2006, George Bush and the Republicans supported the repeal of the estate tax… this is a tax which only the very rich pay.” The rest of the population (about 99.7%) is not rich enough to be affected by it. Doveton goes on to describe “how” the super-rich used the media and the Republican Party to present the continuation of estate tax as a threat to small businesses and farms. The story of people having to sell the family farm to pay the tax was peddled in the media. It was then revealed by a report from a watchdog body, the Public Citizen and united for a Fair Economy, that more than eighteen wealthy families, including the Walton family of Wal-mart frame, had used their influence and spent millions of dollars to push for the repeal of the estate tax."
Before I conclude, let me say a few words. Because in this article I have talked about what the wealthy people do with their wealth, some readers, after their perusal, might form an opinion about me- the opinion that I am envious of the wealthy because they possess a surprisingly huge amount of wealth. In response to such an opinion, I would say that it was “mere opinion” rather than “factually warranted opinion”. Such an opinion would result from an inability to understand that talking about what the wealthy do with their wealth could mean one of at least two things-the first being that the person who talks about it is envious of the wealthy and the second being that the person who talks about it is worried about the gap between the rich and the poor. Putting it differently, their misconception is that the first factor is the only thing that talking implies. What is true in my case is that I am extremely worried about the existence of the binary division of the society we live in into the haves and have-nots.
I agree that there is nothing expressed in this article that substantiates that I am not envious of the wealthy. I may be said to have used logic to conceal my bad intention. I think that proving my concern would require that we go deeper into the realm of thinking. However, I do not want to drown in the pond of thinking. What I can say with logical certitude at the moment is that my having talked about what the wealthy do with their wealth reflects my concern over the bleak situation of income inequality, as opposed to my envy of the wealthy
ReferenceDoveton, Ed (2008): Who owns the wealth and how they spend it? In: In Defence of Marxism available at http://www.marxist.com/who-owns-wealth.htm

The "Inclusive" Revolution

2008-12-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

The "Inclusive" Revolution

The term "inclusive" has now acquired wide currency in our country. It is used to refer to the need for the incorporation of many backward ethnic groups into the mainstream of the country. But, I have used it in this article to refer to the need for something other than "the inclusion of backward ethnic groups". More specifically, my indirect reference is to the need for the incorporation of many other revolutions in addition to the two revolutions-a political revolution and an economic revolution- into the purview of our leaders' understanding of a set of revolutions that is a sine qua non for turning the old Nepal into a New Nepal. Though the need of our time is to struggle relentlessly to bring about a set of revolutions in many other realms besides the politics and the economics, the set of revolutions that our leaders talk about consists of the two above-mentioned revolutions only. Therefore, the kind of the revolution they advocate is not inclusive. Nowadays, most of us frequently say that Nepali society should be inclusive; there should be inclusive democracy. There is nothing to be worried about it. However, confining ourselves to the inclusive democracy by turning a blind eye to the need for what I call "inclusive" revolution is definitely something to be worried about. Establishing a New Nepal is impossible if we gloss over the inclusive revolution. It is therefore important that we advocate both the inclusive democracy and the inclusive revolution.

A need arises for a revolution in a certain area of a society when people do not benefit from the system under which it functions in many important ways. The system under which the political realm of Nepali society worked before Nepal was declared as a "Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal" was abhorred by a vast majority of people because it did not benefit them in many important ways for many reasons-both known and yet to be known. The "demonstrated" (probably not necessarily inevitable) lack of the link of this system with their overall welfare accounts for their active participation in the April 2006 People's Uprising that culminated in the end of the kingdom that had been in existence for about 250 years in different forms. In our country, there are still many other areas beyond the two realms- politics and economics- that a majority of people are not benefiting from. It is obvious from this that there is a need for many revolutions in many areas of our society. Materializing our common goal of establishing a New Nepal requires our leaders to broaden the parochial purview of their understanding of the complete set of revolutions needed at the present stage of the history of our country.

Given the critical situation that our country now finds itself in, a detailed delineation of a complete set of revolutions in all of the important areas of Nepali society(e.g. education, health, communication, bureaucracy etc) that are a sine qua non for transforming the present Nepal into a New Nepal is a very important responsibility of intellectuals in our country. I think it is time for "real" intellectuals specialized in their respective fields of learning to analyze the various "ailing" areas of our society in order to conceptualize what I call "a complete set of revolutions" required to ensure the transformation of Nepal into a variously prosperous country. The present critical situation of Nepal is an opportunity to test themselves practically as a genuine intellectual. To them, this opportunity is very important because there are some people who doubt their identity as a real scholar. The government is responsible for creating a condition in which real scholars collaborate on the conceptualization of the complete set of revolutions in question.

In this article, I will endeavour to set forth a general outline of the revolution needed in one of the areas of the broad field of education-higher education. Higher education is one of the "ailing" areas that need to be rationalized in many important ways. One of the problems facing the sector of higher education in Nepal is the tendency for the intellectuals themselves- who are very important aspects of higher education-to act irresponsibly for their personal aggrandizement. I prefer to call it "intellectual corruption". More specifically, I define intellectual corruption as a set of irresponsible behaviours shown by intellectuals as well as those who wield the official power to influence the educational sector, which make it impossible for what may be called "intellectual progress" to take place. For an analytical purpose, I define "intellectual progress" as a condition in which the intellectual community goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge already produced to produce new knowledge that would be a contribution to the existing cumulative whole of knowledge.

Some of the aspects of the intellectual corruption appertain to the way university teachers are appointed, the way they teach, and the way carry out their duty other than teaching.

Let me first discuss the intellectual corruption related to the way universities teachers are appointed. If we are to think without going beyond the fact that university teachers in Nepal are appointed through a competition, we may think that there is nothing wrong with the process involved in their appointment. To understand that there is something wrong with that process, we must go beyond this rather misleading fact, and take into account the question of what lies behind this competition. The kind of competition through which they are appointed is not the competition proper. This may perhaps be rightly described as "the so-called competition" because it is not intended to select the best of all the applicants aspiring to an academic career; it is no more than a seemingly appropriate tool to make an explicitly inappropriate decision to bring arbitrarily into the faculty those who use special influence to get employed as a university teacher without taking into account a set of comprehensive scientific criteria for assessing the suitability of an individual as an ideal university teacher. Nepotism, favouritism, and cronyism are the characteristic but hidden features of its selection process.

The other aspect of intellectual corruption relates to the way university teachers carry out their responsibility as a university teacher. A university teacher has a responsibility not only to teach knowledge already produced but also to produce new knowledge. Those university teachers who are not capable of producing new knowledge have no a moral right to occupy the intellectually most challenging position of a university teacher. Most university teachers in Nepal have not proved to the intellectually conscious people that they have contributed to the knowledge base of the academic discipline they belong to. Generally, it is true to say that they do not get involved in the process involved in the production of genuine future scholars. They neither think themselves nor cause the students to think. Here I have not used the term "think" in its widest sense in which everyone thinks. I have used it in the strictest sense in which logicians use it. According to them, thinking consists in pondering over a given set of facts so as to elicit their connexions.

Even when we judge them against another criterion, i.e. quality of teaching, most of them are blameworthy. Most of them do no more than teach a very insignificant portion of the course they are required to teach. By the "inadequate teaching", I mean the kind of teaching in which they teach less than is practically possible within the period of time fixed in the course of study.

They explain their inadequate teaching by saying that it is the responsibility of an ideal student to learn independently what is left after they finish teaching. Their argument for the inadequacy in their teaching is built on a logic ostensibly created, which implicitly implies that it is not necessary for them to teach in a way that is "practically adequate". "The deliberate inadequacy" in their teaching essentially results from two things-the arbitrary selection of university teachers that results in many disqualified people being employed as a university teacher and perception of a teaching profession as something like business guided by profit. The unfair selection of university teachers makes it impossible for most highly intellectually qualified people to pursue an academic career. It is not the disqualified teachers employed through arbitrary selection but the highly qualified teachers abstracted from a large pool of prospective university teachers who are capable of teaching the course in a way that is as complete as practically possible. The perception of a teaching profession as something like business guided by profit makes most of the university teachers only pay heed to what they can get in return in economic terms from their teaching, as opposed to what the students can get in intellectual terms from their teaching. Given the paltry amount of time they spend on their teaching profession, we feel as if they were a full-time employer in another place and a part-time employer at a university.

The above account gives an incomprehensive and broad panorama of the intellectual corruption that exists in the sector of higher education in Nepal. That my only intention here is to stir up an academic debate on what I call "the inclusive revolution" and its specifics accounts for the incomprehensive and broad nature of this article. There is a strong need for the end of the intellectual corruption, which is necessary but not sufficient condition for bringing about a revolution in the field of higher education. Making the higher education free from the intellectual corruption is a very important part of the broad attempt to bring about the broad educational revolution needed to ensure the educational progress, which is the engine of social progress because it is the head of the whole educational sector, so to speak.

The 31st Gleneagles G-8 Summit as a Summit of World Capitalism: Is this the Solution?

2008-12-03T07:10:00.002-08:00

The 31st G-8 summit is scheduled to be held from July 6-8, 2005 at Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. It is a summit where the heads of the state from eight industrial countries, which represent, to borrow the phrase of Mick Brooks, "the heartlands of the giant multinationals that dominate world trade and production," meet and discuss certain political and economic issues of mutual or global concern. As he has put it, "The G-8 summit meeting due to take place at Gleneagles in July is a real summit meeting of world capitalism". About the G-8The group of Eight (G-8) is "the coalition of eight of the world's leading industrialized nations," to borrow the phrase from the Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. Its member states are France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Russia. It is not an institution. It has no constitution or charter. It has no permanent secretariat or headquarters. The membership of the G-8 has evolved over time to include the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Canada and the president of the European Union. Although the summit is more likely to influence the policies its member states adopt, it is not held as part or the whole of the process involved in making policies they adopt. It is important to be clear that the G-8 summits are not a policy-making forum. They are a time for the leaders of these states to network and build relationships. They are a time to discuss complex international issues and crises, to allow for a more powerful collective response. The presidency of the G-8 and the location of the summit rotate annually among its member states in the following order: France, United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, and Russia. The heads of the G-8 member states, including the European Union will be attending this summit. Its member states assume presidency of the G-8 on January 1. The tradition of the G-8 summit is that the country holding the presidency hosts a series of ministerial level meetings before the summit begins. The traditional meeting of G-8 finance ministers is, in fact, the meeting of finance ministers of the G-8 minus Russia, as well as officials from the European Union. There is also a briefer "G-8+4" meeting for the finance ministers of the full G-8, as well as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa. How Did the G-8 Evolve Over Time?The 1973 global oil crisis and the subsequent global economic recession made the then global economy find itself in deep crisis. It was against this backdrop that the G-8 originally came into being as a group of six countries as part of the broader attempt on the part of the then major industrialized countries to make the then world economy free from this deep crisis. In 1975, French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing arranged for the heads of state of six major industrialized democracies to meet in Rambouillet, France with a view to developing the best possible way out of both the economic crisis that was then prevalent, and the potential subsequent economic crisis, and proposed regular meetings. It was the first summit of the group of major industrialized nations. They agreed to an annual meeting, and to organize it under a rotating presidency. The group of these democracies was dubbed the group of six (G-6), which included France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Canada joined it at the behest of U.S. president Gerald Ford in the second summit held from June 27-28 in 1976 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, United States. After that, the G-6 became the G-7. The G-7 became G-8 when Russia joined the G-7 in the 24th summit, which was the first G-8 official summit, held in Birmingham, the UK from May 15-17 in 1998. However, Russia was not allowed to attend the meeting for financial minister as it wasn't a major economic power. Russia still lacks some of the preconditions required for being part of the G-8, which other member states want Russia to have. Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia states that "on February 18th , 2005, United States Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain called for Russia to be suspended from the G-8 until democratic and political freedoms are ensured by Russian president Vladimir Putin." It also states that "because the original G-7 are effectively the leading industrial democracies and the Russian economy (as well as democracy) is still struggling, there are still some G-7 sessions on economic affairs in which the Russians do not participate." The Gleneagles Summit: Capitalism as the Solution?The forthcoming Gleneagles summit is expected to discuss issues such as challenges of Africa, and climate change. Other announced items on the agenda are counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, and reform in the Middle East. Tony Blair, head of the hosting state of the Gleneagles summit, states in his "welcome message" on December 9, 2004, "I really want to focus on the challenges of Africa and climate change during our presidency. There are other issues that G-8 countries are working on together, such as countering the spread of material used in nuclear and chemical weapons, fighting terrorism, supporting social and economic reform in the Middle East, and joint activity to make international travels safer. I want the G-8 to push on with this work too, as well as other foreign policy priorities including, in particular, helping find a peaceful and sustainable solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict." As Mick Brooks says, "Tony Blair wants to go down in the history books as something more than a squalid war criminal. He is anxious to present the summit as an opportunity to deal with the burning issues of world poverty, disease and climate change." On June 10 and 11, 2005, the traditional meeting of G-8 finance ministers, took place in London. On June 11, they agreed to write off one hundred percent of the $ 40 billion in debt owed by 18 highly indebted poor countries to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the African Development Fund. The meeting also agreed that twenty more countries with an additional $ 15 billion in debt would be eligible for debt relief if they fought corruption, and eliminated impediments to private investment. It had been hosted by British Chancellor Gordon Brown. For these agreements to take effect, they must be approved by the lending institutions. Given the past, it is not certain that these agreements reached on debt relief will take effect. "In 2003 at the Evian summit, the advanced capitalist countries decided to waive $ 100 million of the debt burden on a handful of highly indebted countries that had swallowed their nasty IMF medicine. It never happened," says Mick Brooks. As Oxfam complained, "the World Bank and its board continue to fail to deliver on its mandate and its vision, most visibly on debt relief." As Mick Brooks has put it, "This is like complaining about a tiger failing to deliver on its mandate to vegetarianism." Because the forthcoming Gleneagles summit meeting is what Mick Brooks calls "a real summit meeting of world capitalism," which serves only the interests of the advanced capitalist countries. As Mick Brooks puts it, "for the issues of debt, for trade, and for aid, the G-8 is not the solution. It is the problem." One of the main issues expected to be discussed in the forthcoming summit is third world debt relief. Third world debt may be thought of as part of the broader process involved in the development of world capitalism, which is lopsided, and therefore only benefits the richer countries. Mick Brooks argues that "debt is one of the main levers for keeping poor people poor." To substantiate this claim his argument involves, he says, "interest repayment represents a huge continuous transfer to rich nations and an unbearable burden on underdeveloped countries." Zambia spends more on debt servicing than on education. Malawi remits one third of its government budget to rich countries. This amount is twice what is spent on its own people's health. Sao Tome and Principe's debt is nine times their National Income (NI). Congo-Brazzavile groans under an incredible debt burden of nearly two times its NI. The advanced capitalist countries have been using such permanent institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank, which are essentially owned by them as a means of benefiting themselves at the expense of the poorer countries. As Mick Brooks has put it, "The IMF and the Bank are institutions designed to suck the lifeblood out of poor people living in poor nations." "Just like other capitalist firms, they aim to maximize shareholder value- and that means making sure the lenders get their money back with interest," says Mick Brooks. They operate under essentially "neo-liberal" principles in the belief that the market can solely, and by its own nature, bring property to nations that practice free market competition. The IMF imposes a standard blueprint called Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) on the poorer countries it gives loans to. There are many stories telling how SAPs impoverished many poor countries upon which the IMF imposed the SAPs. One example of where IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes aggravated the problem is in Kenya. Before IMF got involved in the country, the Kenya central bank oversaw all currency movement in and out of the country. Mick Brooks says, "SAPs have been a disaster for the countries they have been imposed on. Argentina experienced a catastrophic economic crisis in 2001, which had been caused by IMF-induced budget restrictions, which undercut the government's ability to sustain national infrastructure even in crucial areas such as health, education, and security. Many other South American countries faced similar economic problems, which are attributable to the IMF's standard blueprint that we know as SAPs. The current – as of 2005-trend towards "moderate" left-wing governments in the region and a growing concern with the development of a regional economic policy largely independent of big business pressures can be seen as a result, at least partially of this crisis.”Is debt relief lasting way out of the poverty trap the indebted poorer countries find themselves in? Since the beginning of the HIPC programme- HIPC stands for Highly Indebted Poor Countries- beneficiary countries have used some of the money saved on debt repayments for social programmes. For example, in Benin, 54 percent of the money saved through debt relief has been spent on health, including on rural primary health care and HIV programmes. In Tanzania, debt relief enabled the government to abolish primary school fees, leading to a 66 percent increase in attendance. These statements may fool us into thinking that this question can be rightly answered in the affirmative. These only suggest that debt relief may help the poorer countries reduce the severity of the poverty they are plagued with to some extent, at least for some days ahead. The answer is not difficult. One does not need to be extremely perceptive to answer this question. "So long as the terms of trade continue to move against the poor countries and as long as world trade is rigged against them, then debt relief will give no lasting way out of the poverty they find themselves in," says Mick Brooks.The terms of the trade continue to move against the poor countries. This results in Inter alia, the collapse in the prices of the things they sell to the advanced capitalist countries. Five grams of tea sell in the west for £ 2. This means a kilo costs £ 400. Nestle and the other big processors buy that bag for just £70. Just 0.2% of the price of a cup of coffee bought in London goes to the growers. The WTO is the third institution the advanced capitalist countries use as a means of impoverishing the third world. It imposes "free trade" on poor countries. It forces them to open up their markets. Haiti, for example, was forced to allow US grains to be imported into it. The grain that poured in from the USA was exported by agribusiness heavily subsidized by the American taxpayer. The result was that thousands of peasant farmers in that country lost their livelihoods. Farming is subsidized in the west to the tune of $ 1 billion a day. $ 1 billion is shelled out to 25,000 cotton farmers – that's $ 160,000 each, which is more than their crop is worth. This has a negative impact on the competitive strength of the poorer farmers from the poorer countries. Moreover, Europe's common agricultural policy not only keeps out third world produce but also subsidizes European producers. The forthcoming Gleneagles summit is not expected to take into account these things, which have a lot to do with the attempt to ensure that the poorer countries become free from the problem of poverty. The forthcoming Gleneagles summit will discuss third world debt relief, among other things. According to Oxfam, if things continue to go on as they are now in Africa, by 2015, 45 million more children will die; 247 million more people will be living on $ 1 per day or less; 97 million more children will not be in school; 53 million people will be without proper sanitation. It is impossible to prevent such things from happening if the advanced capitalist countries force the poorer countries to swallow what Mick Brooks calls "nasty IMF medicine." Whether the forthcoming summit will help the African countries plagued with abject poverty get rid of it or not, depends upon to some extent, whether it will decide to not force them to swallow the nasty IMF medicine, which has essentially taken them to their present pitiable condition. But, unfortunately, the forthcoming 31st Gleneagles summit will be "essentially" no more than an opportunity to further develop and strengthen world capitalism, which serves only the interests of the advanced

(This article was originally published in the TakingITGlobal Online Publication in 2005. This is a slightly revised verson of that article)

Poverty and the Rich: A Question of Morality

2008-12-03T07:10:00.001-08:00

The sad fact that no country in the world is free from is that a vast majority of people suffer from poverty. This problem seems to be becoming more serious day by day, despite many efforts to do away with it. What is more interesting is that poverty exists amidst plenty. "One poignant reality in contemporary experience," Edward Weisband observes, "is that, with each passing year, poverty engulfs many more individuals and families around the globe than those who become liberated from it despite increasing wealth throughout the world economy."

A person who suffers from poverty might have been less sad, angry and revolutionary if it had not been the case that poverty exists amidst plenty. The fact that poverty coexists with affluence has made its victims react in a variety of ways to the larger socio-economic system that determines the kind of life they lead. Some of them confine their response to poverty to their being sad. Some of them go beyond this sort of response to being angry with the socio-economic system that they believe is responsible for making them a victim of poverty. And, some go beyond even the second sort of response to show a response in which they raise arms against the socio-economic system.

The rich are morally responsible for solving the problem of poverty. According to Robert Chambers, the rich in general seem to ignore their moral responsibility to solve this problem. Chambers writes, "if any of us had a sick or starving child in the room with us, we imagine we would do something about it. A child crying from pain or hunger in a room is hard to shut out; it pins responsibility onto those present and demands, impels, action. Yet we live in a world where millions of children cry from avoidable hunger and pain everyday, where we can do something about it, and where for the most part we do little. ….. What is the difference between the room and the world? Why do we do so much less than we could?" Chambers' statement would implicitly teach a great lesson to those who, despite their being able to help the poor, do nothing. Those who are affluent enough to do something for the poor must ponder the question Chambers has raised. As one of the possible answers to that question, Robert Chambers writes that "the child is not in the room with us, but in Bihar, Bangladesh, the Sahel or a nameless camp for refugees, out of sight, sound and mind." Besides, he writes, "selfishness is a powerful force. Putting one's family first seems natural and good, and 'charity begins at home' is a great let-out."
Robert Chambers seems to assume that affluent people do something for a child crying from hunger in the same room as they live in. This has led him to say that rich people do so much less than they could or do nothing for the hungry child crying because, in his own words, "the child is not in the room with us," and by 'us' he means a class of affluent people of which he is also a part. I do not subscribe to this view. The child is in the room with the rich. The world we live in today has been so globalized that it has been like a small room. So, it is ridiculous to say that the child crying from pain or hunger is out of sight, sound and mind.

Implicit in Chambers' statement is the assumption that if the child suffering from hunger is in the same room in which the rich live, they do as much as they could for him/her. I think this assumption is incorrect. If it is true that the rich are, in general, kind enough to do something for the child crying from hunger or painful disease, it is true that they regard the globalized world as "a single room where both the rich and the poor live as a member of the same family," and would do as much as they could for the poor. Being kind, one of the qualities not everyone possesses, is something independent of time and place. If we are really kind, then we are always and everywhere kind. Therefore, saying that the rich do so much less than they could for the child crying from hunger because s/he is not in the room with them is no more than a pretext.

Today, we live in the world that has such a socio-economic system as inevitably leads to the concentration of much of the total wealth in the hands of a few. Until such a system is replaced with its alternative, which is egalitarian, the problem of the gap between the rich and the poor remains as something typical of the society we live in. Though the rich carry out their moral responsibility to help the poor by giving, if the exploitative capitalistic socio-economic system we live under remains unchanged, poverty, on the whole, also remains unchanged. It is probably because, in the words of Zakir Husain, "a capitalist must strive to gain, not always because he is greedy, not always because he is selfish, but just because he is a capitalist." Therefore, their "traditional" moral responsibility to help the poor by giving them things the latter need should not be the only moral responsibility they should feel. They should feel a moral responsibility to get involved in the movement against the exploitative capitalistic economic system.

Sources
Weisband, Edward "Poverty Amidst plenty: World Political Economy and Distributive Justice". Boulder, San Francisco & London: Westview Press. p.7. (ed). 1989.
Chambers, Robert. "Rural Development: Putting the Last First". USA: Longman Inc. p.3-4. 1983.
Husain, Zakir. "Capitalism: Essays in Understanding". London: Asia Publishing House. p.32. 1967.

(This article was originally published in 2006 in the Five Minutes to Midnight)

What accounts for conflict?

2008-12-03T07:08:00.000-08:00

Today the world we live in is acutely afflicted with conflict. It has occasioned a serious problem in our life. It shows little signs of abating. We hardly see a basis for believing that it is likely to come to an end. We see a reason for being worried about it not only because it has deprived us of peace but also because it has affected other spheres of our life adversely. The fact is that there is no such a basis as is logical enough to make what causes conflict seem justifiable. The need of our time is to establish conflict (in its severe and therefore destructive form) - free society. It is important that we attain a clearer and fuller understanding of the process involved in the emergence of conflict. Therefore, this essay does justice with some general factors accounting for conflict in more broad general terms.It is never the case that both sides involved in the conflict choose simultaneously to fight each other before the conflict occurs. For the most part, the side that some kind of injustice has been done to chooses to fight the side that has done this injustice. In a situation in which the side that chooses to fight before the conflict arises chooses to stop fighting the other side, the conflict is more likely to come to an end. It is because although the latter is willing to do injustice to the former, it is not usually willing to fight in such a situation. The latter chooses to fight the former not because it is really willing to fight but because it has to choose between stopping doing injustice or fighting back when attacked. Therefore, once the former stops fighting, the conflict is more likely to come to an end. The former stops fighting only when the latter stops doing injustice to it. The problem lies in the fact that the latter usually does not become ready to stop doing injustice to the former; it also lies in the fact that when the latter is to choose between stopping doing injustice or fighting back when attacked by the former, it chooses the latter. It is more unlikely that there arises a situation in which the side injustice has been done to becomes strong enough to make the side who has done injustice stop doing injustice, and the latter becomes powerful enough to weaken the former to such an extent that the former can never make an attack on it to any possible degree. Being weak of the former does not guarantee that it stops getting involved in the conflict; it does not necessarily imply that although conflict exists, it is less severe than before. The fact is that the conflict that exists when the former becomes relatively weaker than the latter is likely to be more severe than the one that exists when both have more or less equal strength. It is because the latter is likely to fight the former indirectly by, say, in such a way as to affect the ordinary people who are no longer involved in the conflict.Originally, religious and cultural conflicts usually result from the fact that one religious and cultural group shows no respect for another religious and cultural group. It rarely happens that they result from the fact that the two groups show simultaneously no respect for each other's religion and culture. This is not to say that this fact is not attributable to the conflict's being complicated more and more. Of these two groups, the first shows no respect for the second's religion and culture because it really dislikes it. The second shows no respect for the first's religion and culture not because it really dislikes it but because the second shows no respect for its religion and culture. Cultural and religious conflicts originally occur when the second reacts violently to the first’s showing no respect for its religion and culture. They gradually become complicated even further because the first also reacts violently to the second's violent reaction; this results in a series of violent actions and reactions that aggravate the conflict even further. Conflicts resulting from ideological contradiction occur when one particular ideology is in practice, and a violent effort is made to replace it with another particular ideology. Such conflicts come to an end only when another one replaces the ideology already in practice. The conflict between two groups believing in two fundamentally opposed ideologies is less likely to come to an end because each group is less likely to be powerful enough to destroy the other entirely. An ideological contradiction should not be equated with doing injustice. Therefore, the conflicts they lead to should not be equated with each other; they should be dealt with differently. To ensure that peace is always there in the days to come, it is necessary to create a situation in which a prospective conflict stops being prospective so that it will never occur; it is necessary to end the conflict that has already occurred. To ensure that a prospective conflict stops being prospective, it is necessary to end the condition that is likely to cause it. Similarly, it is necessary to make such an attempt to end the conflict that has already arisen. Because it is not possible for a weaker social entity to influence the cause of conflict, youth must organize themselves into a robust social entity both at national and international scale to ensure that they become strong enough to end the conflict.

Democracy in Nepal

2008-12-03T07:06:00.000-08:00

When we find that some political entities describe themselves as being democratic, our idea about what democracy is becomes diffuse. Because the basic nature of a language is such as allows any word to be defined arbitrarily, it is logically impossible to claim that the original and usual definition of democracy is the only definition of democracy. Therefore it is logically impossible to say with certainty those describing themselves democratic are not democratic. Both the original and usual definition and the definition that some political entities use as a basis for describing themselves democratic stand on an arbitrarily created basis of definition.When some political entities call themselves democratic entities in such a way as to be inconsistent with what is usually understood as democracy, I see nothing to be surprised at and to be angry with. Nothing to be surprised at because it is not inconsistent with the inherent nature of a language and nothing to be worried about because the motive behind their use of the term 'democratic' is not to indicate that they meet all requirements that must be met by any political entity for being democratic in accordance with the usual and original definition of democracy. The motive is to indicate that they have certain characteristics that seem undemocratic to those believing in the original definition but democratic to them. There is nothing to be worried about because their notion of democracy is not the same as that of democracy based on original definition. One might think that there is something to be angry with on the ground that the term 'democracy' can not be defined in a way different from the way in which it was originally defined and is usually defined. This is no more than an irrational thinking in that it is inconsistent with what a language inherently suggests about the definition of a word.This essay deals with how democracy can be developed and strengthened in Nepal with the usual and original definition in mind as what democracy is and with the definition inconsistent with the usual one in mind as what democracy in the usual sense is not (but not as what democracy is not). This essay does not deal with this question with the definition inconsistent with the usual one in mind as what democracy is not because, as has been stated above, saying that this definition is not what democracy is cannot be made stand on a logical basis. The first thing that the attempt to develop and strengthen democracy should probably begin with would be to identify problems facing various demographic groups whom democracy in its original sense is meant for. In Nepal, these groups include ethnic groups, Dalits, people of Terrai origin, and people belonging to so-called higher caste (Chhetri and Brahaman). All of these groups except group of people belonging to Chhetri and Brahman have lagged far behind in almost all areas of national life as compared to Chhetris and Brahamans. This has basically two reasons First, Brahamans and Chhetris who were and fare always involved in the mainstream of the nation lacked (probably still lack) a feeling of incorporating them into the mainstream of the nation. Second, they have not organized themselves against this tendency strongly as to bring about the system that requires them to involve in the mainstream of the nation. These two reasons constitute the hint for how to ensue that they become an important part of the national life. More directly, the analysis of these reasons would suggest that those who have been taking advantage from the whole mechanism of the state for a long time must not be allowed to make the inequitable state machinery exist to suit their interest. This is a fact. But, it is not easy to translate this fact into action. It requires different sectors of the nation to work together. I/NGOs can become an important part of the joint attempt to realize this fact. In Nepal, a vast majority of people are beset by poverty. It tends to serve as an obstacle to the strengthening of democracy. Democracy in its usual sense is really a favourite thing for at least a vast majority of people in any community. But when poverty exists in its severe form presence of democratic structure might be wrongly though of as an obstacle to development. When democracy is thought as an obstacle to development, poverty is more likely to act as an impediment to democracy because poverty alleviation wrongly is thought to be a product of end of democracy. When democracy is thought of as a hindrance to development, the way to bring about development or to alleviate poverty becomes to avoid democracy. Therefore, poverty alleviation should be the central focus of democracy. In fact, this is what is happening in Nepal. The armed effort to end democracy in its original and usual sense being carried out by CPN (Maoists) in Nepal can be described to be attributable to the fact that extreme poverty fooled most Maoists at any level of party into thinking that wiping out democracy (in its usual sense) is the only best possible way to do away with extreme poverty. The above analysis of the causal association between extreme poverty and democracy also applies to other social evils. For example, lack of involvement in decision making process at any governing level of the nation also correlates to development and strengthening of democracy. When this usually undesirable situation exists, it works as a stumbling block to the strengthening of democracy in two ways. Firstly, it results in the emergence of new groups of people seeing end of democracy as the solution to this problem. Second, it results in the emergence of groups seeing violence as the way to strengthen democracy. When these analyses are linked to the question of strengthening and developing democracy, it can be said that the concerted effort must be made to end all of forms of social political and economic problems. Lastly, as a concluding remark that contains the crux of this essay, it can be said in broad generalities that the first thing that the attempt to develop and strengthen democracy should probably begin with is to identify various social, political and economic problems facing different demographic groups of the country and that the second thing that the attempt should probably end with is to solve them and to

Next Government in Nepal: A Government or a Substitute for Constituent Assembly

2008-12-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

The Nepalese power composition has changed following the historic election to Constituent Assembly. The CPN (Maoist) has emerged as the largest political party following the CA election [largest at least in the common sense at least in Nepalese context]. The then two largest political parties-Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) - had to face unexpected humiliating defeat that put them in the second and third order of power hierarchy respectively. The present government came into existence in the political context in which both the power composition and power hierarchy were not the same as one sees in today's changed political context. Portfolio distribution while forming the present coalition government was based on the then power composition and power hierarchy. With the end of the old political context, there has also been an end of the basis for the present coalition government. The next government must be based on the present power composition and power hierarchy. The political composition of the next government must be determined by the power hierarchy that has emerged in the ensuing post-CA poll context. It is at least this fact that necessitates the formation of a new government.
What is the next government for? One answer would be that it is for facilitating the process involved in drafting and endorsing a constitution by the newly created Constituent Assembly. However, it is wrong to think that the facilitation of the process in question is the only responsibility of it. In contrast, some argue that because the CA election, as the term itself would suggest, was intended for drafting a new constitution, there would be no reason to expect development in its broadest sense from the post-CA poll government. There would be two counterarguments against this argument.
Let me put the first one in the following way: Why did a huge number of voters participate in the recently held election to the Constituent Assembly? Those who subscribe to the argument in question would definitely say that they cast their vote without expecting more than the drafting of a new constitution. Though this assumption that their argument is based on is yet to be empirically substantiated on account of a difficulty in undertaking an empirical research intended to find out the answer to that question, it is safe from a criticism at least thus far because its counter- assumption (an assumption that people voted with a view to achieving two things-development and people-oriented constitution) is yet to be empirically proved. It is true that both the assumption in question and its counter assumption, despite the fact that one of them is certainly correct, are not derived from a logical-empirical process. They are no more than a corollary that followed from their own assumption independent of the fact. Second, it is wrong to think that the next government and the Constituent Assembly are for serving the same function. The argument in question would suggest that there will not be any government until a new constitution is drafted and endorsed by the Constituent Assembly. This may also suggest that though there will be a government, its job is not to govern the country to address the social and economic problems. This argument stems from a lack of apprehension of the fact that though the post-CA poll government has an indirect relation with the drafting of a new constitution, it must primarily concern itself with the solution to the socio-economic problems facing the country. What is the government for? The answer to this question in Nepalese context would be that it is for addressing the socio-economic problems facing the country. What is the post-CA poll government for? Of course, it is also intended to ensure that a new constitution is drafted through the Constituent Assembly. But, at the same time, it must be borne in mind that it should not be confined to the facilitation of the drafting of a new constitution. If it is true that the post-CA poll government will be so busy facilitating the formation of a new constitution, one may claim that the only thing it should do is the facilitation of the drafting of a new constitution on the grounds that it will not have time to pay heed to other things. But, the truth is opposite. If the government pays attention to the drafting (going beyond the facilitation of the formation) of a new constitution, what is the Constituent Assembly for? It is not the government but the Constituent Assembly that should be more obsessed with the drafting of a new constitution than with any other things. The post-CA election government will have enough time to address the socio-economic problems to the extent possible.
The developmental situation of the country has deteriorated to such an extent that it is absolutely impossible to bring about development overnight to the extent that it completely addresses the economic problems facing the country. But, the next government will definitely be able to make the country move towards the right direction to development if it is committed to people. People, especially those people who are poor and who have lagged behind socially have expected the next government to enable them to load-off the socio-economic problems they are beset by. There are, of course, certain things they can make positive changes to overnight. These things are not in the economic domain. We must accept that there is no any other alternative to suffering from the economic problems for some years until we find ourselves in the distant future time when the economic problems are almost addressed. These things are in the social domain. Such social problems as corruption in its all forms, social exclusion, ethnic, religious, gender and regional discrimination can be solved immediately. What is needed is that those who will run the next government should be ready to solve them. They should not equate these problems with the economic problems whose solution is not possible only through readiness. The equation of the former with the latter would fool them into thinking that the former cannot be addressed immediately. This false thinking will at least delay its solution. It seems that their understanding of all of these problems except corruption is adequate enough that they are likely to solve these problems completely. I do not think they will abolish corruption in its all forms because I doubt they are aware of corruption in its all forms. I add a new form of corruption to the already known forms of corruption. I call this "intellectual corruption" by which I mean a set of irresponsible behaviors shown by educational administration and even the so-called intellectuals themselves that are an impediment to the production of knowledge and scholars in real sense in the country. I think the talk of social and economic progress has overshadowed the talk of intellectual progress. They seem to be unaware of the fact that intellectual progress is one of the preconditions for rapidly developing the society we live in. They must pay attention to this form of corruption not figured in our common understanding of corruption.
(The author is a freelance writer and currently undertaking a theoretical research on Development and Underdevelopment in Nepal: A Multidisciplinary Analysis using social-philosophical approach to social theorizing