The Perils of Climate and Capitalism

We have come a long way from the subsistence fishing of our forebears and many of the values and social norms that served us well have changed. We are facing different challenges now- environmental threats due to global warming and sea level rise, an illegal drug epidemic, appalling living conditions in the capital Male', a highly polarised political atmosphere, religious extremism and intolerance are some of the major problems.

Our forefathers should be lauded for the manner they endured the rigors of harvesting the sea to thrive on a livelihood dependent on fishing. Fishing was the principal industry which was the mainstay of our national economy until the development of the tourism industry which started in the early 1970s. Thrift was the way of life for our forefathers. For them, living by the values of thrift meant that they earned more than what they spent. Our society's needs at that time were the basic necessities relevant to living a simple life.

Just like other capitalistic countries of the world that embraced consumerism through the process of industrialisation, eventually Maldives made consumerism as an integral part of its economy. The Maldives economy depends heavily on foreign imports and the major portion of the country’s revenue is derived from: import duties, tourism tax, dividends from state-owned enterprises and land lease rent. All of these revenue sources are influenced the development of tourism. Tourism is the main driver of our economy today.

As is the case with other capitalist consumer based economies of the world, Maldives too has become a consumer obsessed society following an unsustainable economic model. The more our society consumes, the better for our economy. Globalization has also made it possible for goods and services previously out of reach in developing countries to be much more readily available. Items that at one point in time were considered luxuries—from cars, air conditioning, televisions to cell phones,—are now viewed by many people as necessities. Some of them have have become fashion accessories and status symbols. Scientists have now warned the global community that our environment faces catastrophic consequences due to our excessive consumption leading to global warming and sea level rise. Our planet is in peril and radical changes in our industrial development and in our social behaviour of consumption habits are necessary to create sustainable economic growth.

The Maldivian government has declared its intention to make the country carbon-neutral within a decade. British climate change experts Chris Goodall and Mark Lynas are working to develop a package of measures that aims to eliminate the use of fossil fuel in Maldives by 2020.

The plan includes a new renewable electricity generation and transmission infrastructure with 155 large wind turbines, half a square kilometre of rooftop solar panels, and a biomass plant burning coconut husks. Battery banks would provide back-up storage for when neither wind nor solar energy is available.

The cost for the package of low-carbon measures is estimated to be about $110m a year for 10 years. The scheme should pay for itself quite quickly, because the Maldives will no longer need to import oil products for electricity generation, transport and other functions. If the oil price were to rise to $100 per barrel, the payback period would be as short as 11 years. At current prices, it would take roughly twice as long to break even. (Link)

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas produced when fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) are burnt. Presently almost all aspects of our lifestyles from transport, power generators to household appliances rely on oil and that creates the the greenhouse gases detrimental to our environment.

In the past people lived within their means, accumulating individual savings, planning for education and a better future. Now it has become a feature of the capitalist economies to make consumer credit available to to buy houses, to start small and medium businesses or to take student loans. Maldives is following this path of economic development. The ability to borrow money can help to improve the livelihood of people by providing them access to financial resources which they do not possess. But as economists like to point out that consumer credit is a double-edged blade: It can lead to greater opportunity and freedom, but, if promoted deceptively and used recklessly, it can lead to disaster, as has so painfully been revealed by the American subprime loan crisis. The unprecedented loan defaults of the subprime home mortgages, which caused the collapse of the US housing market at the epicentre of the recent financial crisis triggered the current global recession. Click here for a multimedia guide that illustrates cause, and implications of the current financial crisis.

While financial advisers in advanced economies still emphasize the timeless principles of thrift, planning, and living within one's means, they also say the use of productive credit, or credit used to enhance one's financial future, as wholly acceptable. In their view, productive credit included debt incurred in purchasing a home or even such goods as sewing machines, or furniture. In contrast, the use of consumptive credit, or credit which satisfied an immediate need or wish that had little to no future value, is unacceptable.

This is turning out to be only a feel-good theory. By the time American students leave college, many of them often come out with twenty or thirty thousand dollars in debt even before they start a career.

The capitalist world's consumer conformism mentality creates artificial needs promoted by a multi-million dollar advertising media who work for powerful corporations only interested in making more profits. Every individual is made to become a perpetual consumer who is hungry for more.

While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) often quotes the principle of privatising state owned companies as a standard prescription to developing countries who need their assistance, developed countries have now shown us that the state has to intervene to save the private companies, many of them too-big-to-fail. Recent financial crisis in US and Britain has revealed that a number of their top banks and corporations cannot stay afloat due to the shortage of 'liquid cash' and the only way to save these too big-to-fail corporations is to nationalise them. These corporations and banks demand that the state should bail them out. The state is being forced to bail these enterprises out on condition that they shall sell the bulk of their shares to the state. This means that these capitalist states are being forced to move in the direction of central planning and management of the economy of the socialist model.

This course of action is just the opposite of what the IMF prescribes to the developing countries.

Amartya Sen who has won the Nobel Prize for Economics has written some thoughts on the limitations of the market based capitalism in an essay in the New York Review of Books.

He wrote: "Historically, capitalism did not emerge until new systems of law and economic practice protected property rights and made an economy based on ownership workable. Commercial exchange could not effectively take place until business morality made contractual behavior sustainable and inexpensive—not requiring constant suing of defaulting contractors, for example. Investment in productive businesses could not flourish until the higher rewards from corruption had been moderated. Profit-oriented capitalism has always drawn on support from other institutional values.

The moral and legal obligations and responsibilities associated with transactions have in recent years become much harder to trace, thanks to the rapid development of secondary markets involving derivatives and other financial instruments. A subprime lender who misleads a borrower into taking unwise risks can now pass off the financial assets to third parties—who are remote from the original transaction. Accountability has been badly undermined, and the need for supervision and regulation has become much stronger.

And yet the supervisory role of government in the United States in particular has been, over the same period, sharply curtailed, fed by an increasing belief in the self-regulatory nature of the market economy. Precisely as the need for state surveillance grew, the needed supervision shrank. There was, as a result, a disaster waiting to happen, which did eventually happen last year, and this has certainly contributed a great deal to the financial crisis that is plaguing the world today. The insufficient regulation of financial activities has implications not only for illegitimate practices, but also for a tendency toward over speculation that, as Adam Smith argued, tends to grip many human beings in their breathless search for profits."

While capitalism has swept aside other economic systems like the feudalism, socialism and communism and has enormous potential for positive change, it has not solved problems of inequality and poverty. Infact, while capitalism continues to provide opportunities for creating more wealth, the gap between the rich and the poor is also widening.

Social entrepreneurship is an emerging business trend, where the creative vision of the entrepreneur is applied to today’s most serious problems: feeding the poor, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and protecting the planet. This is the world of social business.

Creating a World Without Poverty tells the stories of some of the earliest examples of social businesses, including Mohammad Yunus’s own Grameen Bank. It reveals the next phase in a hopeful economic and social revolution that is already under way—and is the worldwide effort to eliminate poverty by unleashing the productive energy of every human being.

Among the several challenges we face in Maldives; playing our part to avoid further destruction to the environment has now become the imminent priority on the world stage.

The furore over disclosing uderage pregnancy tests

The Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM) is investigating into reports of underage concubines in Maldives. Using confidential information obtained from the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH), the HRCM has revealed that 85 girls under 18 years of age took pregnancy tests at the IGMH between January and September this year.

How these pregnancy tests are linked to the alleged concubines has not been made clear by the HRCM.

Now the IGMH is hitting back in order to show that they have not violated the strict medical code of ethics- i.e.,the releasing of patient confidential information without the consent of the patient.

IGMH has said that in matters of national importance the hospital would provide information to the relevant authorities, as it has done by informing HRCM of the underage pregnancy tests.

The IGMH has, however, not clarified about what was the specific national importance to these underage pregnancy tests.

Clouding any real issues that may be behind the underage pregnancy tests, the HRCM and the IGMH have engaged in a squabble of who is right and wrong, the sort of chaotic process that is typically used by our esteemed organisations in order to resolve complex social and health problems considered to be of national interest.

Link.

Maldives holds underwater cabinet meeting

The government of the Maldives has held its first underwater cabinet meeting to attract international attention to the dangers of global warming.

President Mohamed Nasheed, dressed in full scuba gear (above photo by AFP), conducted the 30-minute meeting at a depth of 20 feet off the coast just north of the capital Male.

Most of the island nation, a tourist paradise featuring coral reefs and white sand beaches, lies less just over three feet above sea level and scientists have warned it could be uninhabitable in less than 100 years. (Link Telegraph)

This marks an important step in the quest for survival against a predicted sea level rise due the effect of global warming.

Bloggers To Give Full Disclosure

As a marketing and business tool, blogging has finally come of age. Blogs have also matured as a communications tool within business companies, from C.E.O. on down.

On Monday, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which is the independent agency of the United States government that promotes "consumer protection" and prevents "anti-competitive" business practices, said it would revise rules about endorsements and testimonials in advertising. The new regulations are aimed at the rapidly shifting new-media world and how advertisers are using bloggers and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to pitch their wares. The FTC said that beginning Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid by advertisers, as occurs frequently. (Link)

For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over. More broadly, the move suggests that the US government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print.

Many of the new products and services are provided by the rapidly growing sector of the information technology and communications technology. Those who use the new electronics technologies especially computers and video technology have seen the most profound changes.

As blogs have gained in popularity, demand is also growing for employees who can write them or have the technical expertise to support them.

Is it time to pass legislation for children to look after aged parents?

Until recently, elderly people in Maldives enjoyed considerable status, respect, care, and support from their families and the community. But due to migration, changes in values and life styles, and the breakdown of the traditional family system, it is now reported that more elderly people are turning to the state for assistance and care.

Maldives is a 100 per cent Muslim country. In Islam children are obliged to take care and be kind to their parents.

What would be the reasons why some children forsake their parents?

Is it because of a financial burden, lack of filial piety or a complete disregard of children's responsibility to parents?

Our government has the responsibility to find non-legal ways to help people who need assistance to take care of their aged parents. Since we are seeing a growing neglect of the elderly, is it also time to enact legislation mandating care for the elderly with punitive measures for those who fail to do so?

Korean drama's country romance- The Vineyard Man

Obama praises Gandhi's nonviolent social action

As the world celebrates International Day of non-violence, US President Barack Obama on Thursday said America has its "roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi."

"His teachings and ideals, shared with Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1959 pilgrimage to India, transformed American society through our civil rights movement," Obama said on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Americans owe enormous gratitude to Gandhi, he said.

"The America of today has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolent social action movement for Indian independence which he led," Obama said in a statement.

On behalf of the American people, Obama said he wants to express appreciation for the life and lessons of Mahatma Gandhi on the anniversary of his birth. "This is an important moment to reflect on his message of non-violence, which continues to inspire people and political movements across the globe," he said.

"We join the people of India in celebrating this great soul who lived a life dedicated to the cause of advancing justice, showing tolerance to all, and creating change through non-violent resistance," Obama said.

As the world remembers the Mahatma on his birthday, Obama said: "We must renew our commitment to live his ideals and to celebrate the dignity of all human beings.

Last month Obama had said that if given a chance he would love to have dinner with Mahatma Gandhi.

Obama expressed his desire in response to a question from a student Lilly during his discussion with 9th graders at Wakefield High School in Arlington Virginia where he, accompanied with the Education Secretary, gave a national speech welcoming students back to school.

Link: The Times of India