Care To Join Me For A Ride?
In another 47 years Malaysia will celebrate its Centennial. Most of us who are reading this article would be gone; some long gone. For those who are still around, what kind of country would Malaysia be? Would Najib’s son be the Prime Minister? Or would our Prime Minister be Karpal Singh’s grandson? Or would it be someone from East Malaysia?
In my quieter moments when I’ve nothing better to do, I would usually ponder about the future. What would I be in another 20 years? Where would I be? What about my country? What would it be in another 50 years? What about the world?
Today is one of those quieter moments and my mind, after wondering about other things, eventually drifted to events happening in my country. In another 47 years Malaysia will celebrate its Centennial. Most of us who are reading this article would be gone; some long gone. For those who are still around, what kind of country would Malaysia be? Would Najib’s son be the Prime Minister? Or would our Prime Minister be Karpal Singh’s grandson? Or would it be someone from East Malaysia? I wonder…
31 August 2057 would be our country’s first Centennial. What kind of Malaysians would be around to celebrate the Centennial? There’re lots of things to think about; but most will probably be just “creative imagination”. So, to better “imagine” what Malaysia would be in another 47 years, we’ll look ahead in 10-year blocks. So let’s start with the first block which I shall call Block 1.
Block 1 (2011 – 2021)
BN leads the nation into a new global economic jungle where the US, Europe and China are all likely to decelerate simultaneously. From a global growth of around 4.7%, the world’s economy may average around 3.5% over the next 5 to 10 years. In fact, S&P predicted that developed economies will probably grow by only 2% if they are lucky. It’s a jungle where only the fittest survives. That’s a scary scenario.
Japan is no longer our Asian sweetheart as it looks to the west for friendship and survival. China is no longer a command economy, i.e. where the state directs its economy. It is already a market economy where production, distribution, pricing, and investment decisions are made by the private owners of the factories of production based upon their individual interests rather than upon a macroeconomic plan. China fiercely battles its Asian competitors for new and existing markets.
Malaysia, already weakened by its economic policies, continues to remain a low income economy. Its “secret recipe” is to remain and later become a cheap but educated labor market for industrialized countries to tap from. So, we’ll survive if we remain a good boy and wait for others to feed us. If that is Malaysia’s “secret weapon” then we’re dead. Why? Because, as the global economies decelerates, China will have to shift away from technology-driven and labor-saving manufacturing growth to, you guessed it – labor-intensive services to manage its huge employment and social problems. Local companies that could not take the heat begin to “Look North” relocating to Vietnam and China and some to India. Malaysians with brains and money aren’t staying either. So, Block 1 is certainly not bright.
Block 2 (2021 – 2031)
2020 had just passed us by. Malaysians are angry that we have not attained developed status as promised by Mahathir. But he is already dead, so we have no one to blame but ourselves. Meanwhile, the US warns the world that they can no longer depend on American consumers to power the world economy. For decades, consumer spending and investment have been the driving force of the US economy, but the global landscape has changed over the last decade due to weakening domestic demand on the one hand and an expanding foreign demand and the weakening dollar on the other hand. To survive, Americans will have to sell more than it can buy just like everybody else. Malaysia can say goodbye to the US market as our major customer of our products. Oh, Europe is out too as it positions itself to gain from the Euro’s drop against the USD.
Towards the last few years, BN appoints a new Prime Minister to replace Najib who is, by now, a 70-year old great grand- father. The new PM brings with him a new generation of “new guards”; replacing the “old guards” who were once “new guards” themselves when Malaysia became independent in 1957. Unfortunately, only the guards are new but their brains are not. Beneath their smart western attire, lies a man who thinks and talks like Mahathir. Another block of hopelessness and despair as we watch with suppressed disappointment while other economies pass us by. Meanwhile, more brains and money were waiting at the departure lounge.
Block 3 (2031 – 2041)
By now our oil wells may have, if not already, dried up. With new technologies such as algae-to-fuel have long since replaced oil as fuel; so even if we still had oil, it won’t be as valuable anyways. While income is depleting, our expenditure is increasing. Our GDP may appear strong for the past few decades but that’s only because we had oil. So our growth may seem natural but without oil to add to our GDP, the numbers would have been much smaller. Meanwhile, to soften the unemployment numbers, BN would have quietly amassed around 2 million civil servants by now and every pay day becomes a headache for BN. We need a fix; not a temporary fix but a long term fix. With 2 million men with pens; and another half a million men with weapons to feed every month – that’s no mean feat.
20 years have gone by and the world is not getting any friendlier. Not surprisingly, it is getting more and more hostile as competition hot up. So what should we do to restructure our economy? What other drivers of growth and sources of productivity are there on the table for Malaysia? We need to make some friends.
A more liberal and business-friendly economic policy comes to mind immediately. Why have we not thought of that earlier? You see, 60 years ago there was a man called Mahathir who thought that the world is not equal – the rest of the world works too fast and thinks too fast but the Malays are a bit slow so. The world needs to slow down and let the Malays catch up. The rules of this catch-up game is written in the NEP. Well, as it turned out, the world didn’t wait for him.
