Why are we poor?- Is it our Defence

[lowe1941]

Are we talking about Muslim ummah or about Pakistan?

If we are talking about Muslim countries in general, it is safe to say that Muslims are not “poor”. Many Muslim countries such as UAE & Kuwait are among the richest countries in the world. Dr Pervaiz Hoodbhoy’s article describes very nicely as to why Muslims are lagging behind in science and technology but not why we are poor. If we are talking about Pakistan, yes no doubt we are poor.

Poor is generally described as some one having no money or resources and some one not having enough of or lacking something. Poverty would therefore mean lacking resources to provide your family with food, clothing, housing, health and education in other words basic necessities of life.

To get oneself out of poverty one would need means of creating wealth so that basic necessities of life can be provided for. Until the dawn of Industrial age, only ways of creating wealth were agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry. Regions not blessed with good climate and fertile soil created wealth thru trade and commerce.

Areas such as Punjab and Sindh with naturally abundant water and fertile soil were rich and arid and semi arid lands such as Baluchistan and NWFP relatively poor. With the onset of industrial age, creation of wealth has shifted to industrial production as value added can be a lot more than thru agriculture. Some countries created a niche market by specializing on specific products. (Switzerland for watches and modern day Finland with Nokia phones). In my own lifetime I have seen the rise of Asian Tigers and more recently of India thru IT.

Sadly Pakistan has been left behind. It is not democracy because we have seen rise of Singapore, Taiwan and China which are not democracies. Nazi Germany progressed at astonishing rate under Hitler. It is not religion either; Malaysia is an Islamic country and India for all her secular claims is a deeply religious country and already a major world economy. Only way religion could affect poverty level is that most religions are against birth control and in an agrarian economy, unchecked increase in population would inevitably lead to disaster ala Malthusian forecast.

Onerous defense expenditure is no doubt partly responsible, but IMO the main reason is the lack of vision and quality of leadership. Looking from purely economic progress point of view; Pakistan was doing quite well until 1965. Both the 1965 and 19 71 wars were harmful to our economic progress. ZA Bhutto, despite having a brilliant mind was poison for Pakistan’s economic well being. Pakistan never recovered from the mass nationalization of the Bhutto era. While we were busy nationalizing, India was undergoing economic reform. Indian economy really took off after liberalization under V.P. Narismha Rao in early 1990’s.

It is matter of conjecture what would have happened if we had not been thru two wars and not suffered socialist regime of the PPP. But we would have certainly been better off than we are now; with family planning and planned economy, it is not unreasonable to assume that most Pakistanis would have had the benefit of basic necessities of life. Instead of providing Roti, Kapra aur Makaan, PPP gave us corruption and killed off private enterprise in the bargain.

Thus IMO why we (Pakistanis) are poor is because of poor leadership at the helm of affairs.

Freedom => Knowledge => Technical progress = Economic development


If you use GNI (Gross national Income) in accordance with new World bank definition

The world GNI attains 39,305 $Billion in 2004.

The world economy relies on three main regions:

USA: 12,150

EUROPEAN UNION ( 25 countries): 12,000

JAPAN:4,750

The USA, the European Union and Japan represent 73,5% of the world GNI (72.5 in 2001). The world economic power is highly concentrated. You may take notice that the above regions only represent 13% of the world population.

72.5 of the GNI of the entire world (39,305 $Billion in 2004)
belongs to a Democratic USA, European Union and Japan.
USA: 12,150; Japan:4,750; Germany: 2,490; China: 2,130; United Kingdom: 2,020; France: 1,860; Italy: 1,500; Canada: 900; Spain: 880; Mexico: 700; India: 680; Korea: 670; Brazil: 550; Australia: 541; Netherlands: 515. These countries represent 82% of the GNI and 55% of the world population.

-Because of 70 years of communism, Russia is a small economic power. Russia has 140 million inhabitants, but its GNI is quite equal to that of the Australia with only 20 million inhabitants!

Out of the 6.5 billion inhabitants that make up the world’s population in the year 2004, 2.3 billion live in free societies, 1.5 in partially free societies and 2.2 in countries ruled by dictators or totalitarian regimes.

Positive correlation

Whatever the region or the culture, every country with a GNI per capita above $3,250 ( Upper Middle Income ) is a free country ( With the exception of Saudi Arabia ).

Negative Correlation

With the exception of China, all countries ruled by dictatorships cannot even be included in graphs because their value is too insignificant.

The lowest GNI per capita are found in countries that have suffered or are still suffering from dictatorships.

Powerful Countries are developed because they are free. Others countries are undeveloped because they are former or actual dictatorships

Raw materials do not explain the different levels of development either. Japan, the 2nd most powerful economy in the world, has no raw materials. Africa has a large supply of raw materials, but most African countries are poor. Income per head in countries with abundant petrol supplies in Africa and the Middle East is mostly below 2500 $.

WORLD ECONOMY

Arab Human Development Report Takes an Honest Look at Region

The independent experts who worked on the report for over a year have not pulled their punches in describing what is wrong with the region. They target in particular three deficits: exclusion of women from social, economic and political life; the exclusion of most citizens of whatever gender from politics and governance; and the exclusion of most of the region from the modern, knowledge-based economy.

Another report give the 3 reasons as 1. Lack of Education, 2. Lack of equality and the empowerment of women. 3. Lack of Democracy.

Overall, the report emphasizes, the Arab states have lower freedom indexes and lower voice and accountability figures than sub-Saharan Africa. More than half of Arab women cannot read or write, and the maternal mortality rate is double that of Latin America and the Caribbean and four times that of East Asia. Compared with industrialized countries, Arab spending per person on education dropped from one-fifth of that in industrialized countries in 1980 to one-tenth in the mid-1990s. Arab spending on research and development represents less than 0.5 percent of GNP, compared to 1.26 percent for Cuba and 2.9 percent for Japan in 1995. Internet connectivity is worse than in sub-Saharan Africa.

The entire Arab world translates only about 300 books a year, for example—one-fifth of the number that Greece translates, while Spain translates more books annually than the whole Arab world has done in over a thousand years!
Arab Human Development Report Takes an Honest Look at Region

If we want a modren and prosperous Pakistan we are going to have to do a number of things. 1. Universal Education, every child receives at least 8 years of schooling...we need a secular goverment...no religion taught in the schools.....we need democracy as soon as we can handle it...and we need completly change all laws that dont treat a women equal to a man.....no arranged marriages with out the womens permission,, the excution of any one that kills a women for any reaons other then self defense, we no longer bury women alive, that no one may be discrminated against for religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, any one that does for any reason is proscuted and punished, and the same for corruption.
If you cant live with the above, plan on things getting worse...being poor backward and ignorant religious fanatics in the 21st is going to be a real poor survival skill

 

[muse]

In islam as you well know there is no intrest payments......that is one point where islamic economics is different to western econmics.

Regardless of whether you call it interest or profit - it amounts to the same thing.

And you exactly wrong about no interest in Islam - Usury is a act or behaviour that all Abrahim religions find objectionable. To confuse usury with interest is to misunderstand with interest and usury.

Interest is simply the cost of money, it is a agreed upon cost. If one does not agree to the cost one seeks other recourse or other facilities that cost less.

 

[AliFarooq]

We(muslim countries) will continue being poor,until we have to work with Qur'an and Hadis.

There are a few countrys that our poor, not all of them. The arabs countrys are quite rich and are better off then most western countries.