Honesty, education and the market

By Iwan Darmansjah

JAKARTA (JP): At last two men, none other than Alvin Toffler (Jakarta Post Sept. 12, 1998) and George Soros (Kompas Sept. 17, 1998), have come out with arguments that have justified my long- held conviction that a global market economy is bad for developing countries.

Although many people have already voiced this opinion, it becomes clearer and clearer by the day. Toffler criticized the International Monetary Fund for applying irrational standard treatments to Indonesia's unique economic crisis.

The developed countries that have pushed forward the idea of a global economy knew beforehand (or did they?) that only the world's wealthy nations, with their established management systems unsurpassed by developing countries, would benefit from such advancement.

Up to now, most developing countries had been blind to the consequences of an open market.

Toffler and Soros together described the dear consequences of the global economic strategy and stated at least five crucial weaknesses of it.

The system, they argue, does not distribute wealth equally (globally as well as within each country), inflicts instability in the money market, stimulates monopolies and oligopolies, decreases government roles, and abolishes the norms, values, ethics and social interdependence of communities.

In other words, it promises a little more salary at the expense of bullied employees who work themselves into unconditional obedience in order to escape being fired.

Quality of life paradoxically decreases under stressful working conditions despite the better pay. As a practicing physician, I have watched many brave men succumb to this dehumanization process of so-called modernization.

A wider wealth gap in the world will also be the result, creating greater poverty, sorrow, chaos and the "decivilization" of more than half of the world's population.

We must not forgot that this in turn will certainly afflict the initiators, and the passive players, of this drama.

The "Metro-mini Syndrome", a term that I invented, is a kind of "disease" and a parable of low-paid conditions in which honest citizens -- like the metro-mini driver who plunged into Sunter River in North Jakarta with all his passengers -- are forced to work like hell to be able to make ends meet. The Indonesian government must realize that "low salaries, insufficient to let one live decently, is a violation of human rights of the first order".

A policy of depressed wages, including the low salaries of professors here, is not advisable since it creates huge social problems.

It is wrong to use cheap labor as a means to advance an economy through low-cost exports.

We should be ashamed of retaining such a colonial economic philosophy after we fought so hard to win our freedom and dignity. The widely claimed argument that the government has no money is false -- though a significant proportion of it has been embezzled by corrupt officials over the years.

Instead of griping that there is no money, the government should be looking more at how to effectively allocate the resources available while shoring up the leakage of state funds from corruption.

Corruption is so rampant here that we must all admit to having supported the system at some time.

Abuse of power and the illicit accumulation of wealth are not the only problems we face. Dishonesty and lying should also be regarded as unwanted traits.

Just look at the Clinton-Lewinsky case. It was not the sexual behavior the Starr Report was emphasizing, but the lying to a court and the people that must be looked at as possibly endangering the country.

I am not trying to justify the arm-twisting prosecution style Starr used against Clinton, for which most Americans, I know, don't care for. But this controversy reflects the wish of some 58 percent of Americans to be governed by honest people -- for is it acceptable to allow dishonest people to make major decisions affecting our lives?

Civilized behavior, including honesty, is a product of good education. Indonesia's poor educational infrastructure, the result of a very low education budget, has in fact exacerbated some of the impacts of the economic crisis.

Money alone, of course, does not guarantee proper a education. But one cannot argue that our current education budget, which has run at about 6 percent of the budget through our country's 53 years of independence, is far less than other countries' budgets which average somewhere between 20 percent and 27 percent.

Such a low education budget is obviously a matter of poor priority setting by the country's leaders.

Justifying low salaries by arguing that pay increases would not necessarily improve performance is a fallacy and faulty policy.

To build a great nation, education should come first. Indeed, when Indonesia was experiencing a boom in development, our leaders should have increased the amount of resources aimed at education. Honesty and wisdom should have made this clear to them.

I remember when Anwar Ibrahim, the ousted Malaysian deputy prime minister, said in an interview here some time ago: "We build the economy for the sake of civilization."

How heartening it was to hear that from an honest leader. In fact, Malaysia's education expenditures account for 22 percent of the state budget.

I was told another story some 10 years ago when I had lunch with a Swiss company director. After discussing Indonesia's monetary situation, he asked me: "Iwan, you know what Indonesia's greatest problem is?"

After giving him several answers that he was not looking for, he said: Indonesia's greatest problem is that 90 percent of its money is in the hands of uneducated people -- and with education, he meant more than just having a degree. Given a certain situation here, he said, you cannot figure out what people will do with their money, whereas in Switzerland you can predict exactly what they will do.

I, therefore, urge government officials to open their eyes, ears and hearts and to let their policies and actions be guided by democracy, openness and honesty. Otherwise we will all face greater suffering.

Iwan Darmansjah, M.D., is a professor of pharmacology at the University of Indonesia and a social observer.