Sustainable development still elusive: Academic
JAKARTA (JP): The concept of sustainable development in Indonesia is still fiction rather than reality, prominent academic Mubyarto said yesterday.
Speaking on the second day of the sixth Indonesia National Science Congress, Mubyarto said sustainable development remained necessary to improve the people's welfare.
"In my opinion, sustainable development in the Indonesian economy is still weighted on hope and desire rather than on reality and historical fact," said the professor of economics from Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University.
He said that the Indonesian economy had passed through several phases, following various external changes in the world, and that these had impeded sustainable and continued development.
"The Indonesian economy in the 50 years since independence has not pursued an effective and sequential pattern of development," said Mubyarto, who is also an assistant to Minister of National Development Planning/Chairman of the National Development Planning Board Ginandjar Kartasasmita.
He defined sustainable development as development which benefits all levels of society, including future generations.
Mubyarto argued that development which breeds economic inequality and ignores disparities of wealth cannot be regarded as sustainable development.
Such development leads to dissatisfaction and creates a social time bomb for future generations, he said.
Development must not create new problems which can impede development, he said, adding that "it must also avoid unnecessary casualties or demand unexpectedly high costs."
Political observer Hasnan Habib agreed that social dissatisfaction and unrest are new dangers confronting Indonesia.
The retired army general said that threats of unrest no longer stem merely from territorial and military conflicts but from problems such as famine, unemployment, environmental degradation, abuses of power, social disintegration and ethnic tensions.
These are all things which directly affect the individual's sense of security, he added.
Mubyarto said that sustainable development is development which is not enjoyed merely by a small portion of the people in the economic elite.
Mubyarto then discussed Pancasila economics which, he said, is based on people's cooperatives.
"Cooperatives are people's economic organizations which succeed by working together, (which) do not kill each other through competition," he said.
He questioned Indonesia's liberalization of its trade and investment regimes.
"It is easy to find free competition in an unhealthy environment or monopolistic competition," he said, adding that the government is tackling those phenomena.
"Siding with the people's economy and cooperatives is a constitutional mandate and an ideological mission to create a just and equal economic society," he said.(mds)