{"id":194029,"date":"2018-10-04T00:34:36","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T19:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=194029"},"modified":"2018-10-07T18:58:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T13:28:40","slug":"developing-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing Poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ranil Senanayake<\/a> \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr Ranil Senanayake<\/p><\/div>\n

The national psyche seems to have been summarized well by a past national \u2018leader\u2019 whose words of advice to aspiring young politician was \u201c R\u2026., you must understand, the people are nothing but cattle , I lead they follow !\u201d. Though repugnant, there must have been some truth to the statement as today,<\/p>\n

in a bovine manner, we follow backward \u2018leaders\u2019, whose sole understanding of economic development has been a unidirectional push towards increased consumption and the growth of financial transactions.\u00a0<\/span>More often than not, these transactions are based on a high value being placed in the consumption of fossil energy.\u00a0<\/span>Concomitantly there is a very low value placed on\u00a0social, health or biological cost of such consumption, the result has been a dramatic decline in primary productivity, an increase in the\u00a0state of dependency, a loss of sustainability and of human health. But we are told \u2018This is development\u2019 and prostituting the future for loans to pay yesterday\u2019s debt and todays greed, becomes the political imperative.<\/p>\n

Usually, one finds that this destructive model of development is promoted by persons with vested interests in either amassing personal fortunes\u00a0or getting a nation into debt as a part of their \u2018official\u2019 work. The level of consumption marked as \u2018progress\u2019. Consumptive development or \u2018idiot development\u2019 is marked by the importation of anything as long as the market demands it and\u00a0by injecting money as loans into the local economy and spending it through massive projects.\u00a0\u00a0The construction of roads that the majority of the population can never use, big expensive building projects, usually white elephants whose only purpose is to enrich the \u2018developers\u2019 and to place a nation in debt. The falling rupee being daily evidence of this folly.<\/p>\n

This type of \u2018development\u2019 encourages both urban sprawl and the growth of resource and energy dependent cities. The mad rush at constructing cities worldwide,\u00a0has led to a call for new visions in urban consumption, waste, and space management.<\/p>\n

Cities have always grown on the capacity of the natural system to support them. Often, in human history these capacities have been exceeded and the loss of that city follows. The examples from the Middle East, Central China and Middle America bear testimony to that fact. Our headlong rush to create Mega Cities is evidence of this stupid hubris.<\/p>\n

Planning for urban growth without considering the limits of the environment to supply the basic needs of its inhabitants is indeed shortsighted and irresponsible by the future inhabitants, both urban and rural.\u00a0\u00a0This \u2018misdirected growth\u2019 is often promoted to enrich the people with power or capital and creates a class of \u2018super rich\u2019 which rapidly widens the inequality gap between rich and poor.\u00a0\u00a0This widening of the gap should be a reason for national concern. The reason why we should all be vigilant to the phenomenon of a widening inequality gap between the rich and the poor is very lucidly explained in a very informative and eye opening book \u2018The Spirit Level<\/a>\u2019 by two\u00a0Epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.\u00a0\u00a0A review in the Guardian states:<\/p>\n

The authors point out that \u2018the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction; it destroys relationships between individuals born in the same\u00a0society<\/a>\u00a0but into different classes; and its function as a driver of consumption depletes the planet’s resources. With the result that everyone suffers \u2013 even the most well off.\u2019 Inequality in their view isn\u2019t just bad for the poor; it\u2019s also bad for the rich.<\/p>\n

Analyzing data primarily from 21 developed countries and also the different American states, they present evidence of a correlation between the level of inequality in each country (or state) and a range of outcomes: levels of trust, mental illness, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, children\u2019s educational performance, number of teenage births, murders, imprisonment rates and social mobility. More inequality goes with lower trust, more mental illness, higher murder rates and so on. It\u00a0has nothing to do with total wealth or even the average per-capita income. On almost every index of quality of life, or wellness, or deprivation, there is a gradient showing a strong correlation between a country’s level of economic inequality and its social outcomes.<\/p>\n

What has all this to do with where Sri Lanka is heading?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have gone back to the old \u2018formula of \u2018borrow as much money as you want for very large projects, the commissions are very attractive and the feasibility of the project is not very important\u2019. It began with the Mahaveli and the current path of progress and development that we are moving towards today seems to be exactly what the big lenders always wanted. John Perkins<\/a>\u00a0in his book \u2018Confessions of an Economic Hit Man\u2019 states that\u00a0His job was \u201cto convince countries that are strategically important to the United States to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development and to make sure that the lucrative projects were contracted to U.S. corporations\u201d. He further states that economic hit men as “highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign \u2018aid’ organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources.<\/p>\n

Knowing the degree of education and experience with mega projects that is required to launch such projects and when we compare it with what we have, it is obvious that there is no one with any smarts to develop even anything close to a credible project from within either regime, then where do these grandiose ideas and schemes come from ? who prepares the studies and financial projections to the satisfaction of the international lenders ?<\/p>\n

Are there a bunch of shadowy \u2018hit men\u2019 of various colours in this town, abetted by a bunch of the greedy locals, leading us like a bunch of ignoramuses to a debt ridden future marked by social inequity and financial slavery?<\/p>\n

This is the process gives rise to \u2018Crony Capitalism\u2019. Using Italy as an example Dr. Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago points\u00a0\u00a0out that\u00a0\u00a0\u201dEven emergency room doctors gain promotions on the basis of political affiliations. Instead of being told to study, young people are urged to \u2018carry the bag\u2019 for powerful people in the hope of winning favours. Mothers push their daughters into the arms of the rich and powerful seeing it as the only avenue of social promotion. The nations talent-selection process is broken : one routinely finds highly intelligent people employed in menial jobs while mediocre people hold distinguished positions<\/p>\n

The worst consequence of crony capitalism is political. The more a system is dominated by cronies, the more it generates resentment. To maintain consensus, the insiders must distribute privileges and subsidies – and the more they dole out, the greater the demand becomes.<\/p>\n

In order to \u2018dole it out\u2019, massive projects are mooted so that the politicians and their cronies take out their commissions and move their lesser cronies into management, ensuring that the project can never be a success.<\/p>\n

These types of massive infrastructure based development projects, that brings in no return and no possibilities of payback, is a prime factor creating the woes due to\u00a0economic inequality that Wilkinson and Pickett described. In Sri Lanka today the\u00a0widening inequality gap between the rich and the poor is obvious to any observer. This type of crony capitalism, may create a fortunate future for a few, but it will produce a dismal future for the rest of us and our children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":113750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nDeveloping Poverty - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Developing Poverty - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-03T19:04:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-10-07T13:28:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1380\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1783\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ranil Senanayake\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ranil Senanayake\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/\",\"name\":\"Developing Poverty - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-03T19:04:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-10-07T13:28:40+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/33b6ba52eeb4aae03ca05bf2145fadea\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg\",\"width\":\"1380\",\"height\":\"1783\",\"caption\":\"Ranil Senanayake\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Developing Poverty\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\",\"name\":\"Colombo Telegraph\",\"description\":\"In journalism truth is a process\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/33b6ba52eeb4aae03ca05bf2145fadea\",\"name\":\"Ranil Senanayake\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f268c1dccf7bdffbd0c915f232490d2e5f9bfe6406b0bfd624f38596d7e87b6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f268c1dccf7bdffbd0c915f232490d2e5f9bfe6406b0bfd624f38596d7e87b6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Ranil Senanayake\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/ranils\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Developing Poverty - Colombo Telegraph","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Developing Poverty - Colombo Telegraph","og_description":"[…]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/","og_site_name":"Colombo Telegraph","article_published_time":"2018-10-03T19:04:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-10-07T13:28:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1380,"height":1783,"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Ranil Senanayake","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ranil Senanayake","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/","name":"Developing Poverty - Colombo Telegraph","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg","datePublished":"2018-10-03T19:04:36+00:00","dateModified":"2018-10-07T13:28:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/33b6ba52eeb4aae03ca05bf2145fadea"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg","width":"1380","height":"1783","caption":"Ranil Senanayake"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/developing-poverty\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Developing Poverty"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/","name":"Colombo Telegraph","description":"In journalism truth is a process","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/33b6ba52eeb4aae03ca05bf2145fadea","name":"Ranil Senanayake","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f268c1dccf7bdffbd0c915f232490d2e5f9bfe6406b0bfd624f38596d7e87b6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5f268c1dccf7bdffbd0c915f232490d2e5f9bfe6406b0bfd624f38596d7e87b6?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Ranil Senanayake"},"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/ranils\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ranil-Senanayake.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194153,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194029\/revisions\/194153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}