Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.
-John Locke
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CONTENTS:
0 John Locke, Philosopher of Freedom, In Memoriam
By Wolfgang Kasper
0 Globalisation: An Alternate View
By Hashim Abro
0 FreePakistan News Briefs
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DISCOVER YOUR POLITICAL LEANINGS! World's Smallest Political Quiz
Take the Quiz now and find out where you fit on the political map!
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
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What is Philosophy of Liberty? A screensaver by Lux Lucre and Ken Schoolland explains it.
Download and install it. http://www.free-market.net/rd/321907219.html ; http://www.jonathangullible.com
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ALTERNATE SOLUTIONS INSTITUTE’S FIRST BOOK OF TRANSLATION
Alternate Solutions Institute, Lahore, Pakistan, has published its first book of translation, Ken Schoolland's "The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey," in Urdu which is understood not only in Pakistan but throughout South Asia. Ken's modern fable has so far been published in 29 languages of the world Urdu being the 30th. This book explains the principles of market economy in a simple manner and helps promote the concepts of open market and property rights. The book has been translated into Urdu by Khalil Ahmad. A. S. Institute is indebted to Irshad Ameen for his tireless efforts in getting the book out of the press.
It is hoped that the book will give a new direction to the discussion of welfare state in Pakistan.
If you want to purchase the book, contact at info@asinstitute.org ; khalil@asinstitute.org
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HOW TO END ALL WARS FOREVER
Aslam Effendi, an old and unsung Libertarian of Pakistan, has written three books on free market philosophy: HOW TO END ALL WARS FOREVER, HARD FACTS OF HISTORY, and, ECONOMICS FOR THE CONFUSED. When no publisher agreed to invest in the project, he spent out of his own pocket to get HOW TO END ALL WARS FOREVER printed. But, for want of a distributor, this book which has been praised as a classic remained dumped and could not find its way to the market. For details, read ‘Aslam Effendi: A Free Marketeer in Pakistan’
or visit http://asinstitute.org/articles.php. Alternate Solutions Institute, Lahore, Pakistan, has purchase all the copies of the book from Aslam Effendi to make it available to the right persons and to compensate the author as well.
If you want to purchase the book, contact at info -at- asinstitute.org ; khalil -at- asinstitute.org
A. S. Institute intends to publish all of his books; if you are interested in this project, please contact at the above-given email addresses.
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As the Alternate Solutions Institute, Lahore, participated in a project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation , it has contributed the following report that can be accessed by clicking the following link:
"Tax-Evasion and Money-laundering in Pakistan: An Overview" by Khalil Ahmad
http://www.atlasusa.org/reports/esid_Pakistan2004.doc
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JOHN LOCKE, PHILOSOPHER OF FREEDOM
IN MEMORIAM
By Wolfgang Kasper
[Mr. Wolfgang Kasper is Professor of Economics emeritus, University of New South Wales, and
Senior Fellow, Centre for Independent Studies , Sydney, Australia.]
On 28 October this year, those convinced of the merits of freedom will commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of John Locke, whose ideas on philosophy and political economy are still more powerful than is commonly understood. More than anyone else, this English physician, diplomat, civil servant and philosopher has shaped the foundations of modernity and what some now call 'Western values'. He lived from 1632 to 1704, during turbulent times – through Cromwell's republic and the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, political and social turmoil reminiscent of what we observe in many third-world countries today – and was a steadfast champion of individual freedom and inalienable human rights. As all are born equal, he said, no one can be an absolute ruler. The people are the real sovereign and political power must be controlled by an elected parliament. The government's main role is to protect life, liberty and property. It has no role in controlling prices and interest rates, which are the result of free human interaction in markets.
Locke underpinned his liberal philosophy of government and economy with path-breaking reflections on human psychology and pedagogy. But he, the son of a cloth merchant in the Bristol area, was also a high government official, crossing the bridge from practical affairs to philosophical and moral reflection and back.
Our modern civilisation –– with its intensive exchange, ceaseless innovation and sustained prosperity –– depends for its very survival on three pillars which John Locke identified: limited, secular government, the rule of law, and secure property rights used freely in markets. Government has to be conducted in the interest of the people. The government belongs to the people, not the other way round, he argued. He rejected the notion that the nation is like an extended family with a ruling patriarch, who can do as he pleases. Instead, he said, free people should adopt rule-bound government to make better use of their 'natural freedom'.
His long-held ideas, when they were published in essays and pamphlets, gave philosophical depth to the Glorious Revolution and a cohesive intellectual base to constitutional, limited government, parliamentary representation and the market economy. Locke thus became the first noted philosopher of the democratic-capitalist civilisation that was then emerging in Europe. As labour and skills create the lion's share of wealth, he argued, the people have a natural right to enjoy inviolate private property rights. Owners do not have to prove anything to anyone, as long as they do not harm others. They do not need a government permit to work and use their assets as they see fit. The foremost task of government is to protect private property, so that people can trade the results of their labours and thus increase overall prosperity.
Locke distinguished between law and legislation. He maintained that governments have no authority to take private property away, other than by taxation with parliamentary consent. Where rulers and legislators confiscate private property, he wrote, they act unlawfully, and citizens are entitled to rebel. His views forced Locke into exile in France and Holland, sometimes he even had to live and publish under an assumed name. He returned home when William of Orange was placed on the British throne. Two generations later, the American colonists were to draw explicitly on Locke, when they staged the Boston Tea Party (1773). Locke's contention that rulers are also bound by the law was fairly revolutionary at the time. Others had only recently lost their heads for making similar claims to liberty.
In our times, when governments all around the world habitually inflict legislation and regulations, which confiscate private property rights, Locke's concepts of individual freedom and absolute property rights are again relevant. All too often, legislation places the onus of justifying certain property uses on individual owners, rather than leaving the burden of proof that harm is done to others or the authorities. Locke would have been outraged by present-day industrial licensing, permit systems and trade controls which take economic rights away of property owners. Governments everywhere confiscate the right of owners of human and physical capital by making people apply for economic activities that should be free. Many of these controls are imposed not to avert alleged harm, but to extract official fees and corrupt payments, and this hinders the advancement of poor, not-so-well connected people. Nothing would empower ordinary people more than the recognition of secure private property rights and their defence by government, as John Locke has stipulated three centuries ago.
John Locke's definition of private property laid the basis for the subsequent take-off in Britain, Europe and North America into sustained economic growth. By now, it has begun to go global. More and more observers in poor countries begin to understand that the growing and often arbitrary constriction of economic freedom by governments is undermining our prosperity, security and liberty. Observers in think tanks between Delhi and Guatemala City, Nairobi and Shanghai now increasingly embrace Locke's concepts of property and government, often even without even knowing his name. Locke would be pleased to know that economic freedom, the rule of law, and rule-bound, secular government are slowly spreading around the world, and with it the blessings (and the adjustment burdens) of modernity.
Locke saw that price controls take private property rights away, and he made a strong case against interest-rate controls. Those who are fighting for an end to capital controls and for the deregulation of product and capital markets may be unaware of Locke's ideas, but they are often employing arguments that he fashioned 300 years ago. And those, who now advocate the unshackling of labour markets, owe Locke a debt of gratitude. He explained that people have self-ownership of their bodies, labour and skills and have an innate right to use these assets as they see fit, as long as they do not harm others.
After wars of religion had nearly destroyed the fabric of British society and pushed many European countries into abject poverty, John Locke advocated religious and civic tolerance and a secular state. He was no doubt inspired by what he observed during his exile in Holland, a much more affluent country at the time than England. His, at the time controversial, advocacy of secular government soon became official policy in Britain and is now accepted around the world –– except in a limited number of intolerant and hence rather backward countries, which could benefit from Locke's insights.
His writings, most of which he published late in life, initiated the great classical liberal tradition in the West. It has inspired free men and women ever since to do battle with opportunistic power groups and collectivists of the conservative and the socialist variety. Locke became a hero to the generation that built the constitutional monarchy after the Glorious Revolution, and later inspired the thinkers of the Scottish enlightenment, among them David Hume and Adam Smith. Soon, his ideas were made popular in France by Voltaire and Montesquieu and in Germany by Kant and von Humboldt. Two generations after his death, his ideas were expressed in the French human rights declaration of 1789 that stipulated liberté, égalité, propriété (the collectivist-socialist notion of fraternité came a little later, when the radicals hijacked the French revolution). At that time, the Americans took his concepts straight into their Declaration of Independence and the amendments to the US Constitution, including the division of the powers of government, the freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state. In our day, the core pillars of Locke's classical liberal thought – equality before the law, constitutional, small government, and free markets built on secure property – are increasingly embraced by young third-world observers, who understand that human creativity requires individual freedom, secure property rights and democracy. Only when that is accepted will prosperity, material security and social harmony become universal.
Rarely, if ever, has a single mind had such a pervasive influence on how people think about government and political economy.
GLOBALISATION: AN ALTERNATE VIEW
By Hashim Abro
No doubt, tough challenges lie ahead for Pakistan, but Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is determined to pursue essential structural reforms. He is set on structural reforms that will allow a truly modern economy. "The macroeconomic stability has fostered a sense of confidence in the country and would continue to be the focus of the governments economic planning," Aziz told reporters in Karachi last week.
The Aziz government is expected to introduce structural changes in the education sector and in public administration, with the aim of improving the quality of life for people. Deregulation, privatisation, promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation, the transition to a new digital economy and the reduction of red tape are also on the reform agenda. Indeed, all these factors are all directly connected to the competitiveness of the economy. Therefore, billions of rupees have been allocated to fostering business and technological innovation and research.
To boost job growth in small and medium size enterprises, the government plans to reduce tax rates for non-listed companies. "We need dynamic high-technology companies which produce competitive products and services. To ensure equality of growth funds should be destined for the countryside for infrastructure works in transport, energy and telecommunications systems to ensure equal development" says Dr Sohail Malik, a human development activist.
"There’s one thing we cannot do and that is say we will stop here, were not going ahead. This country must proceed," Aziz said.
The defense of economic rationality and of corporate development as a basis for fostering competitiveness and the creation of more and better jobs must nonetheless give private investment a central role in boosting economic growth and productivity.
Pakistan also needs to make specialisation viable and more in tune with world trends, underpinned by public investment in the development of a network of physical, technological, human and social infrastructure.
Formulating economic policy does not, however, mean producing an elaborate set of interventionist measures. Instead, it means the patient, systematic and daring construction of a new set of "ground rules", practices, and measures of an official nature that get entrepreneurs to cooperate actively, in line with their interests and capabilities, in the common goal of creating a competitive and economic base in Pakistan.
The microeconomic foundations of sectorial policies in fact suggest that, without ambiguities, they recognise the superiority of companies and the market over the state when it comes to orientating investments and in defining business.
From this point of view, economic policy is increasingly horizontal, inasmuch as it does not favor sectors but companies that upgrade and submit good projects, irrespective of their nature.
The state’s more voluntary interventions are restricted either to industrial sectors in crisis, whereby such actions must be only of a transitory character in favoring corporate readjustment, or for emerging industries, in which stronger support and action of a strategic nature are necessary.
Another cornerstone in the development of Pakistan’s economy is the acceleration and rebalancing of its globalisation. This must be undertaken as a national imperative in the upcoming years, as the principal catalyst for us to catch up with the developed world.
Today, the world is undergoing a globalisation process. Therefore, an economy like ours has to understand that in order to increase its standard of living and productivity in a sustained manner, and so that companies may become more solid, it will have to do so by a very much stronger coordination between markets and seriously put its money on globalisation.
Bolstering our ability to get established in external markets and internal competitive ones, by both companies and our economy going global, constitutes a fundamental task which can be achieved not just by exporting even more in quantity and value to more and better markets, but also by investing in those markets and developing cross-border partnerships.
It will be through the fostering of globalisation strategies that, more broadly, sustained competitive edges will be guaranteed and that Pakistan’s own role in the world will be enhanced. [Courtesy The News]
FreePakistan News-Briefs
AN INDUSTRIAL MAGNATE DIES IN POLITICAL EXILE
Mian Muhammad Sharif, father of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif and former Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, died of cardiac arrest in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on October 29, 2004. He was 84. He was a matchless industrial magnate who established at least 51 industrial units during the 57-year history of this country.
GOV TO BUY 30 BULLETPROOF CARS FOR VVIPs
The government has decided to purchase a fleet of 30 high-priced bulletproof Mercedes Benz for VVIPs containing costing more than Rs.3 billion.
PAKISTAN 15TH MOST CORRUPT COUNTRY
According to the Transparency International Index released on October 20, 2004, in a world where ‘corruption is rampant in 60 countries’ and the ‘public sector is plagued by bribery’, Pakistan has been ranked as the world’s 15th most corrupt country.
US STYLE THINK TANKS TO BE SET UP
The Prime Minister of Pakistan has decided to encourage the culture of US style think tanks in the country. In this connection, a high level committee has been constituted to set up as many think tanks as possible both in the public and private sector.
SUPREME COURT DECLARES FRANCHISED TRANSPORT SYSTEM ILLEGAL
A seven-member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan has declared the franchise transport system in Punjab illegal and has given the provincial government four months to take legislative and administrative measures to introduce an alternative system. This decision implies that transport companies in major cities of Punjab will lose their contracts after four months and other private transporters would be given the chance to operate their vehicles. In its short order, the SC has made Section 69-A of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965 to be void. Under this section, several public transport routes had been awarded to a single transport company in each city. Route permits for many other transporters had been cancelled. This system was challenged in the SC by many private transporters. They contended that the franchise system propagated a monopoly of a single company and that it went against the spirit of free trade and competitiveness. The petitioners also maintained that this section of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance was against the constitutional provision that guaranteed fundamental rights.
PTA RECEIVES SUGGESTIONS ON TARIFF RATIONALIZATION
The suggestions put forwarded by a high-powered study group formed by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to rationalize tariff have been presented to all the stake holders aimed at seeking their input so that final decision regarding tariff fixation could be implemented.
FORMER INDIAN PM FOR FREE ECONOMY
The former Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, while addressing a press conference in Lahore, has said that South Asian countries should promote free economy and people-to-people contact without giving concessions on secularism and territorial boundaries.
PRIVATE SECTOR SUBMITS RS.10 BILLION PLAN
Around 250 private parties have submitted Rs.10 billion worth of investment plan in their proposed industrial projects to be established at Sundar Industrial Estate within next one year.
RISE IN PRIVATE SECTOR CREDIT
According to the latest figures released by the State Bank of Pakistan, in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, private sector credit rose sharply to Rs.64.5 billion whereas net public sector borrowing was a mere Rs.4.5 billion.
PRIVATE COMPANY TO BUILD TERMINAL
In view of the choking of the Karachi Port, the government has given a private company the contract to build an import container terminal at Port Qasim.
PM URGES PRIVATE, PUBLIC PARTNERSHIPS
The Prime Minister has urged the private and public sectors to join hands in producing disease-free, quality seed so as to enhance the yield of crops and make the country self-sufficient in food.
PM: PRIVATIZATION MUST FOR REFORM AGENDA
The targets and goals of the Ministry of Privatization and Investment were discussed in a meeting at Prime Minister’s House on October 27, 2004. Prime Minister while reviewing the targets, said Privatization is an important program of the economic reform agenda of government.
NO LEGISLATION ON DRUG PRICING
The Standing Committee of National Assembly on Health has rejected the demand for legislation to allow “poor segment of society” to have a say in medicine pricing mechanism in the country and has warned that investors will run away if consumers are empowered to prevent high-pricing.
RS.21 BILLION TAX MONEY STUCK IN LITIGATION
More than Rs.21 billion of tax money is stuck up in litigation for the past 3 to 5 years and the government has decided to scrap all frivolous tax demands.
‘PENSION REMOVAL IS KILLING WORKERS’
The President of Pakistan Labor Federation has said that the removal of gratuity and pension is tantamount to killing the workers.
FARMERS UNITE AGAINST WTO
The 29 representatives of various farmers’ organization participated in a meeting held under the aegis of Pakistan Kissan Rabta Committee (a left-oriented entity) and decided to form a new association to launch a comprehensive campaign against anti-farmers policies of World Trade Organization and introduction of corporate farming.
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[No opinion expressed here should necessarily be taken as reflecting the view of FreePakistan Newsletter.]
