For over 150 years development strategies the world over have been following what Japanese scholar Kaname Akamatsu has coined in the 1930s as the “Flying Geese” model of growth, which gained popularity in the 1960s but seems no longer applicable.
Game then was “follow the leader”. The path to success then was simply to follow the lead goose in a flock or the leader of the times. So when England started the industrial revolution, Germany and the US followed the same lead to industrialize.
The whole of Europe tried to industrialize. In fact, European nations were considered then the “industrialized countries” or the First World. The Second World were the socialist countries led by the Soviet Union, also trying to industrialize. All undeveloped or unindustrialized countries in Asia, Africa and South America were categorized as Third World.
However, Japan, with its industrializing capacity starting in the Meiji era, although ruined during World War II, industrialized easily with its hardworking ethics by following the US and Germany.
Every country thereafter simply followed the leader. Following Japan were the newly industrializing countries (NICs), namely, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. By 2000s, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Turkey became emerging economies, with Indonesia and the Philippines tagging along.
The leader can no longer lead? Meanwhile, world leader America, with its dismal 1-percent growth rate, wasteful consumption and unhealthy ways can no longer be the model to follow, says Professor Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute, Columbia University, in his prognosis before the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Sachs is an economist and author of best-selling books The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth (2008), The Price of Civilization (2011) and recently The Age of Sustainable Development (2015). He says the fast-growth model has reached a limit and even America cannot go on growing by only 1 percent with all the followers growing much faster. A new kind of direction is therefore imperative.
Although an American, Sachs believes America has ceased to be a model for ecological reasons. A car for every American and big houses for every family are no longer feasible. This translates to inefficient energy usage and poor space management, resulting in traffic congestion, emissions and high carbon footprint, massive extraction of natural resources, etc. America’s unhealthy diet and lifestyles also produced obesity, cancer and cardiovascular problems.
If we blindly follow America, we may end up like lemmings massively racing unknowingly to the edge of a cliff and plunging to our deaths.
Technology ushers democracy, harmony. The technological revolution accelerating at a fast clip is triggering radical change and democratizing societies as ordinary people gain access to knowledge and technology.
Decades back, only wealthy families could afford costly 20-volume encyclopedias, but today one can access the same for free at the click of a mouse. The ready access to information increases the chances of backward countries to catch up if they can motivate and innovate enough to make breakthroughs in specific technologies.
Thus, everybody can potentially be a “lead goose”, at the same time, be a follower to others. This can be likened to the metaphorical harmony in an orchestra, where each player takes the lead in his respective instrument, while following others to achieve harmony.
Invest massively where they count most. To meet future challenges, we need large-scale investments that count like smart infrastructure, low-carbon energy, high skills and education, health services, agriculture and other aspects of human capital like research, development and extension. All of these require massive savings, partly done forcibly through taxation.
Also invest in huge high-end power systems to power infrastructure and industries. This includes high-end nuclear energy, that’s emission-free and recycles radioactive wastes back to energy, hydrogen fuel, etc. Light renewables like solar and windmills are fine just for low-carbon footprint, health reasons, but not as base-load owing to their costly and low inefficient energy flux densities.
Invest also in broadband as the Internet of Things will soon dominate every activity, including the dematerialization of physical things (i.e., physical shops shifting to e-commerce, physical books to e-books, etc.)
Pursue the China nexus. Even production is now being dematerialized and outsourced, thus China, which has an industrial overcapacity is doing it right by exporting this capacity under its One Belt One Road Initiative (New Silk Road) through its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and involvement in massive infrastructure projects all over the world, some as initiatives of the BRICS Coalition (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), now followed by 65 countries that are expected to join a summit in Beijing on May 14 and 15 to be attended also by President Donald J. Trump.
BRICS will build massive power systems, highways and railways (Maglevs) connecting Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. China must not be taken as a threat, the way Obama geared up for war with his pivot to Asia, that led to our Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and China’s encroachment in our waters, and excluded China in his Trans-Pacific Partnership. Better lock in China to its win-win development agenda, which is a digression from the neoliberal free market of winners and losers in a dog-eat-dog zero sum outcome in the globalization game.
Thus, it is worth watching US President Trump’s moves for doing the opposite of Obama, so instead of engaging in war-directed skirmishes with traditional foes Russia and China, Trump wants to talk peace and apply his “Art of the (Business) Deal,” which may turn out good for all with “world peace,” a favorite expression of the Miss Universe beauty pageant, which he once owned.
E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com