A Shotgun Wedding Made in Heaven

“The Ph is a rich nation wallowing in suppressed, deferred prosperity.” -- Anon

MARRYING ECONOMICS WITH POLITICS
--by Cielito F. Habito, 20 Oct. 2020

MAKING WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS
--by the Filipino People, today…

These are tales from five economists, a head of state, their insights, and outcomes:
“Marrying Economics with Politics”, Dr. Cielito Habito; Pope Francis, Oct. 20, 2020;
“The Economics of Community” Dr. Elinor Ostrom, Political Economist, Nobel Laureate in 2009;
“Communal Economics” Dr. Sixto K. Roxas, Development Economist, developer of ECSOM**, May 1987;
“Capitalism, Economics, Politics, Societies” Klaus Schwab, Chairman of WEF, Oct. 24, 2020;
“Markets, State, People: Economics for Public Policy”, Diane Coyle, University of Cambridge, Oct. 25, 2020.

Dear Dr. Habito and compatriots who seek reforms for the Nation,

Kudos for timely insights on marrying Economics with Politics. You hit six nails smack on the head with the humble insight that economics makes a better impact when mixed with social, cultural, political, ecological, and spiritual counterparts. To the rest of the pack, a smart salute to your farsight; to the Vicar at the Vatican, cheers to your spiritual prowess.

Your insights lead us to see and unmask our suppressed prosperity; they prompt insights of our own, triggering a challenge long overdue:

“FRATELLI TUTTI” - THE BROTHERHOOD OF HUMANITY
POPE FRANCIS: “Prosperity in harmony and fraternity.”
“Fratelli Tutti” is a timely paternal exhortation calling humankind in crises to the “economics of harmony and fraternity”, a timely call to reject economic, social, and political conflict.

THE ECONOMICS OF COMMUNITY
Dr. E. OSTROM: “Tragedy of the commons” debunked - the commons can sustain the common good.
Nobel Laureate Ostrom debunks the commonly accepted notion known as “the tragedy of the commons” noting that “good politics can emerge out of small communities” in pursuit of good economics, underlining her observation that “humans act selfishly when acting as individuals, yet act altruistically for the common good when acting as communities.”
https://opinion.inquirer.net/134593/marrying-economics-with-politics

COMMUNAL ECONOMICS -- COMMUNITY AS ENTERPRISE
DR. SIXTO K. ROXAS: “Communities prosper when managed as enterprise”.
SKR’s ECSOM** is a three-point play at Poverty Eradication, marrying the principles of Ecology, Development Economics, Social Accounting, and Good Governance in the ‘General Ledger’ of Communities and the ‘Subsidiary Ledger’ of Enterprise. “I dare say that if we rethink economics to make ‘Community’ the material unit of analysis, and ‘Enterprise’ as the subsidiary ... redefined according to the norms of a new economics of the community in lieu of the economics of the enterprise, we will see a truly humanitarian revolution.” - Dr. Sixto K. Roxas, Filipino economist, addressing an international forum in Buenos Aires, May 7, 1987.

THE GREAT RESET- ECONOMICS, POLITICS, SOCIETIES
KLAUS SCHWAB: Capital - “mending timeless values for its equitable use and the common good”.
“The pandemic has triggered a public health and economic crisis on such a scale... that the only acceptable response to such a crisis of inequality is to pursue a “Great Reset” of our economics, politics, and societies. But we must rethink what we mean by “capital” in its many iterations, whether financial, environmental, social, or human. Today’s consumers do not (just) want more and better goods and services for a reasonable price, they (also) increasingly expect companies to contribute to social welfare and the common good.”
https://opinion.inquirer.net/134706/post-covid-capitalism
There is now a fundamental need and an increasingly widespread demand for new types of Capital such as community-owned capital like “Sovereign and Community Wealth Funds”.

THE PRODUCTIVITY PUZZLE
DIANE COYLE: Productive individuals - inefficient societies - rich communities.
“In a 1996 lecture titled “Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk,” the late Mancur Olson made a powerful observation: “An individual from a poor country - say, Haiti (or Ph) - who migrates to a richer country like the United States immediately becomes vastly more productive and earns a far higher wage than before. The individual has not changed overnight, so his skills or cultural attitudes cannot explain their improved situation. The answer must instead lie in their new country’s environment.” Olson concluded that many economies are not socially efficient. A better institutional and social context… can make an enormous difference to individuals’ productivity, and living standards, showing that the reforms needed are in fact economic, political, social, cultural, ecological, and, not the least, spiritual.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/134730/the-key-to-the-productivity-puzzle

What then is the real story, what is the true message behind the “economics - politics - ecology - sociology - cultural - spiritual hologram”? What is the “message in a bottle” that contains an urgent “SOS” to us, from us?

What happens when the dots between them are connected and correlated with the Philippine experience of scarcity in the middle of abundance? What values are released by the interplay of forces from “fraternal harmony”, “enlightened, motivated community” “self-reliant, managed, community enterprise”, “social enterprise using capital to equitably enrich the common good”, and “productive individuals in efficient societies and rich communities”? Shall we find the answers at the end of the line in the true prosperity of our communities long-suppressed and deferred?

A friend once said that we are a rich nation, living in suppressed, deferred prosperity. What then are the roadblocks hiding that prosperity?

What reforms call on us to collectively bring about the long-awaited turnaround? IS IT WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS?

Economic analysis – good Politics -- Ecological grounding -- Cultural formation -- Social integration -- Spiritual synthesis. Analysis to synthesis; scarcity to abundance; roadblocks lifted; suppressed PROSPERITY unleashed.

WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS****

PRODUCTIVITY
Restoring and protecting Productivity of people and communities:
Stop excessive long queues (pila) wasting time and productivity of the masses;
Reduce and stop congestion in public offices, banks, service centers, roads, highways, terminals;
Reverse excessive urbanization, congestion, traffic, and man-made bottlenecks;

TAX REFORMS
Towards reasonable, equitable, efficient, affordable tax systems (i.e., TRAIN 1 and 2; ARISE);
Progressive, developmental utilization of taxes that recycle our cash to higher velocities;
Tax Consciousness Programs that motivate citizens to be willing, able, and eager taxpayers;

TAX CONSCIOUSNESS IS A KEY TO PRODUCTIVITY
Productivity comes from a culture and habit of giving and sharing:
It is sound national financial management that induces a healthy, growing GDP.

MAJOR ROADBLOCKS TO PRODUCTIVITY AND PROSPERITY
Corruption, Criminality, Inequity, and the protracted ‘armed insurgency’ are the top roadblocks to Productivity; they have stifled and suppressed individual and communal Productivity and the prosperity of the entire Nation:

Reduce and eliminate corruption in all sectors, public and private:
“The buck starts here with me”; without “corruptors” there is no corruption;
Corruption Impedes economic growth: (from a commissioned USAID study)
Reduced public trust in government inspires armed conflict and repression of the poor;
Carefully crafted, anti-corruption programs yield important poverty reduction results.

FINANCIAL REFORMS
Inclusive digital banking where no one is left unserved or underserved;
Banking reforms for more equitable access to bank services and credit for smallholders;

Some of these reforms have been started and are ongoing; some are about to start and some have to be started anew and sustained. Whole-of-Nation means ALL PARTS OF THE WHOLE AND THE WHOLE IN ALL ITS PARTS get moving in harmony.

REFORM PROGRAMS
Economic stimulus and recovery programs initiated by govt;
Poverty eradication programs by the private sector, like ECSOM** and “Smart Cities”;
Balik-Probinsya BALIK-PROBINSYA (White Paper)
Universal Basic Income THE NEW NORMAL, UBI (White Paper)
A good BP program supports and can help fund a successful UBI program and vice-versa;

IMMEDIATE IMPACT OF REFORMS:
Reforms will mean better cash flow for all:
More taxes for government; more access to social amelioration and capital for citizens; reforms are inter-connected, correlated by purpose and with results: more supply, broader distribution, and higher velocity of money that will keep the nation healthy and energized, enough to overcome calamity and realize the true potential of its people.

THE ENDGAME
“In that day… I will bring back my exiled people; they will
rebuild the ruined cities and live in them”. --Amos 9:14

And the endgame, the final stroke, the tipping point, the climax to WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS:
Is the WHOLE-OF-INSURGENCY returning HOME; (armed conflict is the deadliest roadblock)
the lost flock returning to the bosom of the motherland;
the final, last touch to unmask and unhide our suppressed, deferred prosperity;
Reconciliation and healing of a land fractured by lawless rebellion and armed conflict gone mad.

52 YEARS IN THE MAKING AND NOT MAKING IT:
“Doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different result is INSANE” - Einstein
Fighting it out in the mountains won’t do it;
armed struggle choreographed from an armchair in Utrecht,
and from swivel chairs in the house never did it;
another 52 years of internecine killings surely won’t do it.
BUT WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS WILL DO IT! WE HAVE 52 WEEKS!!

FAREWELL TO ARMS; OVERDUE HOMECOMING
Let the “Fratelli Tutti”, let our brothers come home from the mountains, from the underground, from the red, gray, and white areas; let us all come home from the exile of misunderstanding, deception, and missed shots, to rebuild a nation we short-changed, in peace, harmony, prosperity.

That the 52 years old armed communist insurgency is ending is clear and simple:
It is clear when seen from a 52-year-old perspective;
It is clear and simple from the perspective of “baby boomers” and “first quarter Stormers”;
From the long perspective that outlives the “event horizon” of millennials and a fresh crop of young patriots and activists, a rerun of the same spirit of patriotism, -- it is clear and simple.
It is clear from the perspectives of the WHOLE-OF-GOVT approach and WHOLE-OF-NATION reforms.

The logic, analogy, and equation are clear and simple:
That “power comes from the barrel of the gun” is now a stale Chinese proverb, its efficacy overtaken by modern technology and a better philosophy; armed communist insurgency*** is obsolete, a spent force rendered powerless and inept from the perspective of 52 years of ongoing history; bullets and bombs have been replaced by smarter ideas, systems, and technology that do the job better and accomplish the changes we seek faster. It is replaced by the superior force of the new philosophy of “Whole-of-Nation” reforms that can move us to rediscover our Prosperity.

And the final algorithm is lifted from ECSOM**:
Enterprise prospers as it is managed and governed rightly and rigorously;
Communities, when managed in a similar fashion, will prosper the way enterprise prospers;
There is armed rebellion in Communities; there is none in Enterprise;
Enterprise is untouched by the force of armed insurgency that suppresses communities;
When Communities are purged of insurgency and armed conflict, that suppression is removed;
Communities, like Enterprise, will find their true PROSPERITY. IT IS TIME.

SO HELP US, GOD!

Bob Calida 20 Nov. 2020
** ECSOM or “Ecosystem-Community-Sustainable-Management-Organization” is a Poverty Eradication model developed by Dr. Sixto K. Roxas; it aims to create self-reliant local communities by designing and installing sustainable, inter-linked enterprises in portfolios that provide livelihood while preserving bio-capacity.

****Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist ideologies have lost most of their following and game-changing energies and the favorite slogan “dictatorship of the proletariat” has become nothing more than a lame excuse to gain a “dictatorship of the power grabbers”. This picture is repeated again and again by former rebels who have come back from the underground.

**** This portion is a compressed outline of “Whole-of-Nation Reforms”; the complete, more detailed version is available by email request at the ‘Ask Something’ section in WAWD 2.