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‘Before you study the economics, study the economists!’

e-Con e-News 21-26 December 2025

The higher the bishop, the more surprising the confession. But just as bishops’ earthly bodies come layered in vestments, in surplices & cassocks, in sparkling imported rags, so do their words. Their pronouncements, their ‘orations’, come garbed and garbled in metaphor, in analogy, in metonymy, in allegory & euphemism. Hence the earthly art of the exegesis, the line-by-line parsing (deconstruction?) of what was said, may have been said, may not have been said, what cannot be said & yet was meant to be said: By the gods, by the laity & their earthly interpreters, and printers (thanks to the Chinese for paper & print), all demand close survey. Here then is the Bishop of Colombo:

‘Nations in economic crises are nevertheless compelled

to turn to global organisations like the IMF for direction

& reconstruction. Since most who have been there,

seldom stand on their own feet, wise national carers

may not approach the negotiating table, uncritically.

The suspicion, that such organisations eventually ‘grow’

ailing nations into feeder forces for empire economics,

is not unfounded. The recent cyclone gave us a nasty taste

of these realities. Repeatedly declared a natural disaster,

this is not the whole truth. Empire economics which

indiscriminately vandalise our earth, had already set

the stage for the ravage of our land & the loss of

loved ones & possessions. As always, those affected

first & most, were the least among us.’ – Bishop

Duleep de Chickera (ee Economists, Anglican

Bishop Criticizes IMF & Plantations)

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The bishop’s word carry not just the weight of the local church. The bishop of Colombo (apparently, a designation for life) belongs to the Church of Ceylon. The Church of Ceylon covers all of Sri Lanka’s provinces except Jaffna, which curiously belongs to the church of the ‘South India diocese for northern Sri Lanka’. Yet all these Anglicans come under the ‘extraprovincial jurisdiction’ of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury. Though the real head of the Anglican Church is the King of England. The English king is not just the head of this broad church, it is also the commander of the military forces of the English. Their churches there are now empty shells, and their highfaluting ideals carry no heft, but the English military still gets up to all sorts of mischief.

     The bishop’s words were published in this week’s Financial Times (FT) to greet Christmas day (a season of happy tree-slaughtering, about which dollar-ed tree huggers like the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society – WNPS – keep as silent as night). The FT is part of the Wijeya Group, belonging to the Wijewardene clan. This includes perpetual presidential aspirant Ranil Wickremesinghe. And all of them are ardent disciples of the ‘English empire’, including its latest avatara, the white settler state of the USA. The Wijeya Group has ‘ink in their veins’, publishing the most popular private rags in the country. So what does the Bishop exactly mean, & what on earth is ‘empire’? Is the Bishop too coy to call it imperialist?And why so late in the day or month? Surely, the English armed forces & their military industrial backers would not place their boots where the bishop’s mouth is?

‘Empire economics which indiscriminately vandalise our earth,

had already set the stage for the ravage of our land

& the loss of loved ones & possessions’

Does ‘Empire economics’ mean capitalism, England’s premier product, sold most expensively to all the world? And by capitalism, does the bishop mean modern machine-making industrialization? No, that import never arrived. Was dead on arrival. What arrived was its stunted caricature, of a merchant-&-money-lender-dominated import-export mechanism, called the plantation system. Dominated at first by ‘agency houses’, which had been allowed to take over the ‘private trade’ of the English East India Company (EIC), they heralded (overtaking the English chattel slavery of the 17-19^thC in Africa & the Americas of the English West India Co.) the greatest commerce of the 19^thC: opium (grown in India & imposed on China). The English trade in plantation products would soon come to be dominated by their premier multinational corporations (MNCs), the Standard Chartered Bank, Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, Peninsular & Orient (P&O) Steam Navigation Company, Unilever, Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI aka CIC here), and British American Tobacco (BAT aka CTC here), quarterbacked by the Bank of England.

     After the great English genocides here (in 1818, 1848), one of the greatest scandals – a tale untold of the 19^th century in Ceylon – was the robbery of the Buddhist Temple lands, then the largest landowners in the country. So how did the Anglican Church come to be the greatest landowners (per Anglican) in the country, with the Catholic Church running a close second? (The early imposition of the plantation system, and the role of the Anglican church in it, is recalled in the chronological notes at the end of this introduction).

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• The plantation traders, driven by the MNCs (Unilever in particular), know exactly what the byzantine verbal somersaults of the bishop means. Perhaps the bishop, too, was moved by the visiting Indian External Affairs Minister’s concern for his countrymen in the hills (see ee Sovereignty). At first, Unilever’s mouthpiece, the Planters Association was in blasé denial: ‘Sri Lanka’s tea industry not impacted by Ditwah.’ So declared, on 08 December, the Colombo Tea Traders’ Association, which includes The Planters’ Association of Ceylon, Sri Lanka Tea Factory Owners’ Association, Colombo Brokers Association, Tea Exporters’ Association, Sri Lanka Federation of Tea Smallholdings Development Societies, and Tea Small Holding Development Authority.

     Others, however, reported differently; ee Quotes (20 Dec) noted: ‘Planters High & Dry, Workers Wet & Swept’, adding:

‘Recent floods & landslides in Sri Lanka’s hill country

didn’t strike at random. Estate infrastructure largely

remains intact. Homes of low-income workers, factory

labourers & informal settlers were swept away. You might

say it’s bad luck. But it’s not… Historically, plantation estates

were planned to protect capital. Factories & key buildings

were placed on well-drained ground. Worker housing was pushed

downslope into valleys & marginal land where water accumulates.

This wasn’t a secret plan. It was a system where labour safety

mattered less than asset protection.’ (Shanika Somatilake, FB)

So this week we suddenly hear differently. The Planters’ Association went from claiming there were no problems in the ‘tea’ country, to belatedly admitting that workers were affected, perhaps after, the Sri Lanka’s President met a Colombo Tamil politician who claims to represent Upcountry workers, and the Indian government’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met ‘Malaiyaham leaders’:

‘Regional Plantation Companies (RPC) moved swiftly

to safeguard estate workers & surrounding communities

following Cyclone Ditwah, activating emergency protocols,

relocating families from high-risk areas, and restoring basic

services in coordination with State authorities.’ (see ee Workers,

Planters’ Association of Ceylon says plantations stabilised)

*

‘Reforest & rehabilitate riverbanks along 24km

bordering the Kelani River at Dickoya Estate &

Mahaweli River’s Hatton Oya tributary spanning

Abbotsleigh, Strathdon, Shannon, & Carolina estates’

(see ee Agriculture, Hatton Plantations & WNPS

PLANT Launch 2 km Riparian Forest Corridor)

And behold there was belated & abstract recognition, reported in the passive voice, as if nature (or the perennial bugaboo, climate change, global warming, etc.) is to blame:

‘Erratic rainfall in highland estates has led to soil erosion,

damage to estate roads & factory infrastructure, and reduced

soil moisture, while southern low-country estates have

experienced heat stress among workers, flash floods

& heightened risks of vector-borne diseases.’ (see ee Agriculture,

UN Global Compact Network appoints Talawakelle Tea Estates

as Climate Emergency Task Force Patron)

Others sought to blame the much-abused Mahaweli river, happily ignoring the English destruction of the waterways to further their colonial project of invading the country, massacring the Sinhala people of the lands high & low, and imposing a destructive plantation system, causing daily erosion:

‘Concerns over the Faculty’s location within the flood plains

of the Mahaweli River are not new’ (ee Agriculture, Worst

flooding since setting up Veterinary Medicine & Animal Science

Faculty at Peradeniya raises concerns over food security:

SL Veterinary Association/SLVA).

Now what are we to do with ‘Sir’ Ivor Jennings, who is hallowed so for setting up the university and intruding on such salubrious surrounds? And that statue? Is it still erect and dry? Then there is the infamous ‘telescoped’ Mahaveli scheme, promoted by the World Bank: 

‘To deal with the restoration of the damaged infrastructure

in multiple watershed areas, the government may want to

revisit the Accelerated Mahaweli Scheme… The genesis

and implementation of that scheme involved as many flaws

as it produced benefits, but what might be relevant here is

to approach the different countries who were involved in

funding & building the different Mahaweli headworks

& downstream projects. Australia, England, Canada, Italy,

Japan, Sweden, Germany’ (see ee Agriculture,

Flaws of the Accelerated Mahaweli Scheme).

One reason for the partial admission of the destruction is to prevent any state-led plans to protect the hills from even more private intrusion. Some even blamed the government:

‘Most large & destructive landslides in Sri Lanka do not originate

within private homesteads, but in government-owned forest reserves

located on steep upper-catchment slopes’ (see ee Agriculture,

Mitigating landslides in the upper catchments).

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‘A blanket removal policy would directly impact tea industry,

hospitality sector, and other hill country-based economic activities,

triggering serious disruptions to employment & revenue generation’

(see ee Agriculture, 5,000ft Demolition Plan

Could Cripple Hill-Country Economy)

Then there was also the usual promise to upgrade the skills of the plantation workers, without mentioning the need for mechanization (practiced in Russia & Japan, where the old cars of tea workers are exported to Sri Lanka, for our ‘executives’ to drive):

‘Achieving a 4% GDP contribution from plantations

requires making modern HRM [Human Resources

Management] practices mandatory across the sector,

replacing outdated labour systems’ (ee Agriculture, Rethinking

climate prediction, disasters, & plantation economics in SL).

Indeed, the ways in which plantation workers (& not just tea, but rubber too) are treated, should be rated as yet another colonially induced national scandal. Tea workers (mostly but not only Tamil) have been treated as a political football, by English-dominated tea traders, by the Indian ruling class, who seek to treat them as a 5th column for their impending invasion of the country, by the local oligarchs who play on these fears, and those wounded Eelamists, who seek to play Indian workers against Sinhala peasants, and light a fire beyond their frontlines.

     Meanwhile, not an electronic byte flies by, without the private banks & companies claiming that they are frontliners in protecting the environment:

‘From corporate greenwashing to philanthropic initiatives

that ignore structural injustices, these frameworks rarely

account for the true costs of economic growth – particularly

for children & communities facing systemic disadvantage’

(see ee Finance, Equitywashing & Hidden Costs of Sustainability).

*

• Uprooting Tea Bushes & Throwing them into the Sea – So the elephant in the room, the silent tornado in the teacup is the destructive economic (let alone ecological) role played by the English import-export plantation system: the subject & object of SBD de Silva’s classic dissertation, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment (the raison d’etre of this blog). There was a time when the JVP promised to uproot the tea bushes and throw them into the ocean. This may be another canard, however. But, did the sentiments behind such a proposition have to do with the plantation economy’s premiere role in preventing the genesis of a modern industrial economy, and diminishing the status of all workers?

     A deluge of advice has followed the mountains of mud unleashed. We see no use in adding to the sludge, except to say, that the same criminals who have hijacked the economy will continue their dance as they have done for the last many centuries, until and unless… And this brings us back to the rest of the bishop’s convoluted message:

Nations in economic crises are nevertheless compelled

to turn to global organisations like the IMF…

The suspicion, that such organisations eventually ‘grow’

ailing nations into feeder forces for empire economics,

is not unfounded…

*

Now, again, the Bishop – schooled at Royal College, Colombo, & Oxford, England (2 institutions that have done great damage to this country), has to resort to the dastardly passive voice – ‘Nations… are compelled.’ By whom & by what?, the precious prelate cannot utter. Though he is right about their loan-sharking propensities…

*

‘There is in capitalism an immanent tendency to stifle,

suffocate & push back the full realization of the

developmental potential of rival capitalisms’

SBD de Silva (see ee Focus)

*

This week saw the IMF promise ‘emergency’ funding to the country, which the USA’s own dollared thinktanks and scholars (see ee Quotes, Sharking) warned would plunge the country into deeper debt. The week also saw 121 foreign ‘economists & academics’ (see ee Focus) call for ’significant debt cancellation – with no punitive conditions – to free up fiscal space for disaster recovery, social protection, reconstruction & development’.

     Now the reason we call them ‘foreign’ is not just about their domicile but also their epistemological & ontological positioning (EOPS!). It is their failure to understand 2 fundamental tenets. The IMF is based & is run by & for the US government. The USA as the premier capitalist state & principle conductor of that murderous orchestra, we tag ‘The Concert of Whiteness’ (including ‘honorary whites’ like Japan et al), like the other imperialists before them, would never allow the country to develop its own economy. All attempts at moral suasion (as daily ‘casters as the Sachses & Meersheimers, promoted by so-called social media, purport to do), will fail. Those who whinge about the ravages of microfinance, fail to point out that these financial institutions (& related envoy) are backed by foreign exporters’ associations, which themselves are front for their industries who wish to push their products on our countries.

*

• So why has capitalism been able to prevent industrialization in Sri Lanka, as a non-settler colony? And how were settler colonial countries[ like South Africa, the US, and Canada able to industrialize? Capital seeks to oust rival businessmen, recorded SBD de Silva, which he called:

‘The very basis of the central contradiction in capitalism arising

from the appropriation of surplus value by fewer & fewer

capitalists while the production process is increasingly socialized’.

ee Focus continues SBD de Silva’s Chapter 5 from his classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment. Here he recorded how, as in the USA (1776), South Africa (1899) and Rhodesia (1968):

‘The most difficult struggles of the imperialist countries

since the 18^th century had… been with… their own settlers.‘

He pointed out that there were, as in Sri Lanka:

‘Conflicts between the mother country & expatriate investors

in the nonsettler colonies [but they] were not serious – these investors

had their permanent interests in the metropolis & were

a segment of the metropolitan bourgeoisie.’

*

The USA, England & the EU are again promoting fascism and rearming their proxy-tutes. They are attacking rival ships in a shadow & not-so-shadow war, including off Sri Lanka. Fascism was first tried & tested in the ‘normal’ course of colonial expansion in Asia, Africa & the Americas. Joseph Kennedy, the Irish kassipu-dealer who made his mints during the so-called prohibition era, as US Ambassador to England, 1938-40, ran to President Franklin Roosevelt, breathlessly declaring: ‘Fascism is the cure of Communism’. So would the USA listen to these 121 ‘economists’? If they really feel injured by what they say, the US may deport these ‘aliens’, many of whom are living on their soil, uttering fatuities.

     Would a Lenin be moved to describe these 120 economists as ‘sniveling liberals’ who want all the good things in life (& not just for themselves, for us too) yet offer panadols & palliatives, and yet do not mention the need & a plan for modern industrialization (which alone can assure food & health security). Nor do they point out how the IMF program is mainly fixed on preventing investment in modern industrialization? Nor do they offer a program & plan or describe the diversion, isolation, vituperation, sabotage, incarceration, torture, and assassination of progressive forces, especially those strains that call for modern industrialization.

     This last week’s paeans to 90 years of Samasamajism, failed (with the exception of the Communist Party of SL) to recall the attempts (albeit inadequate) to industrialize the country. Do they call for a proletarian party that could counter the ‘White Russians’ (counter-revolutionary forces) and build a bridge to a transitional program (NEP), i.e., a narrow yet sturdy steel stairway to heaven? Would a Stalin direct them to a sobering Siberia to build the Arctic railroad to urgently link Northeast & Northwest Asia? Would a Mao direct them to the villages to build rural industries, and show them how to wash their brains of such bourgeois dreams?

*

‘The cheque that made the difference – One donor sent

a cheque for Rs1,000 to the UN Resident Coordinator

Marc-Andre Franche. Touched by the gesture, he shared

a photo of the cheque on his X handle with the words,

‘Received this contribution from a private citizen for relief

to victims of #CycloneDitwah. I remain in awe of the

extraordinary solidarity between Sri Lankans. Sri Lanka

shines in times of crisis, & @UNSriLanka & the international

community is here to accompany & stand together.’

(see ee Industry, Starlink to DMC’s rescue)

*

‘The question is why the UN is setting up

a parallel funding channel at all’ (see ee Focus)

*

• ee Focus also reproduces an interesting take on the game the white underlings of the United Nations (especially the ‘Concert of Whiteness’) are playing to undermine the role of a state (whose present government is bending backwards to appease them) in disbursing aid for reconstruction. Such a hijacking also took place after the 2004 tsunami, we learn.

‘One explanation lies in the UN’s own financial distress.

Its global budget is under unprecedented strain, weakened

by chronic nonpayment from major contributors.’

The author of the criticism takes on the voice of a whining schoolboy who, after passing every examination and dutifully followed the rules, is ignored for school ‘colors’. As evident in the UN agent Franche’s patronizing drooling above, the anonymous author does not seem to understand: their aim is to dismantle the state and only have it serve imperialist needs.

*

• Born-again USAID – Contrary to the claims of certain eager though mercantile nationalists, that the USA is dismantling USAID and its more craven machinations, it turns out that they are simply ‘streamlining’ the process to align more sharply with their more urgent imperialist objectives. It is therefore instructive to learn that the USA is once again signaling the replacement of their current always-leaving never going-envoy Julie Chung. Chung was sent to put a wrinkled yellow mask on their attempt to overthrow (& possibly assassinate) a popularly elected nationalist (tho still seeped in mercantilism) President. She has so far failed to accomplish the latter. However, it is her predecessors, Robert O Blake (2006-9), Patricia Butenis (2009-12), Michelle Sison (2012-14), Andrew Mann (2014-15), Atul Keshap (Aug 2015-18 July), and Alaina Teplitz (2018-21), who oversaw the undermining of a terrorism-defeating ruler (even as the world’s leading terrorists remain at large), the bribing of the 2015 elections, foreign currency deregulation and the ISB binge, all of whom accelerated the process of destabilization already in motion…

*

‘The Pentagon’s collaboration with Hollywood – documented

in more than 2,500 productions – ensures that people in the

US learn history through films like Saving Private Ryan (1998)

rather than through scholarship (Pentagon operates Hollywood’s

largest film subsidy program – providing free equipment, locations

& personnel in exchange for script approval rights & an ‘accuracy’

review. More than 2,500 productions have been shaped by this process.

US people learn history through Pentagon edits.’ (see ee Focus)

This ee Focus continues Roy Singham’s breathtaking and meticulous recounting of Victory in the World Anti-Fascist War (WAFW). Here we learn how Hollywood has steadfastly ignored the USSR’s & China’s huge sacrifices, while promoting ‘D-Day’ myths. They also ignore how the same corporations that had once done business with Hitler & Hirohito came to profit from containing socialism. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pumped tens of millions of dollars to secretly fund intellectual warfare against Communists: publishing over 20 magazines & organizing conferences globally. He shows how the FBI systematically spied on professors, and military contracts dominated university operating budgets…

*

‘New York is the most expensive city to live in the world.

For working class New Yorkers, whose inexhaustible

productivity throws off that tremendous energy that defines

 the aura of the city, New York is often a nightmare.’

(see ee Workers, Mamdani for Masses or Masses for Mamdani?)

We finally come to end of Gustavus Myers’ History of Tammany Hall, the secretive political machinery that ruled New York (and still does in other guises). In this, his last chapter (1914-17), Myers takes an abrupt U-turn after 35 chapters of vehement & detailed opposition to a corrupt coterie, and begins to praise New York’s ruling class. What happened turns out to be what exactly has been taking place today with so-called intellectuals (including the darker ones) in the white world, who have become ardent critics of socialist countries (China, Cuba, etc) as well as opponent of those countries that do not toe the imperialist line (Russia, Iran). They have been bribed as well as (their tenures & visas) threatened. As Canadian Communist Stanley Ryerson notes in his introduction to Myer’s History of Canadian Wealth Canadian Wealth (a seminal introduction to Canada’s settler ruling classes): 1914 was ‘to mark the limit of Myers’ political & intellectual advance. His radicalism faded in the face of the imperial onslaught of the world war years.

     After 1914 he appears to have shrunk not only from any further deepening of his theoretical conceptions, but even from the position he had reached. WW1 thus led to a basic reversal of direction, including a break with the Socialist party. Most of the muckrakers: ‘fell short of completing their work. They retreated in the face of organized business’s attacks, and they broke down completely in their first experience of international affairs’ (Lewis Filler). It was ‘the debacle.’ In 1914, the world war stopped Myers’s theoretical development towards Marxism in its tracks. The liberalism that had been his initial starting point, that he never wholly abandoned, now reasserted itself. He was not the only Socialist for whom, in those years, advance became retreat…

     Myers, who served on government information & shipping boards in the war years, was to produce, in his 1925 History of American Idealism, what amounts to an unabashed apologia for US imperialism: the Spanish-American war, Panama, the Philippines are dealt with in a chapter entitled ‘Liberty for Other Lands’! Further on one reads: ‘In the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine and in the Spanish-American War the world saw 2 great examples of America’s transcending localities and boundaries and unselfishly acting for the well-being & interest of other peoples. In the World War this concern for humanity was extended to cover every continent.’ Myers’s later works, on hereditary fortunes and on bigotry, are those of a cautious liberal reformer. He died in New York City on December 7, 1942…’

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Notes on 1823-40 SL Plantation History:

• 1823 – Jan 31: George IV-in-Council issued an Order on for the ‘trade of Ceylon’. English wool, cotton, iron & steel goods to be imported to Ceylon by English or foreign ships. The import duty increased by 50% unless the foreign country allowed Ceylonese goods in English ships at the same tariff as its own shipping. Competing foreign goods would be confiscated. Ceylonese exports loaded to foreign ships would be charged ‘8% ad valorem’ more than the duty charged to English ships, unless reciprocity was permitted. Feb 9: After an earthquake occurred near Mahara, northeast of Colombo, the English received reports of unrest in Nuvarakalaviya & Hevaheta, led by Bhikku Ratmale Unanse. March 5: Governor Brownrigg wrote Earl Grey, Colonial Secretary, and promised to ‘suppress rebellion with promptitude & economy’. Brownrigg blamed 6 or 7 lower-class chiefs, who ‘had not submitted’ in 1818. The English sent Malay troops from Kurunegala & Trincomalee to Nuvarakalaviya. Heroic Bhikku Ratmale Unanse was arrested. The English stationed African soldiers at Anuradhapura. May: Another report on attempts at insurrection by chief (Kosvatte Raterala) & 3 Bhikkus led by Kahavatte Unanse in Matale, trying to install a new king, Kritsna Retty. 5 Aug: Kahavatte Unanse & Kosvatte Raterala executed. 13 other chiefs exiled to Mauritius. All lands & goods were confiscated. They removed the yellow robes of the priest before they hanged him, to ostensibly prevent ‘disgrace to the religion’. Oct: The English still sensed ‘evil designs’ in Nuvarakalaviya. Dec 9: The Kandy Road Tunnel was completed.

     • Colonel Henry C Byrde made Commandant of Kandy. His brother George Bird set up in Sinnapittia, Gampola. 1834 – Col Byrde’s son Lt Colonel HC Byrde of the Ceylon Rifle Regiment set up one of the first agency houses in Kandy. Land Robbery: Col Byrde grabbed 200 acres in Gampola; Edward Barnes (Colonial Governor, 1824), 100 acres in Kandy; Governor Mackenzie took 2,144 acres. 1823-32: ~13,000acres given away to ‘prospective planters’. The English commander of the armed forces, Anglican archbishop, government agent (GA George Turnour, who with a local tavern rentier translated a highly excised 5^thC chronicle, The Mahavamsa) all joined the ‘coffee set’ (1827: 1.8mn pounds of coffee exported).

• 1840 –English slaver Robert Boyd Tytler arrived in Lanka bringing his ‘expertise’ in the ‘West India System’ of coffee planting in Jamaica. He brought a copy of PJ Laborie’s Coffee Planter of Santo Domingo (1798) which became the authority on ‘plantation development’, excerpting extracts from it in the Ceylon Miscellany Vol2 (1842) without changing the word ‘negro’. Laborie wrote: ‘Punishments must be certain, immediately inflicted, proportionable to the fault, and never excessive. Racks, tortures, mayhems, mutilations, and death are reserved for crimes of an atrocious nature, and fall only within the province of the public magistrate: through perhaps more speedy executions, and particularly on the spot, would have more striking effect.’

     • Thomas Skinner wrote to governor about demand for land, ‘the fevered cry is ‘where shall I go for land’.’ He recommended 200,000-300,000 acres of ‘the finest forest-land in Ceylon within the wilderness of the peak’. ‘How are we to get at it?’ – Maskeliya, Dimbulla, & Dikoya…(excerpts from Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta’s Very Personal Ingrisi History of the World) 

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Contents:

Anglican Bishop Nails the Tea Plantations for the Floods