{"id":147612,"date":"2025-01-26T16:45:47","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T23:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=147612"},"modified":"2025-01-26T16:45:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T23:45:47","slug":"victorias-secrets-of-de-industrializing-debts-what-english-literary-festivals-never-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/01\/26\/victorias-secrets-of-de-industrializing-debts-what-english-literary-festivals-never-tell\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria\u2019s Secrets of De-Industrializing Debts: What English Literary Festivals Never\u00a0Tell"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
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blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 19-25 January 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ceylon Chamber of Commerce<\/em><\/strong>. Actually England\u2019s Chamber\u2026Yes, despite the name, it is not<\/em> <\/strong>a Sri Lankan grouping. It is made up of unrepentant and inveterate importers of foreign goods. Their commerce serves someone else\u2019s industry. Not ours. This Chamber is sponsoring yet another \u2018Economic Summit<\/strong>\u2019 titled \u2018Shaping Sri Lanka<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s Future: Transformational Growth<\/strong> Rooted in Sound Economic Policies.<\/strong>\u2019  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Then there is England\u2019s Overseas Development Institute<\/strong> (ODI) offering \u201927 actionable policy proposals\u2019 by 24 experts<\/strong>, in a book <\/strong>titled Sri Lanka: From Debt Default<\/strong> to Transformative Growth<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     But just what do they all mean by \u2018transformation\u2019<\/strong>? Replace the word \u2018development\u2019, with the word \u2018colonial\u2019 and you better get their idea. Overseas Colonial Institute<\/strong>. It is the old business of tea & tourism & transportation to transit lounges afar. Chambers of Commerce & Boards of Trade are all rusty colonial instruments<\/strong>, And they were all part of the English offensive<\/strong> launched last week, in their usual obstreperously unobtrusive modus operandi, hiding in plain sight. Touting debt-for-nature swaps. Meanwhile their troll armies & columnists are set to escalate attacks on \u2018Leftist\u2019 incompetence, as well as openly pooh-poohing<\/em> whatever deals the government has had to make with an elderly New Delhi and a buoyant Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Political and economic history in Sri Lanka only begins to make more sense if we glare at it as a long rigorous sentence of preempting modern industrialization and of hindering the formation of a class that enables any such advance. To put it more abstractly: our colonial history has always been about preventing capital accumulation and crippling a class that could enable capital accumulation. Capital accumulation?<\/em><\/strong> What is that<\/em>? It is more than money. It is about wealth that creates fresh wealth. And who may this class be? Our merchants & moneylenders have no interest in any such long-term endeavours. And one cannot expect the English-controlled media in Sri Lanka, as agents of the merchant, moneylender, and multinational banks & corporations (MNCs) in Sri Lanka, to tell us of what such a class could actually accomplish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So there was that garishly hued Anglo-literary affair <\/strong>led by the \u2018premier opium dealer\u2019 in Asia, HSBC<\/strong>, at the popular though defunded Colombo Public Library! The HSBC were irritably stealing a march on those effete litterateurs at that renovated (minus the defused canons) and overpriced Dutch Fort in Galle. The merchant bankers strode out of their closets. Peppered among the tired pallid Northern Anglo-Indian hacks were the perennial privatizers and their Advo Kata stipendiaries, plus that species of performative \u2018executives\u2019 <\/strong>performing as \u2018artists\u2019, spluttering smooth in those elevated tonalities and fatuous phraseologies usually discernible only in airconditioned nooks and crannies. (Who or what these executives \u2018execute\u2019<\/em><\/strong> is not exactly a popular subject for our mystifying mystery novelists.)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Summit includes English Standard Chartered<\/strong> Bank<\/strong>\u2019s Bingumal Thewarathanthri and Keell\u2019s Krishan Balendra, not to mention pharma-importer Hema<\/strong>\u2019s Kasturi Wilson. And the ODI (odious?) book includes the usual suspects (see Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>) <\/strong>one sees paraded perfunctorily across electronic screens and down news columns, as experts in unison demanding fungible conjugal rights with the IMF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Last week, that top official Englishman visited a Dutch \u2018World Photo\u2019 Exhibit at the Independence Square Arcade awash in gloss about Russian \u2018atrocities\u2019 against over-armed NATO. The Russians were perplexed how the thieving Dutch had gotten so snowy white in Sri Lanka? This tottering English envoy also met Colombo MP Mano Ganesan to discuss \u2018Malaiyaha Tamil issues\u2019. Then there was England\u2019s ICI-CIC announcement about the \u2018World\u2019s 1st<\/sup> Red Basmathi-type Rice\u2019. Cutting-edge, the English kaduva always are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The neo-English invasion continued this week with \u2018Artisanal Tea Importers<\/strong>\u2019 surveying the green plantations (even as Unilever is diluting our teas with their latest chemical cocktails). Oh yes, a turbaned English Trade Commissioner too was seen about \u2013 how exotic these newer Anglo-Saxons have gotten\u2026 Meanwhile, in a fit of petulant pique, the Planters Association<\/strong>, in order to keep avoiding payment of remunerative wages to plantation workers, points defensively at the country\u2019s \u20182.3 million agriculture workers\u2019, and wonders out loud why \u2018paddy farmers cannot also be given a monthly salary\u2026?\u2019 Like executives, perhaps. (see ee Agriculture<\/em><\/strong>, RPCs want state plantations to show the way)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     All these literary and oh-so English diversions are to try to make us forget not just history but the latest painful strangling daily economic twists of their astronomically growing debts, thanks yes to the IMF! As Tricontinental Research\u2019s Vijay Prasad says: From 1980 when Tanzania\u2019s leader Nyerere warned \u2013 \u2018Every few years, countries in the Global South go through the same cycle. After surrendering to the IMF & its debt-austerity regime, a deep crisis inevitably takes hold & leads to political turmoil<\/em>\u2019\u2026 no independent agenda has been possible\u2026\u2019 (sound familiar?) But now \u2013 \u2018The emergence of China, and other Asian countries\u2026 as finance for industrialization in the Global South has tilted the balance of forces for developing countries<\/strong>. Now, they no longer have to rely on the IMF<\/strong>\u2026 No country has developed without modern machine industry<\/strong>, and \u2013 as far as we can tell in our time \u2013 it is not possible for any country to develop without building up its industrial capacity<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Meanwhile, \u2018UNCTAD\u2019s A World of Debt<\/em>, shows us that global public debt is at a \u2018record high\u2019<\/strong> of $97trillion<\/strong> (2023)\u2026 in developing countries and \u2018has grown twice as fast as in developed countries\u2019 since 2010. \u2026for decades, Global South countries have been told by institutions like the World Bank & IMF<\/strong> that the only way to climb out of debt is to borrow<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 ie, take on more<\/em> debt<\/strong>. In 1998 the Wall Street Journal<\/em> wrote bluntly that the IMF \u2018has not been fighting financial fires, but dousing them with gasoline<\/strong>\u2019. (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     So, while we burn in their debts-on-debt fires, they want us to join their \u2018fireside chats\u2019 (in AC-d rooms) to try to douse it with a little bit more tea and light literature, anyone??<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The Useless Arts?<\/strong> \u2013 This ee Focus <\/em><\/strong>looks at the doings of the ostensible founder of US industrialization, Alexander Hamilton<\/strong>, who planned \u2018raids\u2019 on England\u2019s industrial secrets<\/strong>, famously declaring, \u2018Do as the English do, not as they say\u2019<\/em>. The English treated their \u2018economic discoveries\u2019 as \u2018precious state secrets\u2019, outlawing the export of machinery and banning the migration of skilled mechanics. This was a time when the USA was not \u2018yet in full possession of workmen, machines & secrets in the useful arts<\/em><\/strong>.\u2019 Of course, the US now vigorously joins in those English tunes of exclusion\u2026 Which makes us wonder, what the \u2018useless\u2019 arts<\/strong> may be? Perhaps England\u2019s Hongkong & Shanghai Bank (HSBC) can now tell us\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ee <\/em><\/strong>also continues the attempt to depict Sri Lanka\u2019s ancient historical links with China<\/strong>, which peaked during the 8th<\/sup> century Tang Dynasty. Sri Lanka was building some of biggest ships in Indian Ocean, with the powerful Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya in what\u2019s now Indonesia. The tales of such famous travelers as the monk Xuan Zhuang, who traveled along the northern Silk Road and eventually further south to Lanka, gave rise to the Chinese classic \u2018Monkey King\u2019 novel Journey to the West<\/em>. Buddhist learning in Sri Lanka, its important texts and leading teachers were the main attractions for some Chinese pilgrims as cited by I-Ching\u2026(see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was one of SBD de Silva\u2019s favourite questions:<\/strong> He would ask \u2013 as if he already knew the answer, as if he was just verifying his suspicions or conclusions, or perhaps as if testing the listener\u2019s dedication to analysis & transformation: \u2018What enabled<\/strong> US-occupied Korea (UoK)\u2019s industrialization?<\/strong>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     He would dismiss our ready, relatively thoughtless, or automatic answer: US colonialism!<\/em><\/strong> After all, there are 130 US bases stationed in occupied Korea, and those 40-50,000 soldiers have urgent industrial and biological needs. Did SB feel UoK was not really industrialized?  He would point to the UoK\u2019s huge shipbuilding industry. He would speak of the role Japan played in developing Korea\u2019s agriculture, cementing channels for rice cultivation (in order to provide less-expensive food to feed Japan\u2019s industrialization).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> examines the Heavy-Chemical Industrial (HCI) policies<\/strong>, their origin in the 1972 coup-d\u2019etat by General Park Chung-hee, and their demise with his later 1979 assassination. Those policies directly targeted certain industries, and nonetheless shifted Korean manufacturing into \u2018more advanced markets\u2019. The writer echoes the prejudices of the imperialist historiography of Korea (all but ignores the example of an industrialized north \u2013 DPRK!), but places the UoK\u2019s policies midst increasing militarization and offensive actions, including US President Richard Nixon declaration that \u2018the US would no longer provide direct military support to its allies in the Asia-Pacific region\u2019. Heavy industrial policies<\/strong> were seen as key for military-industrial modernization<\/strong>, and pursued despite the \u2018scepticism<\/strong> by foreign lenders\u2019 such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF<\/strong>), the US Agency for International Development (USAID<\/strong>), and several European nations. The article provides a rather extended but related excerpt of a bibliography of references to those HCI policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 Financial Times<\/em> columnist WA Wijewardena (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>) has taken to listing those economists who have at least feebly challenged certain capitalist orthodoxies, like the joys of \u2018the market\u2019<\/strong>, ignoring that large multinational banks & corporations clog its arteries. He quotes Kautilya calling merchants thieves<\/em>, and others who did not see the milk of human kindness as flowing unmetered in the workings of capitalism, such as Adam Smith, and Thorstein Veblen and Ken Galbraith and Joe Stiglitz. And JM Keynes, too. The problem is with just talking about Keynes as some benevolent, while ignoring how a large part of his \u2018welfare\u2019 schemes was for boosting the war machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Apparently, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva was in Davos<\/strong> this week, reminding another set of chosen people about Keynes\u2019 optimism in 1930:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I predict that both of the 2 opposed errors of pessimism which now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

make so much noise in the world will be proved wrong over time: the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

pessimism of the revolutionaries<\/strong> who think that things are so bad that<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nothing can save us but violent change, & the pessimism of the<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

reactionaries<\/strong> who consider the balance of our economic & social<\/p>\n\n\n\n

life so precarious that we must risk no experiments.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However, what followed Keynes\u2019 good cheer was a huge Depression in the biggest economies, the rise of Fascist & Nazi forces, and World War 2, and 60 million killed\u2026 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Davos 2025: Trump v Von der Leyen \u2013 Michael Roberts)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The US embassy in Colombo\u2019s lip-service EconomyNext<\/em>, an online business tickertape, largely written by rusty robots it seems \u2013 considering the number of nonsequitors and odd mistakes they make \u2013 alongside their routine sermons and flaccid invective against \u2013 take your pick! \u2013 state-owned enterprises, import substitution, money printing, etc\u2026 \u2013 has taken to hitting Sri Lanka via Bolivia, accusing both of some macroeconomic demeanour, as seen from the heights of Mont Pelerin via Washington DC. Several new items, the latest headlined: \u2018Bolivia blames supply factors Sri Lanka-style for 9.97% inflation in 2024<\/em>\u2019 also hits out at NATO\u2019s most-favored demons: \u2018In 2024, so-called blockades linked to ex-Presidenet [sic!] Evo Morales, who is embroiled in a case over sexually abusing<\/strong> a minor\u2026 Bolivia had been printing money and running out of reserves\u2026 Bolivia\u2019s central bank has gone to the IMF 20 times\u2026 Bolivia has a Leftist government which came to power as the commodity bubble was fired in 2006, amid protests over petroleum privatization. After nationalization, gas production had gradually petered out.\u2019 Such is the quality of business journalism! It is no surprise the merchant media have taken to rewarding themselves with even more lavish awards & prizes & trophies \u2013 all of which can be ordered online from you-know-where, complete with printed honors & honorifics\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 The Rockefeller family\u2019s Exxon Corporation wields influence over both local & foreign US policy. When US President Don Trump<\/strong> cries out, \u2018Drill, Baby, Drill\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, he is not just invoking a caricature of 1960s Black radicalism \u2018Burn, Baby, Burn\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u2026, but also moistening the wettest dreams of the oil & mining corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Last week, one of the USA\u2019s longest imprisoned political leaders, Leonard Peltier<\/strong> (now 80 years old) was told almost 50 years later, he could serve out the rest of his sentence in his home on an \u2018Indian reservation\u2019 in the Dakotas, starting on February 18. While his many supporters around the world wonder if the ailing Peltier will make it home alive, this \u2018commutation\u2019 (for being accused, with only falsified evidence, of killing 2 US undercover FBI agents) \u2013 was one of demoted US President J Biden\u2019s last acts \u2013 along with rather intriguing \u2018pre-emptive<\/em> pardons\u2019<\/strong> of his supporters involved in trying to jail his opponent, D Trump. What balm was Biden applying to assuage the guilt of his fellow genocidaires?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Leonard Peltier was sent to prison after the US invasion of Wounded Knee, midst the US government\u2019s COINTELPRO campaign of assassination & jailing<\/strong> of the leaderships of the American Indian Movement (AIM<\/strong>) & the Black Panther<\/strong> Party (BPP). The US Vice President at the time was Nelson Rockefeller, who in the decades previous had been Governor of New York, ordering the massacre of prisoners at Attica penitentiary in August 1971.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Peltier\u2019s release (after 2 hospital stays last year) was curiously signaled by a letter from an \u2018Indian front\u2019 (NDNs) of the Rockefeller Foundation, 3 days before Biden\u2019s \u2018pardon\u2019. Nelson Rockefeller had also notoriously ordered Diego Rivera\u2019s murals removed from the walls of the Rockefeller Center because they depicted Lenin! He had vacated the MoMA presidency, 1940-46 to work as President Franklin Roosevelt\u2019s Coordinator of the Office of Inter-American Affairs, where he was made intimate with the CIA\u2019s covert training of terrorists & torturers<\/strong> in the Americas. He was also assistant secretary of State for US Republic Affairs under Harry S Truman, as well as Undersecretary of Health, Education & Welfare (HEW) under Dwight D Eisenhower. Nelson Rockefeller often spoke of the need to develop a Black Bourgeoisie<\/strong>. He died in 1979, just as Leonard Peltier was beginning what ended up as being entombed for 50 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     An entire generation of US political prisoners and their stories have been tightly locked away\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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_________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Victoria\u2019s Secrets of De-Industrializing Debts: What English Literary Festivals Never Tell<\/a><\/blockquote>