The liberal Malaysia:
PUTRAJAYA: Consumers can expect major changes in the demand and supply mechanism, including doing away with controlling the prices of essential goods, said Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Shahrir Samad. [Price controls may go. The Star. March 25 2008]
The welfare state Selangor:
In his first Press conference as Selangor Mentri Besar today, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim made two key announcements: the first 20 cubic metres of water is free to all Selangor households from April, and the eve of polling day water treatment plant deal between Puncak Niaga Holdings Bhd and Selangor Government is lopsided to the concessionaire’s advantage. [Khalid announces free household water and lopsided water deal. New Straits Times. March 17]
It is tough being a libertarian in Malaysia. On one hand PKR is liberal in its social outlook and BN sits on the conservative seat. On the other hand, PKR is running on left-wing-based economic policies while BN adopts the more liberal (read: better) ones, the NEP notwithstanding.
Libertarians living in the US also face the same problem: PKR is analogous to the Democratic Party while BN is similar to the Republican Party. One pseudo-idiom may help: the American eagle needs both its left wing and its right wing to soar.
Bah! What we need is a libertarian party to party — Lionel Richie, anyone? — all night long with cool gun-wielding chicks! Enough of dilemmas and lame llamas. We do not need them.
11 replies on “[1603] Of liberal Malaysia, welfare-based Selangor”
No country practices pro-market or pro-socialism absolutely. The most important question is that what policies / action that will benefit people in the short term & long term. There’s no magic wand. Water is scares product, if u subject this “product” to pro-market principles, half the population would be in dire straits. Capitalism & Socialism are economic philosophies NOT ECONOMIC gospels.Just like NEP, its not a Gospel as some people project it. It’s just a policies, with clear objectives & goals to benefit the disadvantage portion of society. I think its important to try to find a good balance.
[…] Khalid administration recently announced its intention to provide the residents of the state with 20 m3 of free water supply. The intention is noble but the sustainability of the policy is in doubt. While Selangor does […]
i mean seriously, am i the only one with a sense of humour? :|
haha :)
John,
BN actually has pursued free market policies. For instance, the liberalization of the financial sectors (the sudden increase of foreign banks in Malaysia in recent years is a proof) as well as the opening up of the retailing sectors (TESCO has been allowed to enter and soon, Wal-Mart). They have promised to liberate the automotive industry (though admittedly, the liberalization is slow)
Oster,
Indeed, there has never been a party calling for small government. But my message is that, BN is relatively more pro-free market than many others. The word relative is important in our discussion.
On liberal, I suggested none so ever of “a simple linear relation between regulatory strictness and economic prosperity”. Even liberal policies have regulations. And indeed, government is not the only source of market distortion. That is granted. But the point is, it does when it pursues welfare policies and within our context, the free water policy.
I’ve never seen a single party in Malaysia preaching Small Government. BN’s initial policy announcements are always vague and no conclusions can probably be concretely drawn from any new price control (there WILL be controls, because as said, no one at the top believes in Small Government).
As for your assertion that liberal means better, I would object to any notion that there is a simple linear relation between regulatory strictness and economic prosperity (collective economic prosperity perhaps). Government is not the only source of market distortions.
cheers
Well, I suppose my perceptions are kind of biased because the first political people I heard speak of the free market in Malaysia were from PKR. I cannot say much about the DAP’s stance either pre-Tony Pua. However, I think PKR has never been quite clear in what it wants to do economically – they have two competing capitalist and socialist factions that have not quite triumphed just yet. Nevertheless, I was and am more optimistic about PKR simply because until Shahrir Abdul Samad came along, I never heard a BN politician espouse the free market, unless it served his purpose in allowing him to divert more government funds into his own pockets (as freeing up subsidy monies will do).
indeed, but i said in relative terms.
nevertheless, price control, subsidies, all that have seen gradual liberalization up until the months before the election. I don’t see how PAS and PKR would do those liberalization. Malaysia under BN still practice statist policies but it is more liberal from most others. I’m unsure how liberal DAP is though.
Hm, if you ask me, BN has been pro-big business, but that is not quite being pro-free market. Price controls, subsidies galore, willy-nilly granting of monopolies to cronies, five-year plans…
I believe BN has consistently been relatively more pro-free market compared to PAS and PKR. BN only halted those liberal policies when election was coming up to appeal to the masses.
DAP’s pro-market stance relative to its traditional social-democratic position is only a recent phenomenon. I think it started only after Tony Pua joined DAP.
The key word is relative because obviously, none actually come close to free market ideal because all of these parties frequently uses the state to achieve its objective. BN, despite its relative pro-market position, still maintain statist policies.
ppl once asked mahathir what books he liked to read.
tdm: oh, tom clancy, michael crichton, etc..
journalist: don’t you read any… intellectual books?
tdm: no. i leave that to anwar.
*
anwar = john: bla3 free markets bla3
tdm = nat: gun totting chicks??! hahahahahahahaha :)
Erm, BN only become pro-market post-election, when the two largest opposition parties won on manifestos promising more free markets. PKR is sort of backtracking on it, but it’s probably because they’re still too much of a “big tent” party. I suspect what we need is a PKR equivalent of the DLC (the more libertarianish wing of the Democratic party that people like Bill Clinton belong to).
Also, most privatisation and concession agreements in Malaysia are generally biased in favour of some government-backed monopolist or another. Hopefully PKR has enough brains to structure more competitive privatisation agreements and concessions.