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Politics & government Society

[2864] The limits of non-voting analogy

People are starting to canvass for votes. The Malaysian general election is just somewhere around the corner.

But some are advocating a no-vote strategy and some others are proposing to go out and spoil their votes. All that to express dissatisfaction over the options they will likely face at the ballot box.

I can see some if not most of the no-vote and spoil-the-vote crowd are advocating their case by resorting to analogy. In a Coke versus Pepsi, they want something else not on the menu. Another that I notice is a group of sheep voting for either a lion or a wolf, both of which intend to have the sheep served as lunch. There are others which are absurd but all of these analogies are an attempt to present the low favorability of the likely realistic choices we face in our democracy.

Analogy can be useful in many ways. It is meant to clarify thoughts and sharpen messages. Some situations may be too complex to describe in full that an analogy provides a quick introductory comprehension.

But the use of analogy is no proper comprehension of reality, especially when there is a deeper logic at work. There are limits to analogy and going beyond the limits is an abuse. Proper understanding will need to go beyond analogies.

There are times when the actual situation can be explained simpler and more accurately without resorting to analogy. There are times when no analogy is appropriate and instead analogizing is an exercise in absurdity. In these cases, having an analogy do not clarify our thoughts or sharpen our message. It instead blurs and misrepresents the actual picture.

Analogy necessarily simplifies the picture. A good analogy simplifies by ignoring irrelevant details. A bad analogy simplifies by ignoring relevant details, and worse, by adding unrelated matters.

The limits of analogy, or rather the appropriateness of analogy can be tested by stretching it to its logical absurdity while at the same time, if the same is applied to the actual situation being analogized, no absurdity could be found. The divergence in absurdity between the analogy and the actual situation is a good test for a good analogy. In the analogy of sheep voting for either a lion or a wolf, would the sheep be safe if they refrain from voting? In the Coke-Pepsi menu, would non-voting mean either drinks would taken off the menu the next time?

The reality is that we are not sheep and we are not choosing either Coke or Pepsi, or sirap bandung either.

In Malaysian elections, in the real world beyond elementary analogy, not voting (especially in a situation where wasted votes associated with the weaknesses of first-past-the-pole system is a non-issue; sometimes voting can be meaningless too) would not exclude you from the consequences of political choices made by the majority. While the non-voting or the spoil-the-vote you would enjoy self-satisfaction for not being directly responsible for the choice made by the majority, and that somehow grants you some kind of self-perceived moral superiority, the consequences would still be imposed upon you. If you do refrain from choosing in this system of ours, somebody else would force you to drink the majority’s preferred drinks presented in the analogy.

If you like sirap bandung more than Coke, and prefer Coke to Pepsi, you would worse-off if the majority imposes Pepsi on you in a world of Coke versus Pepsi. There is no question of not drinking it unless you leave the system altogether, i.e. migrate out of Malaysia. The analogy does not capture this.

This is where analogy fails. They do not capture the essence of the real world and obscure the choices and its related preference.

But the general dissatisfaction over the choices available cannot be dismissed and indeed it points towards a larger institutional problem. Our current political and democratic process arising from gerrymandered FPTP system is deeply flawed. It is a sign of growing legitimacy crisis that our political system suffers. One solution is the introduction a new way of doing things, and one of them includes reforming our FPTP contest to some kind of proportional representation system where we will not be trapped in a practical binary choice. Now, who is likely to rock the voting system? The incumbent that benefits from the status quo, or the challengers who think the system is unfair?

But until such reforms happen, we are stuck in our current deplorable system. And what we need to do is to appreciate the complexity of our current system rather than simplifying it with elementary tools.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

Given the current confusing political situation in Malaysia, it is understandable why some voters are thinking of not voting at all. While I am pro-voting with clear preference due to my intention to test the Malaysian system’s ability to facilitate power transfer peacefully, to improve our institutions and due to my belief that power change is the best way to create a competitive and a fairer democracy, I appreciate the non-voting option.

The option off the ballot box tells various political parties that no voter should be taken for granted, and that the cajoling of potential must happen. Efforts at appeasing the voters must happen. Hopefully such appeasement happens at the policy dimension and not as crass as simple handouts. Non-voting is a good credible threat that must exist in a democracy so that the system does not become calcified in a bad equilibrium. For this reason, I am reluctant to berate (too much) those who plan not to go out and vote, however great the temptation is (although I am very much less sympathetic to the spoil-the-vote crowd for it is I feel a very anti-social tactics in the most social of democratic exercises: voting).

Nevertheless on the election day itself, I hope this class of voters would go out and vote eventually because our Malaysian equilibrium is truly horrible and it needs a good jolt. The status quo just will not do and there has to be attempts at changing it.

Categories
Books & printed materials History & heritage Politics & government

[2863] Reading The Malay Dilemma

Reading is a private experience that takes place within a personal bubble. It is one between you the reader and the author through his or her text. You can read in a group silently or aloud, but chances are most of the time it is a private experience.

During the time you spend reading, the text is your world and the author exercises an authoritarian control over your mind. He or she tries to convince you of something by explaining an idea, describing a scene real or otherwise, or even ambitiously trying to create another world to take your mind away from the real current life we all live in. You have no say for the bubble is not democratic. You can agree or disagree, politely or violently, but the author will always have the final say. Your immediate protestation would be heard by a deaf inanimate object.

Of course you are free to free yourself from the dictatorship, temporarily or for good. Temporarily because something else more urgent in nature is taking place like the likes on your Facebook, or for good because the author bores or disgusts you, or that you simply do not have the stamina to go through it. I have a book claiming to be a complete collection of Franz Kafka’s published work. Reading it mangled my mind so badly that I felt I was at risk of losing my mind. The private bubble of mine was beginning to detach itself from the real world and I was drowning at the shallow side of the river while watching someone, or something, trying to cross it in the most incomprehensible manner. I had to leave Kafka behind to preserve whatever left of my sanity. I would rather be left alone with Critique of Pure Reason instead of The Metamorphosis. Kant would help preserve your mind intact from rationalist assaults. Kafka would consume you whole.

But outside of the personal bubble, you are not free from the gaze of strangers. They may not know what exactly you are reading or thinking. You can create another bubble to exclude a third-party from observing you by reading at a private space, like in your room or at a carrel in a library. But reading can happen in public space too.

I read at various places to pass my time gainfully. These places include the trains during rush hour. While my mind would focus on the text, I sometimes do notice strangers peeking discreetly trying to identify the book I am reading. If our eyes accidentally met, they would pretend to look elsewhere. I sometimes can see judgment made.

I re-read The Malay Dilemma recently. Mahathir Mohamad the author in 1970 (and well, later the fourth prime minister of Malaysia, and if the stars align spectacularly, also the seventh) argued the Malays as a whole due to their feudal and rural background were too polite to fight for their rights and compete with others in the colonial industrial economy. More specifically, he wrote:

“…[W]hat is important, the Malays are told, is that Malaysia must prosper as a nation, and amateurs like them in business are not likely to contribute to this prosperity. All these arguments are completely true. If no impediment at all is placed in the way of total Chinese domination of the economy of Malaysia, the country would certainly be prosperous. The Malay dilemma is whether they should stop trying to help themselves in order that they should be proud to be the poor citizens of a prosperous country or whether they should try to get at some of the riches that this country boasts of, even if it blurs the economic picture of Malaysia a little. For the Malays it would appear there is not just an economic dilemma, but a Malay dilemma.”

The Malay Dilemma. 1981 edition

Mahathir had the book published when he was out in the political wilderness. Tunku Abdul Rahman kicked him out of Umno over policy differences: Mahathir was harshly critical of Tunku. The Malay Dilemma itself was first published just about year after the May 13 racial riots. Mahathir wrote it partly to explain why there were riots and partly to suggest ways to address the Malay discontent in the countryside.

It was a re-read because this time I felt I read it more critically, armed by other sources that better informed me of the 1920s-1960s conditions in Malaya and Malaysia, and also of the high colonial period. I read it with the relevant context in my mind. Books like The Malay Dilemma are always dangerous when read in isolation because its arguments are based on generalized racial stereotypes and if taken as unchallenged complete truth, it has the power to radicalize the mind towards the wrong side of the spectrum. Syed Husin Alatas in The Myth of the Lazy Native criticized many, including Mahathir, for accepting orientalist presumptions wholly and uncritically.

While Mahathir did accept and go far to justify the stereotypes, such as accepting the graceful Malays, to put it politely, as uncompetitive against the 19th-20th century migrants to Malaya, and the Chinese were greedy but intelligent, and the British efficient, the book is also more nuanced than that. It describes partially the economic picture of that time that fuelled Malay discontent. Sources like James Puthucheary’s 1960 The Ownership and Control in the Malayan Economy, perhaps Lim Teck Ghee’s 1971 PhD thesis Peasant Agriculture in Colonial Malaya or even the modern 2014 revisit on wealth by Muhammad Khalid’s The Color of Inequality, I think do corroborate with the picture of mass Malay poverty Mahathir painted. Kua Kia Soong meanwhile is more than happy to paint the whole of 1969 as a Malay peasant revolt, interpreted, perhaps, from communist (Marxist?) understanding of history. The then economic reality was a real contributor to Malay unhappiness that blew up in 1969 and which later gave rise to the 1971-1990 affirmative action policy, the New Economic Policy.

Indeed, deep in the book beyond generalization lies a Keynesian voice. Mahathir praised the free market system but pointed out what he considered laissez-faire market failings, which he believed, and still believes, necessitating state actions. The book not only has a Keynesian voice, but it has an egalitarian one as well spoken through a communal loudhailer. The Mahathir of 1970 showed himself as an integrationist. He almost achieved his dream in the 1990s with his Bangsa Malaysia, except that the means he used to achieve his integrationist dream were unlibertarian and at times felt contradictory.

Some of his solutions appeared reasonable. To pacify the Malay discontent and address the inequality between races, he wanted affirmative action mixed with meritocracy in education so that the Malays could join the modern economy faster. He wanted to urbanize the Malays so that ordinary Malay families would get exposed to the modern life rather than live isolated in the rural kampongs. He wanted to create Malay industry captains so that the Malays in the streets would have role models to look up to.

All three policy recommendations were carried out under his watch. Despite its failings, PTPTN and the mushrooming of tertiary institutions expanded education opportunities for the Malays. Wangsa Maju, Subang Jaya and many others were created as part of Malaysian urbanization that partly benefited the Malays. And then there were Halim Saad, Tajuddin Ramli, Yahaya Ahmad and many others who were Malaysia’s industry captains before the Asian Financial Crisis left the country in ruins.

His other suggestions were quite intrusive, based on extreme distrust of Chinese businesses and guilds. The suggestions included harsh price controls and frequent spot-checks. He went as specific as suggesting standardizing all weighing machines purely because he believed Chinese shopkeepers were cheating their customers.

Some fifty years on, some of his ideas are now obsolete. If I had the chance to sit with him, I would ask if he had changed his mind. Whatever the answers might be, this book is still crucial in understanding Mahathir’s mind.

And regardless of the validity of the stereotypes made by the Mahathir of the Malays and the Chinese, and also of the Europeans, these stereotypes did fuel discontent against the other among the Malays. These stereotypes cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. It had a real world impact on Malaysian politics, and it is true even today unfortunately. Timothy Harper in his 1999 book The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya, the book I am reading at the moment quotes The Malay Dilemma early: “those who say ‘forget race’ are either naive or knaves.”

But the book is mainly known for its stereotypes. Truly, The Malay Dilemma is like Romeo and Juliet. It is book that everybody has heard of, and everybody thinks he or she knows, but pretty much nobody has read it really.

It is not only the book that suffers such reputation. The reader reading it in the public too can suffer a stranger’s judgment. And I am a Malay, who read that book in the train where its passengers were of multiethnic composition

The occasional strangers’ gaze left me uncomfortable in the train. When I began the book, I noticed not the various ethnicities in the car. But while reading it, with those not sharing my skin color standing or sitting next to me, I felt uneasy. I should not feel so for I do not share Mahathir’s racialist worldview. Yet, I did feel uneasy.

That is the cost of reading in public space.

But such discomfort is perhaps less powerful than the political discomfort we live in now. So uncomfortable it is now that some plan not to vote at all in the upcoming general election, citing it as their rights to do so. The robots are so confused after being caught in a false equivalence fork, frozen to decisive inaction.

Categories
Pop culture Sci-fi

[2862] The Last Jedi and the balance in the Force

Star Wars Episode VIII reminds me of Hero, a Chinese movie set during the Warring States Period starring Jet Li. What I like the most about Hero is its offering of multiple perspectives of the same event. Each perspective details how different characters see and understand the same event differently, and how it leads to conflict. And if one reconciles all perspectives by listening to all sides without prejudice, one gets to a higher truth. In Hero, the truth is an authoritarian one but the conclusion from understanding those perspectives is so profound that I think a libertarian would submit to its truth (within the context of the film of course).[1]

Director Rian Johnson used the same trick in The Last Jedi to explore the conflict between Luke Skywalker and his nephew-apprentice Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. Johnson does not take the relationship for granted and takes time to explain it. The exploration blurs the line between good and evil that previously was so clear in Star Wars, suggesting as I understand the scene, that the relationship between Luke and Kylo arises out of an unfortunate misunderstanding. The conflict is told through three perspectives: from Luke’s, Kylo’s and then from Luke’s again but with further commentary augmented by Rey. The colors, the cuts and the narratives are so convincing that sometimes I wonder which one is the truth. Rey is so confused by the stories told by Kylo and Luke that she demands Luke whether he created Kylo on purpose. The confusion between good and evil even leads to an altercation between between Luke and Rey, a fight so convincing that as I sat in my chair, I began to wonder, is Rey turning? Is Luke a Sith? Who is the good guy here?

There is at least another scene where Johnson tries to blur the line. I do not remember the exact dialog but it is the scene when hacker DJ shows Finn that the same party supplying the First Order weapons is the same one supplying the Resistance equipment. DJ goes on to tell Finn to not get involve and be free.

But the mindblowing moment for me is the philosophical truth Luke discovered during his exile. As he trains Rey, he tells her all Star Wars fans knows since A New Hope: the Force is “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” But Luke goes further by explaining explicitly to Rey that is a balance in the Force and the Jedis do not own it. And since there is a balance, the light that the Jedis claim to defend must always come with the dark side. All this is not groundbreaking. But Luke’s conclusion is. He comes to the realization that if that is so, then the Jedis must not exist and the order must end.

Luke’s philosophy casts all of Star Wars films in a different light, forcing us to reassess what the whole franchise really means.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] p/s — I recently learned it was the Japanese film Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa that first used this technique.

Categories
Economics

[2861] The society (and the GDP) is larger than a collection of individuals

It is fashionable in certain circles these days in Malaysia to question the reliability of GDP as a measure of welfare. They say they do not feel GDP growth and they prefer something like household income or wage statistics to a measure that is hard to understand. The more extreme criticism goes to claim GDP is worthless.

A journalist recently called me up for a crash course in GDP, just after the release of the third quarter statistics. “Why would the GDP matter to the man on the streets?” She asked me in a combative tone, as if I was lying about GDP, as if I was part of a conspiratorial system.

But GDP has functions that wages and household income cannot fulfill, just as wages and household income play roles GDP cannot properly fit in.

Wages and household income describe individualized statistics. Its appeal to personal welfare is also its weakness: it does not describe much beyond the individuals.

If the world were all about the individuals and the things happening within the four walls of our homes, then wages and household income would be sufficient. But there are entities that exist outside that do not contribute to our incomes and wages directly. And yet, those extra-household activities bring benefits to us (and sometimes, not so).

For instance, if a robot owned collectively by a community of humans provides a service to the neighborhood for a nominal fee (or perhaps even at market price), and that the robot income is used for community improvement instead of being paid as dividend to individuals, it is not clear to me wages and household income would increase as a result. But that income would definitely be counted under GDP.

Or if you are a Luddite and dislike the example, consider a more traditional case. If a government-run business — like operating the trains — makes profit and pays dividend to public coffers while the government itself is running a fiscal surplus, that income would not translate into wages or household income. But GDP would take care of that income, taking it as income for the whole economy.

Granted, GDP has its issues but we have to be careful about making false dichotomy when in truth GDP, wages and household income (along with other statistics) play complementary roles within multiple contexts. There are times GDP is more useful than wage stats and there are times the reverse is true. A widening productivity-wage gap, for instance, can be worrying within the current system and headline GDP figures might not be as illuminating as wage/household income statistics. And there are times all are useful. A complete picture of the world would use all measures available.

To kick GDP out as worthless in favor of a more restrictive statistics centered purely on the individuals is to develop a worldview of selfishness, that the world is all about me, me and me while discarding the fact we live in a society. The society can be larger than a collection of individuals. And I say that as a libertarian.

Categories
Economics WDYT

[2860] Guess the 3Q17 Malaysian GDP growth

The Malaysian GDP has been growing strongly so far this year. So strong, that a lot of economists and institutions had to revise their 2017 projections significantly.

The growth has been partly due to consumption recovery that took a tumble thanks to the GST, and partly due to strong trade figures (though this is true for the second quarter only). You can see the actual contribution of each component to the GDP below:

Industrial production rose about 6.0%-6.8% YoY in the third quarter, which is quite respectable. The September numbers are not out yet but I do not expect it to be bad. The fourth quarter could be a different story with all the major flooding happening, especially in Penang which is an industrial powerhouse in Malaysia. And we are not yet done with November. I am unsure how the major Penang industrial spots are affected but it does not seem like the disastrous Bangkok-style 2011 flooding. But at the very least, several production days could have been affected just because of labor and commuting issues.

This monsoon season feels stronger than usual but I probably should look at the rainfall data first before making that statement. Unfortunately, data at the Met Department is… not really forthcoming. But this is one negative impact of climate change on GDP growth. Addressing climate change for Malaysia might not be easy since our emission contribution is not big compared to other countries, but we can do our part by keeping our jungle healthy and perhaps, institute a carbon tax or at least a tax on petrol.

Trade figures continue to be outrageously strong. Total trade has been growing at double digits since December last year. There is no temporary “base effect” and instead there is a level shift, as you can see in the second chart. More relevantly, net exports are strong too.

You might say, “but these are in nominal prices!” Well, the same level shift is also visible in export and import indices that strip price effect out. So, it is real (Get it? Did you get it?).

But the double-digit yearly growth on the nominal part will not last, and so this I agree with Mr Econsmalaysia. Eyeballing the levels, December sounds like the time when the double-digit growth phenomenon will end. But, that also means, Penang flooding notwithstanding, trade would likely have a positive effect on the GDP in the fourth quarter.

Anyway, the labor market and core inflation appear stable despite the relatively strong GDP growth so far this year. Meaning, no overheating yet.

The Department of Statistics will release the GDP figures on Friday. So…

How fast do you think did the Malaysian economy expand in 3Q17 from a year ago?

  • 4.5% or slower (10%, 1 Votes)
  • 4.6%-5.0% (10%, 1 Votes)
  • 5.1%-5.5% (20%, 2 Votes)
  • 5.6%-6.0% (40%, 4 Votes)
  • 6.1%-6.5% (20%, 2 Votes)
  • Faster than 6.5% (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 10

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