Shock Therapy to Reset the System
Note: A version of this article was published in the Friday Times.
Project Imran Has Necessitated Shock Therapy For Pakistan’s Politics
Top leadership of the PMLN failed to convince Asif Ali Zardari to boycott the 2018 general elections together. Zardari was of the view they should not leave the political field open and uncontested. He cited PPPP’s boycott of elections in 1985 that they still regret.
The matter was brought to the leadership of the PDM, but tables couldn’t be turned, and consensus regarding not boycotting the elections prevailed.
After that PMLN had a huddle to discuss whether to boycott the elections or not in their individual capacity. They knew for sure they wouldn’t be allowed to win. They had cogent evidence neither the establishment nor the courts were ready to listen to them. They feared they were doomed. Despite all the odds and omens going against them, the ‘doves’ …
طاقت کا اصول اور خانہ جنگی
A Charter of Economy for the People
Note: An edited version of the following article was published in the Friday Times on 20 January, 2023.
The continuing debate on a charter of economy was initiated by two of the largest political parties, PPPP (2011) and PMLN (2015).
But the civil society of Pakistan has taken the lead. A financial daily, Business Recorder, and an autonomous research organization funded by the government, PIDE, are contributing substantially and meaningfully to the debate.
The BR Research essentially focuses on the regulatory environment, and PIDE lays stress on the policy and sectoral sides of the economy.
A host of other economists and columnists, too, have done their bit or best. Some have charted it in detail what needs to be done in the longer and shorter terms, yet others what is to be done in the first place or gradually. Some write-ups have …
The state economy has failed itself and is trying to fail the civil economy also!
The state economy has failed miserably. It is collapsing under its own weight. And the debris is falling directly on the already-much-dented civil economy.
In case the state makes it happen, as it is trying to put all the burden of its own failures on the civil economy, that would be catastrophic.
And that would unleash a domino effect like situation and may cause anarchy and lawlessness in the society.…
Radical situations require radical solutions
The Essence of Economics
Living happily ever after economics
Almost all the economists and the state economists especially have a painting hanging at the back of their minds that displays a dream of living happily ever after against which they do their economics.…
Now listen to me!
Now instead of writing, I am posting my talks on various issues regularly on my YouTube Channel: Dr Khalil Official
Join the Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVSq4e_xHkgqoWAJ3swq6Eg
جو بائیڈن نے کیا غلط کہہ دیا؟
…
Rules for a Conversation
Note: Here conversation means any serious exchange of ideas between two or more persons.
Nothing in any manner has any reference to any person whosoever.
As I am interested in ethics also, by observing what usually happens in conversations at various fora from a chat between a few friends or acquaintances to a large organized meeting to various WhatsApp groups, I have tried to form and compile a number of rules that may help a productive and mutually beneficial conversation to pleasantly take place.
The following rules may serve in lieu of an ethics of a conversation.
- If someone considers a person not a free agent, there is no point in talking to and arguing with him. That’s the first prerequisite of any conversation.
- Not every comment is an invitation to debate. Even if it appears so, sometimes let it go unanswered, unrefuted. The heavens is not going to fall.
Two fears
One friend sent this excerpt from Oswald Spengler:
“This machine-technics will end with the Faustian civilization and one day will lie in fragments, forgotten — our railways and steamships as dead as the Roman roads and the Chinese wall, our giant cities and skyscrapers in ruins like old Memphis and Babylon. The history of this technics is fast drawing to its inevitable close. It will be eaten up from within, like the grand forms of any and every Culture. When, and in what fashion, we know not.”
Here is what I wrote in response:
I don’t know whether such doomsaying predictions have any basis in the dynamics of our society or not, but one thing quite evident from the prism of history is that humankind elevated itself form a very violent state of affairs to a comparatively peaceful state and of course it’s due to certain rules that they bound …
نظام ِفکر پہلے یا نظام ِاقدار پہلے
کیا کوئی نظام فکر نظام اقدار کے بغیر وجود میں آ سکتا ہے؟
اقدار پہلے ہیں، نظام بعد میں۔
یہ معاملہ بھی خود ایک قدر کی حیثیت رکھتا ہے۔
مثلاً شائستگی کو ملحوظ رکھنا پہلے ہے، سچائی کا اظہار بعد میں۔
لہٰذا اقدار مقدم ہیں، نظام متاخر۔
سو غور کیجیے آپ کا نظامِ فکر یا جس نظامِ فکر پر آپ یقین رکھتے ہیں، وہ اس ترتیب پر پورا اترتا ہے یا نہیں۔…
Economists and their Statist Solutions
The solutions economists put forward, such as to the (economic) problems/crises faced only by the state/government; I mean most of the economists, or almost all of the State Economists do that, and all of their solutions culminate in extracting more and more value or the wealth created by the entrepreneurs/citizens, i.e. that value and/or wealth that belong to them.
No such solution asks for the size of the government to be cut down, to be limited.
They always ask for more and more government, i.e. more and more taxes, etc, to be imposed on the people.
Are there no Civil Economists in Pakistan? But a few.
The civil economists focus on the (economic) problems faced by the citizens and seek/propose solutions to them.
That’s the thesis that my booklet formulates and elaborates.…
Main Ingredient’s of Economic Activism
In view of the massive taxes killing the economic life of ordinary citizens, Pakistani economists need to come out of their comfortable economic models and embrace the Economic Activism, some of the ingredients of which may be as follows:
Main ingredients of Economic Activism:
Radical solutions
Ready-to-practice solutions
Campaigning for those solutions
Activism for those solutions
Lobbying for those solutions
Meaningful sloganeering…
آج کے پاکستان کا تاریخی پس منظر – برَصغیر کے مسلمانوں کی دو بڑی تہذیبی قدریں – 1
…
Psychological and Philosophical Beings
What’s Danishwar Ashrafiya?
What ails Pakistan?
It’s the same ill that afflicts politics and economics in Pakistan.
Choosing winners and losers by employing unnatural methods.
In politics, it’s the establishment that does that.
In economics, it’s the governments that do that.
In both cases, the natural process of choosing winners and losers is thwarted.…
آپ شہر پسند ہیں یا ریاست پسند
میں ریاست اور حکومت کے نقطہء نظر سے لوگوں اور معاشرے کو دیکھتا ہوں تو میں ریاست پسند ہوں۔ اگر میں لوگوں اور معاشرے کے نقطہء نظر سے ریاست اور حکومت کو دیکھتا ہوں تو میں ریاست پسند ہرگز نہیں، بلکہ شہر پسند ہوں۔ اور تاریخی حقیقت بھی یہی ہے کہ لوگوں نے مل کر ریاست قائم کی اپنے تحفظ کے لیے۔ پھر حکومت بنائی تاکہ وہ ریاست کو چلائے۔ نہ کہ ریاست اور حکومت نے لوگوں کو جنم دیا۔ یہی وہ بنیادی اندازِ فکر ہے، جس سے ہماری سیاسیات اور معاشیات کا تعین ہوتا ہے۔
‘‘تیسری جنگِ عظیم کیسے ٹلی’’
فطرت میں جو کھیل تماشے ہو رہے ہوتے ہیں، وہ ہر کسی کی نظر میں آئے بغیر نہیں رہتے۔
ہم سب فطرت جو جو گُل کھِلا رہی ہوتی ہے، اس کی طرف متوجہ رہتے ہیں۔ اور اس سے لطف اندوز ہوتے ہیں۔
یعنی استعجاب ہمیں سب کو متاثر کیے رکھتا ہے۔ زندہ بھی رکھتا ہے اور متجسس بھی۔
گھر کی پہلی منزل پر جو برآمدہ ہے، اس کے آگے سائے کے لیے علاحدہ سے شیڈ بنا ہوا ہے۔
باہر گلی میں جہاں جہاں جگہ ملتی ہے، چڑیاں اپنے گھونسلے بناتی رہتی ہیں۔
بچوں نے سوچا یہاں گھر میں انھیں بنا بنایا گھونسلہ مہیا کیا جائے۔ تو اس شیڈ کے نیچے چھت کی دیوار کے ساتھ گتے کا ایک ڈبہ لٹکا دیا۔ سامنے کی طرف دروازہ بھی بنایا گیا۔ اوپر ڈھکنوں پر ٹیپ لگا دی۔
کئی مہینے یونہی گزر گئے۔ کبھی کوئی چڑیا یا چِڈا آ کر بیٹھ جاتا۔ اور پھر
Political Engineering =+ Economic Engineering
The political engineering has utterly failed and thrown the politics into a bottomless pit.
In the same way, economic engineering too has miserably failed and put the economic state of the people into a despairing helplessness.
What’s political engineering?
It’s the management of choosing political losers and winners disregarding the will of the people. That is, it tampers with the natural flow of the political process and everything related with it, in order to arbitrarily decide who’s going to be the winner and who the loser in an election or otherwise.
Now and then this or that political party or parties become complicit in this management of tampering with the political process or will of the people.
In short, political engineering is all about choosing winners and losers in politics anti-constitutionally and against the will of the people.
Who are the political engineers?
In the first place, and mainly, the …