If the shoes don’t fit, you must discard!

 

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!

I would like to see ordinary Bumi-Puteras wear the shoes of the puteras- putera bangsawan, putera raja, putera UMNO etc. experience how it feels to have the power. You have the full force of legislation to prevail on others.

I am sure that wish will be rejected. Similarly we want to reject an economic policy that has failed to uplift the ordinary Malay. I feel like echoing Johnny Cochran's- if it doesn't fit, you must acquit to translate into, if it has failed, you must reject! If the shoes don't fit, you discard.

Why should we believe that a specific economic policy that has failed to uplift the Malays can work if it is now applied with added intensity? Yes I am talking about that piece of legislated economic solution to help out the Malays- the new economic policy. We are now arguing like Khir Toyo- the Malays are left behind because we failed to carry out more Islam, more Malayness and all those camel excretion arguments.

Since the 1970s, the government has forced the private sector to sell/give/transfer RM56 billion worth of equity in businesses that require licenses, quotas, permissions, monopolies etc. From that amount/value only RM2 billion is left. This has been confirmed by the PM.

What has that led to? It led to the creation of a parasitic elite eager to devour more at the expense of an adaptive and dynamic group of economic actors. Why should I agree to have this portion of the NEP fought for and retained? That portion of the NEP has not enabled the larger majority to benefit.

We should be treated as equals, we Bumiputeras. Our wants and desires are the same as those who inhabit the mansions in Bukit Tunku, Damansara Heights or even in Country Heights. The benefits must go to those best able to adapt themselves to external challenges. I mentioned adaptive- yes, its economic evolutionary process- survival of those elements that adapt to their environment.

Back to what's left of the RM56 billion. To me that only show that those Bumiputeras who were given the opportunities to become rich overnight, have cashed out. Let the government publish those who sold out and have them banned for life from having another chance to get freebies from the government.

The only aspects of the NEP that have benefited the Malays were those policies that involved land consolidation as in giving land to FELDA settlers, educational opportunities like giving those 3^rd graders at one time, opportunities to go to places like ITM then, or 2^nd graders for being able to go into 6^th forms. The policies of giving jobs to Malays in the public and private sector and policies regarding scholarship and other forms of financial assistance for education have benefited the Malays. They did because these policies build capacities and empower ordinary Malays to free themselves from shackles.

The problem is, when things go back we want to go back to control- central planning. Central planning means by fiat, by legislation. You legislate prosperity onto Malays, the special Malays that is. The Malays have political control and by virtue of that, they prefer central planning. I have news for my Malay friends, central planning is often practised by communist countries. If the habit of inferring guilt by association is still practised, I would have to say, the Malays are nearer to communism than the Chinese. The Chinese are basically enterprising and entrepreneurs and by virtue of that disposition, are inclined to free market and competition. Not necessarily because they like it, but they have to adapt and survive.

Malays like to play the role of economic commissars ordering this and that. But they themselves do not want to do what it takes to succeed. When we fail, we attribute our failure as a result of some underhand scheming and conspiracy that unite to do us in.

Milton Friedman once came to KL and gave a lecture at the University of Malaya. That was probably in 1963 when he and his wife were travelling around the world. He put forward the idea of the path towards progress by comparing the paths taken by Japan and India. Japan was forced to modernise and to adopt almost a complete laissez faire system. India on the other hand rebelled against free market and opted for central planning ideas. (Nehru was prime architect). The differing economic paths produced contrasting economic achievements and should be an object lesson to Malaysia. At that particular lecture, the moderator was a Malay professor who quickly retorted by saying, if we followed Japan, the Chinese will dominate us. We Malays can't allow that.

That explains the primal paranoia of Malays about having to compete. Just like their politics, they want to control economics. The only way they can control is to have more quotas, more licences, more regulations, and more economic commissars.

We have failed since 1970 to correct the economic imbalances between races. We have to examine the central command edicts that we have used- from NEP to picking winners as TDM himself did. It is curious that TDM should now assail the policies that he himself used in creating economic mandarins among the non Malays.