Robber-baron Socialism to the Che Det Consensus.

We, who watched the news on TV3 yesterday, saw a beaming adviser to Proton. He has all the reasons to smile. Last week he stated Khazanah is not in position to retain its shares in Proton. A few of us already knew his game. He was merely paving the way for DRB HICOM to acquire those shares. We all know the end game of Mahathir. He wants to be the Malaysian ‘King’ Croesus. Croesus was a legendary king in a country known as Lydia in Asia Minor. He was fabulously rich it’s said that gold from the mines and sands filled up his coffers.

Allow me to tell a short story about King Croesus. You can Google about it but I am retelling in my own style. I hope he will suffer the same fate as the original King Croesus. When the Greek lawgiver Solon came to Lydia, Croesus displayed all his wealth and asked Solon to name 3 individuals who Solon regarded as happiest. Solon named 3 unknown persons and Croesus was expectedly angered and asked why he, with all his wealth wasn’t included in the 3. Solon answered how Croesus can be included as Croesus does not know what God has in store for him.

Shortly after the incident, Croesus consulted the Oracle of Delphi just as the Persian King Cirrus was embarking on his empire building. The oracle told Croesus that if he goes to war with Cirrus, he will cause the destruction of an empire. Croesus went to war and was defeated by Cirrus. The empire that was foretold was his own!

He is manipulating the business world, just as he is preparing the way for Ibrahim Ali to get into UMNO and contest in the next elections. It’s an open secret that Perkasa is backed by Mahathir, funded by Syed Mokhtar. And Najib is handling Perkasa sheepishly.

How do we respond to that? We must get rid of the party that declares is commitment to religion, race and nation. It’s none of that since 1988 when Mahathir kicked out the old UMNO. This present UMNO is just a pretender. The old UMNO fought for cause and placed complete trust in the whole rakyat. The UMNO pretender places its trust in only 3 million Malay members to the exclusion of the majority Malays. you are Malay only if are UMNO Malay. It’s a party by the members, from the members but for the chosen and anointed few.

The slogan for religion, race and nation is just a rhetoric repeated mindlessly by UMNO members. It’s just like the situation described by Franz Fanon in The Wretched Of The Earth- the downtrodden and marginalized peoples echo mindlessly the symbol of democracy- Parthenon, Parthenon until its reduced to just a barely audible..’thenon’. The significance of what the Parthenon represented is lost just as the slogan- ‘for religion, race and nation’ is reduced to a rhetoric and fiction.

The gap between that fiction and reality is getting bigger. But UMNO must defend the fiction nonetheless because it represents status quo. Status quo means the decadent life as UMNO leadership knows it. How can you give that away and let it go? Mahathir and Najib now want to retain the status quo even if it means selling the idea represented by now, only a fiction. UMNO’s ideology is an ideology of power and power must be retained because status quo needs to be retained. Hence, we must defend Putrajaya at all cost boomed Najib. All other interests are subordinate to the party’s interest.

When I asked the Oracle of Syed Putra, the alter ego of Tun Daim Zainduin, why TDM is doing this, he wouldn’t answer. So I remarked- is TDM still collecting? I remembered  very much a much earlier remark by the Oracle that Khazanah at one time was supposed to be the golden handshake to Mahathir. That was the reason why almost all the equity in big companies is concentrated in Khazanah’s hands. They were to be divested to private companies in line with the much exalted public-private sector partnership. It should be called collusion between the political elite and the business elite. You get therefore a plutocracy. If Mahathir cannot get Khazanah directly, he gets it indirectly through his business associates.

Now, read this. KERETAPI Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB) has been asked to assist MMC Corp Bhd to conduct due diligence on the national railway company. That was last year. The due diligence is important for MMC to decide if it wants to privatize KTMB. MMC plans to pump in some RM1 billion into KTMB and take over its operations. And KTMB was asked to assist them. Assist them means what? KTMB said, they have not received any instructions from the government to put the matter on hold. In other words, it’s an ongoing process. When will the takeover take place?

It’s not rocket science. When Dr Mahathir paves the way for MMC to take over is the answer. How can it recoup the huge investments or finance it?

You will remember the double tracking project from Gemas to JB has been delayed for 10 years. It will take off when MMC takes over KTMB and goes to the government to say, since they are the end user for that facility, we can build it ourselves. Maybe we team up with the Chinese to give face to China.

So how do you describe our economic system since the time of Mahathir? Talks about the smorgasbord of acronyms- ETP, PDP, NKEA, EPP all mean nothing. The system we have surely couldn’t be called a Singapore style autarchy- since any association with the little red dot in the south is anathema to Mahathir. So what do we have? A capitalist development state like Japan? Malay mysticism mixed with Market Economics?- that can’t be because Ibrahim Ali hates free market economics. Can it be a slow motion version of Soviet style economics- where the elite grabbed productive public assets for private gain? It looks that way- since Mahathir and Najib talk about welfare all the time, our economy should be called Robber Baron Socialism.

I prefer to call it a new model- the Che Det Consensus. It’s an economy built around practical, problem solving and technologically innovating model. Except its practical for the business and political elite, solves the problem for the robber barons and masking under the guise of technological innovativeness. Hence you have the fashionable phrase of unlocking value, releasing potential….. ad nauseam. The hired lackeys and running dogs of the Che Det Consensus are working overtime.