The article has a lot of good points, such as the need for abolishing the executive presidency, and I think I've seen the author making these points elsewhere. I do have some reservations about its central claim though. The issue to me is the tacit assumption that the “stupidity” we are experiencing is somehow entirely divorced from “corruption”.
That may have been true immediately post-independence, when it was widely acknowledged that the government was largely free of corruption. Yet, 76 years later, here we are! So yes, it is very likely that stupidity was the antecedent for this mess.
However, now that we are here, I'm no longer sure it's possible to continue making the claim that "corruption is not the cause". It could now be argued that “corruption” is very much a cause in generating such monumental levels of stupidity. E.g. appointing friends and family to positions of power, appointments of incompetent public sector workers etc. etc. naturally generate an entire host of stupid economic decisions. Corruption seems to be serving as an amplifying factor for stupidity. The cause and effect are no longer separable, one feeds the other.
I suspect that it is asking for too much to imagine a sudden manifestation of “intelligent corruption” ala Tamil Nadu. Case in point - even in a bankrupt country - someone attempted to pull off the VFS global scam, the scale of which rivals the bailout money we receive from the IMF.
I think the reforms that are being suggested in the article are sensible, but corruption creates a level of inertia that makes any such reforms all but impossible? Therefore, I can't help but think the right thing to do is to indeed fix the corruption. That may create just enough breathing space to fix the stupid.
Thank you very much for reading the polemic so closely and and for sharing your thoughts. No disagreements at all that we need to fix the corruption, my concern is about setting expectations and priorities.
Agree that 'corruption' and 'stupidity' are not entirely unrelated and arguably even co-evolutionary. But even if we take the level of corruption as a given, its possible to have significantly better outcomes than we do currently. And its probably a lot easier fixing our ideas than fixing our deeply entrenched political economy of corruption. Therefore, even if they are inter-related / co-evolutionary, it may make sense to focus on 'stupidity' more than corruption'. And luckily, in many cases, there isn't a tradeoff between the two. For a deeper reflection on this point, Yuen Yuen Ang's How China Escaped the Poverty Trap is excellent.
All in all, at a time when anti-corruption is touted as a panacea, wanted to urge some caution on the latest cure-all.
The article has a lot of good points, such as the need for abolishing the executive presidency, and I think I've seen the author making these points elsewhere. I do have some reservations about its central claim though. The issue to me is the tacit assumption that the “stupidity” we are experiencing is somehow entirely divorced from “corruption”.
That may have been true immediately post-independence, when it was widely acknowledged that the government was largely free of corruption. Yet, 76 years later, here we are! So yes, it is very likely that stupidity was the antecedent for this mess.
However, now that we are here, I'm no longer sure it's possible to continue making the claim that "corruption is not the cause". It could now be argued that “corruption” is very much a cause in generating such monumental levels of stupidity. E.g. appointing friends and family to positions of power, appointments of incompetent public sector workers etc. etc. naturally generate an entire host of stupid economic decisions. Corruption seems to be serving as an amplifying factor for stupidity. The cause and effect are no longer separable, one feeds the other.
I suspect that it is asking for too much to imagine a sudden manifestation of “intelligent corruption” ala Tamil Nadu. Case in point - even in a bankrupt country - someone attempted to pull off the VFS global scam, the scale of which rivals the bailout money we receive from the IMF.
I think the reforms that are being suggested in the article are sensible, but corruption creates a level of inertia that makes any such reforms all but impossible? Therefore, I can't help but think the right thing to do is to indeed fix the corruption. That may create just enough breathing space to fix the stupid.
Thank you very much for reading the polemic so closely and and for sharing your thoughts. No disagreements at all that we need to fix the corruption, my concern is about setting expectations and priorities.
Agree that 'corruption' and 'stupidity' are not entirely unrelated and arguably even co-evolutionary. But even if we take the level of corruption as a given, its possible to have significantly better outcomes than we do currently. And its probably a lot easier fixing our ideas than fixing our deeply entrenched political economy of corruption. Therefore, even if they are inter-related / co-evolutionary, it may make sense to focus on 'stupidity' more than corruption'. And luckily, in many cases, there isn't a tradeoff between the two. For a deeper reflection on this point, Yuen Yuen Ang's How China Escaped the Poverty Trap is excellent.
All in all, at a time when anti-corruption is touted as a panacea, wanted to urge some caution on the latest cure-all.
Unfortunately we have anesthetized ourselves that graft is the main cause of Sri Lanka’s predicament. Your points are very true. Well said.
Great!!! Also please write on the privatization of the SOE