On Economic Numbers and Reality; Or GDP is just a bloody number!!!

Poorer, but happier

David Marshall's answer in an interview before he passed away, on how would Singapore have turned out had he been Prime Minister. (Not too sure whether this were his exact words, I can't find the quote online, may be someone can help me out here.)

The Magic GDP Number

"The Economic Imperative", to use the phrase taught to us by my Singapore politics and government professor. The ideology that all that matters is simply the economic bottom line. Every government policy in our nation is simply justified by the need for economic growth. Our GDP growth is trumpetted as our pride and glory.

But what does GDP actually mean? Its just the total amount of goods and services produced in a nation. GDP growth has often been cited as the justification for wanton immigration, and that if we don't have the massive immigration, we wouldn't have our GDP growth. But what's so glorious or great about economic growth achieved simply by increasing input? as a friend of mine once pointed out. Of course if you have more labourers, you would have more goods and services produced, what's so brilliant or great about having increased output simply because of increased input? Bah, and this is the sort of great strategies we pay our oh-so-wonderful army of PSC scholars to come up with. Good grief man!

But of course, the government fails to consider our society and culture as a whole. Sure, business profits from being able to hire lots of massive cheap labour, but what about thesocial costs of those labour? An artificially induced amount of massive population increase will of course cause stress in our public services: Our public transportation systems will not be able to cope with the massive surge in population, prices will be driven up as our economy inflates, making life harder for all. But of course all these are justified. Why? Because GDP have increased! More inflation, increase in economic numbers, more GDP, yay, yay, yay!

FUCK GDP!!!

Who cares if business corporations and such benefits from a massive supply of cheap labour? Of course they don't have to worry, they simply pass the social costs of these labourers down to the rest of us! Who cares if our magic number GDP has increased when life is harder for all? To hell with GDP growth rates!

And of course, our government did not consider the cultural tensions which would be caused by importing an entire alien culture whole and entire into Singapore without any proper considerations as to how to assimilate them into ours. Our virtues of living in harmony with various cultures is an inculcation of decades, not a lesson which can be taught overnight. And of course this have lead to the curry fiasco. But the curry fiasco is but a symptom of a much better malaise: A growing racial and cultural resentment between the locals and the immigrants.

One might wonder why did the government not anticipate this development. After all, it has been happening in the West for years now, as they will struggle with the cultural and racial tension between the flood of immigrants and their local cultures. Even the utopian Nordic states have elected into their parliament racists extreme-right wing parties and have a person nutty enough to go round shooting people over this issue! Bah, even I had foreseen this development as early as May this year when I wrote in a note that, 

...we [Singaporeans] shall feel threatened [by the immigrants], and then we shall react like the Nordic countries did, and we certainly do not possess half their "civilisation".

What do we elect our "experienced" and "competent" leaders for? What are our massive army of PSC scholars doing or thinking? Why didn't they see this coming when the example from the West is staring right into their faces? No doubt busy crunching massive economic numbers without an eye to society as an organic whole! BAH! This is NOT the PAP government of old with vision or foresight. Ichabod! The glory has departed from the PAP!

On Numbers and Reality

Actually, I cite this GDP reasoning and immigration, simply as an illustration a much more general point.That there is a fundamental disconnect between abstract categories and concrete realities. The language of the economists, and their artificial numbers, necessarily abstracts away parts which are essential features of an organic whole, which a culture or society is. To continue with our example of massive immigration, why did our government consider this very crude policy? Or for the matter, why did the Western nations consider it? For the very simple reason of our local population's low-birth rates, the same as in the West. And how did this come about?

For Singapore, once more, we were screwed by abstract economic reasoning. What did our government want to achieve during Singapore early years? Increase wealth per persons. So what did they do? Simple, they simply pursued policies which reduced the number of people so that there will be more wealth to go around! But since it is not socially respectable to commit genocide, so we simply kill off the segment of the population which will raise the least amount of eyebrows: unborn babies. So our "economic success" is a combination of both foreign investment, and aggressive population control policies in the form of contraception, abortions, etc.

Now that we've "arrived", we find ourselves in some massive shit. Not only have we created an infant killing culture, we've also created a culture with an unbridled lust for the pursuit of wealth, career advancement and material prosperity. Thus, we marry later or many not at all, we have fewer children, because, well, you know, marriage and children do kinda get in the way of working more hours, career advancement and being more economically productive an all. Not forgetting the fact that we just wanna party and enjoy ourselves after work, and not come home to screaming kids. But hey, what do our government care? Less people around, more economically productive people, MORE GDP!!! YAY!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!

This is a problem not only in Singapore, but also in the West, where they have lower non-replacing population rates. But of course, a culture which refuses to replace itself, well, is going to go extinct if we do nothing. We're simply living off the social capital of the past, who were willing to make the sacrifices necessary to raise children into economically productive labourers who now are able to provide us with our flood of economic wealth. But we shall find soon enough that that wealth is going to run dry soon. Solution? IMMIGRANTS!!! How simple! How easy!

NOT!

And now Western Europe is imploding with racial tensions and a collapsing economy, whilst we are heading straight for the same oblivion which they are going. Well done our dear gahment!

The Lack of the Historic Sense

By the lack of the "historic sense", I don't simply mean a lack of a sense of the past (although we DO lack that as well), but a lack of a sense of temporal extension, a concept of a society or culture or nation which includes not only the present, but the past and especially the future, and also a lack of a sense of culture, society, and the human condition. A society is a human reality which is "smeared" through time and historically complex, it does not merely exist in the present, but exists as a temporal whole. But of course, most of our economic figures are abstract and do not take into account many of the essential features of human society or the reality of the human condition.

To develop our example, one could defend the shrinking population model by arguing that the old will be able to "provide" for themselves via shrewd financial planning for the future, savings, etc, and not be dependent upon the young (shrinking) generation. But of course, saving money meansnothing. What is money? Money is a mere piece of paper, a number in a bank. The true meaning of money as anthropologist would observed, is simply a claim on goods and services, it is a defered acquisition of goods and services. A money entitles ones to claim goods and services later. But of course, the question is whether there will be anything left to claim later. But given the shrinking population model, there will simply be lesser goods and services produced by shrinking future generations, thus, lesser amounts of actual goods and services to claim later on.

Thus, a nation based on the shrinking population model is instrinsically parasitic. It shifts the burden of the production of goods and services elsewhere. Since the shrinking population model necessarily depends upon other nations, normally poorer nations with populations which can provide the actualgoods and services, thus, they will have to import masses of cheap labour and/or goods and services produced by these cheap labour into their countries to prevent their oh-so-large store of capital, savings, etc from becoming inflated and completely meaningless.

Of course, this reasoning is based on the "savings" model. But many European countries operate on the "pensions" model whereby the government will provide a flow of pension to the older folks. But the point is still the same, with the shrinking population model, there will be lesser tax payers, and thus, government's burdens to provide the pensions will be increased, and with lesser goods and services, what pensions they have will simply be worth less. The much vaunted Sweden itself, the paradise of state welfare, is itself funded by foreign immigration as can be seen from this quote from wikipedia about Sweden's immigration policy,

During the 1950s and 1960s, the recruitment of immigrant labor was an important factor of immigration. The Nordic countries signed a trade agreement in 1952, establishing a common labour market and free movement across borders. This migration within the Nordic countries, especially from Finland to Scandinavia, was essential to create the tax-base required for the expansion of the strong public sector now characteristic of Scandinavia. This continued until 1967, when the labour market became saturated, and Sweden introduced new immigration controls.

To put it even more harshly, this can actually be a form of neo-colonial exploitation by the West. I'm sure nobody mistakes me, a committed Anglo-phile and pro-imperalist and advocate of the return of Singapore to the British monarch, for being one of those rabid anti-colonists haters of the Western colonisers. However, I think the contemporary Western society are the true colonial exploiters, not the West of the old. Because of their shrinking population, they have high inflation, and thus higher cost for raising children, so they simply "ship" the cost of raising children to other poorer countries, and when the poorer nations have borne the burden of having raised them to an economically productive age, they simply grab them here by immigration! What a brilliant scheme! Further more, this is not the only way they can exploit the poorer high population countries. In order for them to maintain their levels of goods available in their country, given the shrinking population from not being able to produce it, they simply use their massive capital to buy cheaply the goods and services produced by these poorer nations at dirt cost and impossible working conditions. Hah! No wonder they have such wonderful economic growth and GDP figures!

How unlike the attitude of the colonisers of old, at least for Britain. Studies have shown that it costs the British empiremore to run India and develop it then they have profitted from it. And the Civil Service Commission recruited the best minds which they were subjected to the most gruelling examination and education to prepare them for service in the colonies, even requiring them to speak the native languages! Certainly no dumping of unwanted disgraced and unwanted labour in the british coloines! (Except for may be Austrialia :P) Without the British infrastructure put in place by our colonial masters, including its british civilised culture, Singapore would not be able to boast of the success which it has today.

At the end, the fundamental point is that the much praised and vaunted GDP figures of the West means nothing. It is funded by a combination of export of child raising costs via immigrant of labourers, and imports of cheap goods and services produced by countries with high population and therefore low labour costs.

Shrinking Population or Growing Population Model: An Ideological Question

The question which we shall need to ask ourselves is the difference between the shrinking population model and the growing population model. How is one to provide for the future? For the growing population model, it is intrinsically dependent on real people. The present generation invests one's time and resources in the raising of excess children, then the children who grow up, because there are more of them, will be able to overall make available more goods and services for all, and especially since each family will have more children, the burden of supporting their parents is spread out, thus, the older generation will be able to retire early, and whatever savings they have left, will be worth more, as there will be an increased availability of goods and services around due to the working population increase when they become older.

The shrinking population model on the other hand, is much more carpe diem in its approach. They will simply spend their time and resources now, when they are working, and spend it upon themselves, instead of investing it to raise more children, and then simply save the rest for their old age, which, although it would be inflated because there will be lesser people around to provide for actual goods and services when they are older, but at least they would have enjoyed themselves when they were younger, so they could do with less goods and services when they are older. They will also have to retire later, to spread out their "economically productive" age.

So ultimately, the question becomes one of "enjoyment" or "utility". I guess it comes down to shifting conceptions of what is "enjoyable" and what is not "enjoyable". The shrinking population model seems to "spread out" the enjoyment throughout one's life, while the growing population model seems to concentrate it on one's old age. However, the very language of the economists seems to suggest that something is terribly wrong. One might argue that raising children is itself a project of joy and not an "economic burden", what is one to make of a society which treats the project of love and care for children, along with its attendent life of sacrifice and heart aches, a mere "economic burden"? What sort of a world treats familial love and raising children as a burden and not a joy, and finds enjoyment purely only in material transcient and passing goods and services? I shudder to live in such a world. It seems to me that the one and very vast difference between the mindset of the shrinking population model, and the growing population model, is this: The shrinking population model spends its money on transcient and impersonal material goods and services, and which future is secured by an impersonal paper or digital money. Whilst the growing population model invests in real people, and bases its happiness, joy and future, on its actual real people doing real work and labour, not abstract pieces of money.

Although the question is ultimately an irreductible ideological one, but in terms of world history and in concrete reality, there can be no doubt which one will eventually triumph. Of course a country's population cannot go on shrinking indefinitely, it will come a point when it will hit a "critical mass", or lack thereof, an absolute number which is necessary to run certain civil or public institutions of a certain economic scale. The "degree" or smooth gradation in the curve in economics is misleading. But then again, it might be argued, this is in quite a distant "long-run", and as the economist Keynes once declared, "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." So who cares right about some catastrophe which shall occur in some distant apocalyptic future?

A Question of Cultural Attitudes

But yet the fact that currently the Western nations who have adopted the "shrinking population model" are imploding, seemingly before their time, should perhaps point to something deeper meaining about the spirit of the "shrinking population model". It seems to me very evident that a shrinking population model is unsustainable, not only because it will go extinct in the distant future, although it will, but also because, they will become overwhemed by cultures with a growing population model. It was precisely this miscalculation (well, in so far that things like culture CAN be calculated) which our government, and all Western civlisation, had failed to take into account.

Also, a culture of carpe diem, enjoying now, instead of investing or deferred enjoyment, always dances dangerously close to the line of fiscal irresponsibility. The shrinking population model works only in a society where everyone can learn to control their unbridled lust for present enjoyment and utility by a strong enough rational judgement to work and also to defer spending and save for the future. But in every society, such demi-gods exists only for a certain segment of the population, because it operates at a cold-abstract rational level, a manner of thinking and understanding which only the educated few are able to attain. But for the bulk of mankind and for the majority of people, such rational and cold thinking have rarely any force in their minds, and in a culture where everywhere is advertised and published the glories of carpe diem and unbridled lust for present enjoyment, the thinking that it is necessary to curb those lust to work and invest in savings or for the future, will simply be a squeaky or non-existent voice, at least compared to their uncontrol lusts. And this is precisely the malaise and problem which is being revealed in across Western Europe, especially in the recent lawlessness in Britain, and the unbelievable welfare and public debt of many Western nations, especially America.

Nature (or God!) have already provided in every one a natural way to provide for the future: Familial instincts, which the Church have for centuries built upon, developed, and inculturated by her in the course of her rituals and moral instruction. The seed instinct to protect and provide for one's children have already been planted into our brains by Almighty God, and have been watered and nutured by the sunlight of the Church's instruction. This instinct for love and care of one's own children, which shall grow up to provide for them in their old age is nature's way of securing one's old age, and is unparallel in its efficacy for ALL segements of the population, uneducated or educated. Ironically, it was Rousseu, the moron who brewed his idiotic "social contract" theory, a paper and abstract rational agreement as a basis for society, who himself have lots of children and abandoned them to an orphanage!

Whose Shall They be?

It might be apt to end this discussion with a parable from the gospels,

And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully,and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?'And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'

Indeed, whose will they be? Shall they simply be squandered on a carpe diem enjoyment, or shall we instead be spend on giving life, love and care, to real, fully fleshed, human beings, made in the similitude of God?