Pakistan is a capitalist country in a sense that it has a market economy, a financial system which issues credit money (means most of the money supply do not exists physically but only artificially), and a state bank to regulate it & print the physical stock of money (M0) without the backing of gold... Additionally Pakistan has a stock market, money & capital market, a so called democratic order, a corporate sponsored private media, a civil society and educational institutions which are designed to produce workforce for the above mentioned institutions etc.
Over and above Pakistan takes loan from IMF and in turn accept neo-liberal terms like privatization of public sector, removal of subsidies, etc. However on the other hand according to SBP reports less than 10% of Pakistani population has bank accounts. This means vast majority of Pakistani population, which is also largely religious, is not directly connected to this capitalist order. These institutions were installed in this region during the period of colonization and the Britishers compelled the population to serve these.
This was done so forcefully that the traditional institution of bazaar, waqf, madresah etc. all went into the background, and the general public had no choice left to work for the institutions brought by colonial forces, turning everything upside down in words of Ernest Gellner. After some generations, despite the fact that only a minority of Pakistan directly works for these institutions, they still dominates the social, economic and political order, hence making Pakistan a capitalist country, but not in the same sense the western world is capitalist in nature.
Over and above Pakistan takes loan from IMF and in turn accept neo-liberal terms like privatization of public sector, removal of subsidies, etc. However on the other hand according to SBP reports less than 10% of Pakistani population has bank accounts. This means vast majority of Pakistani population, which is also largely religious, is not directly connected to this capitalist order. These institutions were installed in this region during the period of colonization and the Britishers compelled the population to serve these.
This was done so forcefully that the traditional institution of bazaar, waqf, madresah etc. all went into the background, and the general public had no choice left to work for the institutions brought by colonial forces, turning everything upside down in words of Ernest Gellner. After some generations, despite the fact that only a minority of Pakistan directly works for these institutions, they still dominates the social, economic and political order, hence making Pakistan a capitalist country, but not in the same sense the western world is capitalist in nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Use of any abusive or inappropriate language will give us a reason to delete your comment.