By Pak Sako
September 07, 2012

SEPT 7 ― The prime minister proposes to measure national development based on both a “happiness index of the people” and per capita income. He correctly conceded that increases in the people’s income do not necessarily result in increases in their happiness.

But spoken rhetoric aside, his words need to be measured against what his government is implementing right now.

This can be done by referring to the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and its New Economic Model (NEM).

These are the government’s blueprint and flowchart for economic development in the near term.

Examining all thirteen chapters and 471 pages of the ETP handbook or “roadmap” obtained from its official website, nowhere are the words “happiness” and “happiness index” to be found.

Searching for the surrogate words “wellbeing” and “quality of life” similarly disappoints.

“Wellbeing” in the ETP document draws attention almost exclusively to the “Ministry of Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing”.

“Quality of life” appears twice in the core chapters on the new economic model but only superficially, referring to past economic growth as having “helped improve the quality of life for Malaysians” and to the 10th Malaysia Plan’s focus on “building an environment that enhances quality of life”.

The ETP handbook on the whole does not talk about balancing or tempering economic growth against broader wellbeing or “happiness” imperatives. Nor would its orientation and thrust reconcile with plans to parachute in a “happiness index”.

And that is because the ETP handbook is essentially a pro-business, pro-liberalisation and pro-growth manifesto.

It accords with the prime minister’s concern with pumping up economic growth numbers, as reflected widely in the news media. It accords with his government’s policy actions such as its drive to privatise public assets.

In the same breath of talking up the happiness index, the prime minister himself took pride in the fact that state-owned FELDA has been sold off via a huge share offering to private institutional investors and such.

It is unclear how a “one-of-a-kind and unique” developmental model, as the prime minister put it, could be developed. It implies a clean break from the business-as-usual approach.

And yet the reality is that the development model now being followed is the same ‘neoliberal’ development model pursued by the government in the last 30 years, with the standard focus on human capital and whipping up labour productivity.

This neoliberal model is characterised by large-scale privatisations, economic growth that is driven largely by private capital and markets without the necessary controls or regulation, the “marketisation” of diverse aspects of social life, even in cases where markets cannot properly provide public goods and services, and significant income and wealth inequalities.

Here a word is due regarding former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s recent comment on inequality.

Implying that Malaysians ought to be thankful, Dr Mahathir stated that, “In America there is much inequality with 1 per cent being extremely rich and 99 per cent poor according to Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz”.

But Malaysia has one of the higher income inequalities amongst ASEAN countries as measured by the Gini coefficient, and this inequality is at a level similar to that of the United States, if not slightly higher (see the website of the United Nations Human Development Programme amongst other sources).

The economist Dr Mahathir cites has condemned neoliberal economic policymaking— the approach favoured by Dr Mahathir’s own administration— calling it a “grab-bag of ideas” about markets efficiently serving the public interest well through “privatisation, liberalization”, when in fact it is “a political doctrine serving certain interests” (see J. Stiglitz, “The end of neo-liberalism?”, Project Syndicate, 7 July 2008).

Under the present ETP and NEM, Malaysians still see well-connected capitalist interests having advantages in the economic sphere.

Prime Minister Najib Razak owes the public an explanation about the contradictions between his announcement about happiness and what’s actually being implemented on the ground.

Will the prime minister halt or reverse development initiatives, such as that involving Lynas and radioactive waste, which have clearly made the people unhappy?