Future Shock or a Connected Future
By Peter R. Ramsaroop
Stabroek News
December 1, 2006
Businesses today are more complex than ever. Many different issues and challenges face employees and business owners alike - from catastrophic natural events, to globalization, to the impacts of global terrorism. (See Nov 17th 2006 Column - Is your business prepared?). These challenges often overwhelm the individual and the company looking to compete for a piece of the pie. In Guyana, we continue to struggle to adapt in the face of complexity and often it seems that we are more interested in the struggle than in working together to build what I think of as the "connected future."
For the last twenty years I've worked to build technology solutions for companies and governments around the world. Technology has in many ways proven to be the great equalizer among nations and economies yet we still have not harnessed its capabilities in our land. While one can readily check and send email at numerous cafes around Georgetown, the potential of technology reaches much farther than email - consider the web-enabled marketplace for agricultural commodities or a records management solution that could assist our ailing property registry system? While our new Minister of Agriculture concentrates on the drainage, he should also concentrate on improving technology in the field of agriculture. A vision of the four Ps falls into a plan we proposed two years ago when our export plant was shut down by the government and our markets for the four Ps were lost. It's not about what the public sector proposes but what the private sector can accomplish. Therefore it is not the Minister that should be proposing exporting of our products but companies that can make it happen. Once again we see the public sector acting as the private sector. We also have to concentrate on using technology to enhance our production, manage our inventories and communicate with the distributors and buyers.
In every economy, the core technology becomes the basis for revitalisation and growth. Information technologies are the core for today's economy, and to survive all businesses must informationalize or create knowledge assets. From small family stores to larger corporations, the point is to grasp that all economic activities will depend on information and knowledge to create and control value.
Consider also the tourist trade and how well the web has been used to promote everything from jungle treks to cruises in other parts of our region, yet our tourist inflows are a trickle by comparison to what many of our neighbours are receiving. We have to look at all our products, from tourism to agriculture as connected. We must stop managing in stovepipes at the public sector level as it affects the private sector output. Integrated discussions at the cabinet levels are needed not just briefings to the President.
The concept of a "connected future" is broader than technology alone can achieve. Technical solutions work better when people work together. Over the last ten years I've noted that it seems we Guyanese prefer the political system to achieve economic ends rather than build economic interests that succeed on their own merit. The destructive nature of this tendency is not in my view rooted in our culture but rather is a result of the misuse of the political system. Guyanese of all races succeed in free markets from Europe to North America, yet at home the working masses are continually frustrated in their pursuit of prosperity.
I believe in free markets and the power of the market to affect change for the good of all our countrymen. Yet very little evidence of free markets exists in our land. From the lack of an encouraging investment code, to the immaturity of our own financial institutions, to the heavily interventionist hand of the public sector, the private sector is often the poor stepchild of our social system. The nature of a government-driven economy often results in political and economic divisiveness based on race or ethnicity, or in some cases religious discrimination. Renowned economist, Dwight Lee noted in an International Institute for Economic Research Paper that misuse of the political system can "degenerate easily into a malicious exercise in which the major preoccupation becomes that of inflicting harm and ridicule on the enemy." Sound a little like our normal political discourse?
Suggestions:
How can we build the "connected future"? It has been fascinating to me that acquiring land is such a difficult process in our nation, perhaps we can start by creating our own land rush through a public process to encourage property ownership to the broadest possible cross-section of Guyanese and then allow an open property market to allow individuals to actively buy and sell their parcels?
We can also create opportunity through tax reduction on export duties of key products and tariffs on imports that affect our national products that place many of our economic interests at a competitive disadvantage.
These changes would mean a significant "power to the people" shift that is in accord with the march of freedom we're witnessing even in the most intractable trouble spots of our global community.
Lee also speaks to the effects of such a shift:
Market exchange establishes a positive-sum environment that not only allows mutual gains, but rewards those who expand the scope of cooperative interaction by increasing the opportunities to realize these gainsā€¦When zero-sum political plunder replaces positive-sum market exchange, the stage is set for malice in plunderland.
We're at a crucial time in the history of Guyana. Much must be done now to build a "connected future" where we work together to create that positive-sum market economy. We must create a new image of our nation to make it an attractive destination for foreign capital while demonstrating to an international audience the opportunities available for investment. Our public and private sector leaders must seek to define how global political and economic trends affect development, government, finance, investment, and trade in our nation. Let us start now to work together in a civil society initiative to build connections for the future prosperity of our nation.