By Hilarion M. Henares Jr.
THE truth shall free us, says the Bible, but Alejandro Lichauco in his new book, Nationalist Economics, says that the truth shall feed us too -- liberate us from the politics of poverty…
The students are beginning to find the answers in Alejandro Lichauco’s newest book, Nationalist Economics, copies of which were being distributed during the symposium, with a demand that it be made required reading by the school authorities alongside books by such “free-trade” economists as Gerardo Sicat and Bernardo Villegas.
The UP School of Economics was financed by Japan, and such CIA conduits as Asia Foundation, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. Gerry Sicat while an obscure economics professor in this school, was financed by Rockefeller to formulate a “theory” of development based on labor-intensive export-oriented industries. With the help of the US Embassy and the IMF, Gerry was thereafter appointed by Marcos as Chairman of the National Economic Council, afterwards renamed NEDA upon martial law.
Martial Law was declared with the knowledge and support of the USA and the IMF which welcomed “an effective economic management under constitutional authoritarianism.”
Three months after the declaration of martial law, on New Year’s Day in 1973, NEDA chief Gerardo Sicat announced that the new official policy of the dictatorship was “Trade Liberalization,” identical to Cory’s IMF-imposed “Import Liberalization.”
Ding Lichauco’s book, Nationalist Economics, recounts without mincing words or avoiding the mention of names, how the labor-intensive export-oriented policy proved to be the undoing of Marcos (while other dictators in Asia achieved economic miracles).
Lichauco who disagreed with Sicat from the beginning, meticulously shows that Sicat’s theory was nothing more than an elaborate justification for an anti-industrialization program, repudiating the basic industries which Taiwan and South Korea were then constructing for themselves in the 1970s.
It also justified the policy of Trade Liberalization that worked havoc on our domestic industries and our poor farmers, and still continue to do so even now. It was a theory which fitted with the strategy of the IMF-WB group and US imperialists…
It is an absorbing story that Lichauco tells with cold heartless precision -- the story of high treason, the deliberate sabotage by Filipino officials whom we shall name later in this series, of the national economic policy enunciated by Congress before martial law, mandating full industrialization for our country.
Lichauco reminds us that in 1936, after analyzing the causes of the Great Depression, the legendary Lord John Maynard Keynes, father of modern economics, wrote his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which debunked Free Trade (Laissez Faire) economics, and acknowledged the role of Economic Protectionism (Mercantilism) in protecting the nation's domestic industries, sources of employment and international reserves.
Keynes described his former colleagues in the Free Trade School as “orthodox economists whose common sense has been insufficient to check their faulty logic…”
Lichauco reminds us that in 1936, after analyzing the causes of the Great Depression, the legendary Lord John Maynard Keynes, father of modern economics, wrote his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which debunked Free Trade (Laissez Faire) economics, and acknowledged the role of Economic Protectionism (Mercantilism) in protecting the nation's domestic industries, sources of employment and international reserves.
Keynes described his former colleagues in the Free Trade School as “orthodox economists whose common sense has been insufficient to check their faulty logic…”
Henares, Hilarion Jr. Wear and Tear: Make My Day Book - 21
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