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Dependence on foreign capital? Scratch your head no more! 27 May 2002 |
An educated class (the intelligentsia) is rendered impotent in a society that does not find merit in intellectualism.
Further to that, a society that finds no merit in frugality, simplicity, and self-reliance will forever remain financially bankrupt.
We flaunt wealth that we know nothing about accumulating sustainably.
The numbers speak for themselves:
Note that three countries with average per capita incomes far lower than that of the Philippines are still way ahead of Filipinos in terms of savings rates: China, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
European civilisation created wealth and we are inheritors of this wealth. We inherited this wealth but not the ethic that went into creating this wealth. And our trouble began when we got accustomed to this wealth but, since we neither had the ethic nor an appreciation for the discipline required to create it, ended up woefully dependent on a foreign means to create this wealth.
The question remains therefore:
Is Filipino culture a culture of wealth possession or wealth creation?
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Substance matters in an economic crisis. A financial implosion sees no bottom in a society that lacks economic substance.
"Awareness" of poverty is just a fashion statement. We are a society imprisoned in a mindset that is grounded on the notions that we cannot influence our own destinies, that employment is owed to us by Government, and that those who have more have in some way deprived us of opportunity simply by being "more fortunate".
Busy-ness Does Not Equal Business. Ben Kritz writes about how that inherent Pinoy heritage of smallness impacts our ability to build a truly world-class capital-intensive industrial base.
Why are we poor?
One man's shot at answering the million dollar question.
A Heritage of Smallness Nick Joaquin's brilliant take on why Filipinos cannot seem to think, dream, and achieve big.
Western standards of excellence. So we want the Philippines to be a strong and prosperous nation. By whose standards? Do we set the right ones for ourselves? Or are we content to chug along the easy road to chronic mediocrity?
The New Malay Dilemma In a speech recently delivered, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed describes the urgent need for cultural change lest ethnic Malays become marginalised in their own country.
Another ASEAN success story. Another key southeast Asian leader steps down and another of our former peers in the ASEAN earns its place in the map of succeeded nations. Who else is left to eat this success story's dust? Take a guess.
