Redefining Political Economy, Globalization & Business Models Consequent on Corona Virus Pandemics

By: Dr_R_M_Mathew

Corona Virus Pandemics, spread across the world, necessitates the redefining of Economics & Political Economy, Globalization, Business, Enterprises, Business Models, Education and Technology associated with Business, especially Information Technology. All our concepts of the Economy, Development, Business Enterprises, Globalization, Education, Healthcare, Science and Technology have become meaningless along with the wisdom of the great masters, including Nobel Laureates overnight. UN, World Bank, IMF and WEF have been struggling hard to find a justification for their very identity, existence and relevance./p>

Economics

It is time to redefine Economics as a Science of Social & Individual Welfare or Well Being rather than mere Statistical Exercises and Data Manipulations or Computer Projections & Forecasting. The Prolonged Global Economic Crisis, grown to the extent of the Great Depression II, has challenged the very foundation of Microeconomics & Macroeconomics, including Keynesian and Marxian Economics. IMF, UNDP, World Bank and World Economic Forum are getting irrelevant or toothless in the changing or unpredictable conditions. The classical theory of comparative advantage and the associate Globalization have turned Comparative Disadvantage and Globalization of Pandemics.

Development

Development is the most commonly used term in the world over without knowing the correct meaning. Is it the development of the locality or the region or the nation or the entire world with well-built infrastructure and affluence? Is it the all-round development of the people?  Is it building up the economic and military power? Is it based on the wild law of the survival and growth of the fittest, leaving the unfit in poverty or backwardness?

The Corona Pandemics re-emphasized the need for redefining Development as ensuring Food, Dignity, Healthcare, Skills and Knowledge for All followed by Ruralization and Agriculturization, Limiting the Growth Industrialization and Urbanization, including Slums and Migrant Workers.  Entire Education, Science and Technology must also be redefined in tune with the changing meaning of Development.

Political Economy

Now it is the turn of the Political Economy to revive, freeing from Econometrics and Mathematical or Statistical or Computer Economics. Economics can never be reduced into Data Analyses or Statistical Forecasting or Mathematical Models. In bringing and aggravating the global economic crises, started as Financial Meltdown or Banking Crises, the High Tech Economic Analysts or Advisors or Management Experts without any basic knowledge of the functioning of the national and global economies and the behavior a firm or household played a very crucial role. The so called high tech Economists do not have any remedy or strategy for the economic illness of both the backward and advanced economies. Even the Nobel Laureates and well known professors of Economics behave like laymen in Economics but experts in Mathematical Modeling or Forecasting.

Consumerism & Corporatism

Modern Management Gurus and Marketing Experts have effectively reduced Economics into Consumerism and Aggressive Marketing without bothering the real purchasing power of the people and their saving capacity with virtual purchasing power based on Credit or Debit Cards and Virtual Money. They have paved the way for the rise of Corporatism, transferring the entire savings of the people in to the hands of the Big Corporate Houses that could effectively dictate the entire Society and more specifically Political Parties and Democratic Governments. Even China has emerged as a Mega Corporate House to dictate the Supply and Demand of the Global Economy for its own advantage and determine the fate of several other nations, especially its debtors or associates.

Globalization

But the Corona Virus Pandemics has shaken the very foundation of Globalization, Corporatism and Consumerism besides the well projected “Economies of Scale or Scope”. They have become incompatible in the present era. In the crisis ridden real world, no nation can survive with virtual money or virtual economy without goods, services, demand, purchasing power, saving, investment and liquidity. If we make a social or economic or political cost and benefit analysis of Consumerism and Corporatism, everybody will be shocked as their costs offset their benefits. 

Healthcare & Social Wellness

Without building up a national healthcare & wellness infrastructure, beginning with Primary Healthcare Centers, no nation can survive in spite of its thousands of super specialty five star hospitals, doctors, healthcare workers and sophisticated medicines. In a medical exigency, the low cost generic medicine and well-motivated general practitioners and healthcare workers can do a lot than the super specialty hospitals, doctors, medicine and healthcare workers.

It is pertinent to make a comparative study of New York in USA where everything is super special or high tech and Kerala in India where there is there is an a well-developed infrastructure of primary health centers and government hospitals or medical college hospitals that could do yeomen services in treating corona virus pandemics curing patients including about 90 year old couples.  In Kerala Ayurveda has widely been used as a system to augment immunity and wellness. It is time to set up an Ayurveda Research & Teaching University in Kerala for developing new medicine, diagnosing and, treatment besides attaining Quality Control and Standardization in the context of virus epidemics.

New Systems & Technologies

We have urgently to develop new Systems and Technologies, especially Knowledge Technology & Industry, Business and Economic Models, Education and Training programs, Healthcare and Wellness systems for the survival of Nations and the Global Economy as a whole. UN, UNDP, UNESCO, WHO, IMF, World Bank and World Economic Forum, Education Systems, Political Economy and Globalization besides Religions, especially Islam and Christianity must redefine their Goals, Objectives, Missions, Roles and Organizational Structures in the changing contexts for making them more relevant and meaningful in the days to come.

The following works may be relevant in these contexts:

The Great Depression II: Survival Strategies www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article8978.html   19 Feb. 2009

Ruralization and Agriculturization – The Last Option for Human Survival www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article58779.html  17 April 2017

Fall of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article37574.html  16 Nov. 2012

My recent writings on these topics appeared in the Market Oracle (UK) can be found with the help of the following link: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/UserInfo-Dr_R_M_Mathew.html

Prof. (Dr.) Raju M. Mathew

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