The Curse and the Tragedy of Burma’s Common Resources

(Thanks to Mei Yee for requesting a post on the suffering of the Burmese people.) 

          

You may have heard or read about the suffering of the ordinary Burmese people under the harsh rule of the military junta that controls the nation.

Even though Burma is selling its vast natural resources for huge profits, the majority of the population lives in poverty, without electricity or other basic amenities. Despite producing so much oil and gas, the Burmese people have to pay high and ever-rising prices their daily fuel!

This is because all or almost all the foreign exchange earned from Burma’s oil and gas goes to strengthening the military, financing lavish pet projects like the new capital city in the middle of nowhere (not Putrajaya :p ), or making life ever more luxurious for those in power.

Meanwhile, the complaints of the neglected people are ignored or even violently, brutally and fatally silenced.

Burma is clearly suffering from the Resource Curse. The very same natural riches that should help lift its people out of poverty by financing infrastructure and development is instead to blame for perpetuating the suffering, as the wealth is channeled to pampering the select fortunate few and maintain the unfair situation by miltary force.

(This paradoxical occurence is also seen in the Oil States of the Middle East, which despite their decades of record-breaking profits from high oil prices, have a population that is still largely uneducated, poor and decidedly Thrid World.

Even in almost-but-not-just-yet-First-World Malaysia, fuel prices are rising despite our oil production capacity, as profits from petroleum sales go to ego-boosting mega-projects of no practical use to the public.)

In response to this gross imbalance in the distribution of national wealth, common Burmese and their sympathizers and supporters call upon the nations of the world not to do business with the corrupt and oppressive military junta.

If the world stops buying Burmese oil and gas and paying money to the military rulers, the junta will be unable to finance their vast army and keep their soldiers content. Military rule will eventually be forced to give way to a fair and progressive civilian government.

(You can go to SHWE homepage to download some PDF publications released in support of the ordinary, exploited people of Burma.)

But therein a major problem is exposed. If the socially aware Corporation A boycotts Burmese gas and oil, the purely pragmatic Corporation B might not play along, and simply continue to buy Burmese oil and gas – without a competitor. In that case, all that Corporation A achieves is to lose out on relatively cheap and accessible energy, while Corporation B reaps the benefits and the status quo in Burma remains unscathed.

In the real world, this means that even if nations with strong concern for human rights refuse to buy Burmese resources, energy-hungry economic giants like China and India and, yes, ASEAN including Malaysia, will still buy Burmese oil and gas, and keep on providing the money which the ruling military junta uses to perpetuate the oppression and poverty of the common Burmese.

After all, they reason, why should our own people lose out to the Chinese/Indians for the sake of the Burmese? To sacrifice our own nation’s economic growth and development for fanciful ideals is akin to betraying the country.

It is an example of the Tragedy of the Commons – a finite resource is available to all who wish to partake of it, however much they wish. If everyone takes just a little bit, only as much as they need, the resource can last longer. An example of common resources in real life are fish in international waters that belong to whoever catches them first.

But there is nothing to stop a greedy fellow from taking much more than he needs. If other people still ‘play fair’, they will lose out in relation to the greedy man. This becomes much worse if there are many people and only little of the resource. Thus, the self-preserving solution is to join in and also grab as much as you can.

In the Malaysian context, this is like boarding a bus at peak times. If everyone lined up in an orderly manner, things would go smoothly. But there are no enforced rules to keep the line orderly, so whoever pushes their way to the front will be able to board the bus first.

If people act politely and let the shovers move ahead, the polite ones will never get on the bus. Thus the whole thing turns into a jam-packed rugby match for survival – that is, getting to work on time.

In the Burmese context, there is nothing to stop China, India or any other nationalistic country from taking as much cheap Burmese resources as they can. If any righteous nations refuse to partake of the feast, then they will lose out for no gain to themselves or the suffring Burmese.

In all the above hypothethical, Malaysian and Burmese examples, the only way to avoid the Tragedy is for everyone to act with restraint – simultaneously and continually – either through strong self-discipline (unlikely) or strictly enforced rules (difficult in practice).

See also this post referencing strict laws and video games for my thoughts on personal ethics vs rule enforcement

But who will be responsible for taking such as step? The Americans, who are demonized by the rest of the world even as they draw the attention and end the lives of tens of thousands of terrorists who would be doing who-knows-what to our civilians?

Or ASEAN, which can boast a few sports meets as its best accomplishments?

(Notet to all self-righteous critics of American foreign policy: The situation in Iraq is going excellently these days, and it is largely thanks to the situation in Iraq is going excellently these days situation in Iraq is going excellently these daysthat most of Southeast Asia was spared the legacy of the Communist/Socialist yoke that Burma now suffers under.)

I don’t have the answers, but I very much doubt that talking nicely or waving U.N. declarations of intent to vote on a preliminary motion to diplomatically condemn the Burmese junta will achieve anything.

Sadly, neither will just one or two companies or countries cutting off relations and business with Burma’s military dictators.

Being Nice to (Monkey) Females is Prostitution

Check out this excerpt from Time.com, emphasis added by me:

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Do Monkeys Pay for Sex?

It turns out that one of humanity’s oldest professions may be even older than we thought: In a recent study of macaque monkeys in Indonesia, researchers found that male primates “paid” for sexual access to females — and that the going rate for such access dwindled as the number of available females went up.

According to the paper, “Payment for Sex in a Macaque Mating Market,” published in the December issue of Animal Behavior, males in a group of about 50 long-tailed macaques in Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia, traded grooming services for sex with females; researchers, who studied the monkeys for some 20 months, found that males offered their payment up-front, as a kind of pre-sex ritual.

It worked. After the females were groomed by male partners, female sexual activity more than doubled, from an average of 1.5 times an hour to 3.5 times.

The study also showed that the number of minutes that males spent grooming hinged on the number of females available at the time: The better a male’s odds of getting lucky, the less nit-picking time the females received.

Though primates have been observed trading grooming for food sharing or infant care, this is the first time this kind of exchange has been observed between male and female primates in a sexual context, says lead researcher Michael Gumert of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, demonstrating that the amount of time a male macaque “will invest in [its] partner” depends largely on how many options it has around.

While science would do well to understand more about the long-tailed macaques’ social world — especially as the animals are increasingly losing their natural habitat in Asia — Gumert says figuring out how this market concept can be applied to the social settings of other animals, including humans, will be its long-term value. In the meantime, it can at least make for some thought-provoking pillow talk.

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So, these male monkeys groom the females more, which results in the females providing sex more. Liberal slanted Time magazine and the research team portray it as prostitution – grooming in exchange for sex.

But viewed from another angle, couldn’t this observation also be described as ‘more caring by males results in more receptive females’?

Just as how a husband who is consistently attentive and sensitive towards his wife will naturally find her more loving towards him.

But from a liberal stance, it’s all about personal benefit and how sex-for-payment is a natural arrangement as demonstrated by our tree-dwelling evolutionary cousins.

Even the husband-wife example I gave above can be portrayed as ‘be nice to wife as payment for sex’. Altruism and selflessness = Nonexistant in liberalspeek.

It all depends on the worldview one has, and the corresponding slant one wants to place on neutral scientific findings. The major culprit/victim in today’s context is, of course, global warming.

Politics has no place in science, but in truth, science has been tainted by personal agendas since its very beginning.

There is such a thing as objective science, but it simply has not existed in the history of mankind.