Hegel was the first to think of history as a dialectical process. He theorized that it begins with a flawed thesis, which in turn catalyzes the antithesis, finally resulting in a synthesis that attempts to prevail over this difference.
For Bangladesh, the thesis began with the formation of various highly successful NGOs and the economic prosperity that resulted from them. The antithesis was the corruption and violence corollary to this prosperity. Finally, the synthesis is Bangladesh’s current goal—a reduction of the antithesis and expansion of the thesis.
Before 2006, poverty and famine permeated Bangladesh, and before its independence in 1971, it was one of the poorest regions of Pakistan. Henry Kissinger called it a “perpetual economic basket-case” — a caricature of the penury of South Asia. When Bangladesh registered faster growth than Pakistan in 2006, it was dismissed as a fluke.
However, Bangladesh’s GDP per capita has grown 3.3 percent more than Pakistan’s since 2006, and it is forecasted to overtake Pakistan in per-capita GDP by 2020. It is now a part of the group of Emerging and Growth-Leading Economies (EAGLEs) whose contributions to global economic growth in the next ten years is expected to be greater than the average of the G7 economies, excluding the United States. It makes up Goldman Sachs’s “Next Eleven” economies and was one of the only countries to fulfill the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.
The causes of this economic turnaround are governmental policymaking conducive to creating a dynamic private sector, a thriving civil society that substituted for, and supplemented, government action, and grassroot female entrepreneurship in the garment industry which stemmed from the NGOs.
However, with every positive economic, social, or political initiative in Bangladesh comes an almost parodic reactionary setback. Whilst Bangladesh’s garment industry is the second strongest in the world, contributes over $24.5 billion to the nation’s GDP, and employs over 3.5 million people, lack of regulation and abysmal work conditions are still prevalent in the industry. The tragic Rana Plaza disaster in 2013 — in which a multi-story garment factory complex collapsed and killed over 1,130 workers due to outdated facilities and lack of supervision — typified this relationship.
Another example of Bangladesh’s relationship between socioeconomic progress and vindictive politics is the current prime minister’s removal of Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel-prize winning founder of Grameen Bank. The prime minister then imposed her own choices upon the shareholders of Grameen Bank to penalize Yunus for attempting to set up a political party. Correspondingly, the World Bank estimates that direct production losses have equaled one percent of GDP due to disruptions in economic activities caused by political disturbances.
Much of this political instability stems from corruption and violence. Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perception Index ranked Bangladesh 149 out of 180 countries. Consequently, the 2018 general election was alleged to have been marred by widespread vote rigging, with pro-democracy leader Dr. Kamal Hossain calling for an annulment of the results. The election in 2014 was worse, with the death of 500 people in protests led by the opposition party and religious far-right.
Now, Bangladesh exists as a contradiction—a country of “in spites.” It is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world in spite of increasingly radical fundamentalism. It has revolutionized microfinancing and empowered women to become crucial agents of development in spite of the corruption and cronyism in government.
So, how can Bangladesh find a synthesis?
At the moment, Bangladesh has two paths that it can take. The first is to delve deeper into religious fundamentalism, which would reverse Bangladesh’s path to eradication of poverty. Indeed, Bangladesh’s situation mirrors the history of the Arab caliphates that once ruled over regions of formidable economic dynamism in Damascus and Baghdad. Once religious fundamentalism took root, the formerly great empires collapsed into some of the least economically advanced countries in the world. Bangladesh’s choice to continue in this course would act as a complete rejection of the aforementioned thesis and embracement of the antithesis.
The second route Bangladesh can take is leveraging off the gains in its textile industry, in conjunction with the downturn in China’s garment exports, to diversify its exports and increase living conditions. This must involve a drastic improvement in infrastructure in order to transport goods across the country and upgrade electricity generation to reach the 31 million people who currently live without power. Indeed, this aggressive pursuit of export-oriented industrialization (EOI) with a focus on technology and human capital was successfully implemented by the “Asian Tigers” — Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan — between the early 1960s and 1990s. Thus, pouring more capital into its $300 million ICT industry, continuing to invest in education, and raising minimum wages — a statistic in which Bangladesh ranks fifth lowest in the world — would be bold steps in the right direction toward finding a synthesis.
Combating corruption in government and business is an even more complex issue to tackle, and there exists no simple solution. Internal efforts in place since the 1990s have all failed, and it appears that the only solution is the instatement of higher internal and external sanctions to stifle corruption.
In the long term, this new synthesis must contend with the effects of climate change. According to a study by the Asian Development Bank, Bangladesh’s economy is more at risk to climate change than any other nation. A three-foot rise in sea level would submerge almost 20 percent of the country, displacing 35 million people, and decreasing GDP by an estimated two percent by 2050.
Thus, the means and mechanisms by which Bangladesh may attain its synthesis are not simple, but they are certainly achievable. The question that Bangladesh is facing is whether it wants to take these daring steps towards a more transparent democracy and greater economic prosperity or if it is comfortable enough to perpetuate the endemic political corruption and fall further into the clutches of religious fundamentalism.
Jared Levy is a sophomore in The Wharton School studying Finance and Statistics. His interests include behavioral economics, management consulting, and big data. He is from Sydney, Australia, and he enjoys playing and watching tennis and soccer in his spare time.
Sources:
https://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/economics/bangladesh-out-the-basket-205729
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/why-is-bangladesh-booming/
https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/eagles-economic-outlook-annual-report-2016/
https://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/about/en/
https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46716605
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/07/bangladesh-basket-case-kissinger
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/bangladesh-could-be-a-new-asian-tiger-heres-why
https://tradingeconomics.com/bangladesh/minimum-wages
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https://www.adb.org/publications/assessing-costs-climate-change-and-adaptation-south-asia