Paradoxically, the issue of Third World poverty is more important morally, if not politically, for anti-capitalist enthusiasts outside the poor countries. It is the inspired citizens of the First World who have held violent demonstrations at Seattle, Prague and elsewhere, and more recently, in Washington on the occasion of the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

They have staged similar protests at the venues of G-8 summit meetings. They belong mostly to the democratic countries of the West. It is the conviction of these westerners that a government should not only be democratic at home but its outlook should also be democratic in its relations with states outside its national boundaries. According to them, the poor and the deprived living in the ex-colonies of the West, who cannot protect their economic interests themselves, should be the focal point of the economic policies of the rich and industrialized nations as also of the multi-lateral agencies which assist them with loans and grants. It irks them when they perceive that those Third World governments which instead of being helped and guided to provide productive employment to the unemployed millions and survival incomes for the poor masses of the developing countries are being asked to adopt measures that suit the rich industrialists and multinational corporations

It is the foreign ideologues, unlike our own political elite who have been agitating for our poor masses and organising demonstrations, whenever and wherever the capitalist leaders and capitalist monetary agencies gather for routine and formal deliberations.

Such anti-capitalist demonstrations are producing the desired effect as the multilateral lenders and multinational corporations are now apologetic and are, at least, taking half-hearted steps to alleviate poverty, protect labourers’ interest and save the environment from further pollution. As a result of protest demonstrations before the G-8 leaders of seven highly industrialized democracies plus Russia, these rich countries have pledged, in the Okinawa summit held in July 2002, and repeated the pledge every summer since then ‘to take steps to reduce Third World poverty, disease and environmental pollution,’

As a first step in this direction, they have promised to forgo the outstanding debts of 41 of the world’s HIPCs (heavily indebted poor countries) and some progress has been made towards its implementation. Even Pakistan has benefited, though indirectly, from this generous attitude of the donors. Debts of the Paris Club have been rescheduled and the USA has initiated action to write off one billion dollar unilateral debt though as a reward for its being on its side in its war against what it calls ‘international terrorism’.

The display of altruistic sentiments by the world’s richest nations can be termed as a mere political ploy or a temporary device to appease the angry anti-capitalist) lobby in their own countries. But it does prove one thing: All these seven plus countries, being democracies and not autocracies ruled by military stalwarts, are prone to heed persistent protests from a cross-section of their own citizens and adjust their policies to accommodate their demands. Had they been autocracies, they would have cared less.

This fact, therefore, places in sharp relief our own government run by army men, serving or retired. Having been trained to accomplish all tasks by employing force, (not persuasion) they cannot act differently from how they have acted so far. There was no hesitation in using force even against docile dwellers of shanty towns or rural settlements around the country’s capital city or against those powerless peasants who’ for generations, have been tilling lands in the limits of what were military farms set up by outgoing colonial rulers

To stem the economic slide and strengthen the country’s finances they have taken the line of least resistance, and egged on by the IMF, they have resorted to ‘right-sizing’ even those public sector undertakings which have, since their inception, been treated as labour-friendly institutions where a retiring employee’s son had as rightful a claim on a job in the institution as the retiree rightfully expected payment of provident fund and gratuity. It was unthinkable that an employee would be sent home before due date of retirement, not for misconduct but for ‘right-sizing’, and that the employee’s son will have no vested claim on any kind of job in the organization.

It has become a cliche that the IMF and the World Bank, founded in America and operating from the American soil under the umbrella of the American Big Business, have nothing else to offer but the capitalist system that evolved in the United States, like parliamentary democracy evolved in Britain. Their agenda is antithetical to the socialist and egalitarian precepts and practices. Their edicts are: withdraw all subsidies , though meant to help the depressed sections of the society, recover full (user’s) cost of utility services from all consumers instead of reducing such costs by switching to indigenous natural gas in place of imported fuel oils, tax even medicines and old age pensions and savings of senior citizens and widows; denationalize higher educational institutions a la American universities and also health care facilities, as in America.

The government of Pakistan is so beholden to the American system where private enterprise controls all spheres of life by side-lining the state authority.

Common Pakistani citizens have no interest in Keynesian theories and macroeconomy - the GDP growth, lower inflation, restricted money supply, adequate reserve of foreign exchange and so on, The prosperous class of industrialists exporters / importers and big business may be interested in these statistics. The suffering masses, not enamoured of even the grass root democracy generously gifted to them, want a square meal a day, ‘bread, clothing and shelter.’ They want land reforms and change in economic status quo.

Whichever political party promised to provide these things has received the support of the lower middle class and those condemned to live below the poverty line.The Pakistan Peoples Party‘, despite its leader’s much publicised black deeds, still enjoys support from a large section of Pakistanis because, they did provide employment and, at least’ promised to implement land reforms and change the status quo. The results of the general elections are an eye-opener for those who frame the fiscal policy to please IMF by improving the macroeconomics data and turning a blind eye to the lot of the common man.