Skill Formation Strategies for Sustaining 'The Drive to Maturity' in Pakistan.

This paper outlines some problems in the articulation of a national skill formation strategy seeking to sustain ‘the drive to maturity’ of the Pakistan economy. We examine the thought of two economists—Adam Smith and Amartya Sen—to identify market-, society-, and state-related skills that they theorise as necessary for sustaining an economy’s ‘drive to maturity’. We then briefly outline Michel Foucault’s social theory to contextualise these skill formation paradigms within the institutional structure characteristic of mature capitalism. We argue that integration within global capitalist order leaves little room for the articulation of such a skill formation national strategy. Pakistan is therefore likely to share the fate of the majority of the under-developed countries which are experiencing de-skilling and detechonolgising

Can Econometrics Rescue “The Economics”?

Economists disagree; this is a matter of fact. Economics has an empirical methodology to verify whatever theories economists from different schools of thought advance in order to explain the economic phenomenon. This empirical methodology lends economists the confidence that most of the differences among them can be reconciled overtime by employing this methodology. If not today, future development either in economic theorization or estimation techniques may help them settle their internal conflicts. This paper argues that disagreements among economists are deeper than they are usually conceived of. These disagreements are spread over the entire spectrum of scientific theorization, i.e., explanation, prediction and control aspects of economics. Economists disagree neither because their understanding about economic functioning is imperfect nor because their econometric tool-kit of verifying their theories is limited; instead several deeply rooted reasons leave them divided on matters of economic theory and policy. It is argued that disagreements among economists are so deep that they become almost irreconcilable. Economics will continue as a rhetoric activity where different economists make use of authorities, stories, logic and metaphor to persuade each other

Skill Formation Strategies for Sustaining ‘The Drive to Maturity’ in Pakistan

Skill formation is a multi-faceted process. Skills are necessarily (by definition) instrumental—i.e. means for the achievement of a metaphysically defined objective. In Modernity,1 this metaphysical presupposed ‘rational’ purpose of existence (both individual and societal) is freedom [Kant (2001)]. In the history of Modernity, the primary source of the growth of freedom has been capital accumulation.2 A nation committed to Modernity (‘Enlightened Moderation’) is necessarily committed to articulating a skill formation strategy which can transform ‘human being’ into ‘human capital’. This transformation requires three distinct types of skills: individual, communitarian and political. This is because capitalism is not just a ‘lifeworld’ in the Habermasian sense but a system [Foucault (1976)]. Capitalist individuality requires a prioritisation of the preference for preference itself (‘choice’) over all preferences. This is necessary for the internalisation of capitalist norms (the commitment to profit/utility maximisation and competition to achieve this end). Capitalist individuality must also posses the skills which allow it to rationally identify and pursue its interest in the market and in the firm. It must also have the selfdiscipline to function as a diligent and co-operative participant in the capitalist work process

CONFERENCE REPORT: “PAKISTAN SOCIETY OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS”, DECEMBER 2005

The 21st annual general meeting and conference of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists (PSDE) was held on December 19th-21st, 2005 at Islamabad. The event was hosted by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). The theme of the conference was ‘Skill-Development, Productivity and Growth’

METAPHYSICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE NEO CLASSICAL ECONOMICS PARADIGM

The extent to which neoclassical economics reflects a set of subjective values of Enlightenment thinkers, instead of objective facts, and the context in which it operates are usually neglected. We argue that neoclassical economics, has a two-fold agenda: (i) to provide a technology in order to legitimize capitalist social order according to liberal values and thereby, (ii) justify the liberal ideals of political philosophy. Thus, we strongly reject the claims of its value-neutrality. Liberal society (as legitimized by neoclassical economists) is represented by a model in which each individual exists in an isolated cell of self-interest maximization connected to the rest of society only through voluntary relationships based on exchange of goods andservices. Self-interested individuation and social harmony are seen as mutually reinforcing and, hence, harmonious. The body is seen as the primary instrument dedicated to the only legitimate objective of accumulation for its own sake. On the basis of such a model, perfect competition finds justification as a system that most nearly meets the desire for accumulation. The formation of government to organize society is undertaken by an infallible general-will of the citizens of a society. Thegovernment is supposed to provide a neutral framework within which people can pursue their own preferences based on their own conceptions of the good. The questions of ‘right preferences’ and ‘origin of production technology’ are deliberately avoided to obscure the fact that the preference for preference itself (i.e the preference for accumulation) must be prioritized within capitalist order. Policies are advocated to move the actual world to the ideal world of perfect competition

Scientific papers citation analysis using textual features and SMOTE resampling techniques

Abstract Ascertaining the impact of research is significant for the research community and academia of all disciplines. The only prevalent measure associated with the quantification of research quality is the citation-count. Although a number of citations play a significant role in academic research, sometimes citations can be biased or made to discuss only the weaknesses and shortcomings of the research. By considering the sentiment of citations and recognizing patterns in text can aid in understanding the opinion of the peer research community and will also help in quantifying the quality of research articles. Efficient feature representation combined with machine learning classifiers has yielded significant improvement in text classification. However, the effectiveness of such combinations has not been analyzed for citation sentiment analysis. This study aims to investigate pattern recognition using machine learning models in combination with frequency-based and prediction-based feature representation techniques with and without using Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) on publicly available citation sentiment dataset. Sentiment of citation instances are classified into positive, negative or neutral. Results indicate that the Extra tree classifier in combination with Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency achieved 98.26% accuracy on the SMOTE-balanced dataset

Governing the Labour Market: The Impossibility of Corporatist Reforms

This paper argues that a return to corporatist governance structures is impossible in Pakistan. Section 1 outlines neo-classical labour market regulation rationalities presented by Hayek, Wieser, and Sen. Section 2 compares and contrasts Fordist and Post-Fordist modes of labour market regulation. And Section 3 seeks to establish the impossibility of institutionalising corporatist governance structures in the labour markets of Pakistan. Neo-classical theory sees relations between labour and the representatives of capital (‘managers’) as relations created spontaneously by individuals in the pursuit of their rational self-interest. The capitalist individual, be he labourer or manager, defines ‘maximisation of utility’ as his ‘rational self interest’, and order within the labour market requires a reconciliation of individual (the labourer’s) and aggregate (the manager’s) utility maximisation (with aggregate utility maximisation being represented by shareholders value). Labour market order is thus impeded if

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Can Econometrics Rescue “The Economics”?

Economists disagree; this is a matter of fact. Economics has an empirical methodology to verify whatever theories economists from different schools of thought advance in order to explain the economic phenomenon. This empirical methodology lends economists the confidence that most of the differences among them can be reconciled overtime by employing this methodology. If not today, future development either in economic theorization or estimation techniques may help them settle their internal conflicts. This paper argues that disagreements among economists are deeper than they are usually conceived of. These disagreements are spread over the entire spectrum of scientific theorization, i.e., explanation, prediction and control aspects of economics. Economists disagree neither because their understanding about economic functioning is imperfect nor because their econometric tool-kit of verifying their theories is limited; instead several deeply rooted reasons leave them divided on matters of economic theory and policy. It is argued that disagreements among economists are so deep that they become almost irreconcilable. Economics will continue as a rhetoric activity where different economists make use of authorities, stories, logic and metaphor to persuade each other