Blog of Scope
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
Endurance
Economy
Monetary policy is one of the subtopics mention in macroeconomics topic. In capitalist world, the govenment’s monetary policy controls the interest rate in order to control country’s economy especially inflation and fluctuations in exchange rate. However, interest (riba’) is haraam (unlawful) in Islam. I wonder what is the instrument available in Islamic economic system to control the economy. What will Bank negara do to control our economy if our country embrace Islamic economic system fully. Currently Malaysia boasts as the centre of the world of Islamic banking. But that is Islamic banking what about other area? I’m interested to know the answer. Hopefully I can find the answer after the exam.
Micheal E Porter said in his article about “The Competitive Advantage of Nation’s”:
A nation competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.
I think what is happening in Malaysia is the other way round. Politician interference, cronyism and corruption seems preventing domestic rivalry, thus affecting innovation. That is my assumption based on my conversation with some staffs in GLCs and other sources. I don’t have data to support my argument. However, it is clear that Malaysia still struggling. Just look at Proton, it has been operating for more than 23 years, but Proton are not able to compete with foreign cars. Why?
In terms of rivalry, the rivalry spirit amongst the Malay is very high. Just look at food industry. When you see a mak cik successfully open warung goreng pisang di Jalan X, you will find other people will open a new warung on the same road, bagaikan cedawan tumbuh lepas hujan! Interestingly, everyone will sell the same thing. Funny isn’t it? This is not innovative. One sad thing is, sometimes, when they cannot compete with the leading seller, they will use black magic to make his/her competitors bankrupt. Why this should happen? Another weakness I could see is, they just focus on one attribute which is rivalry, not other atrributes such as factor condition, demand condition, supporting or related industry and strategy. Neglecting this factors will not help them to be the leader in industry.
What can we learn from this as an individual. I think this can help us to understand the hikmah of problems and challenges we faced in our daily live. Maybe Allah want to make us a better person by going through hard life so that we will be a better person in the future.
Da’wah
Umrah








