Since the Qajar dynasty onward, the gulf between our production capacities and consumption patterns has been widening. A natural question to ask is: How is it though during the Pahlavi period this very gap continued to ever increase, we failed to witness the procedures of the Qajar period?
For example, why the foreigners lacked the exclusive right of issuing bank notes or there was no Torkman Chai peace accord (with Russians) or a Darsey oil agreement (with Britain)?
One answer is that in the Pahlavi period, the gulf between the production capacity and the consumption pattern was bridged by oil incomes while it reproduced our under-development and dependency patterns.
According to the existing evidence, Islamic Revolution has served as a turning point within this framework. Let me cite a short example in passing although the topic needs an extensive discussion in its due place. After the first oil shock which inspired the Shah to reach the gates of the 'great civilization', he invited a group of foreign consulting engineers to design a plan to take us to the great civilization.
The French consulting engineers group Set which was later coupled by an Iranian group and formed Setiran, published a report in 1977. It said that if Iran wanted to spend the next 10 years without a crisis, the nation's import should reach at least 65 billion dollars.
The reason to say the Islamic Revolution is considered a turning point in Iran's history is that it inspired an enormous determination and energy to raise the country's production capacity. It also brought about a public moblization to curb the tendency for soaring consumption and imports. Those who experienced the first years of the post-revolutionary Iran remember the unprecedented infra-structure building for rural production as well as the public uprising for self-sufficiency. They will also recall the consumption behavior in which even those who enjoyed a pompous life-style were shy of using luxuries in public. With the foundations of these two great developments taking roots, we passed the year 1987 - with all its complexities - without a crisis. In the one hand, our import was less that 10 billion dollars, and on the other, the issues faced by our national development management were far greater than what was studied in the Setiran report. For example, our population growth rate was bigger than what the report had forecast. Afghan and Iraqi refugees added to the size of population; we were in a war situation and faced sanctions.
There was a wide-ranging list of problems, the most important of which was the reverse oil shock which plummeted the prices to five dollars per barrel. However, because of the massive energy released after the revolution for strengthening the national production capacity and curbing the consumption tendency, we managed to pass the year 1987 with imports less than 10 billion dollars.
The issue at stake is that after the 1980-88 Iraqi-imposed war and the focus of the new economic management team on structural reform plans, unfortunately these great achievements, too, faced serious set backs.
And this has been increasing so far. In the first years of execution of the plan and despite the fact that our oil income had a just small growth compared to the war period, part of the expenses to fill the gap of luxurious lives was filled with foreign borrowing which provided an opportunity for feeding consumption tendencies and fanning such behaviors. Simultaneously, this anti-development opportunity of wetting the nation's consumption appetite was coupled with the lifting of import restrictions which in turn challenged Iran's production capacity.
During 1995-2004 period, the country's economic management gradually came to notice that leaving the consumption pattern unchecked can not sustain. Therefore, they started imposing controls and free imports were considerably left out of agenda. Consequently, since 1995 there were comparative reforms, but after 2004 and because of recurrence of the major oil shock, our economy was again inflicted with the two old foes. The national production capacity was diminished in a meaningful way and the gap between consumption pattern and production power increased at unconventional levels. Accordingly, one can appreciate the necessity of floating the idea of correction of consumption pattern against the existing conditions. Given the historical and future vulnerability studies, it can be regarded as a strategic warning for Iran's future. Ironically, well-thought and non-political treatment of the issue can lay the grounds to boost our march towards development.
To have a better understanding of the extent of the problem, I draw your attention to the fact that in 2007 and 2008, we imported 70 billion dollars of goods annually. Despite of this, we were among the world's fourth to sixth inflation economies.
That is, the import-based, unquenching beast of consumption tendency has created conditions that while we assist the supply field which has been weakened by free imports and booming benefit making, it still falls short of curbing the inflation.
Therefore, in the current situation correction of the consumption pattern is an intelligent strategy. If understood well, it can serve as a departing point to scramble up ourselves from the unnatural threats in the field of economic policy-making specially those in the last 3-4 years. However, it seems that we are facing serious challenges in order to put the issue forward within the national development necessities. One of them is that we need a public determination and should create a national consensus through debates.
However, such a discussion will run into the face of those with certain established interests and the objectives of influential groups. We are also facing serious challenges in the fields of understanding, organizing and execution which need to be thought in advance and far from hue and cry.
In addition to traditional parameters discussed in economic theories which influence the consumption behaviors, we need a serious reviewing in education system, foreign trade pattern, business tmosphere, policies leading to financial corruption, distribution of income and a
host of other parameters. We should get ready for an all-out jihad and refrain from hasty, expensive and useless pretentious actions.
Undoubtedly, government is the most suitable point to depart because in Iran's economy it is the largest consumer and producer. However and with deep regrets, the approach adopted by the government indicates that it does not show a definite determination to rectify current incorrect and damaging procedures, and at times follows a tactic of exerting an unconventional pressure on the people under the pretext of correcting consumption patterns in order to continue its undefendable policies of the past.
It is an open secret that insisting on a shock-therapy in energyprices has resulted in eye-catching and rocketing increase in pricesand has served as a source of inequalities and deepening of financial corruption. The question to ask is: will deviation from the most welcome idea of correcting the consumption pattern under the guise of shock-therapy or meaningful subsidies only lead to continuation of damages from the incompetent pattern of consumption of energy?
And will the insistence on this wrong policy which is akin to voting for continuation of expensive and unproductive procedures while directing the resulting pressures to the public, be called correction of the consumption pattern?
Allameh Tabatbaei University, Tehran
نظر شما