The Global Capitalist

Burma, which has been under a strict dictatorship for the past generation, is experiencing its largest protests in at least 10 years. The protests, which were fuelled when the government raised energy prices, are aimed at removing the current government and re-instating Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner, won the 1990 election, but was barred from taking office by the military regime. She has spent most of the past 17 years locked up inside her house in Rangoon. While she has the support of much of the western world and maybe of the Burmese people, she has been out of the political scence for many years. Protests in 1998 failed to achieve any change in administration, but much of the 1998 protests were led by civilias and put down by governmental force. The current protesters are led by monks, which are highly respected in Burmese society. Any forceful action against them would likely cause massive riots and could have disastrous consequences.

A change towards democracy in Burma would have a huge impact in Southeast Asia. It was only 50 years ago that Myanmar was one of the richest countries in the world. This changed almost instantly around the turn of 1960s as the country halted foreign investment, migration, and technology from entering the country. As a result, the state of Burma today is little changed from where it was in the middle of last century. But, the factors that made Burma wealthy in the past still exist. Their large resource base is untapped and much of the land is excellent for farming. With the neighboring economies of Thailand, Malaysia, and China hungry for resources and with the recent boom in commodities prices, Burma has much to offer its neighboring economies. The entrepreneurial spirit still exists, and many people in Burma still remember what capitalism is all about. These same statements were true of China when Deng Xiaping began to move country towards capitalism in 1982. The nation of Burma, then, only has to look as far as its eastern neighbor for a lesson in economic conversion. If the protests work this time around, Burma may again rise to a great nation over the coming decades.