that people in developed countries take for granted. The right to vote for whomever one feels like is missing. Instead a lot of villagers are forced to vote for the local land owner due to a combination of fear and ignorance; a fear of the repercussions of a potential loss by the feudal lord and the ignorance of any means to escape this same overlord’s wrath. Very often there is also no choice of candidates. There are very few people willing to risk their own and their families’ safety by running against their subjugators.All this goes against the very nature of the free market economy that Pakistan is supposed to be running. While the IMF and World Bank are using Neo Classical theory to address the nation’s problems in the capital, half the country is still being run under the feudal system. Till this system is broken, and the immense lower classes are empowered there is not a dent that can be made in the country’s poverty and hunger issues. Rather the problem will continue to grow right under the economists’ noses.Pakistan is also set back by ethnic problems, having numerous groups including Punjabis, Pakhtoons, Sindhis, Balochis and Mujahirs. Speaking different languages, the different ethnic groups do not get along very well as is witnessed by the numerous clashes between Sindhis and Mujahirs in the violence torn city of Karachi. The language barrier also translates to a lack of mobility of labor, which is a key to economic success under neo-classical theory. Hence the large sparsely populated province of Balochistan is presently under utilized. Due to a lack of available labor, industries are tough to set up. If the language/ethnic barrier could be overcome, the rich lands of Balochistan could potentially become the saviors of Pakistan’s economy. Pakistan also has a very week industrial base. Being an ex British colony it suffers from a similar problem to the one ailing a number of the African a...
