Thread by @PankajSaxena84

1. Is Sri Lankan disaster ecological?

As disaster unfolds in Sri Lanka, we see some ‘Development is the Only Nirvana’ blokes going at what they think is the jugular of the argument: Sri Lanka’s choice of organic on the recommendation of Vandana Shiva. Nothing can be more wrong.

2. Sri Lanka is collapsing because it created a lethal mix of socialist welfare state, development politics & crony capitalism. It was crony because the entire country is practically run by the Rajapaksa family with every contract awarded to family members.

3. In order to get away with that without turning into Izlamic dictators they started abolishing all sorts of taxes, without thinking of consequences about how the country will run without taxation. This was done without bringing down public expenditures.

4. The country to begin with is a resource poor country as compared to others in the region. It is a tropical paradise, yes, but it is just that. It was never meant to have a very high HDI and yet it did which was much higher than South Asian region. Why did it do so?

5. Tourism became big in the past few decades and became lifestyles of many countries across the world such as Greece, Portugal and in Asia, Sri Lanka. Nobody thought that it was unsustainable until the disaster struck in the form of Corona Virus pandemic.

6. It was during the pandemic that people realized that tourism can shut down anytime and without subsistence cultures it would be impossible to sustain. But by then the population and the lifestyle of Sri Lankans had expanded to a limit which could not be rolled back.

7. Sri Lankans wanted to continue with the lifestyle which was inherently unsustainable. Pandemic was damaging economic foundation of the country, eroding it fast with everybody realizing & nobody acting. The Economic Nirvana dream was breaking but nobody wanted to wake up.

8. Government responded by abolishing the taxes for the incomes were drying up. It further exacerbated the problem, but when have politicians thought about tomorrow? As the problem grew they responded with more freebies until the game was up. #SriLanka

9. And somewhere in the melee, they took the decision of going completely organic. I support organic, but you can’t let the population spiral out of control and then say we will go 100% organic. It was not a reason for the fall at all but stupid nevertheless.

10. But that is NOT the reason Sri Lanka is collapsing. Sri Lanka is collapsing because: 1) It went far beyond its natural resources; 2) It built a lifestyle on flimsy business like tourism; 3) Pandemic struck wiping out tourism; 4) Government responded by giving freebies;

11. …5) Economy and country was already in a bad state because of socialist policies and crony capitalism with the family taking cut in everything. 6) Instead of curbing consumption the government just kept increasing freebies bringing the ultimate collapse.

12. Sri Lanka is a basket case of what happens when you live unsustainably; when you consume more than is sustainable; when you violate the natural boundaries on resources that Nature puts us in; when you believe in the fairy tale of unlimited development on limited resources.

13. Sri Lanka is collapsing because it pursued the impossible dream of having unlimited economic development with limited resources. What happened to Sri Lanka today will happen all over the world soon if we don’t reign in our consumption.

14. Sri Lanka is collapsing because of the unbridled ‘progress’ and ‘development’, and not because of choice of going organic.