By: sumane

sumane — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 04:15:50 +0000

this is a brief rejoinder to my previous article on peace professionals. i received three kind of responses. first is completely agreeng with my arguments and the third totally disagreeing with my arguments and placing me in the category of dr susantha goonathilake and prof g h peiris (former don at univ of peradeniya. the second responses that are more substantive were from lakshan and rajan. one of the major contribution of karl marx is his analysis of rent. he found that there two sources of rent. he agreed with ricardo that differentials would allow some actors to obtain rent income. but he added rent stems from monopoly power. ernest mandal, one of the greatest marxist economists. argued that marxian concept of rent can be used with regard to other factors of production as well if the differences and monopoly power exist in relaton to them.

i did not argue that all peace activists are rent-seekers. my argument is when the new peace process began there was a a substantial inflow of foreign money. so it is quite natural for rent-seekers to find that the peace sector is a new space that can be easily exploited. why didn’t i talk about war professionals? well they are rent-seekers and there have been many in sri lanka. rent-seeking are unproductive. i am concerned about rent-seekers in the peace sector mainly because their presence is bad for peace. when rent-seekers are present in war sector and if their actions lower the productivity of the war sector, i have no reason to shed tears.

Comments on: Peace professionals and War professionals

By: sumane