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 Technocratic Dreamtime in Malaysia
issue 9 |
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| Malaysia's planned Multimedia Super Corridor has garnered international attention. Hailed by some as an inspired project, set to enrich Malaysia and place it firmly on the 21st c. map, others criticise it as an expensive pipe dream, typical of the bad management that landed Malaysia in its current predicament. Malaysia's deepening economic crisis and the rumouredinsecurity of the MSC have yet to cast aspersions on the project's possible social consequences. John Hutnyk dreams on. Technopolis, Science Park, Technology City. If you haven't had any contact with the myriad carbuncle growths that have begun to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad was recently prevented by a virus from a planned visit to the UK to sell the future, and in Kuala Lumpur a few hiccups in monetary policy have clouded the horizon, but the dreaming schemes of hyper-modernity have been touring the world ? LA, Tokyo, Berlin ? and the future seems very close indeed. The 'Multimedia Super Corridor' is only a construction contract away. The MSC has always been an international project. At the beginning of 1997 a cabal of the 'great minds'1 met with Mahathir in a specially convened 'Advisory Panel' in Los Angeles, USA, to flesh out the flashy proposals that may transform Kuala Lumpur's skyline, and construction industry cash flows, once again. The great minds included CEO's and Directors of multinational corporations such as Siemens, Netscape, Motorola, Sony, Compaq, Sun, IBM and more. The Chancellor's Professor of UCLA was there, and Bill Gates was invited (though couldn't make it in the end). The discussion was no doubt convivial. What was under consideration at this talk-fest for which the PM and his offsiders had come to LA, was an integrated hi-tech development project designed to make Kuala Lumpur and surrounds ? a fifteen by fifty kilometre zone south of the city ? the information hub of South East Asia. Trumpet headlines announced the future in the Times, the Star and the Sun. PM's speeches and supporting echoes from Ministers proclaimed that the MSC project would "harmonise our entire country with the global forces shaping the information age"2. Such harmonisation with the orchestration of the multinational info-corps makes for singing praises in the press. The headlines scream: "Global Bridge to the Information Age", "MSC immensely powerful, unique" and "PM's Visit to US Triggers Excitement". Big dreams indeed. Even the pop-electronic fanzine Wired got in on the buzz and called the project, quite favourably it seems, "Xanadu for Nerds"3. But what exactly is to be in this Multimedia Super Corridor; what are the serious prospects for its success, and by what criteria should it be assessed? The promotional material, as can be expected, does not spare the hype: "Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) is a bold initiative ? a regional launch site for companies developing or using leading multimedia technologies. Aiming to revolutionise how the world does business, the MSC will unlock multimedia's full potential by integrating ground-breaking cyberlaws and outstanding information infrastructure in an attractive physical nvironment."4 The key parts of the proposal include a series of research and development 'clusters', basically science labs and info-technology factories, located near a new airport and a 'cyber-city' including state of the art condos, shopping complexes and transportation facilities, in a secure (everyone must carry an electronic 'National Multipurpose identity Card') and 'attractive' garden city. Telemedicine, Electronic Government and full ("uncensored") internet connectivity are also touted. All this overseen by the twin Advisory bodies of the Multimedia Development Corporation ? they put up the web site ? and the Advisory Panel of the 'great minds'. Why did the first MSC promotion meeting take place in Beverly Hills? Well, obviously the internet and international connectivity of the grand scale to attract the likes of Gates (Microsoft) and Gerstner (IBM) is not there in Kuala Lumpur yet. Similarly, PM Mahathir went direct from LA to Japan for another parallel hi-level corporate luncheon. The point is to attract investment, or rather tenants, for the research laboratories that will be built. One does not want an empty corridor, so one travels to where the clients are. An open invitation. But what is the invitation to? The development of Science City ventures such as this is not a new idea, though it has become something of a craze since the first versions of the concept of integrated science city living were spawned out of the heads of the planners at Japan's MITI. Engineering new Silicon Valleys has become the grand vision of subsequent planners from 'Silicon Glen' in Scotland, to the Multi-function Polis in Adelaide. Not always successfully, the more than 300 plus of such ventures compete for relatively rare technology research pay-offs, as the cutting edge of such research is closely guarded and nurtured by the wealthy mega-corps. In this context, success of a Science City is initially about confidence ? the importance of hype. Here, the future can seem very fragile indeed. From the beginning of the year when the Prime Minister was talking up the '2020 Vision' with super conferences in Hollywood, to the CNN televised roller-coaster of the virtual market stock exchange troubles, it's been a dynamic time for futures in Malaysia. The 2020 Vision "has been delayed", Mahathir was forced to announce, as speculative capital became more tentative and the projects which formed the core of the vision of achieving 'Developed Nation status' in 23 years were put on hold. The complex repercussions of the slide of the Malaysian Ringitt and other stocks, along with controversies over projects such as the Bakun Hydroelectric dam in Sarawak, and 'the Haze' problem afflicting the region, have clouded projections and predictions. Development and profitability seem less secure than before; the tallest building (twin towers Petronas), the biggest airport, the longest office, the undersea electricity cable and the Cyber-Malaysia Multimedia Super Corridor now all appear as costly monuments (whether completed, stalled or abandoned) to the precarious gamble of speculative development within very late capitalism. Of all the new big projects that marked Mahathir's Malaysia as the go-ahead new tiger-cub of South East Asia, only the MSC project, and related services attractive to international R&D such as the airport, have survived the imposed austerities of the currency crisis. Confidence and hype require more than big buildings and upbeat reviews on CNN. Thus, the questions that have to be asked about technological research-generated development are multiple. The first questions might include a consideration of the parameters of the new Science City fad and, in the context of world-wide restructuring, the impact on regional communities in the zones where such cities are planned. The impact upon those now employed in an increasingly narrowing and exploitative manufacturing sector, let alone those from the agricultural sector whose lands are bought up for condos etc., is likely to be profound. It is no doubt they who will soon gain part-time and casual employment as ancillary workers and service personnel in these hi-tech fantasy enclaves and semi-standard accommodations alongside them no doubt. Starting with questions about impact upon people ? possibly still an unusual approach in development discussions ? is worthwhile as it reminds us that what should be asked is: what does Malaysia get out of such a development? Malaysia as yet does not have the infrastructure or ready local expertise ? in terms of university graduates ? to fill the labs to the scale of the envisioned dreamscape, and so presumably, Malaysian employment in the corridor is to be of the service type. Well, indeed, at first a flurry of construction activity ? and the concomitant exploitation of migrant labourers and subsequent racism ? but in the end, jobs as cleaners and porters in the corridors of Info-Tech. Who will be the hi-tech workers? A layer of technocrats and experts will need to be recruited, from in part the expat Malaysian elites schooled in the salons of Stanford, MIT, London and Manchester, but in large part, at least in the first phases, the already existing personnel of the multinational infocorps that are invited to 'relocate' will provide staff for the most important posts. The imported workers will have expat lives and an expat status which is not far from the old 'colonial career' that has always been the hallmark of business empires under imperialism. These appointments will have several corresponding run-on effects. In this context consideration of the impact of recent technological innovation in the old metropoles upon those now engaged in the (neo)colonial manufacturing enclaves and the Special Economic Zones etc., is required as a part of any assessment of tech-driven extension of exploitation in the 'off-shore' production sites of South East Asia. Given the range of projects abandoned in the wake of the Ringitt crisis, why is it that PM Mahathir's dream is to go for the hi-tech option instead of extending manufacturing for the local satellite regional economies (surely sales of medium level manufactured goods to ASEAN partners holds strategic economic merit)? Is the hi-tech only gambit not likely to open still further the path of super profits and speculative super exploitation? A less stark, but nevertheless important, question is why the Special Export Zone option with the tax breaks, cheap labour, low shipping excises etc. is no longer the preferred path, and is instead replaced by a risky corridor venture chasing the possibility of 'technology transfer' and rapid transit to a Bill Gates-sponsored cyber-future? The problem is that the conditions for such transfer are not quite worked out and there is nothing to really entice the key parts of such corporations to the KL Corridor, nor are the generous tax concessions, infrastructure developments and other State funded inducements calculated to lock-in technology transfer in a way that Malaysia could exploit long term. What, and who, after all is the MSC for? Is it again a project to make the elites rich, and one which does not contribute, except perhaps through the vagaries of trickle-down theory and a vicarious, somewhat quixotic, reflected glory which allows the Malaysian people to take pride in Mahathir's international notoriety? Or can it be demonstrated that the old international imperial production modes are magically reversed by the MSC, rather than continued in new format? Where once jungles were cleared for plantations, where these plantations were then cleared for condos and shopping malls (which lie empty or underused) and where the manufacturing sector was geared largely for export rather than ever for use or need, can it be that the multimedia development will somehow restore productive capacity to local priorities? Is multimedia the key to local content, local uses, local needs, or even to regional variants of these same priorities ? the very priorities that we have too often learnt are always second to the goal of profitability, and which seem increasingly subject to the fluctuations and constraints of international competition? The 'people's' interest in the trade in shares, the speculation on futures and the infrastructure development company extractions, are all based on some future pay-off which does not arrive, or at the least does not arrive for the majority of Malaysians. Of course there are a small few who have always benefited from exploitation of the country's economic efforts ? be they the plantation owners, the condo contractors, or the new 'big project' development engineers. The problem is that instead of moving towards a more adequate mode of production, given regional and local conditions, possibilities and necessities, those setting the direction of economic activity in Malaysia seem to favour older selective benefit structures and priorities. There is no indication that a leap forward into the MSC is likely to disrupt existing feudal discrepancies of income, lifestyle or quality of life. Here the contradiction is the same one as that between colonial masters and peasant labour, such that we might name as semi-feudal, cyber-colonial that situation where the most advanced technological capacities will benefit old social hierarchic formations which refuse to budge. But let us not dismiss the project of technology transmission too quickly. Questions about the criteria which would make Hi Tech City developments successful, or at least a worthwhile gamble, must be put up for discussion. The usual considerations here are more to do with the culture of technology development under capitalism in general and do not account for the particularities of the international division of labour and power. Yet these aspects deserve to be thought through. Some of the questions include such generalities as: how might technological innovation be best achieved and what are the requirements for 'synergy' ? the concept such projects use for optimal mix of infrastructure support, creative personnel, 'attractive' environmental factors and the 'spark' that ignites ideas and innovations? Similarly, how does one plan for creativity and the celebrated 'milieu of innovation' that are the buzzword ambitions of these sci-fi enclaves? What is the preferred mix of government public sector, private industry and university support? What regional and historical factors come in to play in determining the suitability of such developments in either previously industrialised centres of long standing, or in newly emergent capitalist economies? How do political and economic contingencies impinge upon the long-term prospects of innovation? What are the policy requirements? (for example how restrictive are local intellectual property and patents guidelines?) Is it all just a fantasy built upon a few otherwise unpredictable successes (Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Munich)? Is technopoly a passing fad? What then are the conditions of take-off for Mahathir's proposed dreamscape? The prospects for synergy and innovative creative hyper invention rely upon the relocation of corporate R&D which is less than likely to arrive. The 'milieu of innovation' that fuels the successful ventures of this kind does not yet seem to exist in the Malaysian plan ? though there certainly is the fab idea in the proposal to build a 'cyber-versity'. The international division of labour, the agendas and opportunisms of the neo-imperialist world order, the short term interests of monopoly capital and the inability to provide a lock-on to capital and technology which may relocate to Malaysia are not, none of them, addressed in the promotional or planning literature. There are very real obstacles which would need to be solved if any technology project were to succeed in the East Asian sphere. Given that Gates has said that Microsoft will not shift its 'fundamental' research outside the USA, it is not a grand prospect. The realities of the international economy do not favour such projects outside the already entrenched centres. The cost to the Malaysian state, and so therefore the public purse, is likely to be greater than that which can be recouped in the short or long term. At the risk of inviting the wrath of the 'recalcitrant' PM, we could ask a different series of questions, ones that would be less generous, but not less plausible in their speculations: for starters, who will profit from the development of the MSC? Do Prime Minister Mahathir and his cronies, the elites and supporters of the good news propaganda in the press, have capital invested in the multimedia transnationals that may locate in the MSC corridor? If Malaysian elite capital is attached to Bill Gates' capital, then perhaps the MSC makes sense for them, if not it is just a corridor crying out (perhaps in vain) for Gates' profiteering. Or alternately, do PM Mahathir and other members of the Malaysian elite have capital tied up in the construction industry? This we know is the case from the controversy around the company Ekran and its now stalled plans to build the Bakun hydroelectrical dam in Sarawak (flooding the homes of 10,000 Orang Ulu peoples, and creating more than sufficient energy to run Malaysia, as well as an additional smelter or two ? see Australian corporate miner Comalco's plans to process aluminium in the region ? via a bizarre undersea submarine electricity cable joining the two halves of the country). But surely those that have holdings in construction could just keep on making money out of condos, dams, hotels and roads, and so all this info and multimedia stuff is too risky speculation? Why go for this hi-teck bizzo? Isn't building factories and warehouses for off-shore assembly and export processing profitable enough? Is the writing on the wall in that sector ? and does it say build corridors not factories, the end of manufacturing profit is nigh? Or, considering the most cynical case, will this Super Corridor actually have anything in it? ? or is it just a flash way of selling more construction (with corresponding bribes and kickbacks etc.)? Even if the R&D firms were to locate some of their lower level R&D in the corridor, how long would it stay ? hi-tech production is very short on shelf life, and very mobile in terms of set ups (I bet you the labs they made Office 97 in at Microsoft were fitted out differently than the ones for Windows 95, new partitions in the veal-fattening pens and so on, new posters on the walls, new cartoons pinned to the noticeboards). What is the prognosis for the economics of the project if even these simple questions are so obvious? Surely better analysts than us have seen that the gains are not there. What are the justifications? I suspect the recent fluctuations of the share market indicate where the problems lie ? this is a virtual, rather than actual, development and 2020 is a very long way off. Once upon a time the strategy of compradore elites was to profit primarily from State subsidised local industrialisation and development, or at best plantations and resource extraction, within their own national domains. This did at least have the benefit of advancing national and local industry, although it would be necessary to quarrel with the direction, ownership and benefits of that industry. The sorry history of elite wealth extraction is second only to that perpetrated by imperialism. Subsequently, however, and largely in the face of the internationalisation of the neo-colonial capitalist market, through mergers, buy-outs and centralisation, it is more often the strategy of such elites to attach whatever capital they may have to other successful capitals ? say those of a Gates ? and profit from whichever short-term option, anywhere in the world, offers the best return for large mobile capitals. In this situation there is thus no lock-in to industrialisation for any particular site, and the capital invested accumulates increasing capacity to exploit and appropriate wherever it can best, so that even to the detriment and cost of the citizens of any particular national elite. Increasingly it becomes necessary for compradore Governments to make local resources ? people, land, power ? available at the cheapest possible rates so as to attract capital investment for even the shortest periods. What factors would ensure the success of the MSC? Given that the MSC comes as a late entrant in the chase for the techno-grail, lessons for Malaysia might be drawn from the experience of other similar ventures and maybe Mahathir can profit from that experience. Maybe. In a study by Manuel Castells and Peter Hall ? called Technopoles of the World5, 1994 ? it is possible to glean some criteria: the question of Government support is shown to be crucial as no such development can really succeed without considerable concessions and grants from a supportive administration. National, State and Regional Governments providing administrative and infrastructure assistance to corporate sector clients fosters an attractive environment for Capital. From the point of view of Corporate industry it is eminently agreeable that many of the associated costs and burdens of new product generation and development be facilitated under Government subsidies ? and so Malaysian taxpayers' cash is thrown into the corridor leading to pearly launch vehicle of information heaven ? the necessary costs of production in individual cases are here deferred onto the public purse. Similarly, the support of adjacent higher education institutions is shown to be important as a stock of researchers are thereby kept on the public payroll, and although often superseded in terms of equipment, labs and so on, as the technology city grows, the availability of university laboratories and libraries is a convenient and again public facility. This all the more so, if the researchers are mobile and contract ? imported ? intellectual labour as well. The scenario is fast looking like another bungled rip-off since other factors like transport, roads, tollways, vehicle pollution and land given over to car-parking, and refuelling, repairing, services, as well as the infrastructural side issues of support provision in the form of everything from legal and secretarial services, cafes, housing, shopping and recreational factors ? including cleaning, nursing, child-minding and even sexual services would also become necessarily available on the new tekno estates that would serve, in order to appeal, those that might locate on an 'attractive' science-tekno-hyper-cyber-future-city. Splendid to see. There are many language tricks that transmute this dreamscape into a sales pitch for short term gain. Mahathir's sparkling prose notwithstanding: he said in his introductory speech that the MSC would entail "the careful creation of a region with an environment especially crafted to meet the needs of leading edge companies seeking to reap the rewards of the Information Age in Asia", and so the prospects for the Multimedia Super Corridor look promising only to those poised to move in an make a fast buck. The corridor is just as likely to become a conduit for neo-colonial business-as-usual as it is to deliver the promises as promised. Who is going to build it if not the migrant workers that are so ill treated in Malaysia, and for that matter world-wide? Who is going to service it, if not the casual and part-time workers that are so badly remunerated, both in Malaysia and world-wide? Who... The good news keeps on coming, Mahathir emphasises the point in another well constructed turn of phrase: "I see the MSC as a global facilitator of the Information Age, a carefully constructed mechanism to enable mutual enrichment of companies and countries using leading technologies and the borderless world". A borderless globe of profit making opportunity is not fun either for luddites or for those who see this only as another trick played across the international labour and prosperity divide. There is definitely a hype in the air, and this needs to be taken seriously, the forging ahead rhetoric envisions the prospect of development and prosperity, and the plans are up for weighty 'great minds' type discussion. Indeed, that's why there is a global Advisory Panel willing to offer advice and a 'critical' apparatus ready to do the fine tuning to introduce the momentous transformations that these tekno-dreamscapes represent. "They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven" (Allen Ginsberg, Howl, 1956)... The future is going to come true. 1. New Straits Times, 18th January, 1997 2. Prime Minister M. Mahathir's speech in Los Angeles, 14th January, 1997, from the special webpage advertising the project - [www.mdc.com..my/msc] 3. Greenwald, Wired, issue 5.08 August, 1997 4. MSC webpage [www.mdc.com..my/msc] 5. Castells, Manual and Hall, Peter, Technopoles of the World: The Making of 21st Century Industrial Complexes, Routledge London 1994 November 1997
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