Sumanasiri Liyanage, … His Prologue to An Academic Appreciation of Professor HA De S Gunasekera
Prologue …. Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Dean, Faculty of Arts, Head, Department of Economics, Members of Prof. H A De S Gunasekera family, colleagues, Friends and students.
It is indeed a pleasure to be in Peradeniya once again, and I felt honored and privileged when I was asked to deliver the Prof H. A. De S. Gunasekera memorial oration 2025 for which I thank Prof Sri Ranjith, Head/Economics and members of the H.A. De S. Gunasekera Memorial Committee.
Let me begin with a brief anecdote. My first face-to-face meeting with Prof. Gunasekera took place in the latter part of 1966, when I came to Peradeniya to do a special degree in economics after spending the first year at the University of Ceylon, Colombo. However, that was not my first encounter with him, I remember three previous encounters, though not face-to-face meetings.
The first was in March 1960, a year in which I was thrown into the periphery of left politics in Sri Lanka. As a village lad, I walked from house to house with the Lanka Samasamaja Party (LSSP) candidate for Baddegama seat in the 1960 March parliamentary election distributing his leaflets. In the same election, I found that Dr. H. A. De S. Gunasekera contested the Borella seat as the LSSP candidate. So, I had heard his name not as an economist, but as a samasamajist.
In the early 1960s, the Chair of Economics fell vacant as Professor B.B. Das Gupta of Indian origin retired. Who will be the first Sri Lankan chair of economics became an issue of national importance? There were two contestants, Dr F. R. Jayasuriya and Dr. H. A. De S. Gunasekera, both from the teaching staff of the Department of Economics. I was in the GCE A/L class at the time, and together with many of my friends I supported Dr H. A. De S. Gunasekera because he was a Samasamajist and leftist. There was an intensive campaign. At that time, these kinds of appointments were made by the Senate of the University that had representation from the Parliament. Mr. Dudley Senanayaka and Dr N M Perera voted for Dr H. A. De S. Gunasekera and Mr. Phillip Gunawardena voted for Dr F R Jayasuriya. Dr Gunasekera was finally appointed the first Sri Lankan chair professor of economics.
My third encounter was in 1964. Dr N. M. Perera, one of the most popular leaders of the LSSP, proposed to the central committee of the party that the LSSP should form a coalition government with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) headed by Ms. Sirima R. D. Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister. A special conference was convened to decide on the matter where two more resolutions were added. While the second resolution opposed any kind of coalition with a bourgeois party characterizing it as a betrayal (in spite of the SLFP adopting some radical measures like nationalizations), the third resolution proposed that the LSSP could join a coalition government but along with the other two Left parties. Among the signatories to the third resolution were three Peradeniya dons, Mr. Doric de Souza, Dr Osmond Jayaratne and Prof H. A. De S. Gunasekera.
I referred to these anecdotes as they open up for me a window to enter the subject that is the theme of my talk this evening. I consider Prof. Gunasekera as a political economist although the term was not in vogue during that period. How do we distinguish political economy from mainstream economics that has become ‘normal science’[1] in Kuhnian terms? Mainstream economics, that late John E Weeks called “fakeconomics”[2] comes from different modes, neo-classical, supply-side, rational expectations and neo-liberal? Weeks defines ‘fakeconomics’ in the following words:
Fakeconomics is the study of exchange relationship that have no counterpart in the real world and are endowed with metaphysical powers. These exchanges are voluntary, timeless and carried out by a large number of omniscient creatures of equal powers. These creatures know all possible outcomes and the likelihood of every exchange, so they are never surprised (they are omniscient, after all). In fakeconomics no difference exists among the past, present and future, and full employment always prevails.[3]
Political economy, however, proposes to examine an economic phenomenon situating it in its social, political, cultural and psychological setting. As Franklin Roosevelt once said, “we must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature, [but] made by human beings.” [4]
Pure economic theory that abstracts from a specific social structure is impossible. Prof. Gunasekera was a political economist. Moreover, it is correct to say that almost all the teachers in the department during that time were political economists. I wish specially to mention a few names, Prof. B Hewaviharana, Dr K H Jayasinghe, Dr Ian Vanden Driesen, Prof. Balakrishnan and Prof. Tony Rajarathnam. Studying under these doyens was not only a memorable but also a pleasant experience although almost all the lectures were held in the dilapidated ‘takaran’ building. They were great teachers and had a passion to instill knowledge in their students.
In this talk, I intend to pay my own specific tribute to Prof. Gunasekera as a political economist by adopting the method of political economy to the subject under review.
END NOTES
[1] Thomas Kuhn. The Structure of Scientific Revolution.
[2] John E Weeks. Economics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy. London: Anthem Press. 2014
[3] Ibid. p. 17.
[4] Quoted in Ibid. p. 17.
On a lighter vein, once HADeS & Doric Souza were playing bridge a heated argument arose between the two on bridge , HADeS is supposed to have lifted a chair to hit Doric , who quipped in his usual manner ” by lifting a chair , you have lost a chair “. Doric was referring to the chair of Economics , Both were LSSP members at that time
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Political economics versus “Fakonomics”
comment by Chandre Dharmawardana.
Sumanasiri Liyanage is one of our bridges to the older academic world in Sri Lanka that I knew; hence it is great to read his appreciation of HADS. Also, Sumansiri L is an erudite writer and writes provocatively. He is always worth reading.
I had some interactions with HADS when he was behind the appointment of a well known Mahaweli Engineer (an LSSP man) to the Planning Ministry. They brought in a movement to renew the “Kammaml Karayas” (blacksmiths) as the centers of technological awakening, while rejecting more standard scientific opinion (e.g., from some of us). They even claimed that a low-level technician (using “indigenous knowledge”) has figured out how to make Titanium dioxide from Ilmenite at Pulmodei, some 100 times more cheaply than done by professional chemists. The kammal man produced a sample. We were able to establish that the sample was stolen from the Pulomodei factory titanium dioxide stores!
I mention the above event because SumanasirL’s article also contains elements of this anti-intellectualism. He claims that modern economic theory is Fakeconomicsas far as I know, developed even basic computer models of Lanka’s economy. Instead, political economics, i.e., slogans of ideologues who avoid quantitative thinking, tend to dominate Sri Lanka’s economic pronouncements. The political economists that Sumanasiri L lauds shout slogans when a party is in opposition. But when such a party come to power, as did the NPP, they realize that the practical operations are controlled and curtailed by basic facts that do not appear in their slogans: for e.g.(A) Sri Lanka’s economy is entirely at the mercy of international market forces; (B) currently, it is entirely at the mercy of its financial lenders, to wit., mainly the IMF. Thus it is the IMF that cranks up the economic models and lays down what happens. These economic models used by the IMF or the World Bank are in the genre that SumanasiriL calls “fakeonomics”.
So, unfortunately Sumanasiri and others have even less substance to offer, as the world has heard enough of political economists and political “scientists” who refuse to be quantitative in an increasingly alogorithmic world.
While desriptive, history-oriented economic writings that look at economic events with hindsight are valuable, and can be done using even “political economcs”, they cannot be a springboard to econmic predictions or economic planning.