College Essay Question:
5. Discuss some issue or personal, local, national or international concern and its importance to you.

The first thing that comes up to my mind when I read this sentence is the threat of the wild modern style of global economy upon Indonesia’s future. Since the national 1997 monetary crisis in Indonesia, many people think that globalization has devastated many aspects of life there, including the moral values. This diagnose, in my opinion, is true. And I want to show here my fear and concern of those western neoclassic credos that teach efficiency, but do not create a social justice.

I have tracked some apprehensive issues. My main wrath is that the economic development of Indonesia has been intervened too far by other countries through its policies. In this case, the biggest influence for Indonesia is United States. Indonesia has been trapped in United States’ neoclassic theories that aggressively obey the rules of free trade—which is mistakenly consider that economy is objective enough and free of values—, and Indonesia is too far putting United States development experience, which is clearly can not be a healer for Indonesia’s economical troubles nowadays.


It is no doubt that Indonesia has many bankers, and other technocrats in building economy. But many of them are close with IMF and World Banks’ experts. They admire dogmatic value of market, with the reason “to find the right price”, and then they make some researches that generate a policy. As a final result, this policy tends to propose atomic competitions and minimum intervention from the government. This doctrine has become so influential especially after the downfall of Stalin in the middle and east Europe and in the former countries of Soviet. It seems like we have reached the point where “the winner takes all”. The capitalists win. The poor stays poor. Is it what Indonesian people want? Not necessarily.

My point of view is that as an Indonesian, yet I am experiencing a poor social-economic development of Indonesia. It is not this way if Indonesia wants to improve the whole prosperity of its people. Indonesia is a big and rich country. It has many potential sectors for trades, such as energy, oil and gas, petrochemicals, mining, property, finance, travel and tourism. Indonesia has many excellent raw materials that other countries need for this upcoming 30 years, or even longer than that. That is why some people even pursue that there will be time when Indonesia will be concerned as a victim of a modern style economic practice, invasion. I think that invasion is the most palpable action of interfering other countries’ policies. Behind that, there is always intellectual imperialism that controls all. This control cannot be prevented if Indonesia still dependent and lack of capability in science and technology.

We cannot tolerate the practice of free trade in Indonesia, because it is not fit with Indonesian’s condition. It may be fit with United States’ history, law, and social life, but it is in contrast with Indonesia. Indonesians will have to “pay a high price” for it, since more than one third of the population are poor. They are dying because of it. Indonesia’s government need to take a proportional control upon Indonesia’s invests, businesses, and industries. Indonesia’s government has to protect its people. The commitment of abstract economic theories from the west is threatening the life of millions of Indonesian people, because they are not ready yet. Indonesia is a young country, which has many islands and diversities. It makes Indonesia beautiful, but also fragile. Indonesia’s government has to take care of it, and not letting other countries interfere too far. I am sure that Indonesians can prove it, since they have been successfully enduring during the last national monetary crisis that has also affected other parts of Southeast Asia region. Indonesia’s government should not let those huge capitalists to be more prosperous and not to let the big number of Indonesians to get the disadvantages of it.



*this is one of my essays (assigned in english class)