Due to the working of the force mentioned in my earlier post, the question is not really whether it is a choice or not, but the choice made by who? made for who?

Sometimes, the traders won. sometimes, the manufacturer won. Then the farmers goes to protest. In my country, Malaysia, the government has a clear message to encourage the factories here to ‘go beyond’ and ‘the world is your market’. And even that, some industry players have complained in the news that the government is not doing enough to ‘help’ the industries.

Besides the industry player, the average Joe public is always being ‘protected’ from the unconvenient truth (of Global Competition, not the Al Gore movie) & policies and decisions of the government. This blindness, let public be easily manipulated by radicals (now religion radicals, e.g in one of our opposition state) into anti-what-ever-government-policy mindset.

Should the choices that need to be made be laid out in the beginning, and the decision maker spell out the reasons (tell us the real reason, not lip service excuses) of the decision and have a debate. Tell the people which sector will benefit, which will have to make changes etc i.e. let them be warned of the impact and be ready for it. Or better, make plans to help them change. I am sure, this could be sorted out much better.

Fear of the unknown is what caused the procrastination and all kinds of speculation. Given all the information of the decision maker have, maybe the people themselves would make the same decision as well.