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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20

Professor Mubyarto, 1938–2005

Boediono

To cite this article: Boediono (2005) Professor Mubyarto, 1938–2005, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 41:2, 159-161, DOI: 10.1080/00074910500218376

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910500218376

Published online: 18 Jan 2007.

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BIESAug05 29/6/05 4:18 PM Page 159

Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2, 2005: 159–61

PROFESSOR MUBYARTO, 1938–2005

Boediono

Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta

On 24 May 2005, Professor Mubyarto passed away after a short period of hospi-talisation. In the past few years we had known that he had some health problems, though these were not rare for a man of his age. But this hardly seemed to affect his activities, and he remained as energetic and high-spirited as ever. The news of his death was unexpected for most of his colleagues.

Mubyarto was a member of the very first cohort of PhDs in the Faculty of Eco-nomics at Gadjah Mada University. He and Dr Ace Partadiredja provided the main source of early dynamism and strength in the faculty’s agricultural eco-nomics department. In the late 1960s Indonesia had so few PhDs in ecoeco-nomics that soon after his return Mubyarto was inevitably drawn into the increasingly lively fora of public policy debates and policy making circles in the country. At one time he was among those who provided policy inputs to Professor Sumitro when the latter was trade minister. In 1971 he spent almost a year as a visiting scholar at the ANU’s Indonesia Project, preparing an agricultural economics text-book for Indonesian students. I was then a research assistant at the Project, so we had plenty of opportunities to interact.

At some point in his career he became interested in cross-disciplinary issues somewhat removed from ‘mainstream’ economics. Pancasila economics,1 _people’s

economics, village economics and moral economics were among the themes to which he devoted most of his time until his death. These are fuzzy subjects, not well explored and difficult to subject to the tools well known to economists. It is hardly surprising then that, to his great disappointment and regret, not many of the younger economists in the faculty and elsewhere joined him in this endeavour. The subjects, particularly some of their keywords, found more resonance with the lay public and a more political audience, but there were a few economists who did join in. In later years he grew increasingly critical of what he considered the dominance of neoclassical economics taught and practised in Indonesia, and declared the need to construct an alternative more in tune with Indonesian realities.

After several years directing a centre for village economics at Gadjah Mada, Mubyarto moved on to take charge of a new research centre focusing on Pan-casila economics, which was established by the university at his urging in 2002. A number of interesting and useful micro studies have been produced by these

1_{The Pancasila are the five guiding principles of the Indonesian state (belief in God,}

humanitarianism, nationalism, democracy and social justice). For a discussion of the ekonomi Pancasila debate see McCawley (1982) and Liddle (1982).

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160 Boediono

centres, but they do not (at least, not yet) add up to anything close to an alterna-tive to mainstream economics.

Let me now relate an episode in which Mubyarto played a prominent role, and which may have influenced the intellectual path he took subsequently. I do not remember what exactly sparked it, but in the early 1980s the faculty was swept by a burst of enthusiasm to examine the issue of ekonomi Pancasila. Papers were produced, and seminars and other forms of dialogue were held in rapid succes-sion. Virtually all of us in the faculty were involved in one way or another, and the activities also attracted quite a few writers and speakers from other universi-ties and institutions. Mubyarto was at the forefront of all these efforts.

The main theme was to explore the implications of the five principles of Pan-casila for the theory and practice of managing the Indonesian economy. Public interest in the activities was well beyond expectations. The seminars attracted a wide and diverse audience, and became fora for expressing views not accommo-dated in prevailing mainstream politics, and for airing grievances and discontent.

At this stage we began to receive signals from the authorities, of increasing intensity, that these activities should cease. At that time the New Order regime was politically and economically at one of the strongest points in its history, so the events at Gadjah Mada were hardly a threat to it. However, they may have been considered as an unwanted distraction that had to stop. At the same time, however, some of us at the faculty also felt uncomfortable with the rapid trans-mutation of the activities from the basically academic to the more conspicuously political. In any case, within a few months the activities virtually stopped.

Has the ekonomi Pancasila episode left anything substantive, or was it just a hullabaloo devoid of real content? It is difficult to answer this question objec-tively, not least because the seminars were only loosely structured, the discussion was generally conducted in big fora, and there was not sufficient time devoted to the systemisation and reconciliation of the diverse views put forward. If I may offer my observation, however, there were at least three attributes of ekonomi Pan-casila that stood out in the course of the discussion, all of which may remain rel-evant for the political economy of contemporary management of the Indonesian economy.

First, there was a strong demand that economic life based on a profit and loss calculus and expediency be constrained and subordinated to the higher moral values supposedly contained in the Pancasila. There were unresolved discussions on whether the way to do this was simply by incorporating these values into the relevant economic policies, or whether it was necessary to redesign the economic system or, indeed, whether it could only be achieved by remaking the Indonesian man, perhaps by way of inculcation of Pancasila values.

Second, there was an equally strong desire to maintain a viable ‘national econ-omy’, even when the world was globalising—an economy that first and foremost served the interests and welfare of the Indonesian people, and one that possessed the internal strength to grow and to withstand external shocks. Obviously, there was no operational elaboration of it then, but this surely can be done.

Third, there was a common and forceful view that the Indonesian economy should rest firmly on egalitarianism and the principle of social justice. There was a recognition of the existence of a trade-off between efficiency and equity, espe-cially among the economists. Some felt that there was still room for efficiency and

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equity to go together if particular policies were changed. But there seemed to be a near consensus view that two forms of inequity—extreme poverty, and inequity that risked a loss of cohesion in Indonesian society—must be eliminated, even at some cost to efficiency. Again, no concrete proposals were produced by the sem-inars, but in principle they can be formulated.

After that episode there was no collective effort to continue the endeavour. We travelled separate paths, each of us drawn along by our own activities. But Mubyarto fought on, and continued to probe the great subject of ekonomi Pan-casila with remarkable consistency and perseverance until his death. He has left a lasting mark on the Faculty of Economics at Gadjah Mada, and possibly also on the economics profession in Indonesia.

We pay tribute to our valued colleague, Professor Mubyarto.

References

Liddle, R. William (1982), ‘The Politics of Ekonomi Pancasila: Some Reflections on a Recent Debate’, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 18 (1): 96–101.

McCawley, Peter (1982), ‘The Economics of Ekonomi Pancasila: Some Reflections on a Recent Debate’, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 18 (1): 102–9.