Engr. Akhtar Bhatti quotes Khalil Gibran (Dawn 4 January 1995) pitying the nation that "wears a cloth it does not weave, eats bread it does not harvest and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press." Gibran's measure of a nation's progress and solidarity was accurate in the early part of this century while he was living in New York. Today, we are talking about global economy having demolished physical and economic barriers. It will be foolish for any country to strive to depend entirely on its own production of things. The new world economy order requires countries specialize in commodities and that can only be done when the scale of activity is large and efficient, a possibility of limiting dimensions. So, while Khalil Gibran's thoughts continue to stimulate scholars of morality, we should pay little heed to his vision of economic progress. Instead, we should specialize in producing things that others can not or would not and then trade them for things that other nations can produce more efficiently and cheaply. The last television set was manufactured in the USA in early 1970s; there was no need to compete with the Japanese. The Americans instead, sold Japanese their newfound toys

[17 January 1995 The Daily Dawn]