The blood money metaphor is an interdisciplinary topic of physiology and economics. The metaphor is an ancient and traditional concept that can be traced back to Aristotle, 384 BC.
In the Economy of body, the circulation of blood and money is stated in Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651), William Harvey’s anatomical theory of the circulation of blood for his description of the state as body, Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and back to Aristotle.
Aristotle’s Politics, Book V, chapter iii, section 6 (1302b 35 2303 a)
“The disproportionate increase of a part of the state is also an occasion which leads to constitutional changes. The analogy of the body is instructive. The body is composed of parts, and it must grow proportionately if symmetry is to be maintained, otherwise it perished, or again it may sometimes change into the form of some other animal, as it will if a disproportionate increase means a change of quality as well as quantity. The same is true of a state. It, too is composed of parts, and one of the parts may often grow imperceptibly out of proportion.”
The first and foremost sign of a healthy immune system is effective and efficient blood circulation. The cardiovascular system allows blood to transport nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and hormones, from cell to another, in order to provide nourishment and fight diseases.
The stagnation of wealth is ultimately a result of poor balance of demand and supply of goods and services, the diastolic and systolic of money. This is the need of synchronized duality of yin and yang in Taoism
Similarly the first and foremost sign of a successfully optimized economy is Wealth circulation. The stagnation of wealth instead of circulation, was one of the main causes of Pakistan’s recent economic crisis. This past stagnated financial flow in Land, Labor, Capital, and Entrepreneurship (Factors of Production) frankly choked the economy.
And every time there is stagnation, the consequence of it, is ‘pressure’. The next extension of this analogical comparison. Blood pressure is one of the vital signs and is the force of circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels. It is dominantly expressed in systolic and diastolic pressure.
The stagnation of wealth is also ultimately a result of poor balance of demand and supply of goods and services, the diastolic and systolic of money. This is the need of synchronized duality of yin and yang in Taoism.
The Economy of Pakistan instead experienced a poor and disproportionate balance in demand and supply in trade, real estate, education, technology, and health sector etc.
The comparison extrapolates to similarity in reaction of a deficit as well. A shortage of blood demands an outsourcing of more blood for recovery, the reason we have blood banks. Simultaneously a financial deficit demands a bail out. It is noteworthy that the damage caused by outsourced impure blood is no worse than a financial bailout taken on the wrong conditions and the wrong source.
Under developed and developing nations are known for asking from the better and more successful counterpart nations. Perhaps an IMF bailout for Pakistan? Can it further escalate and improve the economy? Will it be the right answer to resolve the issues of wealth circulation and pressure?
The Prime Minister and the former Finance Minister of Pakistan, have both said that this will be the last time Pakistan will take support from the International Monetary Fund.
The real challenge in the fulfillment of such a statement, is neither for IMF and nor for the conditions it sets, but only an obstacle, for the future of Pakistan and how it is nourished by the PTI led government.
The laws of blood and body may have answers for a successful political economy, what ancients knew, and we ‘the moderns’ have forgotten.
The Writer is a Researcher and Former Lecturer Beaconhouse National University & Forman Christian College, with accumulated academic experience from Turkey, USA, and Germany