Development versus debt peonage

T EN of the world’s richest people hold more wealth than the 3.6 billion people who constitute the poorest half of humanity. The world produces more food than at any point in history yet one in every ten people struggle against dire poverty and imminent hunger. Meanwhile, tons of edible food are discarded and burned on a daily basis. Affluent people have amassed so much wealth that they can afford to visit outer space in their own craft. Yet, billions of people live as their distant ancestors did, using the same rudimentary farm implements to till barren soil and eke out a hard scratch existence. The cell phones that have pierced into these areas are but trinkets to gull people into believing they are of the modern world when that world has left them far behind.

People are so craven that they commerce plastic rice to make money. A diligent parent goes to bed happy that his hard work has produced a meal for his beloved children. Little does he know that he paid his hard earned money to sicken perhaps kill his offspring. n Japan, the love of profit led to the construction of a dangerous nuclear power plant near a coastal earthquake fault line. The Fukishima plant was battered by a combination of a tremor and tsunami. That was five years ago. Three reactors probably experienced meltdown. Radiation readings at the entrance of one reactor now exceed 550 sieverts. Experts are astounded by this unprecedented danger. Eight sieverts is sure death.

The experts do not know how to contain the trouble. Instead of seeking to protect its public people, the Japanese government passed a law criminalizing certain public disclosures relating to the meltdown. Thousands of barrels of highly contaminated and toxic water are being poured into the world’s largest ocean daily. An ocean is not private property. It is the common heritage of all mankind. The pouring of nuclear waste into the ocean will continue indefinitely. Marine life in the Pacific is already tainted. All oceans will be effected in time. We will soon have to take precautions about eating from the bounty of the sea. Perhaps we already should be thinking about it. Try as they might, African nations cannot break the hold that poverty and rich nations have on them. African nations have basically done as told by the economic masters. You opened your markets to free trade. Instead of benefiting you lost the small control you had over your economic life. You integrated into their financial system and banks like them. The more banks you build, the more you fall into debt that takes you farther from the development you want.

They send international organizations to demand African governments balance budgets and cut programs for the poor. Yet, the powerful nations that control these organizations run perennial budget deficits that funnel hundreds of billions of dollars to some of the wealthiest institutions on earth. Something is wrong. These unjust things befall us not by accident. They are the product of conscious designs. Only if we change the design of things economic can we change the wrongs that have relegated so much of humanity to poverty and despair.  We have been told to follow the path of fiscal austerity, tight monetary policy, open markets, unrestrained competition, comparative advantage and free trade. Government should not attempt to do too much to help people.  Let the rich get richer. Money will trickle down to the rest, even the poor. A rising tide lifts all boats.

What happens to the destitute who have no boat. The rising tide will sweep you aside. Commanders of the global economy occupy an ocean distant from the minute streams navigated by the average man. The true history of the world is that the wealthy boats are forever on the rise. But the backwaters the poor occupy only experience an infrequent small ripple from that distant churning of massive wealth. How can the economic system claim to be based on a rational and efficient allocation of resources when it produces such awful results. Imagine a people living in a strange type of house where the roof is only present when the sun shines. They complain about getting wet when the rains come but never seem to question why the roof disappears when it is most needed. We would be wise not to pass the verdict of foolishness against these people.  We are those people. We must understand the difference between social indoctrination compared to genuine learning. The masters of society will teach you what they need you to know. To reach the place of truth, you must begin to learn for yourself that which you need to know.

Here, I want to present an alternative perspective on economics. What I say hopefully may lead us to scrutinize the assumptions upon which the global economic system is based. To do this, I do not intend to confine myself to the standard language or even subject matter of economics.  Economics has been presented as a separate discipline that explains aspects of human behavior with mathematical precision. This is economics first fiction – that a person, a firm or a nation makes economic and financial decisions based purely on reason and with perfect, complete information at their disposal. We know this as untrue. No one can perfectly forecast the consequences of his economic decisions. Imagine a person purchasing an air conditioner unaware the appliance was defective. He is merely seeking to improve his family’s living conditions. A month later, the contraption sparks, then catches fire. The family must run from the burning house with but the clothes on their backs. Classical economics implies the purchaser is rational yet he somehow knew about the quality of the appliance.

Both traits cannot coexist in this instance. If rational, the man then lacked sufficient information. No rational person would spend money to endanger his family and destroy his home in such a fashion. If the man possessed full knowledge of the appliance’s danger, then he was not rational. He is either mad or near to it. Western intellectual tradition further errs in dividing complex human behavior into artificial categories. It claims that economic man is different from political man who is different from cultural man. That cannot be. (To be continued)

• Browne, Consul General at the US Consulate, delivered this at a public lecture in celebration of the 90th birthday of Professor Adetowun Ogunsheye on February 16, 2017 in Ibadan, Oyo State.