Poor Choices by James Shikwati August 28, 2002 The World Summit on Sustainable Development has focused on the issue of poverty. In his opening remarks South African president Thabo Mbeki, lamenting the current inequalities between the wealthy and poor, called for "wealth sharing" as a way out. How does he propose to go about this? South Africa is a country of two worlds: The wealthiest and the poorest. So, this country's history can better illustrate an approach out of poverty. During the apartheid era, blacks had no economic freedom. Whites were relatively free and others benefited from plunder of state resources. The black populations were forbidden from trading in certain areas of the country, and they mostly favored socialism. This background made the blacks poorer and the whites richer. The emerging fact here is that the policy system made a section of the population to become disadvantaged. To take people out of poverty, the focus needs to be on safeguarding their economic freedom. Less government intervention in private economic initiatives and securing property rights will act as incentives for economic growth. But the poor populations will remain poor if the rest of the world, through the vehicle of the United Nations, decides to plan and intervene in personal enterprises. And that is what some people here at the summit seem keen to achieve: limiting people's productivity. On the other hand, the South African government "dehawked" the street for the summit, throwing out traders, taxi drivers and farmers who sell goods. This treatment of the hawkers is a good illustration of treatment counterproductive to development. At the summit venue, civil society groups -- most of them from the developed nations -- are busy networking to pay attention to the plight of the hawkers. Of interest is that they seem to be doing it on behalf of the poor countries. The few Third World NGOs around do not have the funding and sophisticated equipment to voice their concerns. To make it worse, media houses based in the poor countries are not well represented. The wealthy countries want the Earth to be green. The underdeveloped want the Earth fed. Exploitation of the natural resources created the wealth that feeds the rich countries. To bar the underdeveloped from utilizing their own resources is to make them die hungry. To propose that the poor should not have the freedom to choose which technology is best for them is to limit economic growth. Where are the poor in the summit? They are hardly represented by those "Third World" NGOs here - who pander to wealthy countries in the name of Sustainable Development - perhaps to sustain themselves. The summit is expected to pass resolutions that will make it difficult for the poor to make use of the resources next to them in the name of conservation. High standards for environmental laws will simply make it more difficult for the poor to market their products abroad. Production costs will increase significantly due to environmental laws. And developed countries are more often rejecting agricultural goods from poor countries under the pretext that they carry with them residue pests. The reduction in fossil fuels in order to utilize more "renewable energy" also will make the underdeveloped stagnate. Why is the developed world keen on preventing the underdeveloped from making use of natural resources that they themselves used to develop? A delegate from Sweden pointed out that "the poor should not be allowed to make the same mistakes the developed made leading to pollution, the poor should leap-frog in order to attain sustainable development." But what gives the developed nations the right to make choices for the poor? One of the WSSD volunteers that I talked with, a student at the Rand African University observed, "Africans, and by extension Third World countries, should not wait to be spoon-fed by the West." The poor need freedom to utilize their talents. They want to utilize their own resources. They want good governance that will protect their wealth. The Earth Summit unfortunately has too little concern for the real views of the poor. The author is Director of the Inter Region Economic Network, IREN Kenya.
We have the right because we only have one planet that we all have to live on. Why should they make the same dumb mistakes when they could do better?
just one little remark when yoiu say that the poor want the earth fed while the rich want the earth green, obviously I agree with that but it's interesting to know that america alone wastes enough food to feed the entire planet on a daily basis. Obviously America is an extreme but most of the wealthy countries polute by far more then the poorer country. Love and peace in the middle east
Here's James Shikwati's response to this: "The cleanest countries in the world are also the wealthiest. They can afford the technologies that reduce pollution, make water drinkable, and preserve forests, rivers and other natural habitats. Yet their initial stages of development relied on practices that would not today be considered “environmental-friendly”. Growth and wealth led to new technologies, which eventually resulted in a commitment to addressing environmental problems — but only once basic human needs had been met by society." http://www.aworldconnected.org/article.php/235.html
When you say most of the wealthy countries pollute more than the poorer ones,what type of pollution are you referring to? Isn't the drinking water in America cleaner than the water being used in India or Mexico? And if so, isn't that because America has the technology to provide cleaner drinking water than poorer countries like India and Mexico? James Shikawti's point is that until poorer countries are able to use economic policies(in this case free markets/free trade) that actually encourage economic growth,then that's when these poorer countries will be able to afford the technologies for cleaner drinking water and for handling other pollution problems.
Unfortunately the really poor couldn't give a hoot about pollution, economy and sustainable development. Living day to day and hand to mouth to try and scratch enough food for their families any form of debate on the matter is not a privilage that they can afford to spend time thinking about. When you have no lighting, no internet, not enough food or medical facilities and you sleep on an earth floor and walk 5 miles to the nearest watering hole your dreams and aspirations might be somewhate limited through no fault of your own.
Ok,here's one reason Socialism or Communism hasn't developed any African countries. Because it breeds its own type of "ethnic corruption". Socialism puts all,or most economic activity in the hands of those in the government,which means that those in government will be the most well off. In Africa this has contributed to "tribalism" or ethnic conflicts,because each ethnic group wants their man or woman in power to "redistribute" the wealth to their tribe. The best way to reduce this corruption is to have a free market economy,then corrupt government leaders won't be able to monopolize and control the economy the way they've been doing to only benefit a few.
Actually, primitive communism has existed in Africa among tribes of course, but not on a huge scale. Not neccesarily. As I see it, the governments are not only controlled by the government, but they are the governemnt. Look for example of the influence the United Fruit Company had on different countries. Just look at how they convinced the CIA that they needed to topple the leadership in the country. As I see it, capitalist governments support the wealthy, and the wealthy only. I think this is very clear, if you look at it from a historical viewpoint.
And capitalism, or for that matter, any other economic\political systems doesn't produce equivalent amounts of corruption. Oh, and I believe Egypt, Libya and Syria have all considered themselves socialist states at various times since 1945, while Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia\Eritrea have all been Marxist states. We all come to these issues with an agenda, and I happen to agree with you that at the moment free market economics is most likely to improve things for the greatest number, in the short term. But thats only because it scores 2 out of 100, while all the other options score 1.5, and we as a race are too dumb to agree anything smarter. I wouldn't eulogise about it on that basis.The biggest distorter of the free market is the United States which actively intervenes to ensure no other country, or bloc of countries can rival its power, IMO, and which engages in protectionist trade policies. Have you forgotten Enron and all the other corporate scandals - don't know where you live but you probably know something local recently that high-lights the inherent greed of the free market system - from BSE to illegal raw sewage discharges, from unofficial toxic dumps to mobile phone masts stuck next door to your kids school. Don't you need to be a millionaire to effectively run for the American presidency - so are there really any big businessmen who aren't either actively involved in politics or who have the ear of their local politician. One last point - doesn't your definition of tribalism sound awfully like the Mafia.
Lets remember that the topic here is 'What the poor need: Freedom. Perhaps we should stick to the topic rather than trying to create 3 threads where communism is being discussed.
If traditional or pre-colonial Africans did practice "communism" or socialism it was voluntary and not dictated to them by their kings or chiefs. Most pre-colonial Africans had free village markets. [Every African today will affirm that prices in the village markets are generally not determined or fixed by the village chief or king. This is a fact that has been true for centuries and must be stated emphatically since many modern African governments are ignorant of it. African chiefs did little to interfere with the day-to-day operations of the village market. Nor did they impose price controls on the market. It was never the traditional role of chiefs to police how prices were set. Even wages were not fixed by any village authority (Hill, 1987, 110). To all intents and purposes, the African village market was an open and free market, however "primitive." Only rarely did a chief intervene in market transactions.] http://freeafrica.org/indigenous_institutions.html
Well the original author James Shikwati(a Kenyan), is an advocate of free markets and trade(economic freedom) for African development. So I guess anytime you talk about free markets, socialism and communism will naturally come in somewhere. Even James Shikwati touched on socialist African leaders in the first post.
Sorry - what kind of freedom are we discussing - economic, political, personal, social, etc,etc - all political systems would say they offer "freedom", and therefore it would seem highly relevant to this topic to look at just what each system has to offer to the poor. I've even seen some right wing political commentators arguing that the poor are poor because they have exercised their "freedom" to be so - the poor haven't take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities to improve their material well-being - like they get up every morning and decide to be poor. As far as tribal leaders setting prices are concerned - historically in a primarily barter economy, (sub-saharan Africa to over generalise) - there would be no "prices" to fix. Much of the wealth would be held in common particularly in the agrarian societies, I believe. The war-like tribes who empire built amongst such tribes tended to pillage everything, for slaves and portable loot rather than become the new ruling class - I'm thinking of the West African empries like Dahomey here. Even the coastal trading with Arab and European traders seems to have been done at the barter level until the last great European rush to colonise Africa from 1880 onwards.
http://freeafrica.org/indigenous_institutions2.html Here's where the author of that link touhces on the use of various commodities as currency in traditional Africa. He's talking more about how pre-colonial African rulers didn't "fix" the value of exchanges between traders,unlike how post-colonial leaders did,who put in place various controls over economic activity.
