Our current political and economic situation does not
make it easy for us to map and prioritise a way forward for our country.There
is both political pressure and a temptation to want to do everything because it
is assumed that people want everything achieved at once, impossible as it may
be.The end result is that nothing will be achieved at the end of
the day even, when people remain in positions of power.
Two main agenda items cloud the space today; political reforms and pressure to
revive the economy. Deciding on which one to prioritise is a major subject for
debate.But, one thing is certain, development is not an aspect of basic
economics but political power.Political power decides on the means and methods
to acquire or create wealth and how it is going to be managed. A weak economy,
in most cases, reflects a weak political leadership.
Wealth is created by either acquiring coercively or transactionally what one
does not have or converting from zero to something of economic value by
exploiting natural resources through beneficiation into commercial value for
existing market.Slave trade and colonialism, evil as they are, were wealth
acquisition methods deployed by western countries to strengthen their
economies.They were political ideas deployed by western political powers to
spruce up their economies.Now that their economies have been sanitised, it now
appears as if the same western countries are the best in global trading and
managing economies.
Times
have changed. Slave trade and colonisation are long expired.Weak as we are, we
would not be able to colonise anyone. But still how does a country such as
Zimbabwe, attempting to emerge from the economic rabbles of failed politics
generate wealth and economic growth.It is seemingly a tough question for which
most African countries have tended to resort to donated narratives such as
opening space for foreign investment.We have heard those tunes before and we
have responded by a consensual chorus, as if it has worked somewhere before.
That African leaders have failed to do well in this area is understandable,
though not justifiable.We lack the experience in building national wealth
because the economic culture that underpins it is foreign to us and controlled
elsewhere.For that reason, there has been a growing tendency to resort to Asian
countries for examples of how they have acquired, embraced and domesticated the
western economic culture in their systems and cultures.
A
key and yet basic lesson drawn from the Asian experience is that ideas can be
borrowed and adapted without inviting the entire foreign investment system.Such
an approach presumed that, even if you borrow ideas, you still need to work
with what you have to get what you need.If you don’t have what you need in
order to implement your ideas, acquire from those who have without dragging
their exploitative cultural strings with you.
Source: The News day,Zimbabwe Monday, 15 January 2018