“Of the Half-Billion Poorest Adults in the World, One out of Ten is an American.” The Institute of Policy Studies’ analysis of some new Credit Suisse data on wealth around the world has shown.
This is right in the face of the richest 10 percent of American Adults who have averaged over $1 Million each in new wealth since the 2007 recession. They are mostly white Americans.
Belief in Capitalism and the Market Economy may be crumbling as a result of the growing gap in wealth, which was inevitable. Add to this divide, the racial inequality gap has more than soared.
Now, even the staunchest defenders of Material and Financial Capitalism have had to swallow their saliva in the past few years – the big picture has shown that only Kazakhstan, Libya, Russia, and the Ukraine have worse wealth inequality than the United States.
And for the richest country in the world, which boasts Nuclear Weapons in the thousands, the stats paint a childish vituperative civilization.
How can Africa rein in these relentless mercenaries, the Too Big to Fail Companies and their platoon of lawyers and management consultants, who continue to descend on African soil to plunder what is left of an Africa after Colonial Occupation, without full accountability?
The tipping point for this vast inequality gap might not even be in sight. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has shown how privateers from the West, in particular, use Privatization, Debt Creation and Capital Inflation as mechanisms for Rent Extraction, with catastrophic consequences for public services or the common good.
Through the enforcement of the economics of Globalization as a tool for a worldwide market integration, these rent seekers have stretched into every corner of the globe. In an economically growing Africa, they seem to be spreading their tentacles over African resources in more forceful, yet in more crafty, ways than their predecessors – the colonialists.
As many economists have often argued, including the likes of Joseph Stiglitz, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is but one example of globalization’s unrealized potential to eradicate poverty and promote economic growth. It did not have a will to turn East Asia and Russia around during a significant financial turmoil, rather it imposed austere policies that only exacerbated each area’s problems.
How then are African leaders ever ready to trust these global institutions purporting to help, when all the facts point to ‘leopards with a beautiful skin, yet thumping dangerous hearts?’
The more worrying part of the phenomenon is that, Africans themselves, including the ones who claim to have received some education in economics and commerce, do not seem to comprehend the approaching disaster. They have offered no ideas for fixes.
Worse, most African States, with a few exceptions, neither have the manpower nor the will to study, assess and re-evaluate the impending economic catastrophe that the whims and caprices of the Market Economy is about to wreck on the communal fabric of the African existence.
Some have alluded to Labor Economics as a means to an end. So has Piketty.
However, the underlying foundation upon which the exploitation of the masses is based – be it in market economics or labor economics – have not been at all challenged. The reason is a very simple one – no one is ready to upset the apple cart. Poorer yet, most African economists only ruminate on ideas infused in them in graduate school.
So, instead of focusing on the wealth gap as a theme towards the full eradication of poverty, I draw on an ancient African Economic Theory, that has since Colonial Occupation, been incinerated by modern African intellectuals who have been bred and schooled within the corridors of western institutions.
Not that it is their fault, since much of Africa’s Educational System, the way the colonialists envisioned it, is still based on educating those Africans who are most ready to discard the long and tested Traditions of Africa and her Schools of Thought.
One of those august traditions is the Economic Community Theory (The ECT). I examine this in light of the two dominant European ideologies on the tools of economics and the understanding of what growth – economic development – means to any given society.
Much of the thinking that dictates European Economics are two classical scholarships: Karl Max and Adam Smith. From the African Economics perspective, both are terribly wrong in their basic assumption. Still, their overreliance on these assumptions without any roots in the ages of experiment, observation and reason, seem rather rushed and ill-informed.
Fundamentally, both of these theories underpin the Religious Belief Systems of the World Bank and the IMF. These Churches have overly indulged themselves in so-called economic initiatives in Africa that are obviously neither helping to eradicate poverty nor are they concerned with eliminating African dependence on their heavily Assigned Debts.
In short, these religious beliefs have disciples all over Africa, leaders and Heads of State, borrowing at extensive interest rates that are not meaningful when examined against the grain of common sense.
Like Marx, Smith postulates this assumption – the primacy and importance of Production as the defining essence of a society’s economic survival and growth.
The ECT sees this choice as misleading. It describes this choice as a type of misinformation even. The side of a usable coin that postulates Production alone as the axle for economic growth is hiding the wheels of that ideology – Consumption.
This point of view is raised from the fulcrum of the logic of the ECT. That is, for any given society, there is no such process as Production, without the phenomenon of Consumption. The two impute the whole essence of Western Economics.
What do these religious beliefs mean?
First, a thorough expatiation of the Smith-Marx assumptions would show that they are nothing short of the Two Economic Commandments of Yahweh – a God who cares none about Africa and her Peoples.
The ideas behind Production and Consumption are not based in any observable scientific reasoning nor are they based on any given reasons for the sustainability of a given society. Can societies achieve sustainability without the wheels of Production and Consumption churning by the hour?
The answer lies in a systematic analysis of a pure sustainable community.
Hearkening back to African Traditional Societies as a basis without a full context of their historicity would mar the explanation, since as in all human communities, there seems to have always been a fair level of production and consumption without the excesses of the Capital Markets, the Financial Markets and concomitant with them, the Labor Markets.
A concise treatment of the question hence should be found at the most fundamental level of life and existence.
Early human history is a case in point. As with the Fishes in our Oceans, as with the Birds of the Skies, before Western Economics was born, which has put every living thing in jeopardy of extinction, organisms lived and multiplied in exquisite sustainable fashion. Species increased and evolved without the fear of extinction.
For millions of years, the human species did not produce anything. By so doing, they did not have to consume anything produced. But they survived.
Rather than base economic principles on Production and Consumption, which have no roots in the foundations of life and existence, the basic footing of the African Economic Community Theory is solely built on this vital understanding of life and existence. The means for any production and consumption then, only comes to serve special needs and interests, not to replace the cornerstones.
That the ideas of Production and Consumption became the means to an end in Western Economics are not unfathomable. These creeds are completely rooted in commerce, the amassing of wealth and resources, and the exploitation of the masses. This appetite is better known as greed.
The basis of an economically sustainable community then rests fully centered on this explanation, which was given, at length, to the inhabitants of Judea, some two millennia ago, by a man who was born and raised in Africa – Jesus. A man the Christian Tradition would come to find so fascinating that they would posthumously bestow on him the crown of a Savior – the Christ.
“Look at the birds of the skies; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet our heavenly God feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” ~ The New African International Bible.
Through the ages of careful observation, experimentation and reason, African philosophy, captured even more neatly by the Imhotepic Traditions, served the template upon which a sustainable economic theory has been built – the Economic Community Theory.
African science and economic theory prescribe sustainable economics, not destructive production and consumption for their own sake. Jesus’ statement is symptomatic of the economic traditions of the African continent then, and underscores the exercising of Restraint as far as the mere processes of Production and Consumption were concerned.
The foundations hence of the African Economic theory are not in any way based on fanciful conjecture, or are they based on greedy extrapolations, as its European counterparts are – Smith and Marx – but, on careful observation, experimentation and common sense. More notable, they are based on the laws of nature.
This means, no society needs to ultimately sustain itself on the overreliance on Production and Consumption. Put another way, perhaps in more flexible terms, Production and Consumption should be kept at their barest minimums since they rather upset the natural way of life and the sustainability of the Economic Community.
By this token, the ECT stokes a paradigm shift.
Instead of thinking about Production and Consumption as the foundation stone upon which any societal economics should be based, it postulates that rather, sustainable economics should be based on the view that Production and Consumption, are the boundary conditions about which the economic development of a more advanced and a more sophisticated economic community should revolve.
These boundaries settings can be policed through a thorough understanding of Ma’at. However, the scientific principles of Ma’at are sharply beyond the scope of an article that focuses on contrasting African Economic Traditions with Economic Theories of European origin.
Thus, the implications for not accepting the African paradigm has grave consequences. The lack of consideration in Africa, for example, for the ECT, has paved dangerous roads leading many African States into more and more poverty. The Smith-Marx assumptions have become law in Africa and the ramifications, even around the world, are thunderous.
In fact, one inference of this dogma is simply: there is no Price without the willing Buyer. In this way, the choice of making Production sit at the center of Economic Growth immediately leads to the implication that Price and for that matter, Demand, are all that matter.
In this regard, Price can only be set by the Supply and Demand curves. That is to say, there is nothing intrinsically valuable about any particular item, unless of course, there is a willing buyer. Or, unless it becomes of value to a person.
In Adam Smith and Karl Marx’s ideal, in a free trade society, average persons could start businesses, free from government intervention, and Consumers would Purchase from these Producers at a Price determined by the laws of Supply and Demand.
For example, if there is an increase in demand for product A, and a decrease in demand for product B, the price of product A will increase. The increase will occur because as consumers flock to producers to purchase A, the supply will become limited. These higher prices caused by the limited supply allows only the consumers, who are most willing and able to pay, to purchase the product.
In the same vein, the Price, or the value of product B, approaches zero until which point, it is no longer desired by any consumer and the Price, or the value becomes zero.
Furthermore, the Price of the materials for the exclusive production of B therefore falls to zero.
For instance, according to these Western perspectives on economic theory, there is nothing inherently valuable about a Deer in the bush, until someone is willing to kill it for food or even yet, until someone is willing to do whatever he wants to do with it. Without the appetite or the desire to have this animal, by a person, the Deer serves no purpose as far as the Economic Society is concerned.
African Economic Community Theory manifestly opposes this way of thinking. Obviously. In turn, it underscores the intrinsic value of the Deer as part and parcel of the Economic Fabric of the Economic Community in the same way as the Fishes of the Oceans, or the Birds of the Skies, need not have a Human Buyer, at hand, in order that they can become important, or become anything of value.
Insistence on the Demand-Supply curves as the basics of Western Economics is perceptibly erroneous. It does not follow any observable logic except to devalue all matter to a price of zero, unless of course that matter becomes of value to another Human person.
The repercussions of such economic orthodoxy can, and have been, unfathomably painful.
It implies too, that the Human Being is of no value unless of course that Human Being becomes of value to another Human Being. With this ramification, the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade are reminiscent. Only a few hundred years ago, Human Beings were sold and bought – in particular respect to the Supply-Demand curves – as Property or even Matter. At which point when this Matter became invaluable, a slave owner, uncouth as he may come, could kill the slave – destroy that Property.
That thinking is uncivilized as it is unsustainable. We see why.
In sum, what both Adam Smith and Karl Marx got appallingly incorrect in addition to mistaking Production and Consumption as the basis of the economic community, was to situate the Human Being centrally in thinking about what is economically viable and what is not.
African Economics hence from this point of view strictly disregards this anthropomorphic interpretation in favor of a Holistic Model – one that situates the totality of the ecosystem, the totality of society, at the center of any economic model.
This is the only way to confront the inequality gap and subsequently eliminate poverty in the world. If that is what remains the goal. In Africa, it should.
It also affords society the opportunity to rethink, re-assess and re-evaluate at every step of implementation all economic models to measure not only the levels of poverty and inequality, but in tandem, the levels of unnecessary Production and Consumption.
The Complete Model hence, captured by the Economic Community Theory, explains away the vulgarity and the crudeness of the Western Economic Ideal.
This is why it is possible for Europeans to shoot animals, helter skelter, not for want of food, or for the aesthetics of the hide, but for the sheer pleasance of go-lucky hunting. Today these people alone have depleted more than 50 percent of the world’s species and contributed more than 80 percent of the world’s wastes. They consume more than 60 percent of the world’s resources even though they only account for 15 percent of the world population.
By asserting that there is no demand for a Buffalo in the bush, the European, newly arrived in the Americas, for example, was free to shoot at will and for fun, a Buffalo, for no apparent sustainable reason. That Buffalo in the European Economic thinking had no value and therefore killing it made no difference.
The painful story of Cecil the Lion quickly jumps to mind in recent memory. It reminds the casual reader of the menace that the European attitude poses towards the Environment and towards the Economic Community. Without a market of tourists trooping to see Lions in Africa, without a market of children paying to see Dolphins, Lions in the bush or Dolphins in the Oceans, by the Smith-Marx interpretation have no intrinsic value.
Much in the same way that the lives of millions of American Natives did not matter. When they wouldn’t subject to slavery, they were wiped off the face of the North American terrain at horrific speeds the world had never before seen. The United States is yet to confront the history of genocide.
In more recent times, even when these Western Economic Theories are examined against Recycling drives to save the world’s resources from Western Over-consumption, the paradigm stumbles.
In Europe and North America, there is no argument to recycle unless of course it makes economic sense – that is, if people are willing to pay for the recycled materials. Recycling in itself is not valuable unless people can find value and can consume the recycled materials. Put another way, it makes no sense to Europeans or North Americans, unless Recycling is absolutely cheaper than the Production of new materials.
It doesn’t have to take a Resurrection of Imhotep to make sense of the internal contradictions, or the sheer stupidity, of Western Economics. At best they are savageries. At worst they destroy a planet that Africans have managed to preserve for hundreds of thousands of years without the fear of extinction of species and the destruction of the entire planet.
Having illustrated the internal contradictions and outright monstrosity of the Smith-Marx interpretations of economic growth and sustainability, the fundamental assumptions of the African Economic Community Theory can be stipulated as thus:
Everything in the universe has value – a Price. To use it for the Production of another item, one must prove that the resultant item will be of greater value to the Economic Community – that is, not just to the Human Being, but for the Ecosystem, and as far as the definition can be made to ensure that any set of Production and Consumption models does not go to destructively infringe upon the Rhythm of the Universe.
The principles of marginal utility should be applied with respect to the Economic Community, and not with respect to the Consumer.
Which categorically means: a Deer in the forest, never seen, never met, has an intrinsic value to the Economic Community that is prescribed by the role that the Deer plays in sustainability – taken at face value. The particular numerical price of the Deer hence, is inconsequential to the premise as such. That is, unless the killing of that Deer results in a value that is more beneficial to the Economic Community, that Deer cannot be touched.
This way, the uncouth happy go-lucky killing of innocent animals by westerners can be checked in its proper detail. The pollution of Rivers and other freshwater bodies can thus be protected under this African economics paradigm. The Oceans can be saved and Global Warming can be reversed.
The ECT then is an economic model that sets value to everything and anything so long as it can be found in nature, whether there is demand or not. However, even where there is a Demand, it must show that the result produced adds to the Economic Community in a more constructive way.
As such, there is nothing intrinsically beneficial for the Economic Community about laughing at a Fish you just took out of the River for fun. There is nothing ecologically helpful about Mass Production in the hope that a multitude of Buyers might engage in the Mass Consumption of those goods for fun.
This eradicates waste and reins in the continued ramping up of Production for the sake of production alone. More important, this rids economic theory of the evils of unnecessary Production and Consumption.
Put simply, the Economic Community Model provides the alternative way for African economies to fashion out markets that not only grow, but remain sustainable. A blind pursuit of economic theories on the other hand, which are not native to the continent, have only gone to hurt the social and economic fabric of the masses.
But there seems to be some hope left. African States still hold dear, at various levels, economic theory traditions of old – of Kush, of Nubia, of Kemet etc. – sometimes unbeknownst to them. Even in the current crises of savage economics adopted largely from the remnants of Colonialist and Imperialist policies, the average wealth of the middle class in Africa is a whopping 1000 percent the level of the population.
Africa’s middle class is thriving more than any other region in the world at the moment – in North America, the average wealth of middle-class adults is barely 50 percent the average for all adults. In contrast, middle-class wealth per adult in Europe is 130 percent of the regional average; while the middle class in China is 300 percent better off in wealth terms than the country as a whole.
That statistic is a much better outlook on Africa than the West, where inventors of Financial and Material Capitalism still claim their ways of thinking are uplifting. Indeed.
Africa clearly leads the pack.
What these statistics show is an emerging Africa. Nevertheless, Africa must begin a conscious attempt towards sustainability and not just economic growth rates that seem to be based on nothing but the idiotic foundations in Production and Consumption. That kind of economics – a European economic paradigm – cannot afford African States the opportunity to grow and become sustainable. They are as treacherous as the old Baluba proverb has it: The skin of the leopard is beautiful, but not its heart.
No one – only Africa – is interested in African economic development and her subsequent sustainability. The rest are leopards gallivanting the continent for prey. And they come thumping some very ugly heavy hearts.
This is very forceful Narmer Amenuti. To challenge Smith and Marx is not an effort that would gain you applause from what is now called African Elites. Give me a chance to ruminate on your candid discussions of Production vis-a-vis Consumption as an inseparable paradigm needing reconsideration. I invite any economist to join in at this table. It is heavy loaded and will take some heavy lifting to unravel. Narmer challenges the basis of the arguments of Capitalism: that capitalism is necessarily the two essential parts: production and consumption. Narmer thinks this explanation has not roots in observation nor reason. That at best it is misleading. That is, to say that without the production portion, nothing can be consumed can equally be flipped to say, without consumption, nothing can be produced. This flip of the law are not in themselves equatable. The Capitalists would say, one cannot eat without acquiring/preparing food, or that one cannot live in a house without it having been constructed. However if one has lived in a Communal Labor Africa, one would quickly see that those statement do not equally translate into: one cannot buy goods at a market or store without the goods being produced and supplied by another party. There seems to be a disconnect that any honest African observer can attest to. When we make food to eat, we don’t think of it as Production and Consumption, unless of course, you walk into a Chop Bar. Sure. But when hunters get together to build a new hunter a house to share with his wife and children, African men never thought about it in terms of Production and Consumption. Even applying those terms in retrospect still seems like a time-warped contusion. That struggle is what Narmer captures here so beautifully. I have read, and will continue to read efforts like this one that chip at expunging the the conflict of these discursive spaces between African Traditional Economic theories and the newly acquired Smith-Marx paradigms.
Economic module projection of the new world, which factor into it supernatural intervention in the calculation of economic development and growth. Is it possible and how?
Will recieve my response soon!!!
Tweneboah Senzu, that reference to Jesus is a light-hearted interjection. It is introduced there to relieve a lengthy read. If this was an academic paper, it would have been left out, but for a wider audience, and at 3500 words, it makes for an easier read while still maintaining the compelling narrative. In no way does it infringe on the scientific and the logical arguments made. Narmer Amenuti remains a man rooted in the African Prophetic Tradition, and he can speak to this so I wait. In any case, basing economic theory on the ages of careful observation would be phenomenal. The argument here is that, it has not yet been done. If you disagree, you have to show. If you agree, then you are left with a choice to agree with this new way of thinking about it or you could find another way. Either way, would be quite laudable.
Narmer Amenuti knowing how Akosua M. Abeka is very good, in artistically articulating with her pen, will not be surprise how she put forward her case to support your effort however what you have ignored in your essay is to defind the kind of social order governing the economic philosophy of Africa.
And when that has not change your write-up will be a resource material lacking impart to economic reality but meaningful theory for the abstract world.
Want you to know that the shortcoming of the two school of economic thought was as a result of the criteria and standards in developing contemporary economic module for practice. Which hate narrating but belive in statistical correlation of factors build on logic premises devoid of superstition.
And such has been the reason Australian school of economics has suffered unpopularity due to pragmatic approach to deal with human behaviour as a scientific component that effect economics of reality.
Thanks Akosua M. Abeka. It should be fair to say that any scientific theory based on facts is not at all alien to the Scientific Method. It is a fact, that the Environment, that is the Ecosystem, with or without Neanderthals has been able to support herself without much trouble. The same can be said of the Ecosystem in relation to the Homo Sapien. Production and Consumption, as we know it, in relation to Labor, are not anywhere in the Natural Order observed. Sustainability however is observable. More, any attempt to disobey the Natural Laws of Sustainability almost always results in Disaster. If I lie, then one can take a cursory look at the state of the world today. The theories of Economics we have adopted in Africa are not in themselves sustainable. They are by and large destructive. No wonder, everywhere Capitalism has gone, it has initially enriched some people, then a few, and few more until it eventually erupts leaving the dirt poor in its wake. Evidence however points to those communities that have managed to keep Capitalism at the barest minimum – restraining how much is produced, what is produced, how much is consumed and what is consumed. My essay in no way alludes to Jesus Christ as the basis for my analysis. I call on Jesus plainly for one reason. Most of the Capitalist Ideology we continue to engulf are the results of works by people who call themselves ‘Chosen’. Adam Smith is a notable tribesman. Further, Westerners who patrol the African terrain are often caught tooting the ideals of these works of these tribesmen or the ideals of Jesus the Christ. You would notice that my reference is only a tongue-in-cheek accost of people whose ideas I have come to believe dominate the tenets of Financial and Material Capitalism. As for Tweneboah Senzu, your recall of Rational or Irrational Economics, and the disciples of both are noteworthy. Sure. But both of those takes are based not on the fundamentals of Economics but on the implications of those exact foundations – Production and Consumption. In this analysis, Economists seem to split on whether Consumers are Rational or Irrational Organisms. I chose to deviate not from the lack or absence of Irrationality or Not, I chose to redefine the foundations of economic theory itself. That is, I do not at all view the Production and Consumption of goods and services necessarily as intrinsic to the basis of any sustainable economic model. I reach to the inner interstices of African Philosophy, which Jesus learned too (an interjection) while he was being raised in Egypt. I would like to refute the idea that religion and logic cannot co-exist within a coherent framework. That is a debate I am willing to have. But if I may, African intellectuals since the days of John the Baptist, have always found common ground with religious ideals. Much of what we have come to accept as religious ideals were in fact rooted in observable and long studied science – for example, that a River is a God. That statement is both religious and scientific. But, like I said, that is another discussion, I am willing to have some day.
Akosua M. Abeka and Narmer Amenuti. Beautiful. It has taken me all night. But I have read it. It is beautiful. Now, I am going to the farm. Catch you guys later.
How do you prove your assertion “Production and Consumption in relation to labour are not any where in the Natural order observed”.
The days of Aristotle and Democritus exposition of narrating came to an End in 19th Century, the rest of our effort was to empirically or experimentally establish our case for validity in the science community my brother.
Hope you will have a good history archive on why Hail Selaisi of Ethiopia empire was overthrown.
Anyway you have made your argument effectively align with your ideological stands in your area of speciality. Which call for recommendation.
Thanks Tweneboah Senzu, but Production, making goods for Consumption, no matter how you slice and dice it, is not a Natural Phenomenon. No Ecosystem, as efficient as they come, Produces goods and services just so they can be Consumed. You can give an example. I am all ears.
These capitalists like the beautiful skin of the leopard, the elephant, the horse, or the crocodile because they can use them to make firs and purses and couches. But the animals have no other use for capitalists. They do not respect their role in the balance and the harmony of our environment. The beauty of these animals in their natural sense is lost, only the beauty of their commercial value is understood. And that is a shame indeed to Mother Nature.
“Poorer yet, most African economists only ruminate on ideas infused in them in graduate school.” Many from European or American graduate schools at that! What happened to the days of our grandfathers when man didn’t need to present a piece of paper called a diploma in order to have an opinion. Still now people with those pieces of papers are not the ones who we should actually listen to.
Amenuti, this is quite a strong case for the development, or should I say reinstitution, of an African philosophy of economics that at once commits a devotion to sustainability and to distinguishing herself from financial capitalism. I look forward to reading more about the ECT and its further development as a dominant philosophy in Africa.
Tweneboah Senzu, Furthermore if I might add, Capitalism is inversely proportional to Sustainability. Production and Consumption upon which Western Economics is based imply this: If we can Produce a Car that runs on Water, that would last 200 years, which would go a long way to ensure some level of Sustainability – since we would have to use fewer and fewer resources – we should Not. In Western Economics view, that would lower Consumption, reduce Production and hence wipe off the whole Essence of the Smith-Marx interpretation. Now, we’ve been made to believe that for example, Technology and the Advancement of Technology, would go to make the world a better place. By that, what they really mean is that the world can become even more Sustainable. But as Technology continues to improve, and as Efficient as we may become, we also become less dependent on Production and Consumption. This is antithetical to the grain of Western Economics. To keep this unscientific dogma then, we must find a way to make the wheels of Production and Consumption churn. Which means, we become less and less Efficient and more and more, we seem rather to build a completely Unsustainable brand of Economics. This is very bad – Neanderthalic, if I may. I would rather choose the African Economic Community Model, as I have proposed. It is not fancy but it guarantees the Sustainability of thew Universe should that become important to you.
My problem with you Narmer Amenuti as at now is your complete addiction and adhesive to the old traditional definition of capitalism. Refusing to acquaint yourself with modern difinition of capitalism which is the rubric of economic developmental studies.
That was not a problem, so I refered you, to do further reading from Misses Institute website on the issues on the challenge in creating a fundamental economic module to guide you, identify the loopholes in your assertion which will need 100 page of Book to analysed as a debate to you. Such a critical study will give you a clear premise to build a cogent argument relevance to the economic science community
I further recommend again for you to read Claude Frederick Bastiat paper title “The Law” to get the overview and assist in putting your sustainability agenda on good analytical perspective.
However you will agree I have already recommended your effort to present such a good piece from your arena of speciality.
Misses Institute could be refered as Australian School of Economics. (Reference Guide)
For you to bring out Narmer school of economics lacking a “social-order”(foot note ) with a clear implementation pattern and players is an exposition of economic fallacy and only make your nicely presented piece qualify as a material for the museum.
What I could easily accept and agree with your presentation is to question the moral fibre of present philosophical order cushioning the economic module in practice, however such is also undergoing modification.
And such presentation made could be assumed to be a relevant reference material to support the ethical and moral engineering of modern economic practice
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*Social order*-; should not be taken literally which I presume you did that to rubbish my earlier assertion.
Tweneboah Senzu, if you could enlighten us on the “modern definition of capitalism which is the rubric of economic developmental studies,” you refer to, it would greatly enhance the debate. Are the underlying assumptions still based on Production (making Waste) and Consumption (Gluttony)? You have to remember that what the ‘Narmer School of Economics’ is opposing are these fundamentals. In order words, you can put a lipstick on a pig all you want, and dress it up even. It still remains a pig. Can you really confirm that the Philosophical Underpinnings of your ‘Modern’ Capitalism is any different from the one that has wiped out more than 40 percent of the world’s species?
Sometimes, unless you can wipe your brain clean with a Video Tape Cleaner, you might never understand Narmer Amenuti. This guy is special. Traditional African Economics theory, whaaat?? Beautiful.
Solomon possible if we are here to celebrate papers for museum that never come to reality for implementation then I think you are good to support the singing of praises hahahaha
Tweneboah Senzu, I perfectly would like others to disagree. I love debate. But why don’t you share with us your understanding of ‘Modern Capitalism?’ And why don’t you tell me what is wrong with my Economic Community Model. So, I invite you to have this conversation, and I am not at all interested in your Bibliography. We’ve read enough, seen enough and experienced enough. When we ask questions, we don’t want to be told to go read a book. This is typically African! I can give you a list as well, but where would that leave us?
Narmer I am facing you squarely, on my preposition which I indicated in my 2 post above, your paper lack social order disposition and pattern of implementation. Read my above post very well please.
Now your presentation is dealing with the moral fibre of the kind of economic system in existence which could not be misconstrued as development of new economic module; such will be fallacy and fiasco that is all about my argument.
That is why i gave you *foot note* to clearly defind my angle of reasoning.
Unless you will want me to define the fragmented concept underpinning modern *social order* that fuel the kind of economic principle in existence. Such I could not do therefor could relax the debate down-here
Tweneboah Senzu. Okay I don’t quite know why you are giggling over this important topic. You seem rather enamored with other people’s forms of knowledge than your own (Hahahaha?). You have a Ph.D? Which means by now you should be producing knowledge and not referring us to other stuff – European stuff? From where did you get your masters? You keep referring us to books and books, and you keep calling names (obsessed? and adhesive?), but you haven’t yet shown that you have read the article. You haven’t even told us what you think Capitalism is. And this is after 6 of your comments. This is the level of intellectualism here? All your comments, all 6 of them are misdirected glances at nothing. Ghana, West Africa, Africa is in for a long century. Never mind. I am gonna go to bed, wake up early and go to my farm. At least, it is my farm, and I know all about it. How about you? Do you know everything about your subject? It just doesn’t seem like it. But who am I? Just a poor Ghanaian farmer who is ever-ready to feed your brainless body. Thanks!
Solomon Azumah-Gomez I continue getting sad when people make argument by referring to people educational barground.
And with my responses you think I have not read through the paper. Hmmmm. Anyway you are entitled to your opinion. I rest my case.
Tweneboah Senzu, for you it cannot be Economics if it is Ethical or Moral, you pick. You are right that Capitalism has no Morals. Or as you say, is separate from Morals. But in African Traditional Theory the two are inseparable. This is what you are saying – that I am only critiquing Capitalism. That is fair. And you seem to think that my Model cannot be a Theory on its own. That is also fair. But I disagree. In African Tradition, since the principles of Maat were laid, we do not separate life parts. We don’t live that way. And we don’t even think about it as Morals vs Economics. In African Traditional Theories, everything is One and Maat defines the Balance of opposing sides. So I understand why you would make your conclusions – sometimes a quick reading does not suffice. It is clear that you are reading African Economic Community Theory from a Western standpoint. And that is fine. It is your training.
Send me a paper from “Maat” as you so defind
Mancini, Anna. Maat Revealed: Philosophy of Justice in Ancient Egypt. New York: Buenos Books America, 2004.
The only thing I will say is this; production and consumption presupposes constant growth in economic terms. But on a finite earth and in a finite environment, how can we have infinite growth based on the concepts of production and consumption.
But Jonas my friend you know for sure there is no effort born by mortal which has no limitation, unless you are transcending to supernatural world(Pseudo studies). Which the concept of science by man ignore this premise because it could not empirically and rational be proven.
If you had followed my argument clearly, my exposition on the *social order* as an important component for engineering economic module of this kind proposed by Narmer had been several emphasised, Because every social-order is designed comprehensive under philosophical pattern with mathematics and economics embedded.
This is what was built many century ago by the Western world and they called it either socialism or capitalism, which is wheeling every global operations according to their plans under the principle of Universalism.
Such *order* need legal tender, need bankers, capitalist, need the kind of government we see, Lawyers, judges etc. and succeeded by making financial economics supreme and called it classical economics.
You as an African had nothing; therefore bought into their social-order and installed their banking system and everything of their kind of software to run their social-order effectively.
There is no way you can win in the battle of economic development because you owe not the social-order that run the kind of economic principle existing.
So if some one, is trying to present a new school of thought, should see to it, it module carry all this component of social-order to be self sufficient as an independent software of it kind, if not it will be a passive paper for story telling.
And my cogent argument to Narmer is to charge him to prescribe the component clearly than the kind of narration presented on this platform because if it was so easy I think per the present economic slavery we would have opted for a change my now.
And to shouder heads with him through this journey of his module I have to be sure that, when his module is tested to all kind of forces will never suffer fallibility because I am a student in such faculty and Professor in that line of scholastic practice.
This was all my case yet some want to mediocre my assertion but never blame them because of ignorance.
Tweneboah Senzu, are you even African? “You as an African had nothing?” Have you heard or read about the University of Timbuktu – a not so distant African University, the first in the world actually, where the scientific concepts of Commerce and Trade were propounded, in what is now popularly known as Economics? My God! I feel sorry for the African children you are teaching. I feel terribly undone. We had nothing? You are not African man, you are an impostor claiming to be African on Facebook. I will report your profile! My God! Who are you? Ataa Naa Nyongbor eee! Ewa ee! You are now fully tamed. The most significant thing white people did to Africans was to tell them they had no culture, no science, no traditions and no customs. You have been Uncle Tomed, you are now officially a House Negro. Kudos, you now live in the Matrix, and I will suggest to both Narmer Amenuti and Jonathan Nukpezah to spare you the pain of presenting you the choice of the Red or Blue pill. I will suggest they leave you alone in the Matrix. For you, my brother, are Cooked. And if I may quote Brother Malcolm X:
“Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had!
Ya been took!
Ya been hoodwinked!
Bamboozled!
Led astray!
Run amok!”
After the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989 signifying the ignominous collapse of the communist citadel of the USSR, arch anti-communist writer and British spy John Le Carre was asked what he was going to do with the rest of his life. “Why, help defeat capitalism, of course!” He went on to remark to his questioner, that the only good reason to support capitalism was that it did less harm than communism but that, once the latter was no longer a threat to mankind, it was the duty of every right thinking individual to resist capitalism, or words to that effect. I was pleasantly surprised to learn this, given who Le Carre was. In my musings on the issue, I have often wondered why it is that so many continue to sing the praises of capitalism, even as it feeds fat on wars, mass exploitation, wilful enslavement of the weak and degradation of the environment, to name a few. Of particular interest is the observation that as soon as the bogey of communism was no longer a credible mechanism for distracting our attention from the ills of capitalism, its willing acolytes migrated to the substitution of ‘socialism’ as the new bogey.Economic basket-case countries that are socialist only in name, such as North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and even the laughable African countries governed by vampire elites, fronted by strongman who can barely read or write in coherent terms, are trotted out as examples of what a departure from capitalism would have in store for us. Meanwhile, the socialism that has given Britain the most humane and cost-effective health service in the world, or the French some of the most civilised worker protections anywhere, or the Dutch, the Danes, the Fins, and the Norwegians some of the best quality of life on the planet, is skirted around. Next time you hear or read anybody talking in disparaging terms about ‘socialism’, ask them to define it, so you can tell whether your’e talking about the same thing. For my part, I am happy to proceed in concert with the sentiments contained in remarks I heard the late Labour politician Tony Benn make some time ago. There is nothing scary about socialism, if you pause to define it for yourself instead of letting others impose a definition on you. It is just a formalisation of what is social, rather than anti-social. So if you are guided by what is social, harness it in a democratic dispensation that respects property rights in recognition of man’s primeval desire to ownership, and use the construct of the market mechanism (properly regulated to prevent anti-social excess), the world should work out just fine!
I do not quite understand this article. Either it is so profound as to require a second read or it is not sufficiently clear. I will return to it tomorrow.
Now, I too have been giving thought to how we could re-imagine the way we satisfy our material needs in a paradigm that both accords with our African mores and avoids the obvious problems entailed in capitalism. (no one here needs me to repeat the problems with capitalism . You’re all rather too educated)
I will like to say something though. What you have written seems to me like a critique of western economics that attempts to wear the cloak of a new paradigm. a critique is not necessarily a new proposition. it may be pregnant with one. but if it is, the baby must be delivered before it is named.
I think the very nature of economics is that it is really about “bread and butter” issues. The burden of economics rests on our fundamental need for things that may not be readily available. I need to eat in order to survive. And so do you. But the food we need may not be abundant and available when we need it. Some work has to be done by somebody to secure this food. even hunters must go and hunt before they eat. Lions don’t produce but they sure do hunt. and that’s work!
Moreover, we are complex beings. We do not merely seek to satisfy our “needs”. We have “wants” too. And the wants cannot be dismissed. I quite enjoy reading some of the articles on this website. But the ability to satisfy this “want” requires a few things that have to be “produced” by others. A computer, electricity, the writing of the articles, etc. Mind you, I think the quality of my life is enhanced by the satisfaction of my “wants”.
While we can have a useful discussion about the sources of our wants and the pernicious rot that lays at the heart of some of our wants, we cannot do away with the necessity of satisfying at least some of our wants, at least if we are to achieve tolerably enjoyable lives.
So all this is to say, a meaningful paradigm about economics cannot, like Hegel, lose itself in abstraction. It must, in a Marxian sense, plant itself firmly in the physical world. It must begin with an acknowledgement of the things we need and want. And then it must discuss how we can, as a people, organize ourselves to produce these things. And then how we will negotiate the challenge of distribution: “who gets what”.
so the questions are: what do we need and want? how do we decide what gets made? how do we make what gets made? how do we organize ourselves in the process of deciding what to make and in the process of making? and who gets what? how do we decide who gets what?
Answering these kinds of questions in the spirit of our core values and mores — ma’at — would be a way to discuss these matters that makes more sense to ppl like me. That is,perhaps, ppl who are rather too dull to access the difficult and abstract philosophy that you brighter minds enjoy so much.
So I guess i am saying a different approach to this article might be helpful.
Not sure if all this makes sense. maybe after re-reading the article tomorrow i will see my own flaws. maybe.