AFRICA TO LEAD A NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER

AFIRCA TO LEAD A NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER

The world has tried several economic systems. Until now none has been able to fulfill the need and aspirations of people around the world for a system that respects the right of ownership of property; fosters, engenders and rewards personal responsibility, creativity and enterprise; promotes socio-economic justice through principle based and not legislated equitable re-distribution of wealth as well as improving the welfare of communities and peoples.

Each of the economic system practiced before now had some of the features described above but however were not perfect as there were endemic flaws. Communism essentially denied the right of individuals to own property while destroying the motive for personal responsibility and creativity. On the other hand unbridled capitalism because of its emphasis on reward for innovation and creativity neglects the need for principled based wealth redistribution and is concerned more with taking advantage of opportunities for personal gain rather solving problems to improve community welfare. Excessive taxing to correct this moves us towards socialism that smothers the initiatives within the people.

The status of anyone within the capitalist system depends majorly on three things: the amount of personal responsibility the individual is willing to take; the value (skills, services, products, solutions) each individual brings to the market place and of course the environment in which the individual lives, such as infrastructural and macro economic environment. The problem with this system is that capitalism produces a few big winners, a number of average winners christened the middle class but a myriad of losers. It’s simplistic to say that everyone is responsible for his status but we must realize that all men are not equal in ability and socio political factors such as access to health care and education and good governance or a lack of it contribute significantly to the status of people in the system, especially in Africa.

Social entrepreneurship brings together the best elements of all the systems. It is a hybrid of the sound market based strategies such as creativity, innovation, efficiency, management and sustainability culture of the free market, blended with the focus on social engineering for the common good of socialism and communism. However, a major distinction is that focus on social engineering for the common good is not legislated as it is in communism and socialism, rather it is a value that is adopted and practiced by social entrepreneurs out of a desire to place the common good over and above the desire to amass wealth. Certainly wealth is created but it is not amassed, rather it is allowed to fulfill the purpose of realizing development and welfare for the communities and its people.

What makes an initiative a social enterprise is therefore not the nomenclature of the concern but the mission, values, processes and inputs that go into the enterprise. However it may be expedient to correctly brand the initiative so as to be properly positioned. Communism could not survive because of its serious flaws, the same for socialism. The earlier the world comes to the realization that unbridled capitalism is doomed, the sooner we will begin to focus on what we need to do to survive. I don’t know if the present global economic crisis is the last straw but I’m very sure that capitalism is doomed.

Africa and the rest of the third world are in a unique position to imbevent (imagine, believe, invent) a new world economic order called social capitalism or what Bill Gates has called Creative Capitalism. Note however that whenever there is a major economic shift, a major political change follows. The economic events leading to barrack Obama’s recent victory are the proof of this theory. Today Africans have the resources to imbevent this new world. Our continent is inundated with a plethora of major social problems. Up until now we have relied on foreign aid to combat some of these ills. Of course it won’t work. If socialism does not work in the west then transnational socialism in the name of aids will not develop Africa. What Africans do not realize is that the European union spends America spends more on one American cow ( in the form of subsidy to American cattle farmers than they spend on one African as aid.) apart from this more than 50% of the aid Africa receives returns to the west as payment for technologies and expatriate skills.

So how can we solve our problems? We have to engage our minds in creative enterprise using sound market based strategies but focusing on societal and community transformation for the common good. Can we do this? Of course yes, we can. The question is “will you be the change’?