The Moral Limit of Markets

“This issue goes to the heart of fairness in our country. There has been much discussion recently about economic inequality, but almost no conversation about the way the spread of markets nurtures a broader, systemic inequality."-Michael Sandel, The Moral Limit of Markets, 2012

 

     The issue of fairness, of social justice, of equitable redistribution, the core rationales for modern,  liberal societies has been percolating in my mind; as I ride through West London on my way to tutor, the numbers of Ferraris and Lamborghinis is startling both in their excess and their symbolism in this great bastion of free market liberalization. And thus, the issue that Sandel brings to public light, of fairness. Is is fair that some should be driving $250,000 cars, when there are plenty of $20,000 cars which are perfectly capable of performing the same function, and people starving to death in other nations, and multitudes of homeless and destitute in this same city? What is the appropriate balance of free markets, governmental restrictions on personal liberties, private property rights, and moral excess? 

     Economic inequality is a fundamental feature of liberal economies. However, the gap continues to widen; and as this gap continues to widen, and societies are increasingly polarized, we must ask as a society, as a modern experiment in social relations, what kind of world is it that we wish to live in? What is fair? What is responsible? What is just? What is fairness in both the eyes of the rich and the poor (as well as the middle)? What is the point of excess, and what is the redistribution that must be enacted, at this point, to further our aims of basic social justice and equity? 

      How can this market economy, with its excesses, be legitimized in the eyes of the masses? As Dani Rodrik asks, how can a functioning market economy be "...compatible with social stability and cohesion?" 

 Nick Kristof, commenting on Sandel's work, concludes succinctly, “Market fundamentalism,” to use the term popularized by George Soros, is gaining ground. It’s related to the glorification of wealth over the last couple of decades, to the celebration of opulence, and to the emergence of a new aristocracy. Market fundamentalists assume a measure of social Darwinism and accept that laissez-faire is always optimal. "

The Limitations of Participation

The Limitations of Participation: What Else Needs Consideration? 




In being a proponent of a particular ideology, it is vital to understand the negative ramifications of overtly positive thrusts in development. Thus, a fantastic critique of participatory design that I have encountered before, but not so succinctly.....the dangers of local "duplicitous agendas." which was also highlighted in Banerjee et all's "Can information campaigns spark local participation and improve outcomes"(2006), in which localized participatory integration was neither effective nor truly egalitarian in nature; in dealing with human beings, at the local level, we must also understand the negatives of human/power relations that are intrinsic to us all, regardless of socioeconomic development,  and not look at the poor as simple, innocent recipients of our developmental agendas. Vogt and Clemons explain:


"On the other hand, what Chambers' (1994) failed to anticipate was Kapoor's (2002) concerns that "local controls" may not be without their own duplicitous agendas. Arguably, village politics often mimic the gross inequalities at the global level. Therefore, as researchers and practitioners, if we accept that globalization combined with decentralization of nonformal education introduces a complex phenomena, we must further agree that site specific research must be dependent upon localized social and political contexts of reform as much as on specific national or global directives (Crook & Manor, 1998)."
- Vogt and Clemons, 2004

Global Education Program?

"Harvard Offers New Global Health Program"

-Today's New York Times (5.14.12): a fascinating article on the scale and scope of rural health care delivery in Rwanda; "...the country provides health care and insurance to more than 90% of its population, inspiring medical leaders from across the globe to visit the African country to study its transformation." 
The new program at Harvard, which analyzes public health through this local context, "...is one of the first that focuses exclusively on the challenge of delivering health care. It encourages students to think about politics, economics, and other social factors effect health....

Thus, putting great minds together, both in Rwanda and in the academic world, to highlight local innovations, local solutions, and the causation to these local realities.  My question, of course, is why is this not being done in education, and how can we implement this same mode of thought into educational development?

Resource scarce environments demand a delicate level of social understanding and analysis/diagnosis into service delivery blockages in basic education, just as health services; however, in education, quality and efficiency is taken as a given; enrollment rates, instead of educational outcomes, the yardstick. What would the analysis reveal if health centers were judged on their intake of patients, alone, and no attention was paid to mortality rates or levels of care they were receiving once in the clinic? This is exactly what is occurring with most of the world's educational systems.  And this is the mindset that needs to be changed, through innovative, diagnostic, local projects such as this new Global Health Program.

Chambers on Participation

Absolutism in the Song Dynasty, leading to a critical lack of decentralized creative destruction and absolutist control, perpetuating macro-scale decline...the summation of the last chapter of Why Nations Fail. While absolutely fascinating for a student of development theory, and certainly encompassing the rigor and depth of extraordinary insight, there is something fundamental lacking in this tome, as well as in so many others: the people. Where are the stories of the lives of the people, the poor, the disenfranchised, those affected by these macro-scale struggles? We only hear the stories of the rulers, of the kings, of the absolutist leaders and of the pioneers; what about the lives of those held in sway, those struggling to survive, failing to survive?
I come back often to the words of Robert Chambers, to ground the theory in reality; it can be difficult to incorporate the incredible depths of knowledge, the specializations, with the situations that simple people survive in every day, untouched by this maddening institution that is developmental academia. And most lives in the developing world will continue to never be touched by our PHD's, our scholarly articles, our governance projects and our World Bank partnership deals; the creme is skimmed off of the top, and all those below will never even know of its sweet existence.
What of the lives of the "others?"

I comes back to the words of Chambers (1995: "Whose Reality Counts?")

One may speculate on what topics the poor and powerless would commission papers if they could convene conferences and summits: perhaps on greed, hypocrisy and exploitation. But the poor are powerless and cannot and do not convene summits; and those papers are rarely written. It is not surprising: we do not like to examine ourselves. To salve our consciences we rationalize. Neo-liberalism paints greed as inadvertent altruism. The objects of development are, anyway, the poor, not us. It is they who are the problem, not us. We are the solution. So we hold the spotlight to them (from a safe distance). The poor have no spotlight to hold to us.

But poverty and deprivation are functions of polarization, of power and powerlessness. Any practical analysis has to examine the whole system: - “us”, the powerful as well as “them” the powerless. Since we have more power to act, it is hard to evade the imperative to turn the spotlight round and look at ourselves. ..

Our views of the realities of the poor, and of what should be done, are constructed mainly from a distance, and can be seen to be constructed mainly for our convenience. We embody those views in the words and concepts which we use.

Why Nations Fail on Sachs

Having spent a good deal of time in the last few years following the work of Jeffrey Sachs, and his theoretical arguments that poor geography is the chief determining factor for poverty (and, inversely, if we tackle the geographic limitations, such as disease and land productivity burdens, we can eradicate poverty), it has been interesting to see his research dismantled by the duo, Acemoglu and Robinson, in Why Nations Fail:

" Tropical diseases obviously cause much suffering and high rates of infant mortality in Africa, but they are not the reason that Africa is poor. Disease is largely a consequence of poverty and of governments being unable to undertake the public health measures necessary to eradicate them."
Certainly a valid point, yet, the authors do not fully address the issue of poverty traps, a central theory in Sachs' work. And although I do agree with Acemoglu and Robinson on this point (something about Singapore being malaria-free while remaining in the tropics raised an initial red flag in my mind), they do not address the practical steps that need to be taken to address the current state of affairs in many of these nations. If nations are stuck in cycles of poverty and disease and incapacity in handling public health measures, how do we create the inclusive economic and political structures needed to then address the institutional change necessary for country-wide shifts? 

Why Nations Fail

I am currently reading the excellent new book, "Why Nations Fail," by Acemoglu and Robinson. First introduced to this trio earlier in the year with their colonial/settler theories on development (extractive colonies vs. inclusive colonies as being the key predeterminant for future economic success), this book has been impressing at every step with its clarity and purpose....

A comment, on their views on failing educational systems:
"The low education level of poor countries is caused by economic institutions that fail to create incentives for parents to educate their children, and by political institutions that fail to induce the government to build, finance, and support schools and the wishes of parents and children." 

While I agree that inclusive economic institutions are vital to a nation's (and individuals) prosperity, schooling incentives can often be decoupled from the reality of the immediate economic climate, or better yet, inverse to the broader economic climate; desperation or struggle  in one's current situation will lead to an increased hope in the power of education as a "savior" for the next generation, a though and wish echoed constantly in the developing world.
The "incentives" for schooling, thus, often fall under the familial desire for the next generation to prosper, and an often misguided hope in the individual economic rewards that can be reaped by sending children to school (see: Poor Economics). Thus, I would argue, the above proposition regarding economic institutions (though I agree with the political institutions necessity) is much too broad and general to render valid, in the area of education, as proposed.

A Moment of Hope, Dashed.

"Robert Mugabe battling for his life in a Singaporean hospital..." The news wires rang out yesterday morning here in London, the second bout of hopeful (for the citizens of Southern Africa) news to come out of the region in a week (the first being the demise of the Malawian Autocrat, President Bingu wa Mutharika). 


I do not celebrate the demise of other human beings, (being a humanist), but when individual's actions have enormously devastating repercussions for other human beings, and when these individuals become entrenched into power through their own subversion of institutions, then often, death is the only release. 
What we witnessed in Malawi this week was political institutions, in the wake of the death of the President, wobbling and shaking, but not crumbling; an ultimate test for political stability and openness in a desperately poor nation. However, in a nation such as Zimbabwe, equally ransacked economically and politically, this ransacking has been so much more complete in nature, that the hopes of a legal transition, a constitutional transition after the death of Mugabe seems extremely unlikely. Just as in Malawi, where the President's brother was set to step in, unconstitutionally, in the power vacuum, it seems predetermined that Mugabe's feared security chief will be the next in line to hold the reins of power in Zimbabwe. Thus, if legitimate political transition is to be seen as almost impossible in the political climate of Zimbabwe, what is the other option? I would argue, in this case, rebellion, awakening, a Zimbabwean Spring, is the only answer, the only hope. 
As Mugabe walked off the gleaming white private jet back into a nation that he has ruled as a vampire for the last 30 years, a breathe of hope vanished. When will it return?

The Failure of Aid...asinine philantropy

"Back in the early 1970s, in an effort to break the cycles of starvation in the Turkana region, Kenyan officials had delegated the Norwegian development agency Norad the task of retraining local herders to fish. The lake swarmed with tilapia and Nile perch. The idea was to wean the people off their boom-and-bust livestock economy, swap animal for fish protein, and make the nomads productive, sedentary citizens. The Scandinavians built a modern freezer plant near the lake. They taught people how to cast nets. And they distributed 20 large, modern fiberglass skiffs. The project was a colossal failure. As it turned out, freezing the catches cost more than the fish were worth. And, astoundingly, the foreigners hadn't bothered to ask whether the milk- and meat-addicted nomads even liked fish. (They didn't.) A decade after donors had sunk millions into the scheme, the Turkana pastoralists were as poor and hungry as ever. Many gave up and returned to the bush. A few of the more enterprising families found a novel use for their upturned fishing vessels as crude shelters. 

Lake Turkana's beached fishing fleet became an icon of asinine philanthropy in Africa."

-Paul Salopek, The Last Famine


We need to analyze what went wrong with this program, what were the structural deficits that created failure, not just for the project, but for the intended beneficiaries, as well as the Kenyan State, whose social contract with these nomadic tribes was thus eroded. A few superficial critiques of the program....

Program Design: participatory in nature? I think not...
Delegation of Program Responsibility: Is the Norweigan government better able to design and implement a program for nomads in Kenya than Kenyans in Nairobi are? Increased geographic distancing=increased chances for failure.
Focus on "Nomadic Productivity:" How can we learn/understanding that certain lifestyles are simply not conducive, in their traditional form, to integration into the wider, globalized economy? How can we understand/learn that pushing this integration will lead to greater failure, domination by power, and, if "successful," only succeeds in bringing people onto the lowest rungs of development while stripping their cultural identity and community bonds?
Modern Freezer Plant: A great symbol/metaphor for the imposition of inappropriate technology upon unwilling recipients; the vestiges of these projects dominate the landscape of so many LDC's....

and so much more....

"The Last Famine"

One of the great journalists of our time, Paul Salopek, recently published an article on the famine in the Horn of Africa this year (Foreign Policy Magazine, March 2012).
Salopek, with his characteristic, ethnographic approach, details the impact of the famine, of the environmental change, on nomadic, pastoralist communities in the north of Kenya, in the region of the mythic Lake Turkana, "...A gargantuan wilderness of hot wind and thorn stubble..."

Salopek's investigation turns him, seemingly unwittingly, as he is also a humanist,  into a critic of humanitarian aid; his words encapsulate the conundrum of long-term humanitarian assistance:

"The savannas were crisscrossed by invisible migration routes, seasonal pasturage rights, proprietary water holes. In a place as destitute as the Turkana Basin, food aid hadn't just swollen human populations, but undermined those antique rules. It had also encouraged the nomads, ruinously, to maintain more animals than the fragile pastures could sustain; living on donations, they saw little need to eat or sell off their herds in times of drought. And so, the rangelands eventually wore away, becoming sterile as concrete."

The fine line of humanitarian assistance, of ecological devastation, of the increasingly heavy human burden on remote, ragged, thin lands, in addition to its thickening presence elsewhere; the human as the occupier of this earth, its burden.
Stopping food aid to these communities would cause mass death, which is not a viable solution, even for the most hardened critics of foreign assistance.

Is it possible to go back? Has the West, has our benevolence, brought about systematic destruction of survival mechanisms, and, if so, what is to be done?

Is it Time for an African Spring?

Can the winds of change, perennially seen as superseding political barriers, truly transcend?
Can authoritarianism, cloaked in the thin veil of democracy, continue to deceive both a willing world, and the unwilling, unlucky participants caught in the crossfire?
Can power and vested interests, when so firmly entrenched, ever yield?
Recent history paints a startlingly contrasting answer to this multifaceted question; but we must ask-why does this work for some, and not for others? Why id Mugabe still firmly in control of Zimbabwe, and country he has devastated, while Mubarak is being wheeled into trial in a nation in which he oversaw at least some measure of progress and human development enhancement?

What are the tools that are used to preserve power?
What is the threshold of ruthlessness that must be crossed in some, but not other nations?
And why is this threshold permitted to be crossed with some populations, while violent upheavals and revolutions result in others?
What is the dividing line of humanity, what is the tipping point of collective action?

The BBC's Jimmy Kainja states that, "...an African Spring in the exact fashion of the Arab Spring would signify a step backwards - not a step forward...I previously argued that "the protagonists of the Arab Spring have more to learn from their sub-Saharan Africa counterparts than the other way round. The majority of sub-Saharan African countries peacefully did away with one-party-rule in the 1990s.""

The majority of countries in the region "did away with one party rule in the 1990's." This statement is both true and completely false; truth, a thin veneer painted on top of a reality of lies. The tide towards authoritarianism is increasing with time; the initial movements away from one party rule were in response to Western demands, back by structural adjustment loans and financing; they were not indigenous revolutions, indigenous movements; and thus, they have never been more than thin lip service. The governmental systems in most nations exist to serve the vested interests of a few; democracy and democratic elections acts as a trough for political patronage, not for the distribution of public goods to the majority of citizens. These vested interests are also the ones reaping the fruits of the newly energized economic growth of the continent, not the ordinary citizens, who continue to the blindly neglected and untouched by the hand of the state. And how? Governments have become adept at limiting the coordination goods, the ability of opposition groups to coordinate and scale dissent through strict media and political controls. What we have in nations such as Rwanda, Uganda, and Ethiopia, is not democracy; development and progress, but surely not democracy. What we have in nations such as the DRC, Zimbabwe, and Angola is kleptocracy, not democracy. What we have in nations such as Mozambique and Kenya is limited progress, with vastly entrenched vested interests reaping the fruits of economic growth; democracy, with very limited development. 

I agree with Kainja that developing strong democratic institutions is the best way forward to establishing true democracy; however, this is simply not happening, has not happened, and is promising not to happen in many nations (there are certainly exceptions, Ghana and Liberia come quickly to mind). What, then, is the answer to a Mugabe, who shows no sign of relenting?