MONDAY X-RAY: ‘WEALTH, POVERTY AND POLITICS’ (II)
Population has always been a controversial issue. Is our current population of about 200 million people adequate or inadequate for our growth and development? What will be the situation in 2050 when the population is expected to rise to 400 million people, thus making us to become the third largest country in the world?
Fundamentally, if well planned, not much is wrong with population growth as each economy requires younger people not only to replace aging population but also for the knowledge economy and the all-pervasive fourth industrial/technological revolution. Sowell talks about population size, demographic composition, demographic mobility and social mobility as among other aspects that affect economic outcomes for individuals, groups or nations. Can Nigeria really be said to be ‘overpopulated’? To my mind, creative management of our population is critical and a desideratum.
Sowell submits that our developed mental capabilities are not only more readily measured but are more demonstrably important than innate mental potential. In other words, as a nation, our individual skills should determine our employability and not due to heredity or environment. Political factors discussed in ‘Wealth, Poverty and Politics’ are capable of changing the course of history including economic and other social outcomes. The current border closure if properly prosecuted is capable of changing the nation’s course of economic history. The closure has consequences or implications for the nation’s ‘larger questions of wealth, poverty and politics’ including agricultural and industrial revolution.
Our political institutions, politics and diversity, the role of government, the politics of polarisation, political leaders, etc. all contribute to the wealth or poverty of a nation. Contrary to the popular belief, Sowell discloses that ‘The welfare state is often seen in terms of its effects on the material well-being of individuals or groups. However, it can also have an effect on the productivity of a nation as a whole, and therefore on the standard of living of its people in general.’ He talks about the ‘social vision which accompanies the welfare state’, progress and retrogressions, the role of leaders, etc. and concludes ‘. . . it cannot be easy to admit even to oneself, having promised progress toward ‘social justice’ and having delivered instead retrogression . . . .’ Is this not the state of our polity?
In the concluding part of ‘Wealth, Poverty and Politics’, Sowell asks ‘What is the reason for differences in income and wealth among individuals, races, nations and civilisations?’ While disclosing that there is no such thing as ‘the’ reason, ‘there are all sorts of factors- and many combinations and permutations of those factors.’ He advances factors such as economic differences, perspectives on economic disparities, current implications of poverty-stricken and socially backward peoples in a society clamouring for social justice, and prospects of facing the facts and the future.
While talking about ‘words versus realities’, he argues that when equal opportunity and equal probability of success are used interchangeably, it amounts to rhetoric. He states that those ‘making excuses for counterproductive behaviour does not help any group (nation) advance, though it may enable those elites responsible for promoting counterproductive social policies to escape responsibility in the eyes of others or of themselves.’ So, let this be with our ruling class.
The role of productivity, causation and versus blame, causation vis-à-vis conveyance and blame, the localisation of blame, goals (economic, political, social, etc.), economic and social consequences with contemporary reference to Nigeria are also treated.
The final elaborate questions by Thomas Sowell are: ‘Does it not matter if the hungry are fed, if slums are replaced by decent … housing, if infant mortality rates are reduced to less than a tenth of what they were before? Are invidious ‘gaps’ and ‘disparities’ all that matter: In a world where we are all beneficiaries of enormous windfall gains that our forebears never had, are we to tear apart the society that created all this, because some people’s windfall gains are greater or less than some other people’s windfall gains?’
Our nation is in the crossroads of history. Our political, economic, socio-cultural, educational, technological, etc. history are all telling us that we need to rejig them if we are to be a veritable member of the comity of prosperous and stable nations. ‘Wealth, Poverty and Politics’ by Thomas Sowell debunks many hitherto propositions and challenges us to think outside the box. We have all it takes to be great but we must reinvent the wheel.
//
