A brief presentation to the Sustainable Economics Forum (SEF)
by Takura Zhangazha
Wednesday 10 September 2014.
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation
(FES) Zimbabwe, Head Office, Harare
Discussing the economic prospects
of Zimbabwe has invariably had to be linked to the state of our politics.
Mainly for two reasons. The first being that the Fast Track Land Reform
Programme (FTLRP) that began in early 2000 (by default) led to some sort of
economic shock therapy.
While what was more apparent on the
minds of many pundits of political economy was the infamous ‘ Black Friday’ on 14 November 1997 where the Zimbabwe dollar tumbled heavily
after the awarding of ‘unbudgeted for’ increases in the allowances of war
veterans together with the expensive military assistance we gave to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997 , the latter’s structural impact on
the economy would have been short-lived.
It was the FTLRP that changed, in
part our economic outlook, not least because it directly affected our economic
base, agriculture, but because it also had other economic consequences which would
include economic sanctions on the state and companies directly linked to government
business.
The second reason is because of the
intentions of our political leaders. Especially
where these are linked to electoral prospects and retention of political power. They have also had a tendency to approach the
economy from a centrist command point with five year economic plans that are
essentially a throwback to our initial years of independence where the state
was intended to have an historically grounded role in social and economic
development of a repressed black majority.
The major ideological motivation
for this has always been nationalistic before it is based on much more structured
ideological frameworks such as socialism or capitalism. And
this was probably deliberate in order to court foreign direct investment from
the then and now re-emergent Cold War
global divide.
So the essentials of Zimbabwe’s
economic crisis reside primarily and for now, in the nature of the structure of
the state and the intentions of its political leadership.
The character of the state in relation to what has been
referred to the ‘enclave’ and ‘dualism’ in a recent collaborative study by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) , Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSA) and the Labour and Economic
Development Research Institute, Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ).
This is with specific reference to
the inherited legacies of the Rhodesian settler state political economy which according
to the study cited above, was racialised into the formal and informal. It is a dichotomy that exists today with most
formal economic activity being the preserve of major cities and in the hands of
the elite while a greater majority, particularly women remain in the informal
and rural components of the economy.
The intentions of the political
leadership in so far as they have, since independence, sought to change the enclave
and dual nature of the economy. Furthermore, whether in the process of seeking
to do so, their intentions were in any event intended to be revolutionary or
ended up mimicking global economic models without proper application to
context. Both in the short and long term.
While this paper cannot go through the
structural details of various economic policies that have been implemented by
government over the last 34 years, it would be instructive to note that key structural
and ideological tenets that inform our contemporary political economy have
neither been revolutionised or holistically and organically changed. Both in relation to a more efficient economy
or in enabling the same to serve to the greater extent the livelihood needs of
our country’s majority poor.
Where a big departure was expected
through the formation of the SADC mediated inclusive government in 2009, that government’s
policies became more keen on a return to a ‘stable’ economic past in the midst
of the FTLRP.
Its intention was to return the Zimbabwean
economy to acceptable global practices while at the same time avoiding holistically
dealing with structural challenges that have afflicted the Zimbabwean political
economy since independence.
With the advent of a two thirds majority
in Parliament and an attendant local government and presidential election
victory (contested as it is) for Zanu Pf, again we would be forgiven for
assuming that the economic trajectory would at least look up.
Not least because the incumbent government
is not as contested as the previous one but also because a holistic overhaul of
the predications of our national economy have been long outstanding.
In saying this, I am aware that mainstream
economic thought on how to develop not only the Zimbabwean, but African
economies, is long standing and continually being renewed. Both at the instance
of independent academics but largely with the influence of global financial and
economic institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and to a limited extent leftist institutions/governments.
The key question has been our relative
African and in particular Zimbabwean government’s ability to harness these
globally generated epistemologies to our own local contexts. This has been the bane of our domestic economic
policies. From the neo-liberal Economic Structural
Adjustment Programmes of the late 1980s through to contemporary state capitalist
models of árrival’ or permanent hegemonies, such as China and closer to home,
Angola, we have failed to grasp that mimicry alone is not adequate especially
where it has no domestic social democratic context.
In our immediate context, this is
the primary challenge of the much lauded but little implemented new economic blueprint,
Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Social, Economic Transformation (ZimAsset). Not only in its typical mimicry of the
economic blueprints of countries that are perceived to be friendly but in its
ideological impetus which would have us all fawn at the alter of state capitalism
ala carte China, Angola. But more because it has no ideological or
revolutionary intention to the structural challenges our national economy faces.
It is essentially a programme
that continues to pursue the path of not
only externally sourced modernisation programmes, but also retain the
structural tenets of a neo-liberal economy imbued with elitist and hegemonic aspirations
of existent ruling classes or bourgeoisie.
Both in terms of ideas as well as material investment.
So when one analyses the recent visit
by President Mugabe to China in order to seek bilateral agreements in line with
ZimAsset, the key issue is not so much to seek repetitions of cold war
rhetoric. Instead it is to measure how
these bilateral agreements are contextual and in line with the specific
economic challenges that the country is facing.
Furthermore, it is to examine not only the economic model of state
capitalism, which is what China has implemented since the late 1980s, but to
scrutinize its relevance to our own national context.
As it is, the model of state
capitalism, which is the basic ideological premise of ZimAsset, is primed at
primarily entrenching a specific hegemonic era in Zimbabwe wherein a ruling
party related comprador bourgeoisie virtually
runs the state like a personal business.
In doing so they appropriate state resources in pursuit of making wealth
that is predicated on their being in power while at the same time keeping the
masses at bay. Preferably by way of quasi performance legitimacy but primarily
through benevolence and repression.
So the prospects for the national
economy are bleak, especially if one uses social democratic measurements. There will be some forms of FDI but largely of
an infrastructural kind in order to fortify the ruling party’s benevolent but repressive
rule. The realisation of social and economic
justice be it in relation to historical grievances such as land distribution or
basic social services will be
continually subjected to elite capture and the creation of vacuous public
private partnerships. And in this,
politics will again be a key determinant as to what direction the economy
takes.
To conclude, I would posit that we
perhaps need to begin to attempt to think beyond what we have leanrt as
mainstream economics and models of economic development. I know that there have been attempts to do
so, particularly through local, regional and international think-tanks that
have called for what they have referred to as the “democratic developmental
state”. It is by and large a proposition
that fits into the ‘third way’ framework as has been discussed in the West.
It is a noble idea except for its
assumption of internationalisation and immediate fitting into the lexicon of
the Non Profit Industrial Complex.
The primary challenge is for
African states and Zimbabwe in particular not to escape direct ideological questions
that are required in order to frame holistic solutions to the economic challenges
that we are faced with. And even more-so that these definitions stem from
contextual historical, political and economic analysis.
It is therefore imperative that in
order to improve the prospects of our economic
recovery in a holistic fashion we undertake the following steps:
- 1. Embarking on contextual knowledge production and exchanges within the ambit of greater academic freedom and promotion of innovation.
- 2. Determining clearer contextual ideological praxis upon which our economic development models are formulated and implemented with a bias toward a social democratic framework.
- 3. Dismantling the dual/enclave state primarily through addressing our land reform programme’s challenges around the bifurcation of rural and local government, bio-agriculture, security of tenure, mining, the environment, wildlife
- 4. Concertedly integrating the provision of social services (health, education, transport, shelter and food) to the majority poor at little or no cost altogether into all alternative frameworks that are produced.
ENDS.
No comments:
Post a Comment