By Takura Zhangazha*
When the local state controlled weekly
Sunday Mail published a headline story on what it referred to as the ‘command economy’,
I was slightly surprised. While it wasn’t
a new term from the state and its related ‘news’ machinery, it was clearly a
strategic propaganda move intended to remind us of the still to be verified
success of the actual official term. ‘command agriculture’ as touted by government
officials.
All against the backdrop of the heavy rains
that the country received which have heightened anticipation of a bumper harvest.
What is probably happening is that the ruling
party assumes that the continuity of its electoral hold on power predicated on
the success of the much vaunted ‘command agriculture’ will translate to a new
national economic development model.
There are also certain nuances as to whether ‘command
economy’ is not a hint of continued
contestation between the ‘Lacoste’ or ‘G40’ factions of the ruling Zanu Pf party
over what should be a government economic blueprint.
That the Sunday Mail carried such a story
as its lead would indicate the same. It is basically an attempt at creating a contest between the
official blueprint Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic and Transformation
(ZimAsset) and this nascent ‘command economy’ model. Especially with an intention of demonstrating who in the ruling party has a 'better' strategy at dealing with the economy.
If the challenges the national economy
faces were not so serious I would have said ‘bring out the popcorn and turn up
the volume’.
That ‘command economy’ may be a catchy turn
of phrase does not however signify a specifically different government macroeconomic
policy framework. Neither is it a significant
departure from ‘ZimaAsset’.
Based on what has been made public, it is
intended to ‘galvanise’ the policy clusters that are under the former. The assumption would be that ZimAsset is not
working in its current implementation format and requires much more centralized
and direct planning. This would probably then lead to faster results through rapid
‘command’ implementation.
In this regard, ‘command economy’ is
essentially an attempt to embolden and speed up a ‘state capitalism’ economic
framework as already defined by ZimAsset.
This is a framework in which the state and its functionaries
(individuals and parastatals) essentially runs like a business i.e for
profit. In our specific case, due to cronyism
and corruption, this profit is not remitted back to the state, but individuals
who are connected to the state or ruling party.
Furthermore, it has no clear public good intentions from the onset. It seeks to provide what should essentially be
public service via private profit oriented business models such as the much
vaunted public private partnerships. And
the key target areas for this are key social services such as provision of
water, transport, health, land and education. Hence there is insistence on privatization
of water, electricity and health services.
Where government officials talk of the ‘ease
of doing business’ it is a combination
of neo-liberalism and crony capitalism via access to the state and its
resources.
So we can call it ‘ZimAsset’ or ‘command
economy’ but the end effect of a neo-liberal and crony capitalism framework is
the same. Whether it pits one Zanu Pf
faction against another is a matter for those who are more interested in the
ruling party’s distractive succession politics (even if by rumour, gossip and
innuendo).
And the implementers of it are not only
thinking short term i.e get rich quick. They intend to construct a hegemony in which they
have a pliant population that regards an elite serving economy as the norm and
not an aberration.
In fact they intend to make resistance
appear futile by focusing on ‘the money’ minus an ideological contestation. And they now know that the latter is
certainly to going to come from the neo-liberal aternatives being espoused by
the opposition which, again, as with ‘command economy’ juxtaposed with Zimasset,
are two sides of the same coin.
What we have to grapple with in reality is
a state that is being led away from what should be its raison d’etre, that is,
to serve to the best possible democratic extent, the people.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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