Economic solutions to poverty

Economic solutions to poverty
By Editor
Saturday August 09, 2008 [04:00]

There is a great danger that government policies, if not combined with clear social concern, will bring economic deprivation. Economic growth depends in the first place on social progress. We agree with the observations made by Professor Oliver Saasa that economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa has been greeted with worsening social conditions and that poverty cannot be fought with economic solutions.

We are aware that politics is an area of great importance for the promotion of justice, development and community among all. The government is the instrument by which people co-operate in order to achieve the common good.

And an authority is needed to guide the energies of all towards the common good.

Truly, economic growth could explain a proportion of poverty reduction but the rest is dependent on good policies to harness the growth of poverty reduction. Meeting the basic needs of families must take top priority in any government planning. Hunger in our society is a sign of gross injustice and a block to development.

Trying to develop a country without developing its people, without lifting their standard of living is meaningless.

Economic justice requires that each individual has adequate resources to survive, to develop and thrive.

There are people who each day cannot meet the basic needs necessary for a decent human life. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental needs to remain unsatisfied.

There is need for the transformation of our social structures in order to build the economy of our country in a manner which is beneficial to all, especially the poor.

The government is expected to work for the benefit of all. It has a duty to serve the people and to equitably distribute goods and services among all the people.

In addition, there is no political participation without economic participation. This implies a new, fundamentally humanistic conception of the economic process, which surpasses the system where capital is privileged and work is considered as marketable.

The experience lived by our people leads us to reject this type of economic order. We should therefore aim towards the creation of a qualitatively different society. By this we understand a society wherein the willingness of justice, of solidarity and equality reigns, one that will respond to generous aspirations and the search for a more just society and where values, particularly freedom and responsibility which will guarantee the integral development of individuals will be realised.

In order that this kind of society be developed, it is necessary that the education of all the people include the social and communal meaning of human life, in the total context, which includes culture, economics, politics and the whole society.

Education thus conceived will lead to the creation of a new human being and a new society – social humankind and a communal society where democracy is real through the effective political participation of the members of a society, through the human concept of work, through the submission of capital to the needs of the whole society.

Humanity should be that artisan of its own destiny, responsible before history, creator of its own culture and civilisation, an act which becomes more urgent in the process of social political change.

This means that individuals should have a real and direct participation in the political action against structures and oppressive attitudes and for a just society for all. This participation will be made manifest by the awakening of critical consciousness and by the activity which demand that channels for participation in decision-making be created.

Only thus can we avoid the myth of a formal democracy which hides a situation of injustice: actually, if beyond juridical laws a more profound sense of respect and service of one another is lacking, and even of an equality before the law, it could serve as an alibi for fragrant discrimination, for constant exploitation, for effective deceit.

This participation goes beyond the limits of law or governmental organs, even if these were designed to favour it, because we must prevent popular participation from being channelled along a predetermined line or under political leadership. It should be a creative and autonomous process.

In the last seventeen years, a hope has spread through our country that economic growth would bring about such a quantity of goods that it would be possible to feed the hungry at least with the crumbs falling from the table, but this has proved a failing hope.

Even the jobs provided are so few that, not infrequently, most workers are left unemployed. These stifling oppressions give rise to great numbers of marginal persons, ill-fed, inhumanly housed, illiterate, and deprived of political power as well as of the suitable means of acquiring responsibility and moral dignity.

In saying all this, we are not in any way implying that we should build our country’s economy on the basis of entitlements. One cannot build an economy or a society purely on the basis of entitlement. Our progress on reducing or eradicating poverty will depend on how well we are able to mobilise the sweat equity of our people themselves. Our people have to make a contribution.

As it has been pointed out before in this column, social justice and equity means “equality of rights, of opportunities, not of income. Equality is not an egalitarianism. The latter is ultimately another form of exploitation: that of a good worker by one who is not, or, even worse, by the idle”.

Clearly, it cannot be denied that it is a fallacy to fight poverty with economic solutions because in a country like ours with highly uneven income and asset distribution, the poor are significantly disadvantaged in the growth process. Therefore, there is need to work on interventions that increase our poor people’s income and assets. We have no choice but to take an option for the poor.