The ongoing
debate on the relevance of the “developmental state” for Ethiopia has been
really encouraging. Though I was intrigued by Prof.Messay’s
emphasis on the role of the elite in shaping the historical courses of their
respective countries, I did not, however, like the authoritarian flavour that he wished to generously lavish upon them. Why
would one choose to hold onto the authoritarian road when we could follow the
democratic one?
Now I do not want to bombard you with all sorts of
definition about democracy. I think, for the present purpose, we all agree that
apart from the periodic elections and other rituals associated with them,
democracies are generally supported by the triple-pillar of accountability,
transparency and legitimacy, which together constitute the supremacy of the
law. Where the rule of law is the highest authority, there can be no arbitrary
violations of human and property rights, officials and bureaucrats will be held
accountable in the event they misuse their positions and public resources, and
the media will serve as a strong arm of the country’s justice system by
investigating and exposing political scandals and corrupt practices. To the
extent that these things are the main parts and components that make up a
democratic society, I do not see why they shouldn’t comprise the precondition
for development. After all, development is all about the effective utilization
of a country’s available resources to generate the maximum possible benefits
for its citizens. If the system in place prevents or discourages the active
monitoring and supervision over how these resources are used, then the entire
project about achieving all-round development will be an exercise in futility.
There is no doubt that the elite everywhere are the
makers and breakers of their own societies. But they are more successful in
discharging their social duties and responsibilities when they operate in
democratic and transparent ways. So, in order to substantiate my case and
convince you that democracy is a must for development, at least for Ethiopia,
we will briefly look at the role of different elites in morphing their
countries’ politics, economy, and social development through some comparative
lens that guides us across China, Nigeria, Botswana, and Greece.
China
Most of the pro-developmental state argument will not,
typically, wrap up its journey without showering lots of praises on the
remarkable achievements of China, which is often upheld as the paragon of a
successful state-directed capitalist society. It is true that China’s hands-on
approach has delivered spectacular economic outcomes in terms of ensuring
sustained economic growth for over three decades and lifting more than 250
million of its citizens out of poverty during the same period. But no matter
how beautifully one portrays the miraculous economic performance China enjoyed
since 1978, the hard facts remain that it is more the result of gradual erosion
of the government’s role in directing the national economy and the subsequent
rise of private capital and responsibility, not the other way around.
Reform, Reform and Reform
One widely dispersed, and often mistaken, assertion
about China’s economic successes in particular and the attendant monomania with
the “Beijing Consensus” in general is that people wrongly attribute this
success to the authoritarian features of the Communist Part of China (CCP),
which is often assumed to have controlled the magic wand that kept the
country’s unprecedented economic expansion going for a long time now. The
truth, however, is that China’s strong growth and prosperity are the result of
continuous reform, opening of the economy to foreign capital and expertise,
gradual decentralisation in the organization of production, and with it the
increasing shrinkage of government presence in the economic scene.
China’s reform train began with the Household Responsibility
System (HRS) in agriculture which dismantled the Maoist collective farms and
allowed greater active participation of families in production and marketing
decisions. Though the HRS still imposed quota requirements, it however
empowered households to enjoy greater autonomy over the utilization of their
surplus value, such as to dispose it at market determined prices at will. This
new found relative freedom and autonomy combined with the prospect of making
more money from selling their extra-quota produce encouraged farmers to spend
more time and resources on their farms which further increased the quality and
quantity of food production. Though the legal framework governing land use and
ownership rights is far from complete, the there is no doubt that the HRS has
played a pivotal role in transforming China’s agriculture for the better. China
which lost over 30 million of its population to famine under Mao’s failed
collectivization programmes became more than self-sufficient within five year
period (1978-1983) and net food exporter (1983-2004).
The CCP is not just a self-selected group wishing to
hold onto power at all costs. Besides the economic re-organization of
production under the HRS, the Chinese political elite have made enormous
efforts to modernize the country’s agricultural sector by deploying new
technologies and innovative methods of production. When the reform programme
was launched in 1978, less than 30% of China’s 13 million hectare of arable
land had irrigation facilities; today more than 50% China’s agricultural land
is irrigated. China is also among the top countries (after Japan, South Korea
and Holland) in the world in terms of fertilizer application per unit of
hectare, with fertilizer consumption level more than twice the world average.
The government also actively promotes intensive agriculture by earmarking
substantial funds for research, demonstration, capital investment,
infrastructure and marketing support.
The Chinese reformers were far from being complacent.
Having achieved remarkable productivity gains in agriculture and having made
great strides in ensuring food security, they pushed similar radical reforms in
other sectors of the economy albeit “with Chinese characteristics”—on gradual,
piecemeal, incremental and cautious approaches.
On the industrial front, Chinese politicians followed
even stronger decentralization measures by gradually privatizing state owned
enterprises (SOEs) and further withdrawing state direction and guidance in
economic life. Some of these former SOEs were transferred to individual Chinese
investors; others—the so called Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs)–were
restructured and put under the nominal responsibility of local governments
(though in effect privately operated); still in other cases foreign
participation was allowed in the form of joint venture, outright acquisition
and portfolio investments. Today, after nearly three-decade-long rigorous
implementation of market-oriented reforms, the private sector in China accounts
for nearly 70 percent of the country’s total domestic
production, which before 1978 was totally and completely micromanaged by
central planners and coordinators.
Perhaps China’s most important achievement lies in the
external sector. Exchange rate reforms, favourable taxation and regulatory
incentives as well as stable social and political conditions combined with
cheap but competent labour have enabled China to jump-start its export economy,
especially by attracting foreign capital and technology in labour intensive
manufacturing sector that produce electronic goods, textiles, electric gadgets,
etc. for both domestic and export markets. Despite certain irregularities here
and there, generally attractive and investor-friendly environment has made
China the biggest destination for private capital among developing countries.
Still there are many problems that threaten to derail
China from its market-oriented heydays. Increasing income inequality,
corruption and environmental degradation spring to mind. The financial sector
has been overwhelmingly controlled by the country’s four biggest state owned
banks, which often make no hesitation to direct big loans to inefficient
government owned enterprises often at the expense of innovative individuals and
businesses. Its trading partners, and the US at large, are unhappy about
Beijing’s deliberate manipulation of the value of renminbi,
which has been artificially kept undervalued through massive foreign reserve
accumulation, often by purchasing US government bonds. Property rights are far
from secure and the Communist Party can sometimes bring down an entire village
by brute force followed by the arrest or execution of anyone who questions such
government actions or decisions.
As tough as these challenges are, Chinese economic and
political elites will be determined to find solutions in their own ways and
there is no reason to expect that China will reverse course and fall back to
its unworkable, complex and failed communist past. Though the state still
controls major industries in finance, energy and telecommunication, its role in
organizing the Chinese economy is generally on the wane. Freedom of entry and
exit for private players as well as increasing competition and mushrooming entrepreneurial
culture are behind China’s astounding economic achievements. NOT increasing
government guidance and interference.
Obviously, China is nowhere close to being a
fully-fledged democratic country. But if despotism is the small price to pay
for development, the Chinese elite have a lot to show for it. In less than
three decades, they have built the second biggest economy in the world. What do
you say about the current ruling elite in Ethiopia who have failed to achieve
even national food security goals after twenty solid years?
Botswana and Nigeria
Consider Botswana and Nigeria, two African countries,
with colonial past, endowed with rich mineral deposits, both inhabited by
diverse cultural and religious groups. Their similarities end here.
Nigeria is notorious for its entrenched,
institutionalised corruption and its politicians rank among the most ruthless
professional thieves in the world. Both electoral and political corruption is
rife and holding public office is a highly lucrative business in the country.
Since the early 1980s, Nigeria has received over 300 BILLION US dollars mainly
from petroleum extraction. This is an incredibly huge sum of money, at least by
African standards. But Nigeria remains one of the poorest countries on our planet,
with well over 60 percent of its citizens languishing
below the national poverty line. The level of corruption in Nigeria is so
deep-rooted that it has become part of the national way of life to the extent
that in many parts of the world MONEY and NIGERIANS have come to be perceived
as synonymous. Obviously, without all-round cultural and moral revolution,
Nigeria as a nation has a gloomy future—it is simply a failed state no matter
how you choose to define its failure.
On the other hand, Botswana has received lots of
praise from international opinion leaders for its open and transparent
dealings. In its November 6th-12th 2004 issue, The Economist
Magazine lauded Botswana’s British educated presidents for their efficiency,
moderate attitude, honesty and willingness to “leave office” when “the
constitution says no.” In its 2009 Corruption Perception Index Report,
Transparency International identified Botswana as the least corrupt country in
Africa (ranking 37 out of 180 countries) with a score of 5.6 (10 being the best
score). In this country, fiscal responsibility and social responsiveness go
together. The government has effectively used the windfall from its diamond and
other mineral resources by focusing on productive infrastructure and inclusive
social spending schemes. As a result, Botswana has transformed itself from a
poor post-colonial nation to a middle income country, with its citizens
enjoying higher standard of living than most of their Sub-Saharan African
counterparts.
If
democracy — that is the legal and institutional foundations to hold public
officials accountable—are not the necessary preconditions for economic
development, how does one explain the divergence in the economic trajectories
followed by Botswana and Nigeria?
Even if we accept the need for stronger government
activism in guiding the country’s investment and production decisions,
Ethiopia, or most of Africa for that matter, is far from the ideal candidate
for such serious national endeavours. If by a developmental state we mean the
ability and freedom of the state to mobilize national resources to achieve
clearly defined social and economic objectives, this will hardly happen in a
country markedly divided by ethnicity and riven by corruption. In an
environment where people are deliberately encouraged to commit themselves to
parochial and narrow nationalist pursuits, the local will always prevail over
the national.
Of course, this does not mean that cultural
homogeneity is the only ideal condition to execute developmental state programmes.
Even though homogenous nations have certain comparative advantages that
heterogeneous countries do not have, they are not insulated from moral, social
and economic degeneration as demonstrated by the recent Jasmine contagion in
the corrupt Arab world.
Greece
If anything the current popular crisis in Greece has
shown us it is the fact that the past cannot guarantee the present or the
future. For starters Greece is the cradle of much of the World’s
civilization—most importantly it is the birth place of democracy. But
unfortunately the country is deeply corrupt (ranking worse than Ghana in the
Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Perception Index) and one of the
most difficult places to start business (it was ranked worse than Ethiopia in
World Bank’s 2010 Ease of Doing Business Report). The shadow economy (which is based on unreported income)
accounted for one-fourth of the gross domestic production in 2007, which, for
instance, compared with 11.8% for France and 7.2% for the U.S. Tax evasion is
so pervasive that the national treasury loses an estimated 20 BILLION dollars a
year, a whopping sum which could have avoided any recourse to the IMF and the
ECB for financial assistance to cushion its current sovereign debt crisis.
How could a nation that successfully exported
democratic values to the rest of the world could suddenly find itself in a
situation where national moral standards hit rock bottom? Of course, there is a
multiplicity of causes that made the current Greek sovereign debt problem a
veritable hot potato. The adoption of the euro and the forfeiture of its fiscal
and monetary autonomy to a supranational authority (the ECB) is one of them.
But I think no other factor would rival the existence of rampant corruption for
the country’s current social and economic predicament. When the elite neglect
or abandon their traditional role as social transformers and reduce themselves
to mere parasites on their society, the entire nation will simply become
cynical about the elite’s superficial rhetoric on patriotism and public
spirited ness. Thus, naturally, unable to reign in the astray elite, ordinary
people will choose to engage in their own tiny malpractices, which over time
develop into major national puzzle. No wonder, in present day Greece, as of 2010, “nearly a third of Greek income was undeclared,
with “fewer than 15,000 Greeks declar[ing] incomes of over €100,000, despite tens of thousands
living in opulent wealth on the outskirts of the capital.”
Greece is at cross roads as a nation. Not because it
will be unable to service its debt and fall pray to
its domestic and European creditors. It will certainly overcome its current
financial challenges with or without its EU members’ support, though ordinary
people will have to endure some pain for sometime.
Rather what is more worrisome about Greece is the gradual erosion of its
critical social norms and institutions. A
recent poll conducted to survey the confidence of the Greek people in
various public institutions revealed a startling result. The proportion of
respondents who said they have NO TRUST for political parties in general was a
whopping 89%. Similarly, the have-no-trust response for governments was 90%,
for parliament (85%), for trade unions (80%), for the media (72%), for banks
(69%). The only two institutions that the people seemed to have some trust were
social movements (42%) and fellow citizens (54%).
Though Greece seems to have been drifting helpmessly due to the elite’s loss of moral compass, it has
still some introspective and vigilant children who are aware of its problems
and who are making loud calls about the urgent need to, “redefine the public
debate. Talk about public morality, a new political ethos, and the common good.
Cultivate consensus, and try hard to win hearts and minds in the cause of
remaking Greece.”
Lessons for Ethiopia
1.Over
all the elite are the makers and breakers of their society.
2.The
experience of Greece shows that the past or the present is no guarantee for the
future. Responsible elite like good school children are to be nurtured and
cultivated to ensure their continuous existence in their societies. Where
negligence and ignorance prevail, a single demagogue can intoxicate and poison
an entire elite generation and turn them into forces of catastrophe. Think
about the historical role of Hitler and his intellectual rear guard.
3. Cultural homogeneity is not a necessary and sufficient
condition to create and develop a healthy society. And heterogeneous
communities are not doomed to eternal rivalry and conflict. Altruistic,
God-fearing and humane elites from a cross-section of their communities can and
should defuse potentially mutually destructive tensions and create cooperative
environments if they put their personal or clique interests over and above the
interests of ordinary people.
4. The Chinese experience, contrary to widely held assertions,
reveals that what is critical for achieving rapid and inclusive socio-economic
advancement is not government’s heavy-handed, ubiquitous presence in national
economic affairs rather it is sustained reforms towards opening up the national
economy to the outside world, protecting and enforcing property rights and
contracts, encouraging stronger private sector engagement, and above all
limiting government intervention to correcting market failures, providing
social safety net for the economically downtrodden, expanding infrastructure
development, as well as promoting knowledge creation and dissemination. Even
though China is nowhere close to being a democratic country, the role of its
government in guiding national economic affairs cannot and should not be
overrated.
5. Corruption is a big, and perhaps the biggest, obstacle
against poverty reduction efforts in many developing countries. We were
recently surprised to find out that some 8.4 billion dollars left Ethiopia
illegally during the past twenty years of TPLF/EPRDF rule. But we should
understand that the problem is not a new one and has its roots in the final
years of the monarchy and became deeply entrenched during the chaotic Derg era. One insightful study by Léonce Ndikumana & James K. Boyce (2008) which examined
capital flight in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries found that between 1970 and
2004 some 17 billion dollars were illegally smuggled out of Ethiopia, of which
some 10.5 billion (60%) was stolen under TPLF/EPRDF. The reader can see that it
would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
eradicate abject poverty in our country before one can have the appropriate
insecticide to fight and eliminate these bloodsucking ticks from the Ethiopian
body politic.
6. The comparison between Botswana and Nigeria shows that
even if two countries have abundant natural resources, strong rules and
institutions that support transparency on government activities lead to
superior economic and social outcomes (in Botswana) while a culture of endemic
corruption inhibits a country’s political and economic progress (Nigeria).
7. Though one cannot rule out the practical relevance of
developmental state for Ethiopia, it is quite impossible in the current
political setting as created and advanced by the TPLF/EPRDF regime. This aspect
of the problem is best captured by Dr.BerhanuNega:
There
is also another peril associated with EPRDF’s ethnically-oriented politics when
viewed from the perspective of building a democratic system [in Ethiopia]. This
problem arises from the distribution of state resources. Usually ethnic
sentiment or identity politics is extremely intractable as it is driven by
emotional rather than rational considerations. Ethnic nationalism is especially
sensitive to feelings of subjugation or grievances. It is very easy to fan the
flames of ethnic nationalism even based on sheer rumour
or propaganda. Such developments, when coupled with conflicts of interest among
the elite groups, will make recourse to nationalistic appeal even more
attractive. This is clearly evident among the members that constitute the EPRDF
coalition who usually engage in fierce confrontation over federal-to-regional
budget subsidy allocation sessions–wrangling so common when parliament
convenes every year to ratify annual budget proposals. But the problem is more
severe than that. In a government structured along ethnic lines, if there is a
dominant ethnic group in it, there will always be the perception that the
dominant group is favouring its own ethnic enclave,
regardless of the factual foundation of such claims. Even when the alleged
relatively better economic activities are not based on explicit favouritism, others will use it as evidence of exploitation
to agitate and mobilize their own resentful ethnic groups. In the case of
Ethiopia, the all-around accusations directed at Tigray
illustrate the severity of this problem. Regardless of whether or not such
accusations are true, the mere existence of such perception kills any sense of
solidarity among its citizens, who instead become preoccupied with bitter
feelings of envy and rivalry. (BerhanuNega in ‘YenetsanetGohSiqed’, my own free
translation, pp.99-100)
It is true
that Prime Minister MelesZenawi
has had plenty of opportunities to bring Ethiopians together for Grand National
transformation mission. But sadly from the outset he chose to stick to
counterproductive “ShoaAmhara”
bashing campaign which later on would backfire on him earning him a bad name
for leading “Wedi Adwa” robber barons. That is not
all. Like his Marxist godfathers, instead of accepting criticisms for his
government’s damaging actions and decisions, he preferred extreme reliance on
propaganda. He was right in some sense. The Stalinists in Soviet Russia were
such loud and determined propagandists that observers in the West had the
tendency to speculate that life in Soviet Russia must have been superior
compared with the US. This speculation could not have been more plausible
especially when judged against the Soviet Union’s demonstrated achievements in
cutting-edge space technology. All this propaganda, however, was exposed when
Gorbachev “uncovered” Russia to the rest of the world.
In that
sense, what we wait for right now is the Ethiopian Gorbachev, an Ethiopian leader
who values honesty and self-examination more than his commitment to some askew
ideological superstructure.
Certainly MelesZenawi alone is not the
root of all evils in Ethiopia. Far from it. We have
plenty of them among other ethnic groups including the Amhara,
the Oromo, the Somali, etc. An OLF activist who vows to stamp out the “children
of invaders” from the “Oromo country” or an Amhara
jingoist who dreams to impose his language on every other ethnic group are both
as destructive as MelesZenawi
himself. It takes a simple principle to bring harmony in our nation: do not do
unto others what you do not want others do unto you.
So, it
must be understood that all-encompassing social transformation is brought about
by people we look well beyond ethnic loyalty or even racial barriers (Mandela
comes to mind) and who have profound commitment to the promotion and protection
of human dignity regardless of their provincial, religious or linguistic
background. Genuine transformers are those who lead their subjects by example.
The elite can be the light or the darkness of their society depending on how
they behave or act in accomplishing certain stated objectives and goals. When
our leaders give a penny, we will donate a pound; when Meles Zenawi frequents in and around Gondar, we will make
Adwa our home; when our politicians shake hands with respect and genuine smile,
we will return to the true Ethiopian tradition where tolerance, love and mutual
respect are the norm. You do not create a healthy society simply because you
have an excellent constitution or simply because ethics is taught as a subject
at schools and universities. In stressing the decisive influence of his
predecessors on his great scientific achievements, Isaac Newton once said, “If
I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of
giants.” Where are our academic, political and religious giants on whose
shoulders the current and future generations could stand with pride?
