The Ravages of Capitalism in the Third World.

The Ravages of Capitalism in the Third World.

Long ago when I was in school, I took a keen interest in the system of governance that was in place in Kenya for I saw a lot of dangerous disparities that as a boy I couldn’t help but notice how there were terribly rich people in a society of a terribly poor majority. Back then, my unschooled mind couldn’t get the act together for I wondered where wealth comes from and what formula was used to allocate it for if it was a just system then why allocate others more than they will ever need in one lifetime and four subsequent generations or so and deprive another same being even a morsel a day?

As I grew up, I acquired a keener interest in the ways of wealth creation that exist for our family as too poor that we called the family hoe an asset. Latter in my early teens and my love for reading, I came across a book called ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzzo. This book gave me an insight into wealth creation methods and of the most fascination was its opening quote that “behind every great fortune there is a crime”. I went and searched and eventually landed on writings about capitalism, how it works and how its been opposed by many a scholar in the middle years of this century.

Despite its successes in making up billionaires, capitalism has ensured that like the Indian caste, money defines your opportunities and association in life and the very heights you can go to. Children raised in moneyed families go to better schools, get better jobs, have many links with the political and business elite and travel more abroad and earn great experience unlike those from poor setups. This works o classify people technically into two caste. The have’s and have not’s. To break this wall like the Berlin wall is an insurmountable task that only a handful has done without blood shed. This is a major cause of the conflicts you see in Africa. This is a situation where the haves live in a closed society with little or no association with the other world so to break the barrier they go into gorilla warfare for it’s the only language the rich and mighty understand.

Economically, this ensures that all business deals are sealed in hotels and boardrooms with little notice or consideration of the poor majority even if they qualify to run for a section of the deal. The rich grow richer with a multitude of opportunities and the poor grow poorer with ninety percent of their time and resources spent on basic life. So generations remain impoverished, unable to take their kids to better schools hence the perpetration of the poverty down generations.

Capitalism bites with keener fangs when it comes to credit, and this one is one of the greatest fetters to growth in the third world. Banks and lending institutions especially in Africa don’t finance ideas, they finance personalities. A boy from a reputable family walks to the bank manager and is handed $5m in just 48hrs! Without much ado as to how he is going to spend the money on and his repayment plan and his security for the loan. Yet another intelligent boy with a revolutionary idea will be turned away by the same bank manager without giving him a hearing for he is a nobody. What is the result? The poor boy looks out of the country for work or aid, joins a guerrilla movement, goes into depression and drugs or still becomes the street robber hitting back at society for neglect.

This accounts for the great un employment evident in most of the third world, the Diaspora brain drain where all our professionals from the lower caste families leave the state to work in Europe, America etc for better pay leaving behind the poor performers to run our institutions hence the poor state of infrastructure and public amenities in the third world.

What can be done? One would ask. In my view and from my work with youth groups in western Kenya, and parts of South Nyanza and Northern Tanzania, these people whether learned or not don’t need aid as many foreigners assume, rather they need structures that will empower them in the simplest ways. I saw young people who wanted to be enlisted as viable borrowers by the government in South Nyanza. And when their Member of Parliament facilitated that, the results are tremendous.

Sometimes we don’t need the many NGOs to bring effect, its just the change of the capitalistic policies, although not in their entirerity for some are great for any economy, but to make sure that balance is struck on the access to credit and opportunities. This is to say that instead of the closed economy where insider trading is the norm, open procurement and loaning processes should be put in place to ensure people from all carders of life know when and where, plus the how to access credit and trade opportunities. This can only be achieved by the change in the capitalistic norms that most African economies adopted or were made to adopt that hold them back n abject poverty even in the 21^st century. Isn’t it a disparity closest to sin, that two citizens from the same country live two lives worlds apart?! That one can charter a dream liner and a fleet of security yet the other can barely find something to cover his nakedness!

Amaheno Jumbah,

Bungoma, W. Kenya.