Prof. Lungu Karl Marx put it that even when you make the conditions under capitalism better there is one group of person who will exploit another. Karl Marx said that capitalism is like a deodorized shit, and a shit even when ... read full comment
Prof. Lungu Karl Marx put it that even when you make the conditions under capitalism better there is one group of person who will exploit another. Karl Marx said that capitalism is like a deodorized shit, and a shit even when deodorized still remains a shit. Congress men and women from Alaska support U.S. covert and overt operations around the world to subvert the government of other countries and overthrow. Lenin will ask you here if you are for the people because what you wrote is contradictory. You cooked intellectual podding here.
Also the social democratic countries you wrote about are part and parcel of the world imperialist system that subvert the sovereignty of other countries. Let as look at France for instance where most of the major means of production and distribution are in the hands of the state, yet since 1966 France and her European Union members have forced us to sell the majority of state asserts, some to French state companies.
EU and U.S. forced African countries to remove subsidies and when they were told to do the same they told the gullible African presidents and economists that if they do so their people will revolt. So they impose structural adjustment policies on us to make our countries ungovernable so that they come back to recolonize us.
Kwamebeba 8 years ago
We can't stop capitalist from doing what they want to do. They change with time to suit their conditions. They stopped trading in human slaves when they knew it would eventually bring chaos and to their detriment. Now they ... read full comment
We can't stop capitalist from doing what they want to do. They change with time to suit their conditions. They stopped trading in human slaves when they knew it would eventually bring chaos and to their detriment. Now they went into colonialism and when men like Nkrumah and others came to the scene and there was no hiding place for their evil machinations they engineered their neo-colonialist tactics and got customers in African traitors just as they had accomplises during the slave trade.
So it is up to we Africans to refuse to swallow their bait and find our own authentic African way of doing things as Nkrumah proposed. We only have to do what is right for the African. Nkrumah said it that, we do not look left nor right but rather forward. We are Africans and Africa is not an extension of Europe or any other continent. In fact, Africa is the centre of the world and if anything at all, all other nations must be extensions of Africa. We as African should adopt only the best out of any ideology that is suitable to our African conditions. In Ghana we need refrigerators not central heating so until we are able to manufacture our own refrigerarors we could buy them from somewhere but not heaters. We must think of developing solar energy rather than thinking of perpetually using other costly and unavailable energy sources. We should concentrate on producing orgainic foods instead of genetically modified products etc.
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
Kwamebeba,
YOUR: "...We as African should adopt only the best out of any ideology that is suitable to our African conditions...We must think of developing solar energy rather than thinking of perpetually using other costly ... read full comment
Kwamebeba,
YOUR: "...We as African should adopt only the best out of any ideology that is suitable to our African conditions...We must think of developing solar energy rather than thinking of perpetually using other costly and unavailable energy sources..."
WE SAY: Way to go, Kwamebeba!
Thanks.
francis kwarteng 8 years ago
Dear Kwame,
What's up?
Well, it is interesting reading your comments. But I have a different take on Prof. Lungu's piece.
First, Prof. Lungu has variously criticized the unfairness of capitalism, including criticizi ... read full comment
Dear Kwame,
What's up?
Well, it is interesting reading your comments. But I have a different take on Prof. Lungu's piece.
First, Prof. Lungu has variously criticized the unfairness of capitalism, including criticizing the French and their policies toward Africa, particularly her former African colonies.
Second, Prof. Lungu has also discussed these subsidies you talk about and related questions. But you should also know that African countries are asked by the EU/US to shed subsidies because African leaders go to them (via World Bank/IMF)in the first place seeking all kinds of assistance.
Third, in other words the EU/US do not force us at gun point to sell the majority of state assets, as you put it. We should learn to put out houses in order first.
Fourth, capitalist technocrats in Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, etc., are not any better than their Western counterparts.
How much of oil revenue has been stolen from the Nigerian national coffers since the discovery of oil in Nigeria?
What if oil revenue/profit is distributed among Nigerians as the article suggests, rather than Nigerian capitalist politicians and technocrats stealing it?
You see, Kwame, the "equitable" of oil revenue in Alaska has done a lot to reduce poverty in that state? On the other hand could we say the same of oil? No.
You have Nigerians who use their private ships to re-direct the products of state oil tankers to their private ships and sell them to different buyers, then sending the illegal money to private accounts in the West and America (this denies the federal of oil revenue. Even when oil revenue gets to the national coffers, Nigeria's capitalist politicians and technocrats take their share and hide them in Western bank accounts, thanks to global capitalism).
Unfortunately global capitalism aids this blatant daylight robbery! How many Nigerians have access to potable water? Electricity? And other amenities? Yet Nigerian counts among the world's top ten producers of oil?
Let me give you a better picture: Michael Watts writes in the report "Has Globalization Failed in Nigeria":
........................................................................................................................................................
The first exports left Nigeria for London in 1958. So we’re marking a half-century of oil and gas activities in Nigeria. Oil became economically significant almost precisely at the time Nigeria became independent from Britain in 1960. In a sense, then, the history of post-colonial Nigeria is the history of oil and gas in the country. And yet it’s been a period of, without being too dramatic, unremitting political and economic failure and wasted opportunity.
Nigerians are incredibly talented, creative, entrepreneurial people. They have an extraordinary vitality. They have Nobel Prize winners. Nigeria’s population of 150 million means one in every five Africans is a Nigerian. This is not in any sense a country that is short of human capital. It’s the eighth-largest exporter of oil in the world, a major supplier to the U.S. market, and in 2008 was in receipt of $83 billion in oil and gas revenues. But most of the country lives on less than a dollar a day and has a life expectancy of less than 50 years.
Since the 1970s, oil has accounted for around 90–95% of all foreign exports, 80–85% of all government revenues, and 40–50% percent of gross domestic product. Nigeria is an archetypical “oil nation,” a mono-economy in which oil dwarfs everything else.
Since 1960, over $600 billion in oil revenues has flowed into Nigeria’s coffers; it represents an opportunity unavailable to much of the developing world. These petrodollars could have been spent productively, could have transformed agriculture, laid the foundation for an effective public education system, provided much-needed infrastructure. Yet, according to the World Bank, of that $600 billion, $300 billion has simply disappeared into overseas bank accounts through theft and corruption.
The history of post-colonial Nigeria is the serial inability to put these oil wells to developmental use — the catastrophic failure of the national development project.
Of course money is trickling through this system. But whatever development indicators we look at, oil has not, according to an IMF report, contributed in any significant way to the average standard of living or the life chances of Nigerians. And, paradoxically, the oil-producing Niger Delta has experienced a decline in those indicators.
Life expectancy in the Niger Delta is 45. It has fallen significantly since 1970, though not, as in the case of southern Africa, from the impact of HIV/AIDS. That gives you a sense of the utter horror of conditions.
The government often points an accusatory finger at the oil companies, and indeed oil companies, for a long, long time, essentially got away with whatever they could, which is to say that they neglected community development, operated with impunity, often during periods of military dictatorship, and largely ignored the environmental costs of the industry. In addition, the volatility of global oil and gas prices does create real challenges for fiscal management, planning, and development. But the reality is that, in my view, the political leadership of Nigeria has massively failed on virtually every single level. In that sense, pointing to something called “globalization” as being a contributory factor to Nigeria’s developmental failure is a radically incomplete explanation...
........................................................................................................................................................
What sort of capitalism is this? Thus the message of the article Prof. Lungu reproduces here suggests another system of political economy that promises equity for all.
This is the sense I got when I first read this piece. Capitalism is exploitative whether it is used by Africans or Europeans. WEB Du Bois once said that freed slaves (African Americans) who later adopted the capitalist system for private gain used it to exploit other African Americans the say White Americans had exploited African Americans with it [capitalism].
All in all, if my reading of this article is correct then Prof. Lungu is merely suggesting a system of political economy that contradicts some of the major contradictions, call them evil traits, of capitalism.
I also do not think he is making a case for capitalism or socialism per se. He is making a case for a better or stronger political economy in the form of "mixed economy," which is what the world has known for all this while. I have come to this conclusion after having read this article more than once.
Finally, Nigerian capitalism leaves a sour taste on one's tongue. We can say the same of Chilean capitalism (under Augusto Pinochet), Zairian capitalism (under Mobuto Sese Seko), South African capitalism (under Apartheid), American and European capitalism (under slavery, colonialism, Jim Crowism), Ugandan capitalism (under Idi Amin), Haitian capitalism (under the Duvaliers)...The list is endless, anyway.
Philip Kobina Baidoo's capitalism--which does not exist anywhere--produces its own form of internal slavery beyond the shores of Pluto. On the question of why EU/US "forced African to remove subsidies" (though they subsidize their farmers, etc.), one wonders why market mechanism is not allowed to do what Baidoo and others say? Why do free market governments and institutions come to Africa with tall lists of requirements that unavoidably interfere with market mechanism?
Well, I hope my little contribution adds to the discussion. Have a great week.
Thanks.
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
francis kwarteng,
Thanks for the assist!
READ: "...Philip Kobina Baidoo's capitalism--which does not exist anywhere--produces its own form of internal slavery beyond the shores of Pluto..."
WE SAY: Seminal, for the r ... read full comment
francis kwarteng,
Thanks for the assist!
READ: "...Philip Kobina Baidoo's capitalism--which does not exist anywhere--produces its own form of internal slavery beyond the shores of Pluto..."
WE SAY: Seminal, for the record!
ITEM: We do not know what Kwame is talking about. However, we can tell that he has developed a beef with us for somethings we ourselves have not said.
1. In development planning, which we know something about, frequently, the best alternative is a composite of all numbered alternatives. The modern concept, is the "Hybrid".
That means you take the most of the best of each and the least of the worst, to achieve your goal, or development/master plan, etc., to the maximum extent!
We believe that Nkrumah would be that pragmatic today, like he was back in the 1950-1960s, were he alive today.
2. We generally do not like to respond to people on Ghanaweb with monikers that are not distinctive. Many times, it is difficult to tell which "Kwame", "Kofi", or "Ama" we are responding to. (For Ghana/West Africans, we all know the confusion that can potentially develop).
As such, Kwame as an online moniker is not distinctive - it is not creative.
But - "Kwamebeba" is distinctive (and creative)!
Which goes to our concept - HYBRID! They tend to be the most creative/out of the box thoughts/visions/goals, etc., worthy of implementation/advancement/development.
Conceptually and philosophically, a mixed economy would be superior. That is what we have in the US and in the so-called Nordic countries.
There is no number of American politicians of Wanna-Take-Back-My Country Tea Party racists that can lie to "we"!
All we need to do is ask them who pays for their healthcare, and the tax benefits they alone and their kind gets from the federal government and government!
3. Imagine, Alaska collects all that money for their citizens for Alaskan resources, but still is one of top five states that receive, in dollars, the highest grants per dollar in federal taxes paid to the US "common fund".
We all remember the so-called Bridge-To-Nowhere, in 2005:
READ: The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment
By Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D.
DATE: 20 Oct, 2005
"...Today, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) will offer an amendment to the Senate's appropriation bill to transfer the $223 million that Congress had previously approved for a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, to fund reconstruction of a hurricane-damaged bridge in Louisiana. Dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere," the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million, by way of three separate earmarks in the recent highway bill. At present, a ferry service runs to the island, but some in the town complain about its wait (15 to 30 minutes) and fee ($6 per car). The Gravina Island bridge project is an embarrassment to the people of Alaska and the U.S. Congress. Fiscally responsible Members of Congress should be eager to zero out its funding..."
So it goes!
PEACE!
Kwamebeba 8 years ago
It is only when people who are truly educated in the sense that they can reson logically and use their senses to analyse what goes on around them are more than mere educated fools, that Ghana will become what it is supposed t ... read full comment
It is only when people who are truly educated in the sense that they can reson logically and use their senses to analyse what goes on around them are more than mere educated fools, that Ghana will become what it is supposed to be. That is what Nkrumah wanted in Ghana and he was exactly doing that. The neo-colonialist puppets didn't like that and so destroyed his plans and so now we have more dishonest "intelectuals" than patriotic intellectuals.
I used to hear some infantile lies like: Nkrumah was a communist and his plans were to make all Ghanaians were the same clothing, queue up for the same meals etc. etc. They can't fool people with those type of funny lies so now they talk about life president, killing of all his opponents, squandering of billions left by their slave masters etc. Only time and their demise will stop them from being dishonest to themselves.
Nkrumaism is based on mixed economy for the benefit of the citizens and the reinvestment of part of the profit made by non state enterprises and private entities. Nkrumaism was about letting the state be in control of essential services that the people need so that the nation could not be held at ransom of mere profit seeking private businesses or their front men.
Why the few selfish people who only wanted to amass wealth without the interest of the people or nation at heart were against Nkrumah is not hard to understand.
Nkrumah gave freedom for people to engage in what they are best at not what they had no clue of but insisted doing for the sake of profit(non industrious buy and sell capitalists). That is what has been happening since February,24. 1966 and that is what is happening now with either NDC or NPP and as long as these cabals continue alternating, there will no light at the end of the tunnel.
Nkrumaism and its mixed economy is the only solution for Ghana but there are no touchbearers of the ideology. CPP claims to be following Nkrumaism but I think most of them are lipservice Nkrumaists since they easily compromise and ingratiate. It is really true when you wrote " It is pretty pathetic that people will get so worked up over a name while loving a service provided as long as you call it by a different name." That is why I hope in the near future an Nkrumaist Party made of uncompromising Nkrumaists will come into existence with a new name to allow Ghanaians to embrace Nkrumah's ideas to get Ghana out of the quagmire.
Why would Nkrumaists have the formula to solve the Ghana and African problem and still not have the chance to plug in the variables to solve the solution? All because of these lies by people claim to be intellectuals yet, are so dishonest that they do not know their history, neither their left nor right to move forward.
Kojo T 8 years ago
Well written article with a very good example.I hope especially the young ones will read , digest and imbibe this very factual article.It is DEVOID of fiction,foibles and liars.It is also modern .Not the outdated and irrel ... read full comment
Well written article with a very good example.I hope especially the young ones will read , digest and imbibe this very factual article.It is DEVOID of fiction,foibles and liars.It is also modern .Not the outdated and irrelevant stuff of PKB
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
Kojo T,
We will keep on keeping on!
Greetings!
Kojo T,
We will keep on keeping on!
Greetings!
Dr. Otto 8 years ago
Such stupidity can only come from either Lungu, kwarteng or Baidoo and will be as usual sopported by Kojo T-amakloe aka dirty Ewe. Idiots wasting space with rubbish.
Such stupidity can only come from either Lungu, kwarteng or Baidoo and will be as usual sopported by Kojo T-amakloe aka dirty Ewe. Idiots wasting space with rubbish.
Prof Lungu 8 years ago
Dr. Otto,
We were going to neglect your comment as we always do. But then, we found you have us all in the wrong company, with "Baidoo".
To that, we protest!
Peace!
Dr. Otto,
We were going to neglect your comment as we always do. But then, we found you have us all in the wrong company, with "Baidoo".
To that, we protest!
Peace!
GORGORDUTOR 8 years ago
Patient drotto exhibits symptoms of ARRESTED MENTAL DEVELOPMENT, AN INABILITY TO MAKE A REASONED ARGUMENT & DEBILITATING POLITICO-PSYCHOSIS. PHEW WHAT A SIMPLETON!!
Patient drotto exhibits symptoms of ARRESTED MENTAL DEVELOPMENT, AN INABILITY TO MAKE A REASONED ARGUMENT & DEBILITATING POLITICO-PSYCHOSIS. PHEW WHAT A SIMPLETON!!
Prof. Lungu Karl Marx put it that even when you make the conditions under capitalism better there is one group of person who will exploit another. Karl Marx said that capitalism is like a deodorized shit, and a shit even when ...
read full comment
We can't stop capitalist from doing what they want to do. They change with time to suit their conditions. They stopped trading in human slaves when they knew it would eventually bring chaos and to their detriment. Now they ...
read full comment
Kwamebeba,
YOUR: "...We as African should adopt only the best out of any ideology that is suitable to our African conditions...We must think of developing solar energy rather than thinking of perpetually using other costly ...
read full comment
Dear Kwame,
What's up?
Well, it is interesting reading your comments. But I have a different take on Prof. Lungu's piece.
First, Prof. Lungu has variously criticized the unfairness of capitalism, including criticizi ...
read full comment
francis kwarteng,
Thanks for the assist!
READ: "...Philip Kobina Baidoo's capitalism--which does not exist anywhere--produces its own form of internal slavery beyond the shores of Pluto..."
WE SAY: Seminal, for the r ...
read full comment
It is only when people who are truly educated in the sense that they can reson logically and use their senses to analyse what goes on around them are more than mere educated fools, that Ghana will become what it is supposed t ...
read full comment
Well written article with a very good example.I hope especially the young ones will read , digest and imbibe this very factual article.It is DEVOID of fiction,foibles and liars.It is also modern .Not the outdated and irrel ...
read full comment
Kojo T,
We will keep on keeping on!
Greetings!
Such stupidity can only come from either Lungu, kwarteng or Baidoo and will be as usual sopported by Kojo T-amakloe aka dirty Ewe. Idiots wasting space with rubbish.
Dr. Otto,
We were going to neglect your comment as we always do. But then, we found you have us all in the wrong company, with "Baidoo".
To that, we protest!
Peace!
Patient drotto exhibits symptoms of ARRESTED MENTAL DEVELOPMENT, AN INABILITY TO MAKE A REASONED ARGUMENT & DEBILITATING POLITICO-PSYCHOSIS. PHEW WHAT A SIMPLETON!!