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The good life

Feb 20, 2013 Editorial

As we brace ourselves for the battles that will accompany the presentation of the next budget, it might be useful to remind the politicians why they were elected to office in the first instance. It was not just to score political points.
If we cut to the chase, we believe that all Guyanese would agree that what they desire is a good economy, a good society and a good political process. The first would give them the material basis for enjoying life, the second, the social relations to live in harmony and the third, the wherewithal to vote the rascals out if the first two are not delivered.
We are not saying that the good life will be easy to achieve: but if the politicians do not begin to work together, they will make it impossible. For one, there are the inevitable trade-offs in the policy prescriptions for achieving our goals. If the present practice of reflexive finger-pointing is not abandoned when one’s recommendations are not followed, then the society will never congeal into a nation.
Take, for instance, the hosannas about ‘freedom’ that will reverberate throughout the land this weekend. Many of us do not want to concede that very often, ‘more freedom’ means less social cohesion and less security. We all admire the tremendous achievements of China over the last three decades. They have lifted more people out of poverty in a shorter span of time that in any other period of human history. But they were only able to do so under conditions that most in the west, including Guyana, would claim to be of quite restricted freedom. The new leadership, for instance, was basically ‘selected’ rather than ‘elected’.
Some argue that the discipline the Chinese political system imparts on the populace may be duplicated under conditions of greater political freedom. But as the experience of India and other democracies demonstrate, the answer is not quite so simple. As to where the line is drawn is a question that only responsible leadership in a democracy such as ours can answer. But that answer, for sure, cannot be just protests and marches in the streets.
There is also a trade-off between high income growth and equal income distribution. We all aspire to the standard of living in the developed countries. But today there is great dissension in those countries over the ridiculous income-gap between the top 1% and the remaining 99%. This gap ballooned tremendously in the last two decades. The defenders of the status quo assert that the imperatives of human capital growth inevitably conflict with the goals of savings and capital formation.
This trade-off had always been faced in countries in their early stage of development. The question raised now is whether it continues even into the developed stage of economic development. To assume that we can somehow avoid this trade-off, as the local political rhetoric asserts, is plain irresponsibility.
One trade-off that is presently creating much angst in the local landscape is that investment and technology transfer, which is the basis for generating sustainable high growth levels necessary for catapulting us into ‘developed country’ status, means high interdependence in international relations. More specifically, with China awash with foreign reserves that could facilitate technology transfer embedded in investments, we would assume that the politicians would agree on better bilateral relations.
However, from the cacophony raised recently over the spate of Chinese investment and the concomitant conditions, it appears that our politicians want the investment, but not the strings. This is not how the real world operates, and we only have to revisit our previous dominant economic partnerships for a reality check. Whether it is “politicking” according to the President or ‘racism’ according to one of his advisors, the brouhaha demonstrates that the political maturity necessary to accept the need for trade-offs is missing here.
It means, therefore, that the creation of the conditions necessary for us to enjoy the good life is that much farther away. Will the political elite rise to the need of the hour?

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