Kenya's socialist Lumumba Institute...thwarted by
Oshun_Auset:
ptaured7,
What is your opinion on Nkrumahism-Toureism(Scientific Socialism) as an idiology instead of Marxism? Isn't this ideology the syncretism between the African perspective and the marxist socialism you were alluding too? (of which I agree is necessary)
ptaured7:
Oshun_Auset:
http://ambabu.gn.apc.org/memorial.htm
This is the web site in memorial of my old professor , Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu, very much an African Scientific Socialist. I found out about his passing in Kenya from a Tanzanian gentleman. He was known to collegues and others by his family name only, Babu.
We were very fond of each other as student and teacher because he could always count on me to politely disagree with him on specfics of economics, while coming to the same independent conclusions from different points of view on the primary negative force affecting all of the "post colonial" world - Re-Colonization.
I think studying Babu could far better describe the merits of scientific socialism in Africa than I could. Nkrumah's decency and focus on effective strategy through positive action seems to be just what is needed now.
There is a perverse inverse proportion to the effectiveness of one's view in acheiving self determination in any society ruled by tyrants - the more effective and promising the strategy, the shorter the life span of those promoting it.
My own personal views on economics and society, what I think of as a strategy for survival, probably take on more the views of libertarian bordering on anarchy. But then again, what is more important than what I think is what works in the big wide world of diverse culture. It's this diversity in culture that may ensure our survival, which is why the current regime for world control and McDonaldization of everyone and everything seems so dangerous to me.
One worries about too much over-arching "government" trying to make things "fair". What seems to happen, no matter the label, is parasitism and an ever spiralling growth in non productive sectors that feed off taxation schemes. On the other hand, government limited to economy of scale utility projects, where taxation has real benefit for society is a good thing. Perhaps it boils down to, just what does your consitution say about how government will function. Kenya is going through this right now. Governments tend to want maleable or non existent constitutions regulating them. They eventually become so burdensome and unsustainable they start cutting deals with monopolies that control them and deals are cut for "privatization" (Kenya again).
So much comes down to personal ethics and values, which I think is elemental to the better aspects of Marxist theory. What is it we really want to accomplish and what constitutes a good quality of life? right now ,we are on a treadmill of conspicous consumption, an economics of glittering prizes. This is why I am attracted always to "traditional" societies. We have a real chance to make selective use of carefully considered technological advances and still go fishing and hunting, enjoy the company of wild animals and achieve the highest levels of education in all things. That is why it is perhaps usefull to think of ecology and the environment connected to econømics - an integrated approach based on values and diversity in all life.
In the past, most socialist theory emphasized an industrial worker's paradise, now, I suggest, a thoroughly discredited 19'th century fantasy. This is why I get excited about new thinking in Africa where it seems to me good people are trying to break new ground on this by integrating what is actually a very much more enlightened and complex view of what an economy can be and how we can live a rewarding life, in cities and country. But somebody else wants what they have over there...
25 years ago Babu and I discussed repeatedly the "distortion" in agriculture production in Africa. It's just as bad today! While people starve, bureaucrats argue on effective trade policies to prop up "cash crops" like coffe, tea , cocoa, etc. They plunder the fish resources of the coast and inland Lakes to ship to Europe, while the local people, once strong and thriving fishing cultures are literally reduced to boiling the "filet frames" (post processed fish carcasses). This is happening in Melanesia too. exporting their resources , getting "cash" and buyin imported Australian chicken and canned food. Bummer.
Ptaured7
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