Social policy and its administration, is one of those policy areas fraught
with the dangers of totalling negative or diminishing returns and abject
failure in helping those lives policy-makers sought to ameliorate in the
first place. Amongst others, one doesn't have to share the world-weary
cynicism and angst of libertarians towards central gov't bureaucrats or
pen-pushers in their attempts to ameliorate individual lives, to realise that
most social policies only end up doing just the opposite of what they purport
to correct or ameliorate. To the extent that this is the case, libertarians
still find succour in Milton Friedman's anti- central gov't social planning
mantra: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If the buck on anti-
central gov't social planning or social reforms currently stops with
Friedman, then it began with classical liberals like Albert Venn Dicey. In
his magnum opus, Law and Public Opinion in England in the 19th Century, Dicey
made it known explicitly that ultimately he regards central or social
planning as a "spiritual child of socialism" and in fact a precursor to the
type of collectivism that negates, undermines and crowds-out individual self-
help and reliance. When they are not exaggerating, and not playing to the
gallery of doctrinaire conservatism, I think it is fair to say that
libertarians are not entirely wrong in their angst against central gov't
social planning; but ultimately evidence does in fact support the view that
properly meted out social policy has changed lives for the better and still
stand a good chance of socially ameliorating the lives of the
underprivileged, the poor and the vulnerable. From Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's New Deal liberal project to Gordon Brown and New Labour's
parodying of the latter social policies, such policies have lifted the poor,
the underprivileged and the vulnerable from long-term abject and slum poverty
and social despondency to one of better and hopes of better.
History and current policy discussions or enquiries inform us that these
socially liberal programmes have in fact turned out to ameliorate the
unfortunate circumstances of the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged
not because they - those being helped out - were suddenly the recipients of
generous welfare entitlements from a generous State with a purse bursting at
the seams with never-ending cash to burn and or altruism galore. Rather,
these policies were a success or have become a success because they were
consequentially designed to help the poor, the vulnerable and the
underprivileged to help themselves. The poor, the vulnerable and the
underprivileged are best helped when it is not at the expense of their own
abilities and or efforts to help themselves. In essence, the best way to help
the poor, the underprivileged and the vulnerable is to complement their own
efforts and or abilities to help themselves. Suffice to say that the best
social policies aimed at helping the poor, the underprivileged and the
vulnerable, are essentially complementarities in that they strike a very
delicate balance between self- help and collective altruism or benevolence
and does not as a consequence crowd-out or undermine both features. This is
the first point.
Thus far, a very useful caveat to social policy formulators and
administrators remains an open-ended one: the success of a policy does not
entirely depend on the material and moral inputs; i.e., policy doesn't become
a success just because we care for the poor, the vulnerable or the
underprivileged - altruism or good intentions - and the amount of resources
we are prepared to throw after those we are trying to salvage. Rather, the
history of social policy continues to evince that successful social policies
were as much a result of both altruism and material inputs as they were as a
result of the social philosophy that the best way to socially ameliorate the
disadvantaged, is to progress in accordance with the view that the ultimate
objective of social policy is to enhance or beef up self- help or reliance.
Which is to say that the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged and
their interests are best served by the social philosophy of helping them to
help themselves. This then should be the philosophical framework that
undergirds the policy thrusts and drives of the Alliance in their efforts to
help the legion of Gambian poor, underprivileged and vulnerable. I don't
think it would be far wide-off-the-mark to suggest that the Alliance -
especially, with Mr Darbo's recent declaration of making the Gambia a country
where honesty and hard work yield handsome dividends - buys into the gist of
this social philosophy.
I have now given social policy a philosophical framework. Let me now proceed
to provide a contextual and an operational framework for the delineated
social philosophy.
Contrary to current intellectual studies on African society - many of which
are heralding or have already heralded the death or decimation of the family
or rather the extended family network in modern Africa - the extended family
network remains relevant and extant. To be sure, modernity and all the
socially disruptive forces it had helped unleash on African societies, has to
a great extent rolled back the frontiers of the extended family network.
Rather than fatally undermine it, modernity has merely unleashed a surrogate
and looser extended family networking: the nuclear family system. The nuclear
family system is a mere modern aberration of the extended family system and
certainly shares what was central to the extended family system: that of
networking the interests of clans and affirming the fealty of kinship that
holds true of dispersed communities that have migrated to the urban areas
from rusticated communities in post- colonial Africa. In lieu of the
aforesaid, the nuclear family system remains a modern variation of the
extended family system - albeit in a very loose and less tight knit way; and
most of the welfare baggages dutifully and traditionally beholden to the
extended family system have greatly been discarded by the nuclear family
system due primarily to modern economic and social constraints. The nuclear
family system, therefore, is but an African bourgeois way of maintaining,
honouring and supporting those historical affinities, fealties and
responsibilities to families of yore by granting looser forms of networking
vis-à-vis welfare support and maintenance for the lesser well-off members of
that networking families. To the extent that this is true, then the extended
family system of networking in Africa remains relevant and extant;
especially, its historically duty-bound and morally beholden role of welfare
support for the needy members of such families.
The very relevance of family life or the extended family network is very
relevant to the welfare economics of modern Africa. This is why I deemed it
worth a moment's pause to pursue a disquisitional delineation of family and
its current status in Africa. The reason why the extended family network
remains relevant to the welfare economics of modern Africa lies in the fact
that given the scarcity of resources available to the State to disburse or
redistribute to the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged, the
extended family system remains the most economically and socially viable
outlet for any such generous State disbursement or redistribution. Conceding
that much doesn't mean that things should forever be thus; rather, this is an
argument for retaining a very rich and sustaining sub-culture and the
feasibility of which aids the welfare economics of modern Africa. To this
end, I submit that the extended family network be officially identified as
the operational framework with which the Alliance's welfare economics
disburses or redistributes funds to help the poor, the vulnerable and the
underprivileged - well, at the very least as both a short- and medium- term
socio-economic measure. Should this be the case, let me now proceed to
recommend key policy thrusts of the delineated social philosophy. Here, two
broad policy areas should suffice for the interim as public policy formally
identifies a long-term welfare economics that is sustainable, generous and
not debilitating to individual enterprise and or self- help. The two broad
policy areas and their contents are:
I. Fiscal Redistribution For The Extended Family Network: As argued above,
the best that there is in Africa today - in terms of the resources, framework
and structures readily available - in disbursing and redistributing funds or
help to the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged, is an official
recognition by the State of the role the extended family networking plays in
the welfare of those in need in Africa. The State ought to go further and use
this extended family networking to disburse and redistribute the funds it has
allocated for the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged. There are
generally two ways to go about with this proposition:
1. A pro- extended family tax regime that reflects the social realities or
responsibilities of a particular tax-payer. In other words, the tax one is
liable to pay - be it on income, corporate, profit, business, etc., etc., -
should to a great extent reflect one's social responsibilities;
2. In rare circumstances of extreme poverty, a 'negative income tax scheme'
should be radically considered for those with huge social responsibilities
but without an adequate income base to sustain such social responsibilities.
II. The Socio-economics Of the Complementarities Of Self- Help And Collective
Or State Activism: This should be the essential policy thrust of the
Alliance's welfare economics. Such a policy thrust should at the very least
be a genuine reflection of the social philosophy outlined in my introduction;
in that to genuinely help the poor, the vulnerable and the underprivileged
properly, social policy must aim primarily at complementing the efforts of
individuals in their efforts to help themselves out of their unfortunate
circumstances. Thus, the content of such a policy thrust need have the
following measures:
1. Decentralisation of ways and means of acquiring jobs and or enquiring
about the availability of jobs or co-ordinated information on both the local
and national job-market. A creation of career, job and labour centres at High
Schools, Tertiary Colleges, Community Centres, should help facilitate such a
process;
2. Liberal, measured and effective loan schemes to aid enterprising
individuals;
3. Infrastructural, business and organisational support to help complement
the efforts and or abilities of individuals and communal enterprises to keep
abreast with trends, developments and potentials pitfalls in their respective
endeavours through frequent State or private sector initiated seminars,
workshops and intensive trainings. This policy measure can easily be
incorporated into the decentralisation of information of the local and
national job market through the creation of job, labour or career centres;
4. Making relevant, rewarding and attractive again those supposedly
unattractive vocations that the young indigenous populace are historically
unwilling to go into through such liberal schemes like proper vocational
training, organisational and infrastructural support and fiscal policies that
reflect the difficulties of those in such endeavours;
5. Design education curricula - at the Middle or High School levels, at the
very least - to reflect individual abilities and efforts as soon as this is
becoming conspicuous and demonstrable. Such a policy measure should go in
tandem with the policy measure that aims to make relevant, rewarding and
attractive again those vocations that have been de-indigenised over the years
through sheer neglect of the youths.
The welfare economics outlined in this essay rests on the presupposition of a
healthy and growing Gambian economy. It goes without saying that what
essentially undergirds the proposed welfare economics is not only a clear-cut
policy thrust and a benevolent activist State; rather, a very healthy and
growing Gambian economy capable of creating employment opportunities for the
Gambia's increasing legion of the unemployed. Also, such a welfare economics
need not negate or make obviate the State's responsibilities for those it is
morally beholden to and duty-bound to directly help. In fact the more the
State cuts the unemployment line through the aforementioned welfare
economics, the freer it will be to tend to those it is morally beholden to
and duty-bound to directly help - otherthings being equal.
The welfare economics I have proposed here is a liberal one. As a classical
liberal, and because of the inherent contradictions and conflicts between
individual liberty and egalitarianism, I no longer believe in egalitarianism
as construed by socialists and ideologues of their sort. This, however,
doesn't mean we are no longer morally beholden to work for a more fairer,
freer and equal society. To tidy this ideological mess, liberals have now
proposed equity as a value to replace any loss incurred in giving up on
egalitarianism. By equity, liberals now refer to it to mean the idea that
some amount of proportionate inequality is tenable and tolerable in a society
that still cherishes and harbours the intention of pursuing the ideals of a
freer, fairer and more equal society insofar as the pursuit of such ideals do
not inflict any disproportionate damages or constrictions on bourgeois
liberties and freedoms. Let Will Hutton of the Industrial Society explain:
"Equity as a value encompasses equality but seasons it with the notion of
fairness; thus, an equitable society is one which concedes that it might be
fair for individuals to experience a measure of inequality if it promotes
their liberty or rewards the intensity with which they have worked. But it
must also be a society in which those who hold power in the private and
public sector are held fiercely to account by a vigorous democracy embedded
in a fair voting system and powerful regulation."
This then should be the long-term political agenda of the Alliance. The
welfare economics spelt out in this essay certainly will go a long way in
aiding any such political agenda.
Hamjatta Kanteh
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