It's the economy stupid!

As Zimbabweans grapple with how they can fix the economy it is notable that we don't actually talk about the economy. We are fixated politics and religion, political banter and miracles. The media is obsessed with political party 'infighting' and the shenanigans of the 'prophets'. Even the economy is dragged into the two main topics without the rigour of a data driven approach. I have struggled to get any traction on economic matters on any platform except one business forum on Whatsapp. The guys on that platform are the best and I want to see them making a difference in their societies.

After reading Capital In The Twenty First Century by Thomas Piketty, I realised that we did not understand basics such as the meaning of capital. I realised that most of us are primitive accumulators of capital or mere consumers. We have not begun to think about creating wealth. We are heavily reliant on foreign aid for the wrong reasons. Why do we take money from the IMF and World Bank? After reading Confessions Of An Economic Hitman by John Perkins I came full circle with the dirty tricks the Bretton Woods institutions play on poor and developing nations. Dr. Dambisa Moyo in Dead Aid also articulates with evidence why the current aid model had not worked and that there are better ways to fund economic growth and development.  Evidence has shown that there is a net outflow of capital from Africa despite the cocktail of aid regimes. The aid industry is a big employer in the western world. When we discuss aid it is important to separate humanitarian material assistance in areas ravaged by natural disasters and government to government financial aid to fund public goods and services such as transport, education, and healthcare. This is the same confusion we get when we try to debate sanctions.

We await the day when economic debate will be based on national, regional, and international gross domestic product, the gini coefficient, the financial markets, and information technology as the latest driver of economic growth and development. Mentioning these terms always kills the debate in favour of the blame game and compensation for past injustices. We don't ask the question why we all find capital and income inequality within our boarders a non event, a normal occurrence. Is it normal for career ministers to be filthy rich in the face of poverty?

I'm not an economist but I have read enough (and am still reading!), to ask the right questions from the experts. When will we get ministers in public service who can articulate the question of capital, the economy, a vision for the country. We are tired of the political economy which seeks to use political power to control capital. I have had extensive debate on capital and how we should create wealth and some of these ideas are lost in the archives of social media conglomerates. How can we run economies that totally ignore the importance of power as the major economic driver? The amount of energy from one minute of sunshine is enough to power the entire current power needs of the planet for a whole year. We have an engineering problem with inefficient solar panels which if solved using nanotechnology perhaps, we could see a fundamental shift in abundance worldwide. Africa with its ready access to sunlight and other renewables is lagging behind countries like Spain. In fact worldwide, renewables have overtaken fossil fuels in power output.

Unless we fix the economy, our debates will always be dominated by politics, religion, and footall. It's the economy stupid!