By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

“(The) truth is that economics should never have sought to divorce itself from other social sciences and can advance only in conjunction with them. The social sciences collectively know too little to waste time on foolish disciplinary (border) squabbles.” –(Professor Thomas Picketty cited by Antony DiMagio: On the cowardice and irrelevance of social science scholars.)

THE widespread nature of knowledgeable ignorance in Zimbabwe raises two national questions of practical importance:
First: How does the ZANU PF Government choose its ‘expert’ advisors and ‘technocrats’?
Which disciplines are considered suitable for tendering reliable and correct technical advice?
What is the track record of such disciplines and the advice given since 1980?
Second: What is to be done with the economics curriculum in national universities, given the apparent bankruptcy of both economic policy advice and what passes for economic policy analysis and economic reporting?
Between 1993 and 2001 I published many articles in The Sunday Mail and The Herald demonstrating that the economic growth and prosperity being promised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) via the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) were a hoax.
One public figure (who was prominent in the media and is now a Cabinet Minister) responded to my analyses by asking: “When did Tafataona Mahoso become an economist?”
Between 2009 and 2013 I wrote several articles trying to show the centrality of a national currency to all the main national development plans being designed, including the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-ASSET).
I pointed out that the rise in manufacturing capacity being projected as 60 percent by 2011; the 2,2 million jobs projected in Zim-ASSET; the export performance desired; and the import substitution meant to reduce the trade deficit – – all these required universal liquidity based on a national currency reaching every ward and village throughout the country.
A reader hiding behind the label ‘Patriot, Harare’ wrote the following:
“The assertion that the return of the Zimbabwean dollar is key to economic revival is a personal opinion, Dr Mahoso.
“When did you become an economist?
“Stop being a jack of all trades.
“The Zim-dollar return is not the key to economic success, what we need is policy crafting that serves the public not self-enriching schemes that favour the return of the Zim-dollar.”
What do my qualifications have to do with the concerns I raised?
Scholarly recommendations on economics, especially since the 2007-2010 global financial tsunami
The publications I have cited in this short article are part of a steady world-wide movement to review both the economics curriculum and the sources of economic advice for governments.
Some of the relevant recommendations include the following:
It is dangerous for governments to rely solely on economists and political scientists for advice on economic policy because these disciplines have been closeted for too long and they tend to over-value self-contained and self-confirming pseudo-scientific techniques, typologies and mathematical equations which are not tested in the real world.
Economists, especially need to break out of their closets and adopt the interdisciplinary methods now employed by such fields as epidemiology, ecology and biology, where networking across specialities is mandatory.
The separation of economics from finance has already proven disastrous and must be avoided.
A ‘chawada ndiwe’ approach to research is wasteful of resources.
Each university charter or Act already spells out the particular mandate of the particular university.
Based on that and the national and global context, it should be possible to judge which research questions are profound and fundamental and which ones are peripheral and even irrelevant.
Economic history, the history of economic thought and history in general should be part of the economics curriculum.
So-called economists and technocrats who have no sense of real societies in real time and real places pose real dangers to society.
Capacity and ability to communicate meaningfully with real people in practical situations should be an integral part of economics education.
DiMagio is worth repeating here:
“PhD students…are rarely socialised by their mentors to understand the importance of producing research that is useful in the real world.
“In fact, it is commonly taken as a sign of seriousness and scholarly potential when one produces the exact opposite: publishing in highly prestigious, esoteric academic journals read only by a tiny handful of social scientists.
“These works are widely ignored by politicians because they are written in arcane, jargon-laden language, and never intended to be read (or to be understood) by those outside of a small club.”
To make clear to readers what I mean, the following statement from the Financial Mail for April 2015 makes sense to ‘experts’ at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development:
“The Chinese Yuan, the Indian rupee, the Australian dollar and the Japanese Yen last year joined the US dollar, the South African Rand, the British Pound, the euro and the Botswana Pula in circulation after a shortage of cash in the formal economy left many businesses in a lurch.”
This is according to official policy announcements.
The reality in society is that Zimbabwe is struggling to pay with foreign currency reserves its internal labourers and internal creditors who would normally be paid in local money.
At the same time, Zimbabwe is failing to pay its diplomats and its external creditors in foreign countries who normally are the only people who should be paid with foreign currency reserves!
That upside-down picture shows the real difference between economic/finance policy theory and practice.
What seems to make sense in policy theory becomes clearly absurd in real society. Two full years after the policy announcement, six out of the eight currencies unveiled have not been seen on the streets or in the villages.
Hunger for local credit grows by the day.
Because of the linear and fragmented nature of the imperial and neo-colonial university curriculum, no single discipline is by itself sufficient to produce the knowledge required by contemporary society to empower, develop and prosper itself in freedom, health and dignity.
Therefore interdisciplinary modesty is key.
Cooperation, coordination and reciprocity should be mandatory across disciplines.