HomeOld_PostsCOVID-19 can open new path to more equitable and just societies

COVID-19 can open new path to more equitable and just societies

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By Emmanuel Koro

THE Covid-19 pandemic has already begun to shape the world we will inhabit, once we get to the other side of the disease. 

Just think of the many ways we have to do things now that are likely to stick with us long into the future.  

People in many countries have already begun to learn to work from home, skipping the time-consuming and energy-sapping daily commute. 

That means a need for fewer cars, less petrol, fewer tyres, reduced need for mechanics, better health with less pollution, more open space with land no longer needed for parking, and so much more.

Working from home has accelerated the trend towards dressing more casually, which means less money devoted to new purchases, cleaning needs, and tailoring requirements. 

It means fewer retail shops, fewer shopping malls, and new ways to use urban land.

We are wearing masks, avoiding hugging or shaking hands, staying distant from one another as we negotiate in crowded spaces. 

Will we go back to the old way or continue on the current path?

The pandemic has forced people to adapt to new ways to shop, new ways to be entertained, and new ways to be educated. These may well become the standard for the future.

The importance of essential workers — the ones serving you in stores, stocking shelves, handling orders, cleaning and disinfecting equipment, teaching school as well as new skills, tending to your medical needs and on and on — has at last been recognised. 

Their value to our wellbeing has been recognised by everyone and should lead to less disparity between the highest and lowest paid workers in the future.   

If all of these changes can influence the way we will live our lives in the years to come, shouldn’t we also think about whether the economic models that have dominated our societies for the last 150 years will be adequate to our needs in the future? 

In Africa, Western ideas of how to organise economies for the welfare of the vast majority of people seem to have fallen short. 

Socialist ideas, however, tweaked to meet the circumstances of various African states, leaving many countries struggling to stay afloat. 

Look at the near collapse of Zimbabwe’s attempt at socialising its economy and you need not delve any further into problems experienced by other neo-socialised African nations. 

Capitalism, too, has concentrated wealth in the hands of a few and left the vast majority of populations on the edge of poverty. 

No one can claim that South Africa is a successful capitalist state, with an unemployment rate that has long been well above the 25 percent level.

A Los Angeles-based former instructor in political science and comparative government, Godfrey Harris, has an idea for organising economies in the aftermath of Covid-19 that he calls Sharism. 

He describes Sharism as follows: “The new system is a way of including whole populations in sharing a nation’s national wealth. It is a system where every person living in a country is given a part to play in the country’s gross domestic product. Depending on socio-political decisions to be made by each society, the government may be directed to award more shares of the GDP to those who are impoverished or unfairly treated in a previous system. The society may want to use extra shares of the GDP to right a wrong, to compensate victims of a serious breach of acceptable human behaviour, or to re-balance the socio-economic conditions within a country.”

Harris notes in a paper he has written on Sharism that dividends would be paid each year to each shareholder on his or her birthday, in an amount that will depend on how much the GDP has grown in the intervening year. 

The dividend can be taken in cash or reinvested in bonds of the country. 

He notes that the money a citizen could receive by selling all or part of his shares back to the Nation’s treasury is designed to pay for any major investment within the country that the citizen might want to make — buy a home, launch a business, get an education or cover a medical expense. 

GDP shares could not be sold to any entity other than the government and could not be pledged or loaned to anyone else. 

Families, however, could pool their shares to facilitate a larger investment or to meet a larger need. 

Would Sharism, as an economic concept, improve either Zimbabwe or South Africa, I wonder?

If I can’t answer that question by myself, I ought to at least provoke media debate on Sharism. 

This led me to write this article just to start a discussion on whether or not governments, including those from Africa, should consider reorganising their economies in ways that ensure that nobody is left out from sharing annually in the economic benefits that their societies generate. 

It might even act as an incentive for people to produce more for their benefit. 

After all, ensuring that nobody is left out is the catchy motto of the UN in its drive towards ensuring the achievement of sustainable development goals by 2030. 

We have only 10 years to go. 

This suggests that as we head towards the 2030 deadline for achieving sustainable development, those now behind in health, education, poverty, gender inequality, environmental degradation, non-potable water, living in informal settlements and on the streets need help in catching up with others. 

The United Nations has challenged each one of its 195 member nations to address the needs of its people, children, and families in ways that help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Yes, Sharism could contribute towards 

the achievement of SDGs by pointing societies toward a more just and equitable peace in a world at war in so many places. 

It could make life better by providing a mechanism that could begin the process of ending hunger, generating affordable and clean energy, promoting industrialisation, innovation and infrastructure, creating sustainable cities and communities, gender equality, responsible consumption and production, climate action and reduced inequalities.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not attempting to promote communism. 

Sharism is vastly different from communism. 

The classless society of communism has never been achieved; communism, in fact, has never existed. 

It approached its goal during the Stalin era of the Soviet Union. Its economy was dedicated to common ownership of the means of production and central control of the economy. But the classless society was a myth. 

Those in power never intended to give up the power they attained or the control they exercised over the instruments of government. 

Moreover, the command economies that communist countries sought to perfect were never able to deal with either the complexity or the speed of change of Western economies. They failed. 

Sharism is different from socialism or communism. 

It does not give ownership or management of the individual means of production to the people. Ownership of the means of production remains with those who have it now. 

Sharism just divides up the overall output of the national economy among the people who are responsible for that economy. 

Sharism is not in the business of running any economy. 

It leaves that task to every entity contributing to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as in a capitalist or socialist economy. 

Those individual entities prosper only when they provide products people want at a price they are willing to pay. 

Secondarily, Sharism is not involved in the day-to-day operation of government either. It can work equally well whether the government is democratic or autocratic.

What do other people think about Sharism’s potential to create economies that can eventually transform people’s lives for the better without leaving anyone behind? Does anyone harbour the hope that it could work?

I put the basic question about Sharism to Harris. 

I asked him this: Is it possible for governments to reorganise their monetary systems in ways that allow their citizens to share in their national wealth equally, given the fact that we are living in an inherently unequal world? 

 Harris gave an answer that sounds like there could be several people thinking there is need to reorganise world economies to create better lives for humankind after the Coronavirus pandemic.

“Just as we think enormous changes are coming in the way we live our lives because of what Covid-19 has made us do, so we see ways to change governments and economies to work better than the socialistic and capitalistic models we now use,” said Harris. 

I then asked him if putting money into the hands of the people through a tangible share of GDP — and giving them an annual dividend based on the growth of GDP — would work? 

He said he thought it could. He also noted that the other side of Sharism is a properly functioning implementation of Modern Monetary Policy (MMP). 

In governments that have made MMP work, the government prints the money it needs to conduct the public’s business rather than wholly relying on taxing the citizenry to pay for public services. Without the cheating, corruption and problems of most taxation systems, Sharism can flourish. 

But it takes a disciplined government to make MMP function. 

It has worked in Japan, but failed miserably in Venezuela. What makes it work? 

Leadership that understands the balances that need to be achieved so the printing presses don’t cause run-away inflation such as existed in Germany in the 1920s. 

I also asked whether the idea of giving black citizens a bigger initial share of GDP than white citizens might help solve the gulf that now exists between those who demand zero compensation for the confiscation of land and those who believe that fair compensation is required if land is to be redistributed? 

Harris said he thought it might, depending on what bonus percentage of the GDP was settled on. 

If it is too high for blacks versus whites, it would bring imbalance to the economy, cause inflation, and limit investment. If the bonus is fairly determined and widely accepted, it might bring the stability and growth that everyone craves. 

Harris had more to say about the economic and political burden that corruption places on all economies. 

He thinks corruption may be the biggest barrier to the successful implementation of Sharism. “Corruption,” he says, “comes from lobbying — the effort to sway legislative and administrative decisions in favour of one side or another. 

Lobbying often uses government to direct its resources to enrich the few while the rest remain poor. If you all paid influencing is ended — in the corridors of the ANC, in the National Legislature, in the government offices in Tshwane and the provisional capitals, in the court rooms and local councils in the country — you can bring a level playing field back where democracy can function in the best interests of all the citizens,” answered Harris. 

He had one more thought: “And the way to end corruption forever is to confiscate all property and restrict all travel that a person doing the corrupting or accepting the rewards of corruption owns or can do. If you wipe someone out — essentially make him, his family and his entourage the poorest of the poor overnight and with no exceptions or extenuating circumstances — this forever penalty will instantly outweigh any short-term gain that corruption may offer. In short, if you make the risk so high that no reward will be able to match it, you stop the game. Who is ready to do that in any of the southern African countries?” 

So Sharism is a legitimate alternative to other ideas for managing an economy or bolstering a governmental approach. It needs to be discussed.

Harris’s point is a simple one. 

What is happening in Africa now is patently not working for everyone. A few are benefiting, but the masses are suffering. 

The old models do not offer the kind of innovation that a new economic and governmental approach might. 

Hence his hope that Sharism might be something that can be moulded into use after people become familiar with it and test out how it might impact them personally.

Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning journalist, who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa for the past 26 years.

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