African Democratic Socialism

[Philip Copeman]

African Democratic Socialism!

Hardly are those words out,

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight -

or in the words of Founder of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Mangaliso Robert Subukwe,

“ukuthi iyozala nkomoni” (what creature will come forth).

The Pan African Congress believes that the optimum output of Africa's economy is Democratic African Socialism. However it has been 70 years since the formation of the PAC and the last legal utterances of the PAC under its founders. The population of Africa has trebled and a trickle of people from the rural to the urban areas has turned into a flood. African Democratic Socialism must surely take an urban form that could never have been envisaged by the founders of the PAC.

In the year 2013 we live in a time of mixed economic models. It is no longer possible to talk of socialist or capitalist economies, because the increased flow of global information now means that we are all part of a very small global village, where it is a short click from one side of the web to the other. Economic methodologies are easily identified, copied, developed and implemented. We all face down the global competitor of capital intensive, mass manufacture and international distribution. It is no longer possible to plan for an isolated economy.

Africa brings many assets and opportunities to the economic policy maker, in particular vast open arable land, exploitable mineral deposits, adequate water, a young labor population.

Africa carries with it a special set of nagging economic problems: inadequate supply of housing, illiteracy, lack of access to tertiary education, low employment opportunities for youth, political dictatorships that distort the distribution of income, inadequate infrastructure, low accumulation rate of human and physical capital.

In understanding PAC policy, it is important to understand that our perspective is from that of a United Africa, not from that of a single country. We regard it as the sacred duty of every African state to strive ceaselessly and energetically for the creation of a United States of Africa, stretching from Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar. The days of small, independent countries are gone.

African - contains the largest diversification of cultures on the planet and we boast as many as 2000 different languages. A unified Africa will require a massive compromise on behalf of all members and it will also require a great deal of tolerance and room for expression of our diverse cultures.

Democratic – We cannot prescribe a political,economic or social system. What we can do is create a unified platform for the African people to make their own decisions.

Socialism – There are a Billion people in Africa. We can leave no one behind. There must be a base level on which everyone has an equal opportunity to build.

There are two extremes of socialism, Marxism and Neocapitalism. Marxism proposes central ownership. Neocapitalism proposes a “Shareholder” model. As Marxism has been extensively described, let me explain neo capitalism. The neo capitalist model is firstly a subset of socialism. In this model we acknowledge the rights of the individuals to a “share of the pie”. No matter who owns the means of production, they are doing this under the licence of the shareholders, and their activities must ultimately benefit all shareholders. While corporation are given the rights to maximise profits, the shareholders hold the rights to maximise taxes.

In the 21^st century, Neocapitalist model trumps free market capitalism, simply because the free market system has shown itself to be inferior in delivering equal opportunities. Recent global economics has been dominated by a voracious advantage in volume and scale. This is exacerbated by the fact that international tax law is no longer able to control the collection of tax. Only a model where the final profit is adequately taxed and distributed can correct this.

Neocapitalism trumps Marxian socialism because the cycle of technology simply moves too fast for the collective. Empirical evidence strongly correlates unfettered individual ownership with research success. Key elements of creative destruction are that they are not bound to the desires of labor. The result is a rapidly decreasing labor theory of value. Labor is becoming less relevant to production. The policy making on labor is no longer sovereign to nations. It is no longer sovereign even to economic blocks.

These are exciting times for Africa. As policy makers for African Democratic Socialism, we must avoid Neoluddite tendencies and face the fact that The dominant elements in production are transient capital and monotonic increases in the marginal input of technology. The Rollerball Economy is apon us. We are living in a world where Moore's Law is now rampant.