How to convert the political revolution into an economic revolution

By Odrek Rwabwogo

The fundamentals of a political revolution which we analyzed in several previous installments, whose practical outcomes we pointed out as expressed under the Movement, gives birth to an Economic revolution.

This is step two in building an ideological base for successful revolution and eventually a stronger nation.  Let us establish the fundamentals:

 All politics first and foremost, is economics. Whether it was the 1,225 Magna Carta signed between King John of England and the land barons who were taxing farmers on his behalf and thereby depressing household production or the French Revolution which was underpinned by a huge budget deficit on account of war with England; the American Revolution which was as much about restrictions on land ownership for the colonists, creating a protected market for the British East Indian company in America, as it was on political rights, all economics is expressed as politics. A study of revolutions show people are more concerned about their living standards than they care about politics yet the two aspects reinforce each other.

A good grasp by the leaders of a political revolution of the combination of market economics and political stability creates a culture of growth that sustains the revolution. In fact we know today by studying the story of the new and resurgent China that the western emphasis on political rights tells half the story of how nations overcome poverty.

China continues to grow, lifting huge numbers out of poverty by insisting on certain values (read Confucianism whose basic tenet is the respect of other people's beliefs and their wellbeing) that combine their own version of democracy with western capitalism.

This is working. China has been able to build 85,000 kilometers of tarred road in 30 years, surpassing the old so called democracy, the US, by far, yet China holds no regular elections or dictates no political rights to the world.

Every nation must, therefore, translate its political gains into economic growth and development in order to keep the needs of her people met. This helps to sustain the standard needed by the next generation or else there will be a relapse into instability. The South American sub-continent teaches us some lessons in this field. While by early 1810, many of the nations that now make up that hemisphere, were fighting for independence and largely achieved it by 1826, this did not translate into broad economic progress.

There were two Latin American heroes who led the first phase (of the political revolution). Simon Bolivar, a revolutionary Creole (Spaniards or other Europeans born in the colonies especially in the Caribbean) liberated the northern part of Latin America including Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador and Jose Marti took the southern parts including Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia (the two met in Equador).

This early effort wasn't translated into economic growth by the former colonies largely because an alliance of large landowners and the bureaucrats kept a status quo in a new form. The peasants, a majority of whom supported the political revolution, didn't take ownership of the land to improve their welfare. This, over the years, kept Latin American countries a land of coups and counter coup de etats, wasting generations, much like Africa, of growth and stability.

Overlapping economic interests, for example in Brazil, where the upper class owned plantations plowed by African slave labour, meant that the gains of the political revolution would be owned by a small political elite with less translation of the outcome for a majority of the people till recently.

In England, however, by the year 1509, Henry VII had consolidated the gains made by his predecessors by imposing duties on export of raw wool; he promoted local industries, removed taxes on all imported raw materials and created a significant platform for the country to start the industrial revolution by the end of the 17th century.

As the reader might know, an industrial culture is a catalyst for agricultural productivity in villages, it increase the rate of urbanisation and skills development, improves household incomes and leads the process of social economic transformation of communities. For a political revolution to be successfully converted into an economic revolution, every nation must be allowed freedom to chart its course, decide the pace and nature of this conversion based on the policies and circumstances obtaining in that nation.

Africa hasn't been this lucky. Much of it after Independence, has had 'forced conversion' giving the process of growth and social class formation, a still birth. Political independence didn't mean economic freedom. Africa had such little industrial and skill base to manage the transition from the demand for political freedom to economic prosperity.

A huge attempt was made in several countries to set up import substitution industries between 1960-1980, to save the declining foreign exchange revenue from export of cotton, coffee, tea and minerals.

As an example, Tanzania specialised in textiles to clothe her people (see the famous Kanga whose impact has lasted in the region) while other nations, especially where there was no ensuing civil wars out of disagreements after the granting of independence, invested in production of basic consumer goods. But no African nation reached an increasing and irreversible scale to be able to decisively roll back poverty and create a firm middle class and a modern state.

By 1986 when the Movement took power after a successful protracted people's war, Africa and Uganda in particular was faced with two hard choices. One was to continue the import substitution investments that weren't any more backed by any new capital and skill, since the West didn't want competition in areas where they sourced raw materials or accept the new IMF/World bank dictum of 'liberalising the economy, selling off government assets, cutting down government expenditure by laying off workers and depreciating the national currency to make exports cheaper'.

The leadership of the Movement, borne by a common person, unbending on keeping people programmes as a centre piece of its agenda, had a decision to make.

What do you do when you are faced with a shrinking economy, (from 1975-1980, Uganda's economy contracted by 14%)  subverted from formal production and trade procedures to informal unaccountable ways commonly known then as 'Magendo'  and 'Kusamura' (goods that don't pay taxes) and 'Kibanda' (illegal foreign currency sales) foreign exchange trading, a bloated and ineffective civil service, a falling raw material export dependent economy with rapidly falling terms of trade, a dying young population of those who are working age on account of diseases?

To be able to deal with these multiple economic issues at the time when the West was pushing only one way, their way, of growing an economy, an organisation's leadership must strike out of s strong ideological base.

Next week, we will see how the Movement reacted to this global changed environment and how the outcome of the decisions made at Uganda's economic peril in 1987, have shaped a new economic Uganda as have it today.

The writer is a farmer and entrepreneur