A centrally planned economy with a ‘patriotic’ citizen like John Mahama or any other person solely in charge of the distribution of “caring†and “compassion†is a bad idea that should be rejected by all peace loving people in this country, who want to see this nation developed and prosper.
A centrally planned economy, described here as socialism or social democracy, demands utmost control of the economy, demands conformity, not autonomy, so that a centralised bureaucracy with a ‘compassionate’ Mahama at the helm to choose ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the economy.
It is an oppressive system which requires that government run almost everything, including our lives and the lives of our children. Ironically, most people buy the lie that social democracy is just about government being kind or about government providing a generous social safety net by paying for our needs, with our money, of course.
The fact is many people who buy into this lie that government is a benevolent caretaker do not realise that by giving more power to the government, they are welcoming more corruption, more nepotism and more poverty.
While current events of slower economic growth, lower productivity, and lower standard of living confirm this, it seems most of the people who would be voting this December are not alarmed by the idea of ‘dumb’ and ‘worst’ people selling them a bill of rotten goods.
This is where the story gets interesting. Most people in this country are not only economically uniformed but also historically unread.
While no system has racked up huge debts, unfunded liabilities and given us more alarming pictures of poverty and degradation than our social democratic big government regimes, it adherents, from the CPP to the NDC still insist that our society could be organised towards a “social goal†or “common purpose†which is usually vaguely described as the “common good,†the “general welfare,†or the “general interestâ€; a lie told only to maintain themselves in power.
Unfortunately, free market liberals have failed to educate people, especially, the poor and the youth, about the potential pitfalls of socialistic policies.
Sadly, adherents of market capitalism have become increasingly relational, tolerant, and responsive to group opinion, few dare speak the truths that would expose today’s spreading poverty and corruption.
For the past sixty years collectivist ethics and totalitarian ideas continue to make us more homogeneously sub-human, ruining our country’s economy and society.
The dumb and the worst, with their false humility and catchwords, continue to win elections because the masses have been made to believe, to their own detriment, that conformity and collectivism is best for the individual and the whole community.
The cheek of it!
We are supposed to be living in an era where everything should be getting better for all of us, including the poor. But the same people who claim to “fix†the problems are actually making it worse!
How can this be? Because their wrong assumptions lead to wrong solutions to real problems.
The sad state of our country today, is NOT due to colonialism. The social ills we see, including corruption, plain stealing and the breakdown of family values, are directly connected to the social-democracy and its welfare policies.
Reminiscent of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the idiots in our midst would want us to believe that free market liberals are arrogant and the free market policies they advocate promote selfishness and greed while the big government socialists are humble and altruistic.
In short, free market capitalism bad; big government socialism good.
Sadly, our politics has become one without ethics. Education, work, thrift, honesty, patience and tenacity are the characteristics that could bring us development but shunned by the worst who lead us.
These are not just platitudes. Work ethic breed success; and success breeds optimism, not of the fool, but educated, ‘eye-open’ optimism, which in this country is called ‘arrogance’. We should not forget that democratic ethics is different from the collective thinking of state welfare dependency; it clashes with the collectivists’ vision of unity in diversity.
Socialist collectivism impose a check on serious thinking and serious debates and rewards empty promotion and false humility, which is why, their solutions, based on lies and unrelenting hunger for power control, always require us to give up our freedoms.
It is not for nothing that the most successful leaders in the political and private sectors are often the worst opportunists and they would want us to believe wrongly that when things go wrong, it is not because of the system but because the WRONG people are in charge.
They don’t question their core beliefs. In spite of the evidence, we are still told that the failed policies will work with the ‘right’ person in charge of things. As we get closer to the elections this year, arrogant politicians would come selling their top-down solutions to our social and economic problems, posturing as the ‘right’ people to manage a flawed socialist economic system.
Voters should remember that the state as a benefactor is not about any one ideology, it is about all of us. If we can be bold enough to accept that solving our problems is our individual responsibility, the ‘common good’ lie will fall apart as quickly as possible. No ‘right’ politician can fix a lie.
“…the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrines, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things…†(2 Timothy 4:3-5).
Here, we are reminded by Apostle Paul that choosing our leaders requires thought, not emotions and the choices we make should not influenced by ringing phrases, or high flowered sentiments which are mere fables to promote a non-existent “common good.â€
As individuals, we should begin to question our core beliefs and make sure that our passions and emotions are not readily aroused by empty rhetoric and propaganda. We should demand more from our politicians.
The battle for our prosperity and development is not about electing the next President of Ghana. We fight for the right to raise our children and what they teach them about right and wrong; we fight for the right to live our lives; we fight for the right to own our properties and how to develop it; and we fight for the right to live our lives as individuals with God giving rights.
Now as always our victory for individual freedom depends on the source of our strength and the focus of our minds. Indeed, as Apostle Paul reminds us once again, “we will be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting …†(Ephesians 4: 14-15).
But we cannot resist the lure of the carrot unless our hunger for freedom is stronger than the pressure to conform and sell our souls to the state. Before we could forge ahead as a nation and prosper as individuals, we must challenge the old ideas, including the ‘wrong-person- in-charge’ mindset.
It is essential to understand sleazy and dumb politicians will continue to paint a rosy vision of a world where the state provides everything for free. All we have to do is to surrender our freedoms and our own wallets and they will make it happen — to themselves and a tiny minority, of course!
Indeed, the more decisions we cede to the political process, the less we should expect anyone to protect our interests. Self-reliance, independence, charity, kindness and the other ethics, said earlier, are the antidotes to the disease of social democratic lies. Ironically, liars will show you how to spread it.
Here is an undeniable fact: We cannot cede our lives to politicians who reject the values of individual responsibility or obediently go along to get along in a system that rejects our values and expect different outcomes.
This being the case, it is time for ‘we-the-people’ to, once again, start fighting at the grassroots level and do the hard work of transforming Ghana’s public institutions, and ourselves from compliant automatons with entitlement mentalities into critical-thinking, self-reliant, productive citizens.