One of the less heralded but perhaps more important and enduring divisions at this election is along the lines of wealth, not in terms of who owns what but more with regard to general attitudes to wealth.
Before I start, I would like to point out that the demarcation between these orders of Kenyans is not cast in stone or their political affiliations clearly set out. The general assessment holds however, and the signs insist that depending on which of these teams wins the argument and not just the short term battle of the election, our destiny as a country is even now being shaped.
The first of these classes is informed by the idea that Kenya's travails are born of an inefficient distribution of wealth. Some of the promoters of this idea insist that this distribution shows a bias towards what were traditionally the White Highlands, a bias inherited by post-independence parties and carried down to this day. But these are in the minority, the greater of this number believes that the economic retardation of the larger parts of our country are the result of a malevolent spirit among those who wield state power to cause the uplift of some areas and the slow strangulation of others based on tribal fealty to the government. Even where these boundaries cross, or in more cosmopolitan areas of the country where opportunity is equal, this meme persists among the sons and daughters of the allegedly afflicted communities, affecting the way they see the apportionment of employment, of tenders for private and public projects, placement at public schools, allocation of housing and so on. Those who believe in this idea have a decidedly negative view of wealthier people, seeing them as either corrupt, greedy, selfish or lucky. They ask that those who have earned more must share more. Their indefatigable call is for government to bless the marginalised regions with public projects, or for their politicians to bring them jobs and for state intervention by redistributive policies to bridge the gap between the wealthy and the poor.
The second of these orders is comprised of Kenyans who see the government as performing merely a background role in their lives. This class sees business and trade as the panacea for the retardation of Kenyan society. They see in trade and industry the building blocks of a more prosperous, forward-looking Kenya. Their number are willing to take risks, to deny themselves, to innovate, to sacrifice the comfort of proximity to their ancestral lands for the opportunity that calls across the country or across the border even. This order of Kenyans seeks alliances where it will, unconfined to the false gods of tribe and religion. These are Kenyans who believe in themselves and not in the government or the political class, they look to thrive in the sun as much as in the rain and all they ask of the government is that it does its best to leave them alone, that it make of the country an environment conducive to the prosecution of trade and the reward of industry.
Astride of these two groups is the most influential group in Kenya today; the cult of rent-seekers. Those comprising this group may have their published economic philosophy in either of the major camps but they are best defined by their attitude that proximity to the generosity of the state is the source of all that is good and holy. They prey at the altar of government, looking at every turn to rob the state or to use public property to achieve personal gain. Truth be told, all our presidents and the leading opposition candidate at the end of month election are drawn from this rapacious class as are the greater number of those Kenyans that retain wealth of fantastic proportions. These Kenyans have made their fortunes during periods when they had favour of state house, and could amass large land holdings, or could see themselves into massive unpaid loans at State banks. This group of charlatans often carries the tag of capitalist, businessman and entrepreneur but what they really are is vultures and hyenas. They have come to control our political and economic system and in the same time to totally transform the way the majority of Kenyans approach the path to wealth accretion.
Public land, state divestitures, public service tenders or plain theft, their list is truly endless and is blessed by the public's blessing of privatisation and with the Kenyan masses unparalleled infatuation with the gilded whip of the slave driver, its loud cheering of those who use public office to enrich themselves, even as they impoverish the public in whose trust they govern.
This article is written in defense of the true solution to our economic illness, the entrepreneur, the businessman, those who will sacrifice their lunches to save up to start a business, those who deny themselves, who delay the gratification of their desires, who invent, who innovate and who determinedly reject the fetters of dependency and in whose sweat and ideas the greater good is steadily accomplished.
It is not written for the way-layer of Wanjiku, the already rich man who takes no risk upon himself, who eschews the perspiration of effort, and who instead buys public-owned industrial land at throw-away prices or blesses his pockets with the favour from state contracts. It is not written for those who amassed large estates that were properly supposed to be allocated to the landless Kenyan now forced into a humiliating and impossible existence as squatters. Neither is it written for the increasing large number that is determined to take for itself drastically discounted shares in offerings of public stock. This is not economic progress and the sooner we disabuse ourselves of the idea that such activity represents positive movement, the better prepared we will be for take-off into prosperity.
Whether Kenya transforms itself into a better wealthier country will depend to a great degree on which of these classes proves more cunning or more persuasive in the long term. With the majority of Kenyans as poor and gullible as they are, those arguing that government owes them are likely to have the upper hand in the political stakes, especially as their mindset lends them to the worship of and trust in the exploitative political class. How easy it is to create new districts, or to swear a daily dole of 35/- to every poor Kenyan. There will be few voices in the poor countryside to oppose the allocation of 40%-60% of the national budget to the districts, never mind the fact that they lack the wherewithal to do anything particularly useful with it. Even fewer voices will complain about the pensions for AIDS widows although it is likely that those widowed by road accidents, ethnic conflict or police brutality may well seek an audience to plead their case. Quiet will be the land when the state expends public money to provide free sanitary towels for millions across the land. There may be a protest when the state decrees that rents be capped, but it is unlikely that these will come from the voices of the many.
It is unlikely either that we will hear anytime soon exhortations against the inexorable drive to privatise, transferring large amounts of public wealth into already well off private hands and in the process enervating even more Kenyans by denying the state the resources vital to the provision of such facilities as will serve the greater good. It is unlikely either that the culture of profligacy and corruption in the public service will come to an end, being as it is the bread and butter in the trough of the political class. All these activities create a competition for every shilling in state coffers, and in that competition other more important interests lose out. None but the most cold-hearted will deny that there is need for the alleviation of the state of Kenya's poor but it will be impossible at once to finance roads, railways, power stations and a massive social security system. The obsession with a paternalistic provision regime for the poor will destory their self-reliance, further entrench the already sickening culture of dependency and further delay any meaningful economic change.
But there is some hope. The low interest rates in the market and an insistence by the government on the provision of funds to businesses through the women's and youth's funds and not individuals will have served to awaken a latent entrepreneurial spirit across the country. It is encouraging that barriers to trade have been diminished in the last five years. State efforts at increasing the class of skilled labour through village polytechnics will also prove useful, churning out every year more and more graduates who do not need to look for employment but who can instead become job-creating entrepreneurs. Higher prices for crops, the electrification of the rural areas, and the provision of markets through revitalised state corporations will work along with improvements in technology to create even in the rural areas a determined order of Kenyans, empowered by opportunity and in seizing it, infused with the dignity of personal achievement.
It is true that there still exists great scope for the government to act. Our roads are far from the ready facilities that will promote and ease trade and it is satisfying that the political parties show an active interest with it. Still, it is important that the road network and especially that in the more productive parts of the country is improved, that the campaign promises are implemented and that the railway network returns to its role as the nation's most important artery. The docking of the nationwide fibre-optic networks will in itself bring on a revolution, even as further competition in the communication sector boosts opportunities for the intrepid and the innovative. There is much need for a radical restructuring of our energy systems; they stand at the moment as one of the most obdurate barriers to the success of Kenyan business. The security situation will also need further improvement as will the judiciary's facilitation and protection of business by the swift and open application of the law.
Even then it is important that more and more Kenyans are proselytised to the creation of wealth, to the creation of jobs and the provision of goods and services to the wider public. This is not an invitation to the grand temples of Mammon; it is not money that will be the salvation of Kenya but the seeking out of opportunity. It is not sweat and tears that build a nation, but an alloy of hard work and innovation. This is not me-ism, it is altruism and the triumph of the self, the liberty of the human mind and the victory of its endeavour. Entrepreneurs are not the enemy, business people are not thieves, it is they that create jobs, they provide for all of us services and products that would otherwise be absent, over-priced or of low quality. Entrepreneurs set society free from dependence and backwardness, they are progress defined.
They are the vanguard of a possible new Kenya, a country where 500,000 new jobs is a pale, unambitious dream, where rent controls are unnecessary because there is adequate housing for everyone, where the national grid is augmented by the output from local, private power stations, fuelled in their turn by locally produced bio-fuels. They represent the new Kenya where people can trade over the internet from their homes, where enterprise can easily raise capital at low cost, not just from banks but from the stock exchange. In this new exchange there will be enough regulation to ensure that investors are unencumbered by the avarice of unscrupulous dealers or the paucity of counters to trade on, but this without the shadow of guilt from the accusations of politicians. Businesses in the new Kenya will be promoted by a low tax burden and enjoy the best of energy and communication utilities. They will be able to grow, to take on even more employees, to pay them better and to provide the whole of society with a better living.
The endless jeremiad of the fallen man makes for good political debate, as the most venal politicians are transformed into the defenders of the poor. The endless opportunities for corruption and unproductive wealth accumulation that result from this attitude will continue to keep Kenya backward and the greater number of our people poor. The alternative is that each of us find instead personal redemption in unshackling ourselves from the slavish faith in politicians or trust in government, and that we instead seek to create greater prosperity for ourselves and for the wider society. And this is not an idle dream, its success is most visible in the diminution of rural poverty as electricity, better prices and revitalised agricultural parastatals brought poverty levels down from 51.5% to 33.7% in the last five years. It is the spirit of the individual that will raise this nation, it is in the individual seeking to satisfy himself without injury to others, the moral selfish motive, that he will gain true mastery of his world. Give us free.
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Kenyans must take charge of their destiny and its not a cliche that life is what you make it. We must refuse to be won over by emotional nonsense that like a heavy beer session leave a bitter hangover the morning after