Smith’s “Invincible Hand” and Academic Pensioners in Ghana

Adam Smith, economist and one of the outstanding philosophers of our time defined his 'invincible hand' in economics. In the market it is a metaphor conceived by to describe the self-regulating behaviour of the marketplace. According to one modern scholar, the exact phrase is used just three times in Smith's writings, 'but has come to capture his important claim that individuals' efforts to maximize their own gains in a free market benefits society, even if the ambitious have no benevolent intentions. Smith came up with the two meanings of the phrase from Richard Cantillon who developed both economic applications in his model of the isolated estate' (See Ency. Britannica).

The term in a broader sense concerns the people, the nation, and the individual entrepreneur whose desire of fulfilling his own dreams and wishes in life in order to obtain economic gains, ends up benefiting the whole group that he is also part. There is some amount of selfishness involved, in that the individual never had the intention of generating profit for the whole group; his main concern was for his own profit and probably his immediate family. But due to the fact that people have insatiable demands for properties and consumption goods and etc, the individual's own profit drives him to extending his hands, which in the end generates something bigger that eventually benefits the whole group.

If we were to compare the state of numerous academics in Ghana whose situations demand that they do something in order to supplement their meagre or not satisfactory household economies, we would come to the idea which Smith proposed concerning the invincible hand. With superb knowledge and tremendous experiences acquired from books as well as practical lives, academicians are able to muster the necessary expertise to create something for themselves as well as enrich their own coffers and others.

Some useful ideas can be ascertained from the experiences of the men who commenced the enlightenment era and also those of renaissance in Europe. We could as well ponder over the experiences of men who commenced the industrial revolution in Europe. These men became the originators of book writing, printing press, mechanised farming, chemical industries, private libraries, book binding industries, pencils and pens factories, specialised industries pertaining to their own fields of expertise, tourism development, manufacturing fertilisers, insurance companies, establishing schools and universities, and etc.

In the USA, many professors at the time of their retirements or later owned companies. They usually made use of their knowledge in the arts and sciences in order to establish one for themselves. Those who lacked capital and other ingredients for the establishment of companies, generated ideas which had either aided others to establish one or many companies/industries which they shared their profits.

In Germany, professors either owned companies or generated them and later sold them to the public. This is one of the main reasons why this industrious nation considers it essential to employ and cater for its professors for life. It is an attempt to encourage these famous distinguished philosophers and scientists who had contributed a lot to this great nation. When one thinks about German industrialisation, distinguished philosophers and scientists come to mind: Hermann Helmholtz, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Rontgen, and many physicists and chemists. German chemical industries, which changed the European continent and the world at large, made it successful for many nations to acquire new and useful elements, chemicals that generated new materials in the industrial sector.

The attempt to send pensioners who are professors in Ghana from the lecture rooms into research fields and inside among the people in society so as not to compete on jobs with young academics as a whole will contribute to their seriousness and compel these academics to become innovative and champion industrialisation in Ghana. It should be able to accelerate economic growth in certain sectors where ideas and motivations are required to quicken private entrepreneurs to be on their toes to commence thinking. 'Necessity is the mother of invention.' So as we tell them enough is enough for 'contract employment' but give way for the young talented academics that need to be trained as well as be promoted, we shall see success in many fields of the academics.

Their names should not be in the state Universities' homepage as 'pensioners on contract,' but as those pensioners who need to contribute to their nations' development. Just us we caution the Ghanaian soldiers to concentrate on professionalism, so also do we tell the pensioners who are professors to utilise their experiences and knowledge to help Ghana become an industrialised nation in the continent of Africa. For now their researches should not be motivated by being promoted into a higher position but to make money and survive in the decades of 'pink sheets'.

Professor Desmond Ayim-Aboagye is a member of the NPP Party in Ghana. He is a former Associate Professor in the Sciences of Religion at the Åbo Akademi University in Finland and Uppsala University in Sweden, and currently a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra. Professor Ayim-Aboagye has now moved down permanently to settle and also work as a politician.