The Political Enterprise

Political office seekers always claim to have the interest of all the people at heart. They never get tired telling the people about themselves and about splendid policies they are capable of implementing. Seeming selfless, they sound very concerned about the plight of the masses.

And with silver-tongued rhetoric, their mouths lay claim to all the solutions to social and economic problems, giving assurance that if elected to form government, they will usher in a new era of unprecedented prosperity, progress and peace. But do politicians really hold the key to utopia?    

Two Settings
In an organized human society, any political group may claim to hold the key to utopia.

Ghanaian society, in particular, may on one hand be likened to an unbroken vista of farmland under cultivation with bird songs and great promise in the sky. On the other hand, it may be likened to a city scene, all asphalt, concrete, steel, and iron worked neatly together. At first glance, only contrasts are apparent. The city scene looks hard and barren.

The open field holds potential for life and growth in the seed that has been sown into its plowed, fertile soil. This field might, in a few months, be transformed into a sea of corn. Or may be weeds, if it is not tended properly. It all depends on what is invested into the soil.

The city scene contains as much potential for life and growth. Its seed is the little children growing behind those doors. What sort of men and women will these little children grow to become? Will they learn to be responsible for creating peace and progress? Will they learn to be truthful and honest?

Or will they only learn to worship acquisitive success as preparation for future career, to respect only money and power? Leadership examples and beliefs and values being taught these little children growing behind those doors would determine what characteristic quality of society Ghana will have in the future and its resulting breed of politicians.

The impact of assumptions on human nature on decisions that shape society may be illuminating.

Impact of Assumptions
Ghana's political history has often taken the form of power struggle between groups holding two opposing sets of assumptions about human nature. On one hand (the right hand), there are those who implicitly hold that human nature is irredeemably corrupt.

The conservatives value the individual to a fair extent but hesitate to give the individual too much liberty for fear he would abuse it. Moving further right, the individual is definitely an object of distrust.

Still further right, out to the totalitarian extreme, one discovers contempt for the average man. Right-wing ideologies of all degrees share the notion that the masses have to be protected from themselves either by appeal to traditional checks on human nature as for example law and order or by the rule of some benevolent, specially endowed elite.

The latter may consist of those who have proved their superiority through birth, or wealth or age or years of education.

They often support belligerent policy and where corporate wealth is located, they tend to cooperate in order to make money. To this category, the defunct Progress Party, the Popular Front Party and thriving New Patriotic Party belong.

The left-leaning ideologies favoured a rather different set of assumptions about human nature and are grassroots-oriented, revolutionary and like the right, prone to utopian declarations.

The problem of society originates in the system and so tradition must be rejected in favour of change. The task is to set the people free so that the innate goodness of human nature could flourish.

Differences arise, however, among moderate liberals, the socialists, the communists and the Maoist on just how men are to be set free.

The National Democratic Congress, the Convention People's Party, the People's National Convention and the erstwhile People's National Party fall into this group. It is interesting and even frightening that in their extreme, the two systems of ideologies converge.

A group with special knowledge confers upon itself the role of saviour of the people. In a nation like Ghana, the masses are not ready to understand the CPP or NDC's equalitarian society or the NPP's elite, privileged, property-owning, meritocratic society; so the planners use whatever means is necessary to see to it that the people accept these ideas whether they are ready for them or not.

A person is not a person but a pawn, a means to an end, a thing, an object to be manipulated, used and discarded. What then is the function of government?

Function of Government
In the area of social life defined as the public interest, government is the supreme agent authorized to regulate conduct. Order in any society is ultimately maintained by legitimized force vested in the governing party or clique who intervenes when the informal safeguards of conscience, moral norms and public opinions fail to check conduct define as antisocial.

Since the founding of the fourth republic, the government of Ghana has become stable and growing in reputation and in influence.

There is scarcely an activity, whether dialing a phone number, buying and consuming food, posting a letter, boarding a bus or train, fishing, turning on a pipe faucet or switching an electric power that is not more or less supervised, more or less controlled by government.

Agriculture cannot be studied without considering the political activities of the Ministry of Agriculture. Banking is indissoluble from the regulations of interest on government bonds and from the policies of central bank. International trade and investments are closely regulated by the Ministry of Trade and Industry and other similar governmental bodies.

The three governmental entities in the real estate business, State Housing Corporation, SSNIT Estates, and Tema Development Corporation are the biggest players and independently acquire, develop and sell properties.

There is the Custom, Excise and Preventive Service which beside imposition of excise duties on import-export trade, also acts as controlling agency, The Internal Revenue Service and the VAT Service respectively determine tax rates and mobilize revenue. It is also a fact that government is the biggest insurer and banker in the country.

Even though government holdings are extensive, it is much more director than owner. And as agent in the division of labour, it has the power to coerce all other agents in society. It is the exact centre of ultimate power in the country. Government economic powers are also unlimited: it can nationalize everything, hand everything over to private interest or strike a balance between these extremes, as in the latter case, the seventy percent sale of Ghana Telecom to Vodafone.

Thus the operations of government and public finance results in changes in the amount of wealth produced and in the distribution of that wealth among individuals and classes. If these changes in their aggregate effects are socially advantageous, then the operations are justified, if not, they are not.

The best system of public finance is that which secures the maximum social advantage from the operations which government conducts. It does not distort reality, therefore to state that the proper function of government is to maximize social welfare. Thus the question of motive power with respect to politicians.

Motive Power
It is axiomatic that every agent, whether an individual, a political party, business entity or private coalition behaves rationally at all time; that is, it proceeds toward its goals with minimal use of scarce resources and undertakes only those actions for which marginal return exceeds marginal cost.

In the light of this axiom, it may be asserted that any attempt to choose a political party to form government without discussing the motive power of those who would run the government must be regarded as inconsistent with the main body of economic analysis.

If government is treated as an agent in the division of labour, then it follows that political parties campaign to become agents in the division of labour. Every agent in the division of labour has both a private motive and a social function.

The social function of a medical doctor, for example, is to cure the sick since this activity provide utility for others. But the doctor is motivated to carry out this function by his desire to earn income or for prestige not by any desire to benefit others. Yet doctors thus pursuing their own ends might carry out the social function with great efficiency, at least under certain conditions.

Similarly, each political party is a coalition of men who seek office primarily in order to enjoy the benefit that go with running the governing apparatus. Arguably, political parties in Ghana formulate policy strictly as a means of gaining votes.

They do not seek to gain office in order to carry out certain preconceived policies or to serve any other particular interest groups. Rather, they formulate policy and serve interest groups in order to gain office.

Thus, their social function which is to formulate and carry out policies when in power as government is accomplished as a by-product of their private motive which is to attain income, power and prestige of being in office.

This implies that in multiparty democracy, the governing party always acts so as to maximize the number of votes it will receive. In effect, it is an entrepreneur selling policies for votes, instead of products for money.

Furthermore, it must compete for votes with other parties just as two or more oligopolies compete for sales in a market. Whether or not such a government maximizes social welfare depends upon how the competitive battle for power influences its behaviour.

By Komla Selassi

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