Does America Have Capitalist Stockholm Syndrome?

By Umair Haque

When I was a little boy — maybe six — I made a friend named Rick. An all-American golden boy, as athletic as he was whip-smart, all tousled blond hair and piercing blue eyes, and we met in an all-American way, too — in a knock-down, drag-out brawl, in the sweet spring Virginia mud, at the end of a football game, which my team had won, and his team had lost. Rick’s dad, separating us, gave us a stern moral talking to — moral fiber, boys!! — and after that, we became the best and oddest of companions, me this skinny, frail brown lost boy, and Rick the all American golden boy.

Fast forward a decade. We’re still friends. Only now I’m a punk with Soviet Doc Martens (which I wish I still had.) And every time Rick’s dad sees them he gives me another stern talking-to. “Son, you’re not a communist, are you?” No, I reply, laughing. I’m just a teenager. And then he extols, at great length, the many virtues of capitalism. Hard work! Responsibility! Manhood! And yet something strikes me as not quite right. It takes me a while, but one day I finally put my finger on it.

Rick’s dad isn’t a capitalist. He’s never been one. He’s just a middle manager at some midsize tech company — a government contractor of some kind. He’s never going to own the company. His income doesn’t come from capital. He’s wakes up in the morning to earn a wage, like anyone else. What gives?

I still talk to Rick’s dad. And having read some of my essays, he asks me, all over again: “son, you’re not a communist, are you?!” There he is. Still working more or less the same job. Never retired. He’s old, now. Living in that same old little house. He’s always just been another average wage-earner in the machine. There’s nothing wrong with that — except his infallible, unwearying, romanticized love of the system which failed him, never allowing him to retire, which made him work 14 hours a day to educate his kids, barely seeing them, which rarely allowed him even a vacation, which barely covers his healthcare bills. He never became a capitalist. He never had the slightest chance to — hence he’s still working. His capital income is pennies. He doesn’t own the company. But he’ll defend capitalism with his every breath. Don’t you think that’s strange? Funny? A little sad? I do.

And yet, I see Rick’s dad everywhere. Everytime I write an essay about economics here, up pops a veritable chorus telling me how wonderful capitalism is. It’s not just me — you can see the same thing at work everywhere, more or less, just read the comments (no! never read the comments!!)

The really strange thing about today is that most of the people who leap to capitalism’s defense fastest and most furiously…aren’t capitalists. And they never will be. They can’t be. Just 10% of America owns stocks, and even less owns bonds. Even less — maybe 1%, if that — make enough money from capital to call it their main income. And their incomes are shrinking, at a record pace. So the Rick’s dads of the world have never made enough money from capital income to live off it, and that’s why they’ll never really retire. They don’t send their kids to school with capital gains. They don’t pay for skyrocketing healthcare bills by liquidating trust funds. They’re just average wage-earning schmoes, like the rest of us. And yet despite the fact that they’re not capitalists and never will be, they’re also exactly the ones who defend capitalism most.

So the fiercest everyday defenders of capitalism in America are those who’ll never be capitalists— in fact, they seem to be those who are being exploited by capitalists. They’ll never be capitalists, in either the sense of ownership or income, since their already meager incomes are shrinking, so they own and make less, every year. What the? What gives? Shouldn’t they be the critics of capitalism?

Marx was wrong about many things. There’s no glorious communist revolution — and there probably won’t be. But he was right about many things, too. Capitalism has failed. And yet it has also produced what he called a “false consciousness.” That means, essentially, that capitalism — or more accurately, the capitalist values of self-interest, greed, and cruelty — captures the minds of the classes below it. They come to believe in capitalism as a substitute for religion, for a lack of spirituality, for faith, later thinkers, like Adorno, would say.

In Marxist terms, the Rick’s dads of the world are the “petite bourgeoisie” — at best. They might own a few stocks. Maybe a handful of bonds. But they’re not capitalists at all, in the sense of either owning companies, or making enough from ownership to live on. The real capitalists sit far, far above them. Who are they, in the American economy? Well, because the American economy is highly concentrated and monopolized now, they’re tiny in number. It’s people like Bezos and Zuck and all those dynasties, the Waltons and so on. The average American who defends capitalism is the furthest thing from a capitalist: he’s just another prole. And a downwardly mobile one, too, at that. How weird is that?

Do you see the kind of Stockholm Syndrome at work here? Let me make it clearer. Who are the biggest losers from capitalism over the last few decades? It’s white American men. Their life expectancy is falling. Their income is cratering. Their suicide rates are rising. They’re suffering what Angus Deaton, the renowned economists, calls “deaths of despair.” And yet they’re also the ones who defend capitalism most, tooth and nail — even while its sealing shut their coffins. Women don’t, minorities don’t, young people don’t — yet they haven’t lost nearly as much as middle-class white men have. Isn’t that strange? Bizarre? Gruesome?

How did Capitalism Stockholm Syndrome come to be? Probably because those middle class white men gained the most from capitalism, too. Once upon a time, they lived the dream. But then, as capitalism ran out of other people to exploit, it turned on them. The instant that segregation ended, American wages began to stagnate — both these things happened in 1971. Was that a coincidence? Or was it because American capitalism needed someone to prey on — and it didn’t care much, in the end, whether they were white or black, men or women, old or young? And yet, because they grew so attached to capitalism, now they seem unable to see the simple truth that it’s preyed on them, too. But attached in what way, precisely?

Stockholm Syndrome is a subtle thing. It doesn’t just mean people sympathize with their captors — it means that they internalize their values, to the point that their identities are remade, which is what Marx was trying to say, but perhaps didn’t have the language to. There’s Rick’s dad. He watches Fox News — he thinks, in a kind of ironic way, rolling his eyes at the more outrageous statements. But the message still seems to sink in. He pores over the Wall Street Journal every morning — as if he were the capitalist he never was, and he’ll never be. His identity seems to have been suffused into capitalism itself, and hence the moment that I try to question it, it’s as if I’m attacking him. Bang! Out pours the stern moral lecture on the virtues of capitalism. Isn’t that what all the Ricks’ Dads do, though? Their identity is inextricably woven into capitalism now — it’s part of them in an existential way, it seems. To question capitalism is to attack them — as providers, as men, as beings, as people, as husbands, as fathers.

So you can’t talk to the Rick’s Dads of the world with facts, reason, evidence, or logic. To say, “Italians and French people live five years longer thanAmericans!” is only to provoke disbelief and scorn and opprobrium. It just doesn’t work — because a very real sense, there is capitalism where a self should be. No capitalism — no self. But capitalism says that the self is only as worthy as it is wealthy — which is to say that is inherently worthless. Bang! The trap has sprung. Now the prisoner is trapped. He must forever try to regain the very self-worth, the sense of selfhood, that capitalism has denied him, through…more capitalism.

And that to me is one of the great tragedies of capitalism. Marx was right. Capitalism does produce a false consciousness. Those who’ll never be capitalists are exactly those who defend it most. The imploded middle classes — in Marxist terms, the upper proletariat and the petite bourgeoisie — these days, are capitalist’s staunchest and truest defenders. Not just because they “hope to be capitalists one day” — a cognitive cause. But because capitalism replaced their sense of self. They seem to be pushed to the edge of breakdown without it, unable to function at all as confident, optimistic, integral, empathic human beings with inherent self-worth, self-directedness, and self-knowledge. Remember Rick’s dad poring over the Journal, watching Fox News, and so on? First and last comes capitalism. Then comes everything else. Family, happiness, books, ideas, truth, beauty, life.

I still see Rick’s dad. Sometimes, we sit on the porch, and just take in the sweet Virginia air, watching the sun set over the little field in front of his house. The very same one Rick and I, all those years ago, used to laugh and roughhouse on. It’s the one thing he’s proudest of. Who am I to tell him how to live? I sip my drink quietly. The sun sets. He bid me good night. Old now, he tires easily. It’s going to be another long day at the office tomorrow.

If You Want More Capitalism, You Should Want More Socialism

Here’s a funny, strange, inconvenient truth. If you want more capitalism, you should also want more socialism. Yes, really. I’ll prove it, in just a second.

First, a tiny qualification. “More capitalism” doesn’t mean bigger monopolies sending you bigger bills that make you have bigger panic attacks. It means quite the opposite. Better, truer, healthier capitalism: more of the innocuous, even fun, mom-and-pop kind, which made my favorite guitars and synthesizers, which keeps my neighborhood buzzing with restaurants, boutiques, clubs, and bars.

So: if you want more capitalism, the first thing you should want is more socialism. Don’t believe me? Let’s think about it. How capitalist is America, in the sense above? The answer is: not much. The Heritage Institute’s Freedom Index — which we can think of as a pretty good proxy for how capitalist a society is — puts it at 18th in the world. Below, for example, Denmark and Canada. You’re perfectly correct to say that the Heritage Institute is a libertarian thinktank, and this index measures a kind of idealized, no-holds-barred, free-market capitalism. And yet America doesn’t even really score very highly on their definition of “capitalism” anymore. (That definition is something like capitalism in its idealized, romanticized form. As an art which most people can practice, at a small scale, and thus, live decent lives. Drycleaners, discos, plumbers.)

Think about this for a second. Both Denmark and Canada are more capitalistand more socialist than America, according to the logic above. How strange. A country can score highly on both — or neither. But do you see what it means? There’s an old myth. It goes like this. Capitalism is the opposite of socialism. If you want more capitalism, you have to want less socialism (and vice versa). But all this proves that the myth isn’t true. It never was. It’s a relic of Cold War thinking — but the Cold War is over, and no one won. Russia and America are mirror images of each other collapsing into authoritarianism — but I’ll get to that.

So America isn’t really good at capitalism — even in the idealized sense capitalists want. But quite obviously, it’s not really good at “socialism” one, either. Do you see the weird paradox? America scores low on both capitalismand socialism, whereas Canada and Denmark score more highly on bothcapitalism and socialism. How can that be true? It’s completely contrary to the mythology, oppositional binary thinking we’re so often taught to believe.

The truth, as it so often is, subtler. The tale above already tells us that capitalism isn’t the opposite of socialism. The old idea was that to not choose socialism, a society had to choose capitalism (and vice versa). But America seems to have disproven that — because it scores low on both capitalism and socialism, while Canada and Denmark score higher on both, and therefore, capitalism and socialism can’t be opposites. They’re something more like mutually reinforcing complements — to a degree, at least. You can choose both, or neither — the old dichotomy is dead. And it seems that countries which choose to develop both capitalism and socialism are the real winners of this age — and countries that, like America, choose to develop neither, are the losers.

So if America’s not really capitalist, and not really socialist, while Denmark and Canada are more of both, then what the heck is it? Well, it’s something more like predatory capitalist. That means gigantic monopolies sending you those gigantic bills which make you have gigantic panic attacks, precisely because you know your income’s flatlined for decades, since those very monopolies are hoarding the economy’s gains wholesale at this point. While it’s true that this is a degenerate capitalism — and the old Marxist idea that capitalism inherently tends to degenerate just this way is also probably even true — what it’s not is healthy, sane, balanced capitalism.

Predatory capitalism combines both capitalism and socialism, but in all the wrong ways. Gigantic monopolies are subsidized by imploding middle classes so that they can extract more value, and the vicious cycle keeps going. That’s how a country ends up being neither capitalist nor socialist, at least in the healthy sense — both operate together destructively, not constructively.

It seems that for capitalism to exist at its best — small-scale, artisanal, genuinely innovative, passionate, not just relentlessly extractive, authentic, competitive, creative — there needs to be (wait for it) socialism. Isn’t that just what all the above really says? Denmark and Canada score higher on both capitalism and socialism, remember. If you don’t have a little socialism to balance out an economy, then capitalism degenerates, just like it has in America.

Now. Why would that be? I think the reasons are pretty simple. When people don’t have working safety nets, healthcare, retirement, savings — they can’t really amass capital. So capitalism becomes a thing for the few, instead of for the many. That’s where America is today — 80% of people live paycheck to paycheck — which is another way to say: they’re proletarians, wage slaves, not capitalists. Hence, just 10% of Americans are genuine capitalists — who own shares, bonds, have significant savings to invest in the first place.

If life is a constant struggle not to fall off the razor’s edge, into the abyss, then of course capitalism soon degenerates. Who can bear the risk of entrepreneurship? Of creating what doesn’t yet exist? Nobody sticks their neck out. If your healthcare is tied to your job, who but the already rich and safe can go out and write a great novel, invent a better mousetrap, pen that world-shaking film, and so forth? Capitalism’s dynamism, creativity, and energy depend squarely on a little bit of socialism, in just this way.

If regular people don’t have the capital to sustain capitalism at a small scale, as something they themselves practice, then soon enough, capitalism turns predatory. Yet without socialism to let capital flow to people, that degeneration seems to be capitalism’s inherent destiny. That’s what Denmark and Canada seem to understand that America doesn’t.

Hence, capitalism and socialism aren’t opposites. The presence of capitalism is not the absence of socialism. They never really were, and it never really was. We shouldn’t think of the as poles of an antagonistic dichotomy anymore — and those countries who don’t are prospering, while those who do are falling. The Cold War is over — and you can see who won. No one. Both Russia and America have devolved to the very same kind of predatory capitalism — and they are collapsing as a result.

If you want more capitalism, you should also want more socialism. That’s one of the great lessons this century’s trying to teach us. Are we ready to learn it?

Umair

Déjà vu

The rising Gestapo-style harassments of opposition politicians by executive branch of the federal government are a nauseating replay of the political recklessness that prematurely terminated the First Republic in 1966. The parallels are very troubling. Indeed, as has been said elsewhere, the Nigerian politician evidently learnt little or nothing from the tragic fate of that republic. Partly seized of that observation I had few years ago started writing a novel around the reported activities leading to the January 15, 1966 fateful date, but called it off due to limited time for extra curricula. But the recent hard-to-fathom siege on the National Assembly by the Department of State Security (DSS) prompted me to snatch a glance at the abandoned draft. I should like to share Chapter 1 of the draft with fellow compatriots, lest we forget:

 

“AERIAL VIEWS OF Nigeria’s over nine hundred thousand square kilometers landmass gave the impression of a monolithically stable agrarian country. The pea-nuts driven northern region seemed to work hand-in-glove with both the eastern and western regions, driven by palm fruit and cocoa respectively. But in spite of that seeming national stability, the pre-independence separating forces that had strained Nigeria’s seams persisted years after the indigenous administrators had taken control of their national affairs from the British colonial administration in 1960. Regional differences on the preferred hand-over date, and a controversial census exercise immediately preceding the election that gave power to the northern region had been at the center of the unremitting tensions. These tensions became heightened by the ‘doctored’ 1963 census exercise, which was purportedly conducted to placate the aggrieved two southern regions. Contrasting their extensive littoral boundary-regions on the Atlantic Ocean against the ‘harsh hinterlands of the northern region,’ the southern regions insisted the north was less populated than the south, contrary to the census’ figures. Thus the tensions continued to mount even as 1963 drew to a close. 

Those inter-regional tensions inexorably approached their zenith in 1965. It was an election year in Nigeria. National elections usually presented daunting challenges in Nigeria because the three leading political parties were essentially regional. Political alliance was a necessary condition for attaining the constitutionally stipulated two-thirds of the national votes to emerge victorious. In the 1965 election the ruling Northern Peoples Party (NPP) was in a fledgling alliance with the Progressive Party (PP) of the western region, leaving the eastern region’s Oriental Movement Party (OMP) in the opposition. There had been emerging evidence suggesting that the NPP-PP alliance was being threatened by lingering irreconcilable differences on foreign policies concerning the Middle East in general, and the new state of Israel in particular. That possible disintegration was causing the leadership of NPP great concerns. Those concerns assumed anxious proportions on the heels of OMP’s recent confirmation that the hugely popular incumbent premier of the eastern region, Mister Ita Bassey Ita, was the party’s candidate for the 1965 Prime Ministerial election.

Mister Ita’s significance in the emerging post-independence Nigeria had remained in the mainstream of national discourse, following his hard-won judicial victory. He had wrested from the all-powerful federal government monies accruing to his region from the trouble-ridden resource control fund (RCF). He achieved this barely twenty-four months after assuming the premiership in 1961. The NPP-led national government had seen that victory as a major blow to its powers. In the words of the inimitable Premier Samahu Idris of the northern region, the victory denied the federal government of ‘an effective means of checking the excesses of the opposition.’ And when in late 1963, the socialist-leaning Ghanaian president had proposed the formation of an African Military High Command by independent nations, Nigeria’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Gambo had dismissed the idea as ‘premature for emerging African states.’ Premier Ita had fervently endorsed the Pan Africanist’s proposal, calling it ‘a logical imperative in relation to the threat of neocolonialism.’ Local intelligentsia and the working classes sided with the populist premier.

In the northern region capital city of Kaduna, a secret meeting occasioned by Mister Ita’s candidacy was in session in the premier’s lodge. The time was one hour thirty-eight minutes past midnight, yet the intense discussions, which started about four hours before midnight continued. Emptied bottles of fruit juice lay about the room, richly decorated with a Middle Eastern flair. All but three of the discussants sat on colourful Persian rugs. The aristocratic trio sat in throne-like chairs after a fashion that left even a cursory on-looker in no doubt about their enormous powers.

‘As I say, Prime Minister, you should emphasize to the chief justice the need to set up the commission of inquiry not later than a fortnight after the hand-over… Strict adherence to the agreed timelines is of utmost importance…’ the heavily turbaned of the trio was saying, but was gently interrupted by Alhaji Ibrahim Gambo’s ‘Needless to say; needless to say, Premier.’

‘The idea here is to enable the commission of inquiry to publish the names of all those who are to appear before it before the electoral commission completes its screening of all candidates. We should be seen at all times to be acting within the bounds of the law.’

‘Absolutely,’ again agreed the golden voiced Prime Minister, scribbling in his diary.

The time was twenty-seven minutes past three o’clock in the morning when the marathon meeting finally came to a close. About six hours after, two of the discussants who had sat on the colourful rugs would fly with the Prime Minister to the national capital city of Lagos. There, they would take leave of the Prime Minister and then travel by road to the western region capital city of Ibadan to deliver another secret message to Chief Ladi Akinola, the Progressive Party’s irrepressible premiership candidate for the 1965 election.

In keeping with his routine whenever the Prime Minister returned from a trip outside the national capital, the Minister of the Interior again called at the Prime Minister’s water-front official residence on Marina Street. The nine o’clock nightly news had just begun when Mallam Yusuf stepped into Alhaji Gambo’s private sitting room;  as though on cue, the four other persons in the cozy room took their leave no sooner than the minister had relieved his legs, exchanging pleasantries in Arabic with the Prime Minister.

‘Congratulations Mallam; I just heard on the news that the restive students have finally agreed to return to their classrooms…’

‘Thank you, Prime Minister. This spate of protests really stretched our resources; we would have had dire challenges had they continued for another week. Honestly, Alhaji, there would have been serious security issues.’

‘I wonder why they can’t carry out their protests without attacking the police. I mean, what’s the use in sending these children to school to acquire the skills to express themselves, if they always have to resort to violence at the least provocation? We didn’t see this pattern of protests in our student days.’

‘Certainly not,’ helpfully put in Mallam Yusuf, ‘this is a strange departure from university tradition. Our intelligence people are developing a theory that there might be some outside influence…’

‘You mean like from unscrupulous politicians?’

‘Exactly, sir; There is hardly any other way to explain the source of the caliber of weapons that are found on these boys; honestly.’

The Minister’s response instantly invoked Prime Minister Gambo’s characteristic fixed stare. A male steward in a spot-less white uniform entered the room, bearing a steaming pot of tea and teacups on silver tray. The dignified duo barely acknowledged him as he proceeded to empty the impressively crested pot into the cups in turn. In another moment the steward left the room.

‘It seems to me your intelligence people and The Kalifa have been comparing notes of late…’

‘I do not quite follow, sir,’ interjected the Minister, darting a glance at the Prime Minister.

‘Mallam, our Premier is a resolute believer in the laws of science. You probably would recall your secondary school laws of motion and stability… You know, about how every action results in an equal and opposite reaction; and how every body would remain in its state of equilibrium until acted upon by an external force. The Kalifa believes, in a like inner, that every society or social-setting would continue in its state of stability until it comes under external influence.’

‘Mallam Samahu Idris is as much a scientist as he is a political and spiritual leader; his school of thought aligns perfectly with that of our intelligence people.’

‘That school of thought has led us to make new resolutions at our latest meeting,’ resumed the Prime Minister with Mallam Yusuf again darting a glance at his companion, his breath virtually bated. ‘We resolved that some external influence must in large part account for all the headaches we have been getting from the eastern region, particularly under the leadership of Mr. Etah. The socialist flavour of his economic programmes has led us to suspect that some communist country with territorial ambitions might be the source of finances for the region’s unequalled economic success story…’

‘Hmm, that makes a lot of sense; I have always wondered about that, now this offers some possible explanation for all the firsts of the region: first free primary education, first radio station, first television station, first free primary health care, first bottling company,’ thoughtfully interjected the pensive minister, still looking unwaveringly at his host.

‘Therefore, we further resolved to set up a commission of inquiry to thoroughly look into the finances of the region soon after the June hand-over of offices,’ explained the Prime Minister, prompting his audience of one to quickly call to mind some of the many less-than-conscionable assignments he had had to undertake as the then inspector-general of police on behalf of Alhaji Gambo, as the then deputy Prime Minister and Minister of defence. More often than not these assignments had tended to run foul of the national constitution, Mallam Yusuf thought. Still, he contemplated the Prime Minister as he focused more on the imminent commission of inquiry.

‘As you well know Mallam…’

‘Sorry to interrupt, sir; I’m at a loss here. l was wondering how mere acceptance of funds from a friendly communist country could pass as an infringement of our national interests.’

Alhaji Gambo stared at the minister as though seeing him for the first time that evening.

‘Honourable Minister, it is a potential security breach for any part of the country to associate with any nation that expressly denies the existence of Allah!’

‘But the east is a staunch Christian region, and has been so for…’

‘But don’t forget those millions of hard currency always come with inflexible conditions, yes?’

‘Yes; but religion can’t possibly be one of those conditions. Em, that would be asking for too much of a people.’

‘If you give a people much money you are at liberty to demand much from them. Mallam, when you consider the quantum of economic projects that came into being at a period when the region didn’t have access to their RCF money, you would agree that much money flowed into the east from somewhere. Even Christianity recognizes that to whom much is given, much is expected.

No doubt, Mallam, you would agree that such an association could jeopardize our national aspirations, and therefore should be identified and promptly uprooted. That’s exactly what the commission of inquiry will set out to achieve,’ the Prime Minister conclusively asserted with an uncertain facial expression that suggested to his guest that they were sinister motives behind the proposed commission of inquiry.”

                                                                                               

Afam Nkemdiche is an engineering consultant; August 2018

For Air Nigeria as national carrier

                            By Bayo Ogunmupe

    For Air Nigeria, the airline mooted as our new national carrier to set off on its feet, Nigeria's federal government will be paying N3.168 billion or $8.8 million as startup capital. This was contained in the Outline Business Case document recently presented to the Federal Executive Council. It was presented by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC). Since then, airline operators have been expressing concerns over government funding of the airline which will result in interference in its operations as a private company.

    We gathered the injection of N3.2 billion is a part payment of government's five percent equity share in the company, whose take off fund is N108 billion. Sources at the Federal Ministry of Transportation said $300 million is the minimum expected from its public and private investors, of which $15 million is federal government's contribution. Sources explain that the government wishes to start the project in order to attract credible investors. Air Nigeria's predecessor, Nigeria Airways was liquidated in 2004. With Nigeria's immense oil wealth at the time, Nigeria Airways failed woefully, rolling up billion of naira in multiple debts.

    From its ashes rose many private airlines, majority of which closed shop as soon as they were launched. In the 1980s, Nigeria Airways had more than 30 aircraft, of different ranges. It covered major Nigerian, African and world cities. It flew its Boeing 727 and 737 jets to Kano where it positioned the Fokker F27 that would redistribute passengers to Sokoto, Kaduna and Jos twice daily. While there were direct flights to Yola and Maiduguri from Lagos once daily. A 50 seater F27 flight connects Lagos to Ibadan and Benin daily. For Eastern Nigeria, it serviced Enugu, Port Harcourt and Calabar with F28 crafts at least twice daily.

    On its international menu, Nigeria Airways had a retinue of crafts for the West Coast of Africa, New York, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Rome, Jedda, Nairobi among others. Unlike private airlines, Nigeria Airways had most of its maintenance done locally then. An engineer with the defunct airline, Ayuba Kyari recalled that the Lagos hangar conducted checks on Boeing 737 airlines and Airbus A310. In keeping with his election promise, President Buhari caused the name and logo of the moot carrier to be unveiled the Farnborough Air Show in London last July ahead of December 24, 2018 takeoff.

    In 2016, Federal Government launched the Aviation roadmap, an ambitious plan to revive the Nigeria Airways. Spearheading the campaign is the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, a captain and technocrat. The new airline is subject to the approval of the government via the public private partnership. Unlike the federally owned Nigeria Airways, Air Nigeria will be 95 percent privately owned. Government is only providing start up capital in the form of an upfront grant or viability funding.

    In order for the airline to take off in earnest, government is providing $55 million as grant to pay commitment fees to enable it obtain an aircraft on lease for initial operations. The grant will also provide deposit for new aircraft whose delivery will begin in 2021. Minister Sirika also added that the core investor will only be known after the public private partnership procurement is completed. The company's shares will be sold via an Initial Public Offer (IPO) with federal government holding five percent equity held in trust for nigerians.

    The list of shareholders will be available to the Security and Exchange Commission and the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Finally, Air Nigeria will be sold to the public subject to the relevant rules for public companies. However, nowadays, government ownership of airlines is unfashionable, because of the high capital, high risk and the meagre turnover in airline business today. Although, public private partnership (PPP) prides itself on trust and the sanctity of agreements among parties, going by controversies surrounding PPP in Nigeria, it will be difficult for investors to trust the government. A case in point is the failure of the PPP arrangement between Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL) and the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on the build, operate and transfer (BOT) agreement on the Murtala Airport2. The terminal has been the subject of litigation between the duo since its completion.

    While FAAN concessioned the terminal to BASL for 15 years; BASL petitioned for a 36 year extension and obtained it from President Umaru Yar Adua. But FAAN insisted the initial 15 year agreement was sacrosanct. Amidst that imbroglio, FAAN awarded Lagos General Aviation Terminal to a rival company in contravention of the original agreement with BASL. When BASL went to court, it won up to the Court of Appeal which FAAN didn't appeal. Sadly there was another subsisting judgment of N132 billion in favour of BASL obtained in 2012 over FAAN's illegal operation of Lagos terminal.

    Up till the moment FAAN has not obeyed the courts. Subsequently, aviation stakeholders doubt Sirika's sincerity and the sincerityof any subsequent government honouring concession agreements. Another stumbling block is the inability of government to settle the entitlements of the workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways. President Obasanjo liquidated the Nigeria Airways without  paying compensation to its workers. While the law establishing the failed airline had not been repealed, the severance packages of more than 6000 workers remained unpaid contrary to labour laws.

    Indeed, assets of Nigeria Airways spread all over the world had been sold and the hangar at the Murtala Muhammed Airport is still littered with equipment that are not being put to use. Which is why aviation stakeholders insist government should first settle ex workers before a new carrier is embarked upon. The chairman of Airline Operatoes of Nigeria, Nogie Meggison noted that the problem of aviation isn't that of capacity, but that of infrastructure deficit and the tough operational environment. Meggison averred that those problems should be tackled first.

    The high mortality rate of airlines should be cause for worry. According to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, no fewer than 150 airlines were  registered by 2000. Less than ten are now operating while the others have been impounded over debt through its assets recovery vehicle: the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria. And experts on aviation advice that government should tackle infrastructure before embarking on a new national carrier. They claim maintenance as soul of aviation should be done locally instead of going overseas every 18 months gulping more $3 million per session.

    Furthermore, Meggison identified matters requiring government intervention to include a review of five percent Ticket Sales Charge to a flat rate in line with global best practices. He also called for a harmonization of over 35 charges which add to the huge burden of airlines. All of these problems go to show that the effort to revive the national carrier is more political than for prosperity reasons. Another aviation consultant, Taiwo Adenekan, was of the view that government should make a Fly Nigeria Law. Take Julius Berger for instance, they have millions of contracts in this country. They have flying budget for their workers. What percentage of such budget goes to our national carrier? Government should use law to protect Nigeria Air in terms of patronage and the spirit of nationalism.

    Therefore government should tackle infrastructure and aviation law before dreaming of a national airline.Government must pay $12 million owed Nigeria Airways for unpaid services before closure. Government must settle ex workers and repeal Airways Act before building a new national carrier.

Seven Things Everyone (Especially Americans) Should Know About 21st Century Political Economy

We Have the Formula for Human Prosperity. Americans Just Don’t Want to Apply it.

 By Umair Haque

There’s probably nothing, and I mean nothing, more bizarre, foolish, and inane in all the world today than American political discourse. A set of pundits — 100% white elites, of course — who can barely handle discussing college level American style liberalism versus conservatism suddenly find themselves having to do justice to socialism, Marxism, fascism, Nazism, authoritarianism, kleptocracy, and more. They’re so badly out of their depth it’d be a little like asking Tucker Carlson to defend a PhD thesis on the Hegelian dialectics of fake news. The result is a discourse full of every kind of egregious, sophomoric, half-witted, brain-dead straw-man, fallacy, error, and just downright ignorance known to humankind.

Let’s clear some of that up, shall we? I’m going to start simple, and build up slowly to what I think are three crucial points — that nobody, really, in American discourse seems the slightest bit aware of, concerned with, or even able to understand. So skip ahead if you want the good stuff.

Nobody’s bringing full socialism anywhere, especially America. Nobody — except maybe fringe leftists — is discussing 100% state ownership and central planning. Yet, just the other day, I read three articles arguing vehemently against just such a flaming straw man (all by panicked white dudes). Relax, Tucker. No one’s coming to communalize your Ford F-150.

“Socialism” doesn’t mean everything in the economy is socialized. In the same way as when I say “capitalism”, it doesn’t mean “every single thing in the economy or society is privately owned, run for profit, and capitalized by joint-stock companies, right down to people” — just that some things are — so “socialism” doesn’t mean what Americans equate it to: every last thing being state owned and centrally planned. Americans have forgotten that the 100% part is “totalitarianism”. There are many kinds of economies that are part socialism, part capitalism, and part neither. “Socialism” doesn’t even mean “some central planning and state ownership”, really. How can that be?

“State ownership” and “central planning” are ideas from 1950s economics, my friends — and anyone that still uses them is still fighting a Cold War that both American and Russia ended up losing. You should ask them what century it is now. What do you think every corporation in the world does? Central planning. Who do you think owns things that are owned by “the state”? In a democracy, you do. So these terms — which were created in the Cold War era — hide more than they reveal and illuminate. The idea that markets will ever exist without “central planning” is impossible, pure fiction. As is the idea that everything in a democracy can ever be purely “privately” owned — from parks to hospitals to schools. These stone age ideas are keeping Americans in the dark.

21st century “socialism” is made of genuinely democratic mechanisms of governance, ownership, and purpose, which are far more sophisticated, flexible, and innovative than capitalism’s by now — it’s not the Politburo, and this isn’t 1962. “Socialism” today looks like this: public goods like healthcare, education, and media are often best structured as corporations which are publicly owned by communities, not “shareholders”, which maximize real human benefits, not just “financial profits” — whose boards consist not just of “owners”, which end up being hedge fund managers, mostly, but living members of the communities they serve. The NHS is set up as a series of interlinked trusts. Who owns them? Communities do, under a type of public corporate ownership. If you don’t think your HMO “plans”, just as the NHS does, you’re living in fantasyland. The difference is that your HMO plans for its bottom line, and couldn’t care less whether or not you live or die — but the NHS plans to transform people’s health, and its board members, who aren’t just tuned-out corporate exeuctives ordering another yacht on their iPhones, but people from all walks of life, govern it. In the same way, in Germany, union members sit on company boards. The examples are endless.

These are historic ideas and great innovations Europeans have pioneered — which Americans are totally unaware of. They make up what American thought all too casually, without often really understanding it, call “social democracy” — supposing that it’s something from the 1890s, or 1960s. It’s not. It has evolved to become a far more sophisticated, powerful, flexible, and stable set of institutions and systems than capitalism, which stopped evolving long ago — more so if, that is, how well people live is what you care about, not just how rich corporations get.

Social democracy has created the most successful societies in all of human history, period, full stop. By a very, very long way. With record speed. Whenever American pundits talk about socialism, they talk about Venezuela. Chill out, Nixon. Nobody’s suggesting America turn into Venezuela. Instead, something more like, say Spain. Until 1975, Spain was a broken country — a military dictatorship. Today, it’s more vastly successful than America in every conceivable way, at least for human beings. Spaniards live five years longer, they’re happier, they’re not suicidally depressed, they have better relationships, they have more leisure time, their incomes haven’t flatlined for decades, they retire in peace, and generally, all that makes them pretty chilled out, content, warm, kind people. Do you see what a remarkable, stunning achievement that is in just forty years? That’s not even a single human lifetime. History’s never really seen anything like the power of social democracy.

Social democracy is the most powerful, stable, and efficient engine of human progress we know of. Much, much more so than capitalism. It’s like cold fusion compared to an internal combustion engine. America? Life is going backwards — at record speed. Life expectancy falling by a year — every year. Middle class imploding. Young people who can’t afford to have families, kids, homes. Old people living in their cars and working at Walmart. If you buy the line that “capitalism’s the greatest engine of progress we know of!”, at this point, my friend, grin, because you are a fool. The grim reality of modern day America is vivid proof that it’s more like a decrepit, smoke-belching engine that regularly catches fire, and when it does, it burns the whole neighborhood down.

(No, the world didn’t rise because of “capitalism” — don’t be ridiculous. The world rose because the World Bank and UN among other international bodies — socialism! — deliberately targeted reductions in poverty, mortality, and so forth, and achieved them, by investing in things like schools, hospitals, vaccination, pipes, and sewers. Not by building Walmarts.)

Scandinavia. Canada. Europe. Social democracy, wherever it’s been tried, in mature societies, has been not just a stunning success — but history’s greatest socioeconomic success, ever, period, almost overnight. It’s something as transformative as the discovery of antibiotics — but multiplied by orders of magnitude. American pundits can’t bear to talk about it, probably because their bloated, swollen egos would go “pop!”, and so would their paychecks. Yet the simple fact is this. People live the longest, happiest, richest, safest lives they have ever lived, period, full stop, in the history of the world, under social democracy. By a long, long way.

And that’s in just a few decades. It has a great deal to do with social democracy synthesizing the best of both capitalism and socialism, but this essay’s too long by now. Unfortunately for Europeans, America’s main exports now are hate, ignorance, and spite, so many Europeans are buying into American myths that backwards is better. It’s not. Let me put that to you another way.

We have the formula for human prosperity. America just doesn’t want to apply it. I won’t say that Americans are dumb — but they’re sure not being very smart. If you had, before you, something like the magic formula that societies had been looking for centuries — wouldn’t you use it? Not Americans. Oh no. Anything but that. After all, then the most exceptional and special and wonderful country in all the world would have to admit…maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it never needed to be, at all. Maybe no one does. Just a place of humility, empathy, courage, grace, and truth. All the qualities of adulthood. Am I being mean? Oh no, Umair called us names. Sorry guys. Time to grow up.

What’s America really doing these days? It’s busy not learning a thing from history, the world, or reality. Which, at this point, seems to about all it’s capable of. But I guess that part’s up to you.

Umair
 August 2018