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Feature Article of Saturday, 7 February 2015

Columnist: Amuna, Paul

By Paul Amuna

I thought I should share with you, and bring to the attention of readers the source of Nana Akufo Addos speech on property owning Democracy which has attracted so much interest and dialogue over the last few days. It is actually based on an original speech delivered by Gabriel Otchere-Darko of the Danquah Institute on the 12th of November 2010 to an audience of TESCON Members from the City Campus, University of Ghana and reprinted by NPP Youth UK on 18th November, 2010. I believe TRSCON refers to NPP members in our Tertiary Education institutions. Below is the full speech by Otchere Darko on this ideological roadmap.

. PROPERTY OWNING DEMOCRACY THE IDEOLOGICAL ROAD MAP TO ECONOMIC SELF-RELIANCE NOVEMBER 18, 2010 BY NPP YOUTH UK

One of the two main political parties of Ghana today, the New Patriotic Party, like the UP before it, draws its philosophical breath from the bosom of a property-owning democracy. Sadly, there has been a lot of kerfuffle over what is a property owning democracy, and so terrifying has the debate been that it has been widely left to those who dont believe in it to define. In fact, some have gone as far as to equate it with feudalism: a system of landholding and contractual servitude, common throughout Europe in the 8th century through medieval times and certainly before the advent of democracy, whereby the landless majority provided labour and military service to a landlord in return for the use of his land, and the feudal landlords controlled the regions sometimes with a weak monarchy.

You may ask yourself, what has this go to do with J B Danquahs property owning democracy introduced for his 1960 campaign platform (or manifesto) for the only multiparty elections held in Ghana under the First Republic, which, instructively, used universal adult suffrage? Well, the detracting definers turn it on its head by claiming it means limiting the right to vote only to those who own property. As to the bizarrely oxymoronic question of how an anachronistic system of government that limits the right to vote to the landed gentry (feudalism) can be described as a democracy, our detractors conveniently ignore. It is what Danquahs contemporary, Archbishop John Kojo Amissah of Cape Coast would call ideological contradiction. This bastardisation, one concedes with some collywobbles, has not been hurt by the charge that after eight years in office the NPP could not hand over a set of keys to a single affordable home built by it of its philosophy for the people.

So, can members and sympathisers of the NPP describe themselves as disciples of Danquahs ideology of property owning democracy? I believe they can. This is because the NPP used its maiden two-terms of eight years in office deliberately to set the foundational process; the work ahead should not be underestimated, nevertheless. Certainly, a lot more could have been done in those eight years; the NPP could have been bolder and clearer in glorifying what it claims to believe in and, by that, won a lot of praise. But, before we begin to talk about what the NPP stands for or what it has seemingly wobbled on and its relevance to the contemporary Ghanaian praying for an escape from the grinding mills of poverty, let us take a short peep into its main rival in the competition of political ideas for Ghana for building a brighter future or a better Ghana i.e. the National Democratic Congress and its professed ideology of social democracy. Permit me to do so with a knee-slapping parable of my own. Question: How many social democrats does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Three to form a group called Alliance for Accountable Opposition to Restore Darkness (AFOARD); two to prepare an inflated bill for the attention of National Security for the cost of bulbs for all; one enterprising individual to pick up the cash and suddenly forget about the redistributive concept of take-and-share; two hundred disappointed foot soldiers to seize and take control of the rundown state-owned bulb factory, and one to surreptitiously sneak behind the rest to order a cheaper bulb from capitalist China. CAPITALISM AND POLITICAL FREEDOM You are probably surprised that I describe China as a capitalist state. But if the kind of global economic colonialisation being effectively, aggressively, unstoppably pursued by China is not capitalism then what is, I wonder. China, the second largest economy in the world, is a capitalist state because I see capitalism as a neutral economic paradigm that works with any political order that does not get in its way. Indeed, it can be predicted with some optimism that capitalism will gradually eat away the authoritarian political super structure, and manifestly so by 2022. As Milton Friedman said in defending his decision as economics adviser to Augustus Pinochet, who in 1973 overthrew Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile, Freer markets lead to free people. Indeed, Pinochet was not the only dictator who was to be consumed by the raging fire of economic liberalisation. In Ghana, by being forced by the prevailing harsh economic realities to make a u-turn to subscribe to the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) and the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), including the Financial Sector Adjustment Programme (FINSAP) from 1984, Chairman Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings and his Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) had unwittingly but obtrusively opened the floodgates to political liberalisation, as well. Capitalism, as an economic ideal, can survive under any political regime, at least for a flexible period of time during its early consolidation stages, based, of course, on several prevailing cultural factors and phenomenal settings. But, it would eventually lead to greater civil liberties for the people. I, therefore, define capitalism as the capacity and ability to create to/or capitalise on opportunities. A nation is capitalist when it has the what it takes to capitalise on opportunities. Based on the low capacity and ability of Ghana or Ghanaians to capitalise on, at least, both domestic and regional economic opportunities, a property owning democrat would struggle to call Ghana a democratic capitalist state because we believe that the capacity and ability to capitalise must be democratised for mass participation for true capitalism to take place. Thus capitalism does not necessarily abhor a certain level of protectionism; in fact, it has historically welcomed it if it helped a nation to better capitalise on opportunities. Permit me to customise a story in stressing the point that capitalism is really a natural thing. Dela, the daughter of a very rich friend of mine in her final year at the University of Ghana, was very convinced she was a socialist. She believed in higher taxes for government to take money from the rich and spend it on the poor, i.e. the redistribution of the wealth created by some for the rest. Her fathers affluence and his conservatism embarrassed her, seeing him as evil, selfish and greedy, who would do anything to grow and protect his wealth. To her, it was vulgar opulence. Dad, she screamed with frustration one day, Do you have to own three expensive cars and three big homes when there are people who cant even afford three square meals a day! To Delas utter disgust, her father simply replied, Even those of us who can afford it dont eat three times a day! Too busy! Welcome to socialism! Her father saw pain and pity in her eyes and quickly changed the subject! How are you doing with your studies? He asked her. She answered rather haughtily that she had 6 As. Dela added, without prompting, how hard she had to work to earn that, studying constantly, forgoing any semblance of social life. Her father, looking impressed asked, How is your friend Esi doing? She replied, Esi is struggling. She never studies. She parties all night and sleeps during the day. She failed in three subjects and has to resit. Why dont you go to the Deans office and ask him to deduct some of your grades to give them to your friend who has to resit without you. That way you will both have the same grades and resit but fewer papers together and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of grades. She couldnt believe her father could come up with such rubbish and fired back in anger, Thats a crazy idea, Dad! How would that be fair!? Ive worked really hard for my grades! Ive invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Esi has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off! Welcome to capitalism, my dear, he said. Human kind is innately capitalist. But, the most fundamental point here is that both young women were handed an equal opportunity by society (or by their folks) to study in the same institution to build a future for their individual selves. Once the opportunity was given to both of them it was left to them to use it resourcefully for their own benefit. Thus, in order to build a property-owning democracy here in Ghana, the opportunity must first be created for a greater number of people to be able to take advantage of it. It is worth acknowledging at this point that, in recent years, at least, a few people have taken their time to define the ideology, including Nana Akufo-Addo, Franklin Cudjoe of Imani, myself in a few articles, and most recently, on Sunday, 7th November, 2010 to be precise, Dr Kingsley Nyarko, an Accra-based Educational Psychologist. Dr Nyarko starts by first telling us what a property owning democracy is not. A property-owning democracy is not the insatiable desire for property by politicians or public office holders to satisfy their egoistic desires as people like Mr. Pratt always insinuate. He moves on, What then is a property owning democracy? A property owning democracy is hinged on the political philosophy of John Rawls, a 20th century political philosopher. In his work, Rawls sought to develop a concept of justice that is relevant to a democratic society. Rawls distinguish five kinds of regimes viewed as social systems, complete with their political, economic, and social institutions: (1) laissez-faire capitalism; (2) welfare-state capitalism; (3) state socialism with a command economy; (4) property owning democracy; and finally, (5) liberal (democratic) socialism. To him the most important feasibility conditions of the five regimes above is whether they can stand the test of protecting rights and justice. Are the institutions of these regimes right and just? Can their institutions be designed to competently realise the declared aims and objectives of a chosen regime? Can the people be relied on to comply with the basic structures and rules of the regime? To him, the first three alternatives fail the test of justice, straight away.

While Dr Nyarko is right in saying that property owning democracy is a concept attributed to the American moral and political philosopher, John Rawls, who died in 2002, it was, however, Dr Danquah, who died in 1965, who introduced the concept 11 years before Rawls did in his magnum opus, A Theory of Justice in 1971. Ironically, that book on property owning democracy is now regarded as one of the primary texts in political philosophy. Thus, in Dr Danquah, Ghana can lay claim to a philosopher who first articulated and for the adoption of a political party the ideology of property owning democracy. In the 1970s, it was not only the neo-liberalism of the Chicago School of economics, led by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman (the intellectual architect of the free market policies of Republican US presidents) which inspired the privatisation drive of Thatcherism. It was only after Rawls brilliant work on the democratisation of ownership of property that Margaret Thatcher, the legendary British Prime Minister, who is responsible for the most significant expansion of Britains middle class in the last century, used it to socio-economically engineer the most democratic government policy of home-ownership that the world had ever seen within the shortest possible time, until China from 1998. It is interesting to note that after Thatcher, the social democrats of New Labour, premier Tony Blair and Gordon Brown took extra policy steps to expand the democratisation of property ownership, with Gordon Brown saying in 2007, this time the promise of a property owning democracy must be open to all those wanting to get on the housing ladder for the first time. This is a concept that I am yet to see evidence to the contrary that Dr Danquah, indeed, first popularised it for the adoption of a political party in the 20th century, the century of universal adult suffrage. And, it would not be the first time that he had been denied credit for something that he championed.

DEVELOPMENT IN FREEDOM Again, this is not the only occasion that the Danquah-Dombo-Busia group has been denied credit for originality. In 1992, the newly formed party, built from the ashes of the UGCC, UP, PP, PFP and UNC, restated its principle that freedom is the primary end, as well as the means to development, with the wellbeing of each and every individual as both the goal and means of development. In other words, the new party, the NPP, viewed civil liberties and human rights as, in fact, conducive to economic growth and intrinsic to the objective of development. Accordingly, the party chose as its motto, Development in Freedom. It is healthy to note that six years after the NPP motto was out-doored here in Accra, the Asian development economist, Amartya Sen, wrote his seminal book, Development as Freedom, which won him the 1998 nobel laureate. Thus, with his work, he subsequently but unconsciously articulated the theoretical framework for the NPPs motto. In 2007, President J A Kufuor, during his state visit to the United Kingdom, proudly announced at various forums in London that the NPP effectively is introducing a new paradigm of development for the developing world, in contrast to the Singaporean model of benevolent dictatorship. He announced this as Development in Freedom. Excited by this, I wrote an article to add some articulation to what the President said. I said, Mr Kufuor recognizes that Ghana is at a stage of her development where the state cannot choose not to interfere in some climateric areas. Citing the social interventions that the NPP was busily rolling out at the time, I wrote, Development in freedom only works when there is equity in opportunities. Access to education and skills are essential freedoms because they enable the capability to self-consciously choose the life one has reason to value. The NPPs motto is built on an unyielding belief that political and social freedoms are both inherently desirable. Thus, individuals are not free if they are hungry, illiterate, ignorant homeless and in squalor. This has been the ideological driving force that has kept the Danquah-Dombo-Busia family going for more than sixty years. As the 2012 flagbearer of the NPP stated recently, On that fateful Saturday of 4th August 1947, when the founders of Ghanaian nationalism met at Saltpond to initiate the process for national independence and freedom by the establishment of the UGCC of blessed memory, Danquah, its moving spirit, spelt out clearly its goals: a Ghana free from foreign control, and a Ghana that nurtures and respects the freedoms of its citizens, in his words, our ancient liberties. GHANAISM THE CONCEPT OF GHANAIAN PATRIOTISM Nations that have attained greatness often do so spurred on by a deliberately deep sense of patriotism. It was with this in mind that the Da Rochas inserted Patriotic right at the heart of the newly (re)constituted party in 1992. Their intention was for the party to lay a bonafide claim to the zenith of Ghanaian nationalism. Exactly 30 years earlier, on 30th April, 1962, from his preventive detention cell at H Hall, Ussher Fort Prison, Accra, Dr Danquah, the man whose scholarship gave our nation the name Ghana, spoke more on what he called Ghanaism. He writes, the United Party of Ghana, the party to which I am proud to belong, is dedicated to the ideology of our Ghana nationhood and would readily uphold Ghanaism as the greatest ideal and inspiration of all true born Ghanaian thinkers, or Ghanaists. Danquah argues, the philosophy of Ghanaism is in the blood of every true born Ghanaian, being in fact the essence of our nations very soul which is immanent in the five-fold concept of Ghanas humanist and patrician personality, a personality uniquely realised in the unity of Onyankopan(God), Oman (State), Abusua(Family), Odehye (Patrician) and Amansan (humanity), a five-fold concept activated in the five-fold ideology of (1) Theism, (2) Patriotism, (3) Patriarchy (or Matriarchy), (4) Freedom (of choice), and (5) Humanism. The dominance of these in the Ghanaian personality constitutes the driving or motive forces need not be fully highlighted in any one action, but they operate all the same in due proportion. He describes The supreme ideology of Ghanaism as The grand and dynamic idea that from our ancient and medieval ashes we should create a modern state in the Guinea lands. It is this spirit of patriotism that should inspire todays generation to carry on and on the wings of development in freedom.

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Akufo Addos Property Owning Democracy