During my secondary school days, I had a textbook named “The essentials of government”. It was written by Francis Adigwe. It was a an almost perfect book for my age since all it ever did was to briefly talk about government without necessarily delving into further complexities. Yesterday, I found an old video on my PC that had so much to say about the free market economy.
Just like my old self, you’re probably okay with the definition that summarizes the concept of free market economy as a mere display of freedom to trade and nothing more. However, this is not the case. The free market or capitalist economy is a concept that offers temporary relieve in exchange for a life time of servitude and manipulation. Capitalism is without a human face. It produces guns to kill many so that only a few can come out to say “we made so much gain”.
Sadly, the pursuit of capitalismno matter how little, is disadvantageous to the good of all. One time, I had visited my local government council to obtain an indigenous form for myself and the whole process was almost free. Four years later, what was supposedly free cost as much as ten thousand naira. Why the sudden change? I am of the opinion that someone somewhere had told the powers that be that he/she can HELP generate revenue for the local government if he/she is allowed to handle the process of indigenization. Capitalism is about cutting down cost even if it means killing millions for the sake of profit and more profit. I bet you don’t want to find out why Libya, Liberia and Congo were forced into crisis that could have been avoided- Capitalism is the answer.
Is capitalism therefore a demonstration of negativity?The answer is a yes and a no. Weeks back I was surfing the internet when I stumbled on a Nollywood scandal involving a renowned film actress named Tarapji P. Henson and a billion-dollar film producer with the name Oprah Winfred. The summary of the scandal revolved around what I call “Underpayment or labor exploitation”. You should look it up. Sometimes, the highly talk about gains of capitalism relies on factors such as underpayment and exploitation.
Again, consider a class of ten students placed on an examination. At the end, each student is expected to be rewarded according to individual performances. That is capitalism right there and it just fine by me. What if all the scores were added up together, averaged and everyone gets an equal mark? Is that fair?“not fair!” especially if I had put in so much effort above everyone else.
There’s a thin and blurry linethat justifies as well as crucify the subject of capitalism. I personally think that an ideal society should seek for economic advantage with a human face. However, this isn’t the end of capitalism especially when we begin to unbundle the very type we have in our society. Where there are supposedly an economy for black market operators of FX and another for official FX operators yielding overnight multi millionaires on the basis of aided financial loopholes.
– Olayinka Kayode writes from Badagry, Lagos state.
