Resolving Unemployment Beyond the Elections?

Namibia’s youth want employment creation to be the main priority.

According to a 2021 Afrobarometer Survey, 64% of young people, aged 18 to 35, believe this should be the case.

And, maybe we must remind the nation that the 2018 Labour Force Survey indicated that youth unemployment stood at 46,1%, but could be even higher at this time.

So, with the November national elections on the horizon, we challenge all political parties in the country to inform the nation about their plan of action to resolve the unemployment crisis.

If anything, the public discourse has unfortunately been dominated by homophobia.

The vague talk about job opportunities (not job guarantees) means that some political parties, like Swapo or the Landless People’s Movement, are in favour of short-term and low-paying jobs, while others, like the Independent Patriots for Change or the Popular Democratic Movement, as far as we know, remain silent.

What is seldom admitted in the Namibian public domain is that this period of capitalist crisis led to a massive increase in unemployment. The main solution is to overcome the neoliberal conjuncture – not necessarily a new government – and to set in motion an alternative trajectory.

Speaking on ‘Neo Liberalism and Neo Fascism’, political economist Prabhat Patnaik points out that, in the current context, such a trajectory would include the state providing employment and welfare, capital and trade controls and generally reviving the autonomy of the nation-state and popular sovereignty.

A government can expand aggregate demand – and create jobs – through a fiscal deficit or through taxing the rich, but global finance capital is opposed to these options and can threaten governments with capital flight. Thus, capitalism is at an impasse.

But this stagnation is a risk to the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism, and political energy is therefore being channelled into the hatred of a minority group, which was the primary feature of classical fascism. Neoliberalism consequently gave rise to neofascism due to the extreme inequalities.

In an article titled ‘What is to be done about unemployment?’, published in Monthly Review Press, Patnaik maintains that the alleviation of unemployment is possible through government spending to increase aggregate demand. Large numbers of government jobs can quickly be created.

Fiscal discipline is imposed on the state by big business, not by any objective constraints.

This reflects the loss of autonomy of the state, but must be changed to serve the people and to overcome wealth inequality in order to strengthen democracy.

Government spending can be financed through taxing the capitalists, and, preferably, this should be a wealth tax, including real estate and cash balances, which must be accompanied by an inheritance tax to prevent tax evasion.

This is the easiest option for job creation.

Economist Jayati Ghosh, in an interview on ‘Inequality Explained’, asserts that the emphasis on fiscal prudence is all about the political power of big business, especially big finance.

There is no theoretical or empirical justification for such fiscal consolidation, but it benefits big business – because the government then has to borrow from the financial sector and people are compelled to use the private sector for quality services.

Ghosh proposes a 2% wealth tax and a 25% minimum global tax rate for multinational corporations. This could be used for the development of the kind of society that we want.

One way out of the informal sector is through manufacturing, but, according to Ghosh, the expansion of public services (health, education, sanitation, etc.) is the most crucial.

Around 7% of the workforce could be employed in the public sector to overcome the underproviding of services.

The care and creative sectors represent the future, but neoliberal capitalism deliberately targeted the care sector as it is fundamental to the economy – and such social reproduction relies on the unpaid labour of women.

Namibia urgently requires a new developmental path. The neoliberal path led to widespread destruction and misery.

In South Africa, there has been a turn further to the right with the neoliberal pact to govern, but the leftwing had successes in France and Mexico.

The New Popular Front defeated the fascists in France with a political platform of wages indexed to prices, a progressive wealth tax, effective taxing of multinationals and increased public spending on infrastructure.

The National Regeneration Movement of Mexico won decisively with a political ticket that included increases in pensions and the minimum wage.

Can we do the same in Namibia? Can we begin to overcome the neoliberal trajectory?

• *The authors are members of the Marxist Group of Namibia.