Resolving the Unemployment Disaster?

NOW THAT the 2024 national elections are over, the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) has released the unemployment statistics of the Population and Housing Census Labour Force Survey (2023).

And it is clear why the NSA waited until after Namibians went to the polls to do so: The figures expose what is a catastrophe.
The broader (standard) definition of unemployment means that this wealthy country has an unemployment rate of 54,8%, reportedly the highest in the world.

Almost 97% of potential employees have given up on searching for jobs.
Despite a promise by Swapo president-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah to create 550 000 jobs over five years once she takes office, a government – in power for 34 years – that hides statistics cannot be regarded as serious about resolving the disaster.

In addition, if it is considered that 70% of working citizens earn a mere N$1 400 a month, the scale of the social emergency should be apparent.

So, what can be done? Is a mass employment creation programme possible in the Global South?
Is full employment achievable in Namibia? What do top economists think?
THE COERCION
OF CAPITALISM

Indian economist, Prabhat Patnaik, in ‘Beyond Liberalism’, maintains that such large-scale unemployment makes individual freedom impossible.

Individuals do not have agency under capitalism but are coerced into particular social roles because of the logic of the socio-economic system.
The threat of unemployment introduces a social Darwinist element and is the source of alienation.

However, a reserve army of labour is necessary under capitalism to keep wages down (and surplus value high for the capitalists) to ensure that wages do not contribute to high inflation.

Full employment under the current socio-economic system makes it prone to uncontrollable inflation and, therefore, dysfunctional.

To overcome unemployment, the state must expand aggregate demand through a larger expenditure of its own.
This should be financed through a fiscal deficit or through taxing the wealthy.

Nevertheless, global finance is opposed to both options and can punish such countries by flowing out of a country and creating a crisis.
This results in fiscal intervention by the nation-state being unachievable.

The state itself is trapped in the logic of capitalism and must, therefore, either maintain that logic or transcend it.
Such intervention can only be done by several states that would have to confront global finance.

‘GREENER PASTURES’

Prabhat is in favour of an agriculture-led development strategy for the Global South.

This would entail production for the domestic market and the development of peasant agriculture.
But greater income and wealth equality would be needed to expand the domestic market.

Agricultural cooperatives can set up industries and industrialisation could be based on agricultural growth.

In his book, ‘Class and Nation’, Egyptian economist Samir Amin also asserts that unemployment is a global capitalist issue characterised by the super-exploitation of the periphery (Global South).

The workforce in the periphery is controlled through the reproduction of a growing reserve army of labour.
The state exercises this control through political methods. In the final analysis, it is the state that maintains the mass unemployment.

In our view, the solution for the periphery is to delink from the global capitalist system in the way that China was able to successfully delink and to establish actually existing socialism, although that country needs to decentralise and to enhance individual freedom.
WHAT TO DO?

The productive capacity of a country is certainly crucial, but the expression of democracy at every level of society is the foundation.
After all, democracy implies sovereignty.

Accordingly, only socialism with Namibian characteristics can deliver full employment.
Our country can overcome mass unemployment through transcending the logic of capitalism.

But a peripheral country such as Namibia would hardly be able to confront global finance alone.

The best solution for Namibia at this juncture would be to join the intergovernmental organisation Brics, even though the organisation needs to revisit its so-called free trade policies.

Furthermore, the South African economy – to which Namibia is linked – is heavily financialised and this imbalance spills over into the country.

Consequently, all the current Namibian parliamentary parties, with their political programmes to satisfy global finance, will not be able to bring about the right to employment.
We need a mass workers’ party to take us forward and we need to tax the wealthy for the implementation of full employment!
 

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

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