Socialism vs Capitalism
By Dr Lubinda Haabazoka
The answer is that it doesn’t matter the system Color of the cat so long it catches the mice.
I have read a statement from a respected member of the Zambia’s politics saying socialism is dead. That is a very alarming statement coming from a person that aspires for the job in the land.
First of all I would like to say that socialism and communism are two different things. We have never had a country practice communism before. Communism is much advanced and its system is much more close to what the bible describes heaven.
On the other hand, full capitalism has never been achieved in any country because even in the USA, the government still owns companies and when there is a crisis like we saw in 2008 or during the pandemic, the government has used socialist principles to sort out the mess like giving money to citizens and companies for free!!!
The USA favoured to be a capitalist state has even a socialist health sector when Obama introduced universal healthcare under what is known as Obama care!!! When we boast of free education, that’s a socialist principle of providing universal access to education.
China, Austria and Germany are example’s examples of socialist countries! Wait a minute! Am sure you are shocked that Germany and Austria are socialist countries. Vienna is the best city to live in the whole world and guess what? It’s been run by socialist governments! The housing and everything including cleaning is done by the city government as opposed to the private sector.
The reason why socialism has never thrived in most countries is that the IMF and World bank has fought it in developing countries. Cuba a socialist country has been under sanctions so how do you expect it to show good results? China is a socialist country and the author of that statement was in clothes made in China and using a phone made in China but saying socialism is dead!!!!
The best economic system is what that delivers results. We need capitalist systems in sectors where the private sector is efficient and we need the public sector is sectors where they thrive better!
Saudi Arabia practices socialism in its oil sector and hence their ability to convert oil earnings into national development. But if the private sector owned the oilfields, I don’t think taxes would even have built a single road in that country.
Socialist is not a political but an economic system. So we can’t confuse socialism and dictatorship! Socialism just like capitalism are economic systems and not political systems! So one can’t say socialism are dictatorial tendencies!
In a country like Zambia, the private sector unfortunately can be very unhelpful in terms of improving the lives of citizens! The private sector is a survival of the fittest game. So where necessary we need to give FISP to farmers (Subsidies like FISP are socialist principles). The USA, Europe including Russia provide heavy subsidies to its farmers and companies so they thrive. So when one says socialism is dead then we would want to have them go read the books again.
Readers should also note that Russia is not a communist state. It’s a market economy that practices socialist principles in its major economic sectors. Russia has both universal health care and public funded education but they run alongside private sector run systems. It’s a mixture. The same is true for the UK, China and other countries. So let’s not confuse things!
Socialism is not dead and no country in the world is a capitalist state. Capitalism cannot not be achieved in its pure form. You can support capitalism and then be against the privatisation of ZESCO!
To understand socialism vs capitalism one needs to read the difference between the organic and mechanistic views of government. If I have time, that will be my next article.