Opinions of Saturday, 21 June 2014

Columnist: Krow, Ohenenana Obonti

Those Cherished Social Democratic Ideals

...The NDC I Adored

The bane of our current political dispensation is the inability or deliberate refusal by leaders of our various political organizations to take their support base through deep tutorials of their ideals and principles. We have made politics a wholesale game inviting unethical and unconventional methods in practicing our politics. Adherence to basic ideological principles isn't attractive anymore creating safe haven for mischievous elements to dominate our political stables. I want to center my piece on the National Democratic Congress the party per their manifesto and constitution, ought to have been the remedial point for the poor or proletariats. Karl Marx once put it this way, "man is a socially productive animal contrary to Aristotle, who located man's essential mature in his capacity for reason, Marx argued that man distinguishes himself from the animals by his ability to transform the environment to meet his needs. This transformation, or production is a social, not an individual, activity, and so men develop systematic relationship with one another which shape their entire lives.

I will delve deeply into that but I am still finding out to know if persons who claim to be stalwarts in the NDC, are abreast with the social democratic values. Social Democracy is an ideology established through ethics developed by the reformist socialists or gradualists with the main aim of establishing a welfare state and alternative bargaining scheme within the framework of capitalist economy. The global socialist front at point decided moving from the revolutionary approach to a peaceful transition of the economy to socialism through social reforms of capitalism but oppose such capitalist excesses like inequality and poverty. Hitherto this period the leftist ideological position went through serious transitions especially the period when Marxists and Lassalians were in rivalry over political influence in the leftist movement until 1868-1869 when Marx became the official basis of Social Democratic Workers Party of Germany. In the Hague in 1872, Marx, redefined his stance on socialist revolution. We had the Fabian society founded by Frank Padmore also adding value to the gradualists approach.

The main attribute of all social Democratic political organizations is the establishment of a welfare society where the bourgeoisies wouldn't dominate and unnecessarily punish the poor using their surplus value after making the worker a slave the very goods his produces. The elimination of policies which pretend to create equal leverage for the rich and poor per its theoretical content but practically unsafe for the poor must be the priority of all socialists governments. Today I can say without contradiction that the NDC is gradually veering off these ideals practicing a more confusing system of political economy. The support base are living in obscurity as to which direction they are going, we have allowed ourselves to be gagged and rendered politically weak because of our unbridled adherence to policies which do not support social “welfarism”, but can best be described as appendages of capitalism. We have become too careful in pushing through our policies all because the establishment wouldn't like to step on toes of certain international organizations. We are gradually falling into the club of capitalists’ organizations whose political performance are marked by these international organizations.

Our government must as matter or urgency rebrand the party on this issue, we shouldn't just concentrate our political activities on the primordial political conditions we have set for ourselves as a nation. We must deduce something positive from the economic evolution the nation has gone through and begin from a contemporary economic facts. We all know the effect the wage bill is having on the economy, thwarting efforts to extend needed social amenities to the poor and weary yet, we are allowing unnecessary political propaganda coming from the rightist to dictate which decision we must settle on.

Development of the human resource base to understand the disposition of the party is another relevant point. You can't push any ideal to expect meaningful result when the masses are not ready psychologically to absorb such initiatives. Socialism is about education and transformation but today what I am seeing is that, the NDC is gradually opening its gate for certain negative attributes associated with the capitalist party of the NPP to enter into their stables. Individualism and crave for wealth is becoming the order.

We must change, if we want the poor to still see the party as their comfort zone, party must have absolute interest in government affairs but must dare not stampede government operations through unnecessary internal maneuvers.

Ending, I am urging all comrades to take serious these series of write-ups I will be putting out till congress time.

Source: Ohenenana Obonti Krow/Spy News Agency