•The concept of economics is basically domiciled around the idea and existence of lack of resources amongst the people.
• The less the people lack, the less the cut throat competition, the less the economic exploitation, instability and unpredictability
Image: EZEKIEL AMINGA
As the country grapples with the high cost of living, it should be noted that Kenyans are the greatest contributors to the economic mayhem being experienced in Kenya today.
I am not even referring to their political choices, because politics should be secondary to every individual's socio-economic decisions.
The concept of economics is basically domiciled around the idea and existence of lack of resources amongst the people. Lack is what necessitates any demand for or exchange of resources. When you eliminate lack, you eliminate the demand for or desire to exchange anything.
The more the people lack, the more aggressive the fight for economic spaces and opportunities, and the more unpredictable and exploitative the society becomes due to the consequential mushrooming of socio-economic classes and gaps of inequity.
The less the people lack, the less the cut throat competition, the less the economic exploitation, instability and unpredictability, which leads to the erosion of socio-economic classes and gaps of inequity.
The society becomes more dependent and exploitative, economically, and segregative, socially, when the monopoly of production is domiciled in the hands a few privileged bourgeoisies that control the capital elements of production; and by that privilege, put the masses at the mercy of their choices and exploitative tendencies.
But, is it just about the material and sometimes intellectual resources; or is it something to do with our mentality as a people, sometimes?
Why and how can people from Western Kenya, who averagely own at least two acres each in their villages, be crying about the cost of food, when those from Central whose majority are landless and few of them survive on less than half an acre as family don't worry about food, but rather, taxes and levies on their imported merchandise? The environmental excuses and high cost of inputs notwithstanding.
What if everyone, in their small spaces and within their limited means, could produce at least something of consequence to their lives or the well being of society? Doesn't that reduce the level of dependency?
What if we only limited ourselves to being depended on others for that what we can not be able to produce and/or own? What if we only imported that what we can never have or produce as a country, based on our natural geographical disposition? Would we still be worried about the dollar rates and reserves; or the overly negative balance of trade?
As a country, and continent, the brattish over entitlement to the colonialists' resources and support just because they colonized us, killed our heroes, took our land and minerals has led to a lazy population of enslaved escapists dying of that what God never intended of them.
The same mentality has been devolved to the extent of Kenyans going to bed and expecting miracles to happen overnight so that they can wake up with stores full of food and accounts full of money courtesy of government.
The good news is that with the mainstreaming of the formerly demeaned informal sector that controls over 75 per cent of our labor and economic market as country, Kenyans in that sector can finally undertake high volume production of globally compliant quality merchandise.
With diversified, competent, advanced, reliable, sustainable and grassroots level production, wouldn't that settle our food insecurities by ensuring we are food sovereign? Wouldn't that minimize the need to (unnecessarily) over-import?
Wouldn't we find ourselves having more than we require for local consumption and become net producers as opposed to the net consumers? Wouldn't we have solved our balance of trade issues, the dollar exchange and reserves monster, as well as the foreign investor issues? Because a hungry society is the most insecure place for any investor.
At the bare minimum, if people, especially those in places with arable land, can produce enough to feed themselves and maybe sell the surplus to those who can't produce, we will reduce dependency, especially on imports, unemployment and help us realize our industrialization dreams as a country.
Kennedy Odweyo is a political economist and enterprise developer