Nkrumah’s Social Democracy; and the crisis that plague it

Origin of the crisis:

About some sixty years ago, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had a dream of building Ghana and Africa through social democracy to enable fair distribution of the continents wealth among its member states and people at large.

The west, through its political assassination plots however, had made sure to topple every incorruptible government that upheld this ideology. In time, it succeeded in replacing good leaders with corrupt ones throughout the whole of Africa and had worked tirelessly to keep its people impoverished while the resources are looted.

Social Democracy evolved into different Facets, some of which has enslaved many nations and its people.

Social democracy as it were the ideology of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and many of his time began to face crises which today is gradually squeezing life out of it. In order to remedy this, the crisis need to be averted.

To avert the crisis that plague social democracy, we have to first of all understand it.

The idea of social democracy is to ensure equity. It is in essence focused on equality of sufficient and fair redistribution of income and wealth.

The idea is to reclaim wealth circulation among the capitalism ideology and from the few ruling class for a more and just distribution.

A system has been created where we are to work and spend and if we don’t have enough to spend, we borrow. Life has been designed such that things has to be bought, things we didn’t know we needed, to impress people we don’t know, with money we don’t have.

Labour is structured and deemed vital to give us meaning, identity and to build the class solidarity essential to the political success of the social democrats.

This approach was very successful from the mid-decades of the last century through to the 1970s but then it all started to break down.

Everything that made social democracy feasible became undermined and weakened because technology and cultural forces shifted production away from big factories and nation states to diverse sites across the globe, this but applies only to the west”. In Africa, once governments were toppled, production Centre’s were forced to shut down or burnt to the ground.

The working class lost jobs they depended on, and the social systems eroded and with it the engine of social democracy became stalled. Producer must now depend on consumer interests.

Life has in time become a consumer war of everyone against everyone. The poor and the weak are left at the losing end where they hardly have much to get by.

With the current politics of greed, the problematic rush of market-orientated reforms eventually paved way for even a much faster decline after the ruling class managed to convince people the social ideology was a betrayal and so were made to embrace more and more capitalism.

To understand it well, this is not really about the failure of the social democracy, but the money play and power thirst that drives people to accept policies they thought would give those more.

In effect, structural and cultural weakness has fatally undermined the morality and power of social democracy, this has made 20th century social democracy impossible to enact in the 21st century.

The promise of a more enlightened social democracy which has led to the globalization, now hegemonic neoliberalism, in which people have felt a profound loss of control over their own lives is becoming increasingly devastating.

The effect of global immigration on jobs and wages in the west, while an iron fist was placed on Africa to not industrialize thus deep issues of poverty, identity, purpose, meaning and control has become some of the reasons nations are beginning to wonder away from social democracy. It seems to offer too little and has failed to thrive on a macro level having been absorbed by capitalism.

Nations in Africa have suffered tremendously under the fasage

Democracy which has impoverished its people but empowered the ruling class.

Social democrats tend to see politics in terms of the economy, jobs and the social wage. The capitalist however, sees politics in material and money. In Ghana, the social democrats are heavily dismembered. The NDC who started off as a social democratic party has lost its identity as it too has moved to place value on material and money. Money is invested in infrastructure that is built by the borrowing nations by their own work forces while there are no jobs for the African populates.

The NPP, a capitalist party depends heavily on borrowing to starch their individual pockets, having greed that is like death that cannot have enough, they have no care for the people’s needs.

If NDC which is the main social democratic party fails to address the crisis of poverty, identity, purpose, meaning and needs of the people, the dismembered Nkrumahist parties would have to join tentacles and make a comeback to fix the crises and rescue Ghanaians.

Source: Thepressradio.com| Ghadym