I need to see convincing arguments before I can support unconditional cash transfers
Dear Editor,
It is tempting to assert that these are the worst of times, bordering on delusion of grandeur. We now live in an age where theories and data and the feedback relationship between them, morals and ethics, justice and truth are descending into the underworld. We seize upon expediency and hair-brained ideas to reshape our little corner of the world according to our own liking, which we expect others should like as well.
The earth is round and not flat, pathogens cause infections and not miasma, poverty rewires the brain so that it is transmitted from one generation to the next, genes are not destiny – these are big ideas that transformed our relationship to the world and enhanced our well-being. Guyana has had its share of so-called big idea. These include the silly big idea that Guyana was powerful enough to take on the collective might of the United States and Great Britain, co-operative socialism, nationalization devoid of strategic vision, making the “small man” the “real man,” knowledge institutes that sold groceries, and the co-operative sector. When Prime Minister Forbes Burnham formally declared Guyana to be a Co-operative Socialist Republic in February 1970, he said: “Your government is committed irrevocably to widening and strengthening the co-operative sector.” What good have these big ideas done for Guyana? Little good, if at all. Instead, they were all wrecking instruments that unleashed economic chaos, cultural destruction, devastation of health and education, cemented ethnic divisiveness and induced amnesia, among others. Many of us alive today will not forget the Great Downswing of the Guyana’s economy from 1977 to 1990. Constant per capita income in 1990 was almost 30 percent lower than that of 1977. That is the cost of a few big ideas to Guyana and it’s not marginal cost but sunk cost the effects of which are still being felt.
Let me be clear: I am not against big ideas for it is big ideas that have enabled us to live longer, more fulfilling lives and brightened the human prospects – and create weapons of mass destruction. Big ideas are radical and transformational. But their utility is not immediately evident to most people, which places the onus on the proponents of big ideas to enlighten the rest of us. I am not afraid of big ideas and that is true for many of us. “Dependence and transformation” was definitely not a big idea for it has been confined to the dustbin of history.
Then there are silly ideas that are devoid of logic, defy collective wisdom, have no theory or facts to support them, and go against common sense. Silly, sound-good ideas may be attractive on the surface and immediately appealing because it plays to our baser psychological propensities. One such stupid idea is unconditional cash transfers (UCT), which piles of empirical research does not support. Somehow Guyanese magicians will defy scientific evidence to demonstrate that all the thinking and work on UCT was, well, plain wrongheaded. Like many of us across the ethnic spectrum, I have an open mind and would like to see internally consistent arguments (logical, theoretical) and empirical evidence, taking into consideration the evolution of thinking and functioning of Guyanese locked in an unending ethnic struggle. If I can be convinced that my arguments against UCT are incorrect, I shall willingly change my mind and publicly admit that I was wrong.
Ere long, silly ideas lose their appeal and are forgotten, or their proponents pretend that they never existed. And no one claim ownership of corrosive, dead and useless ideas. I’d like to close by quoting one of my heroes, John Maynard Keynes. In the final paragraph of his magnum opus he wrote: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.” What can I say – I am an economist! Perhaps political scientists and politicians are endowed with perfect vision and an all-knowing faculty.
Yours faithfully,
Ramesh Gampat