May Day--A Political Post

“Don’t be afraid to see what you see.”

Ronald Reagan

On May 1^st left wing movements all over the world celebrate International Workers' Day.  Sometimes with violent demonstrations but often peacefully, trade unionists, communists and anarchists dig their red and black flags out of their closets, dust them off and wave them proudly.

To Each According to his need, from each according to his ability.

Karl Marx

In Canada, middle-aged tenured academics and rococo Marxists do likewise, if only in their imaginations.  They quaff micro-brewery beer, sip fair trade coffee in chichi cafes, thumb well-worn copies of Chomsky’s, Manufacturing Consent, reflect on their favourite Michael Moore film and become teary eyed as they dream of the socialist visions of their youth.

In 80 countries of the world International Workers' Day is a national holiday.  Tanzania is one of those countries.

I have often asked myself since coming here why this country is poor and undeveloped and yet seems to have everything.  Natural gas, diamonds, iron, nickel, precious gems, coal and platinum are all there for the digging.  Tanzania is the third largest producer of gold in the world.

Tanzania's tourist sites are the most spectacular to be found anywhere.  Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro, Olduvai Gorge and Zanzibar are places of the imagination.  The Tanzanian people are friendly and welcoming.  They are among the most polite people that I have met. 

Countless billions of dollars in foreign aid have been funneled here since 1961 to the point where Tanzania is known as a 'donor darling.'  And yet, many people have nothing, need everything and given the richness of their beautiful country, deserve so much more.  Why?

Ironically, it is the socialist vision that is being celebrated today all over the world that is responsible for the economic woes of Tanzania.

Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania, studied at the University of Edinburgh.  There, he encountered the ideas of Fabian socialism.  The Fabians believed in the Marxist vision of a society based on the principle of, to each according to his need; from each according to his ability. They wanted this vision to be achieved gradually rather than through violent revolution.

Julius Nyerere

Like a generation of young men who would later lead post-colonial African countries, Nyerere rejected the fundamental truth that capitalism is the only system of society that allows man to use his reason to create wealth.  Under the guidance of his Fabian mentors, Nyerere ignored this truth and dreamed of importing socialism into Africa at the same time that America was becoming a beacon of capitalism. 

While Americans were fast becoming the wealthiest people on earth, with the most political and personal freedom in the history of man, Afro-Marxists were poised to lead their continent into grinding poverty.  Americans recognized that there is no liberty unless there is economic liberty.  To Tanzania’s peril, Julius Nyerere did not.

Once Nyerere took hold of the levers of government he worked on creating a country based on Marxism. To each according to his need became the guiding light.  Need became the common currency.  Tanzanians stretched out their hands to the Nyerere's government to get their needs met.  In theory, those with the greatest need were to get the most.  Socialism quickly turned Tanzania into a country of alms seekers.

A huge civil service was created to administer to the needs of Tanzanians and dole out the country’s treasure.  As in most Afro-Marxist regimes it took no time at all for the bureaucracy to become hopelessly corrupt.  Margaret Thatcher summed up the situation nicely when she later said, “Socialists cry ‘power to the people’ and raise their fists as they say it.  We all know what they really mean—power over the people, power to the state.”

Socialism works well until you run out of other people's money

Margaret Thatcher

The producers, whose creative energy was being regulated and whose wealth was being appropriated to meet the never ending 'need' quickly realized that this was a suckers' game.  Like Hank Rearden, the steel producer in Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, they shrugged.  They stopped producing, emigrated or simply didn't show up.  By the 1970s eighty percent of employed Tanzanians worked for the state.

         

A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights;

it holds a legal monopoly on the use of force against a legally disarmed victim.

Ayn Rand

All of the predictable events followed, as they have done in every socialist country from Cuba to Albania.   A single party state, collectivization of farms, preventative detention and torture were followed by hunger, shortages, a crumbling infrastructure and mind blowing poverty. 

In the late 1970s Tanzania had more political prisoners than South Africa.

When Julius Nyerere took time off to visit Chairman Mao; Tanzania was one of the least developed countries on earth.  The socialist vision, imported from Scotland so many years ago, has hobbled the prosperity that Tanzanians so richly deserve.