PDOIS’ Desk Officer Comments On Ebou Jallow’s Posting

 

Dear Editors:

 

I would like to make a comment on Ebou Jallow’s posting even though he did not mention any point regarding my analysis.

First and foremost, Gambians in general and Americo-Gambians in particular should bear in mind that the central point is how to put an end to poverty and the centralisation of power in the hands of the executive in The Gambia.

What we need are not general theories on the failure of others to eradicate tyranny and poverty. What we need are examples of how liberty and prosperity have been developed elsewhere and concrete proposals on how it can be done in The Gambia.

Ebou Jallow ended up with the following remarks after tedious arguments on how social democracy, democratic socialism, scientific socialism and all other isms of that nature have failed:

 

“The last thing that the Gambia needs is a socialist government by any other name. Capitalism is a system based on individual rights and rewards the productive. It is based on man’s right to work for his own sake and there is nothing evil or mysterious about that. The self-made individual that emerges from such a system is not some imaginary hobgoblin that “exploits” but a philanthropist such as Bill Gates that has done more for Africa than any socialist in history”. - Ebou Jallow

 

What Ebou Jallow has not done is to give us his model country and model government, whose standards Gambia could realistically follow suit.

What I would like him to acknowledge is that, a modern government has the duty to provide public services such as hospitals, schools, roads, and utilities for people to live modern lives. No single individual, no matter how wealthy takes charge of the responsibilities of providing education for all, health for all, electricity for all, water supply for all, roads for all etc etc.

This is the duty of a state. I for one cannot understand how he can compare Bill Gates with a state. The key subject is the type of state, which The Gambia should have, which will be able to promote liberty and prosperity.

My understanding of the PDOIS message is that, the state must have a source of revenue to be able to provide public services to the people. A state that cannot provide health for all, education for all, public services for all and general welfare is a failure, regardless of whether it has produced some of the richest people on earth.

To provide these services, the whole world has known two sources of revenue for a state. One source is to tax those who own enterprises or work as employees. The second source is for the state itself to own income-generating enterprises and use the income partially to provide services.

If Ebou Jallow knows a state, which can provide public services without relying on any of the two sources of income for the state, we the PDOIS members will be more than willing to learn from him.

If he agrees that these are the only two sources available to governments all around the world, then he should tell us which source is suitable for The Gambia to provide education for all, health for all, roads for all, water for all and better lives for all.

This is what is important. I know for a fact that the countries, which had been led, by democratic socialist or social democratic governments, had relied on corporate and income tax to be able to provide more social services and even social security to the unemployed.

Conservative governments campaign for less taxation only to change their minds when they come to see the need to maintain social services and huge defence budgets. In fact, they often increase taxation or lower the quality of social services when they increase their defence budgets.

I don’t know why Ebou Jallow is criticizing social democrats or democratic socialists for relying on taxation to provide social services and not criticizing the conservatives who believe as he does in freeing corporations from taxation so that the corporations can make billions but who are more in tune with the task of providing public services than he is and cannot therefore, escape the responsibility of imposing taxes on corporate bodies and individual income earners.

Hence it is clear that even his own income in Iraq and all the gadgets he is utilizing come from the taxes he is condemning. How would he be maintained in Iraq without the Bill gates being overwhelmed with taxation?

In fact, it is the democratic socialists and social democrats that can claim moral authority for taxation by virtue of their general programs to reduce expenditure on defence, and increase expenditure on fighting poverty and improving general well being.

Finally, PDOIS position is that, in a country with a narrow tax base and huge unemployment, tax revenue cannot be the sole source of income to promote public services, otherwise individuals and corporations would be over taxed and this is exactly what is happening under the government, which Ebou served in The Gambia.

This was the illness of the past and is still the illness of the present.

The PDOIS therefore, is calling for sources of revenue from both reasonable taxation of individual and corporate bodies and dividends from public enterprises.

We have given reasons why this is necessary and is left to Ebou to examine those reasons and argue why they are untenable. He has a romantic view of capitalism, which is not found in any part of the world and harbours a very myopic view of democratic socialism, social democracy and socialism. His opinions are to be respected but they do not help us to solve The Gambia 's problems.

 

Sincerely,

 

Suwaibou Touray,

Desk Officer: People’s Democratic Organization for Independence & Socialism, Serekunda, The Gambia, West Africa.