Book Review: "EDGE OF CHAOS: Why Democracy is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth –and How to Fix it." By Dambisa Moyo

Edge of Chaos diagnoses the perils of liberal democracy, the once greatest engine of growth, and the challenges it is facing in delivering its imperative mandate,  Economic Growth.

This is my first read of Dr. Moyo’s writings and she shares a contrarian and insightful thinking in the economic tensions and complexities of the contemporary world. Though she holds a Doctorate in Economics from Oxford and not in Politics, as she aptly put in the beginning of the book, she believes that the latter is the key driver for growth and prosperity of the human race.

Replete with statistics, history and research covered in eight chapters of the 269-page book, global themes cutting across international affairs like inequality, globalization, trade and sustainable development were of great interest to me. Well, there is more you can get from the challenges to democracy presented as the Hurricane Headwinds to the economic development. However, the underscoring point to take home is that the economic choices are at the core of politics.    

I couldn't help relating the book directly to the current Kenya political and economic situation. The debt crisis. Infrastructure challenges. Unemployment and income inequality.  Case in point, an extensive research of over 200 years by Harvard University professors titled Growth in a Time of Debt. The research says, “When external debt reaches 60 percent of the GDP, annual growth declines by about two percent.” This book was published one year before the IMF estimated the Kenyan Public Debt to GDP ratio as 59.9% (significantly above the 50% cap Kenya had set for itself) and followed by cutting the economic-growth forecast by 0.2% late last year,  according to Bloomberg. With the peculiarity of the Kenyan politician, the government approved to plan to present the debt limit in absolute figures instead of a percentage of the gross domestic product. The National Treasury proposed a limit of 9 Trillion shillings. That is USD86 Billion, almost the size of the entire Kenyan economy. Indeed no human is limited.

A scrutiny in sustainable development demands a check in at least the quality of education, income inequality, and total factor productivity. Subtle but significant shifts from what was the economic powerhouse has limited democracy in delivering such in three ways: One, the changes in the economic ideologies from largely state centric to a more laissez faire capitalism. Two, the rise of 24-hour news cycle as well as the advent of social media and, three, power shifting away from the state towards non-state actors such as corporations and wealthy philanthropists that are taking the role of the governments, thus weakening the state in the process. Churning of ill-equipped work force to the economy has nothing to do with the academia but everything to do with the government’s policy and its interest in education. It is this outsourcing and privatizing of core responsibilities like health, education and policing by the government to the wealthy private sector that has us on fast reverse at the edge of the precipice.

We have embodied in education, business and the democratic political system a predilection for short termism. A myopia that is detrimental to the economic success. In The Perils of Political Myopia, my favourite chapter, it is clear that the politicians are rewarded for pandering to voters' immediate demands and desires to the detriment of growth over the long term. To this thought, I see where Competency-Based Curriculum and BBI falls. Incitement of the public by politicians to demand for necessities like proper roads. I also see the betting companies promised ‘better’ terms a few months to the general election.

Only 41% of the general population trusts the government, a 2017 Edelman Trust Survey says. People are more skeptical of the ability of the democratic governments to act effectively as citizens in emerging markets see authoritarian leaders as more trustworthy than democratic politicians. Among the 10 solutions that Dr. Moyo suggest as The Blue Print for New Democracy, encouraging election of non-career politicians – those who have a sound working experience in non-political fields, making voting mandatory and a focused voter education. Voters are ultimately responsible for the politicians they elect (by voting or not voting) and the economic policies those politicians make.

To me this is a great blueprint. A sign of a gathering storm. How growth in the 21^st century is interconnected globally. She states, “America’s unsteady economy helped catapult Trump into the US presidency…The growing economic and political uncertainty across the globe is today being amplified as much by the Trump administration’s foreign policy choices as it is by America’s economic fortune.  A more isolationist America creates a vacuum at a time when the European Union has grown precarious, facing escalating extremism among the anti-Europe leftwing and the rightwing populist parties in the disintegration of the Eurozone. An aggressive Russia, fractious Middle East, rising terrorism spawned by religion and the risk of expanding nuclear and cyberwarfare capacities, all threaten to worsen as the United States ceases to serve as the stabilizing force.  Virtually every region around the world is vulnerable to security risks because of the economic situation of the United States.” I would not agree more.

You will find the research findings inhere interesting, you may want to poke holes in some of them, but the measured judgement with which she present the ideas are also interesting and thought provoking. As an exciting read and the first book to finish and review (my first review 😊) in 2020, I rate Edge of Chaos a 4/5 star. Just because I believe there is more to come, more to explore, more to discover.