The Nirvana Fallacy of Meles Zenawi’s Separation of Democracy From Economic Development By Tecola W. Hagos,

may, 30,2012

“Man does not live by bread alone…” Matthew 4:4; [Deuteronomy 8:3]

I. Introduction

All over a world, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is compelling his indeterminate avowal that mercantile expansion is something that is apart from democracy and by prolongation from all forms of amicable interactions (political, ethical, and dignified constraints). As a matter of fact, that is not a novel thought for Meles, for a thought was also reflected in a initial doubt he asked over fifteen years ago during his initial assembly with Prof Samuel Huntington in Addis Ababa, possibly democracy was probable in “a peasant” formed mercantile system. It is also a transparent counterbalance of a explain that a TPLF started out as a ransom onslaught from an rough domestic system. In short, there are countless disastrous ramifications that could be deduced from such indeterminate opinion of a leader.

This form of matter delaminating democracy from mercantile expansion and a mind that conjures it adult might be utterly shallow. Meles Zenawi’s opinion on a detachment of democracy from mercantile expansion seems to be a naïve or facile bargain of a interface between all forms of amicable activities and economics. To be generous, such perspective reminds me of Economics 101 content book by Samuelson where a engrossment is to learn elementary definitions and concepts in a margin of economics, and of prerequisite such rudimentary content book is simplified and is abandoned of amicable context in sequence to equivocate complexity and yield uncomplicated explanations suitable during such arising stage. For example, in training children a alphabet, one does not go into a chronological roots and expansion of a denunciation and that of a sold alphabets. It seems to me to bottom ones opinion, during an general forum, on such facile bargain of economics in a amicable existence is utterly inapt and annoying too.

It is not useful to a onslaught of a people of Ethiopia if a leaders keep on insisting on observant domestic leisure and mercantile expansion separated. It is intensely worrisome to me given by import Meles Zenawi’s justification seems upheld by a abounding and a absolute nations around a world, for they kept mouth-watering this heartless tyrant to their eminent conferences, a latest being a G8 (G20) during Camp David and Washington DC. It is this form of acceptance during general forums that is treacherous a Ethiopian people in a Diaspora and behind in a possess homes, on how to bargain with Meles Zenawi. The acceptance by such absolute Governments seems to validate Meles Zenawi’s activities and seems to give legitimacy to his form of domination and corruption. There was no need to entice Meles Zenawi to such Forums, while he is brutalizing a people by his draconian laws camouflaged as laws opposite terrorism. we know that Western Governments are no angels, though should they be also so ridiculous to be manipulated by a likes of Meles Zenawi? For a struggling people of Ethiopia, it is a formidable routine to go opposite such absolute domestic stream issuing from absolute Governments.

II. Category Mistake

It is apparent from his countless speeches that Meles Zenawi is a rarely schooled pimp of difference and ideas in manners that would seem to follow judicious reasoning; though it is an preliminary alliance of some unaccompanied significant matters with self-indulgent goals to build an farfetched edifice. However tough one might try to review some rationality in Meles Zenawi’s views, even hook back to accommodate such careless polemic, it is simply unfit to see any receptive in such opinion, and with some grade of scrutiny, one can see how porous and riddled Meles Zenawi’s opinion on economic/development is with fallacies and shabby conclusions. Thus, Meles Zenawi by basing his justification in disassociating or delaminating democracy from expansion or expansion from democracy, formed on a purported deficiency of chronological justification joining a two, is simply treacherous and a rejection of reality. He even went serve claiming that there is no fanciful tie between democracy and development.

I am during a detriment to comment for such weird assertions by Meles Zenawi. we can’t fathom a probability that he grew adult into his adulthood though ever reading E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered, and ever tempering his furious and aroused inlet and saving himself from creation such inane remarks in open forums. we am some-more broke than indignant for such open arrangement of stupid ideas; after all, when a dirt settles, Meles Zenawi not customarily is representing a Motherland, though also all peoples of tone around a world. This form of delamination of mercantile expansion from democracy has several fallacious starting points and arguments. It has elements of Cartesian dualism, that had been a source of quarrelsome debates among theologians, philosophers, domestic scientists et cetera for utterly some time. Most importantly, it is a classical instance of a difficulty mistake of focusing on a temperament of “the whole” entity as if it is a basic part.

Of course, Meles’s justification in support of such avowal is fallacious on an experimental comment and hearing of those successful nations also. What is even worse is that Meles presented his statements as sure imperatives, with no room for sermon or reexaminations. The thought is also a recycled aged and entirely tired Marxism-Leninism with a splash of Stalinism. Maoism is a totally opposite mercantile and sociopolitical setup that should be discussed separately, generally divided from Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism. What we see in a bid to delaminate democracy from mercantile expansion by Meles Zenawi and his supporters and admirers, including his detractors, is a brew adult of concepts and problems of predicating what needs to be proven or accurate for judicious validity. My favorite story in a framing of a debate is a story that Philosopher Gilbert Ryle used to tell his students during Oxford University, about his crony (some explain a caller to be a “Tourist”) who visited him and wanted to see Oxford University. The story goes that dutifully Prof Ryle took his crony around indicating out “this is All Souls”, “this is Christ Church”, “this is Magdalen”, et cetera. At a finish of a debate Ryle’s crony said, “Thank we for display me all these pleasing Colleges, though we did not uncover me Oxford University.” The indicate is that tools consecrate a “whole,” and that a “whole” is not a partial or can’t be a possess member [a set of one or a zero set technically do not have constituents], that in this box is identified by Ryle as a ”category mistake,” and regulating Ryle’s favorite phrasing on a identical issue, there is no “ghost in a machine” called Oxford, for example. In a same proceed this synthetic delamination between democracy and mercantile growth/development is a hunt for a “ghost” called “economic development.” Economic expansion is a partial of a approved process; it can’t be distant from a approved process.

The justification in preference of such subdivision is customarily formed on resourceful examples of some Twentieth Century inhabitant economies around a universe that had shown extensive mercantile expansion though carrying a ideal “democratic” form of governments. At any rate, those Asian Tigers had leaders and entrepreneurs who desired their sold countries and were not intent in large siphoning off a resources of their sold countries. By contrast, Meles Zenawi and his associates are intent in large ashamed looting of Ethiopia, where it was reported by an eccentric physique that in a final few years alone there was collateral moody and income send from Ethiopia value between 3 to 5 billion dollars, though adding a bullion that is looted for roughly twenty years that incited a elementary salesman of song cassettes into a multi billionaire. The fact is that there is some approved component even in a basement of thieves. If we use that form of proceed or justification used by Meles to transparent his avowal of separating mercantile expansion from democracy, labour can also be fit to furnish a form of “economic” expansion claimed by Meles. This form of justification simply mellow into a “chicken or a egg” form of dilemma, and ought to be deserted right away. It is an justification that has been regularly proven wrong with transparent examples of a fall of a Soviet Union and a East Block countries. Cuba a final holdout is tittering on a final leg. North Korea and China would go a same track as a Soviet Union in few years. Already China is not a China of Mao’s time and vision; it is recuperating a “Imperial” self and reestablishing a ancient amicable structure underneath new banners and new names.

III. The Nirvana Fallacy

Meles Zenawi’s explain of a detachment of democracy from mercantile expansion defies many of a prolonged station theories about a tie between democracy and mercantile development, and also goes opposite experimental justification amassed over a final hundred fifty years affirming a association between democracy and mercantile development. Starting from Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations) down to Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs [twin fans of Meles Zenawi during Columbia University] a strenuous infancy of economists that we review have used a approved form of supervision pattern as a basement of their enlightenment of mercantile expansion or advancement, that in a complicated parlance means mercantile expansion or modernization processes. Although we did not find a unaccompanied Nobel Laureate in economics whose topic is formed on a delamination of democracy and mercantile development, on a other palm we have found several Nobel Prize Laureates in economics whose views are premised on a tie between mercantile expansion and democracy. Since 1969, there has been about seventy Nobel Laureates. Starting in 1971 with Prof Simon Kuznets of Harvard University, a Nobel Prize was awarded for over fifty world-class economists for works that engage “process of mercantile development” and sociopolitical structure.

The following eminent scholars and professors all wrote basing their research on a insinuate and approach attribute between amicable and domestic structures and a economy of states:

1 – Prof Frederick Hayek – 1974 Nobel Laureate – capitalism and democracy

2- Prof Milton Friedman – 1976 Nobel Laureate – on financial routine – on capitalism and democracy

3 – Prof Theodore Schultz – 1979 Nobel Laureate – on expansion economics

4 – Prof Gary Becker – 1992 Nobel Laureate – on economics and tellurian behavior

5 – Prof Rober Fogol – 1993 Nobel Laureate – on mercantile story and institutional changes

6 – Prof Amartya Sen – 1998 Nobel Laureate- on gratification economics – expansion and freedom

7 – Prof Joseph Stiglitz – 2001 Nobel Laureate – on uneven information – expansion and free-market

8 – Prof Thomas J Sargent – 2011 Nobel Laureate – on means and outcome of inhabitant and tellurian (macro) economy

I have complicated a works of a economists listed above and others, in some cases distant some-more extensively, starting from my years in law school, such as a works of Schumacher, Kuznets, Hayek, Friedman, Galbraith, and in a final fifteen years those of Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen whom we severely admire and had a payoff of assembly in person. The explain that democracy is not required for mercantile expansion misses a whole indicate in a bargain of mercantile expansion in any society, in a initial place. Is it probable to have a tellurian thought or purpose though tellurian beings? This might sound a ridiculous question, though a thought of mercantile expansion delaminated from democracy or tellurian freedom/rights is equally absurd. It is a comedy and a tragedy to review Meles Zenawi’s relief opinion in light of a schooled papers of world-class economists whose life-time works attest a fact that domestic processes and a economy of a republic can’t be so simply and callously delaminated or be seen as carrying really small to do with any other.

My regard in this brief paper is possibly Meles Zenawi’s delaminating of democracy from mercantile expansion is a critical hazard to a State of Ethiopia and/or a expansion aspirations of people around a globe. What is a captivate of carrying copiousness of food to eat and high employment, if one is vital in a slave-plantation or a republic of compulsory sequence where people live in good fear and insecurity, with minimal freedoms. Human beings are not like donkeys, horses, or baboons with life not many over eating and mating. The tellurian romantic for freedom, self expression, liberty et cetera is as genuine as a longing for food, shelter, and security. In fact, it is utterly disconcerting to lift such emanate in a twenty initial century where a Internet and other technological advances have continued to supplement and enhance a value of tellurian life. My seductiveness here is not to emanate a hierarchy of tellurian needs and aspirations, though to commend a genuine needs of tellurian beings possibly it is spiritual, abstract, or material. we do not find any knowledge in arranging tellurian needs in schemes that creates some capricious and synthetic hierarchy.

Of course, what Meles is observant is a lot some-more pointed than being elementary wanton polemic. What is treacherous to people who review him is a fact that a “ideals” of democracy not being realizable in full during any given impulse in tellurian amicable and domestic life, might finish adult creation it demeanour reasonable to disagree a position that given such approved ideal is not possible, a delamination of mercantile expansion from such pattern does not seem that extreme. This form of justification is what logicians call a obscurity fallacy. Actually a tenure was coined by an economist, Harold Demsetz, in 1969. Another associated misconception is “the misconception of perfection.” In possibly box a misconception lies in a thought that unless each aspect of an ideal is achieved afterwards a genuine life conditions or bid toward that ideal is futile. Unless each aspect of a “ideal democracy” is in place in a community, anything reduction is a justification to chuck out what is even achieved as a shortcoming. As we settled earlier, “democracy” is not a “ghost” in a domestic machine. It has basic tools that supplement adult to what is identified to be a approved complement of government. Such basic tools of democracy, nonetheless in a process, includes such structures of sequence of law, only judges, legislative bodies during opposite levels, inaugurated and/or allocated executives, leisure of debate and expression, giveaway marketplace and healthy foe et cetera. When one speaks of “democracy” as if it is a graphic component from a many basic tools of a system, one is committing a “category mistake” or articulate of a “ghost” in a domestic entity.

IV. The Reality on a Ground

I wish this essay as a form of critique on Meles Zenawi’s views on a attribute of democracy and mercantile expansion was created by people whose primary fortify is economics; however, in a deficiency of that we am stuffing in with a kind of disposition or desire toward proof and elementary common clarity and a truth of rights. we wish we did not botch or scapegoat economics totally for truth and logic. In box of this sold perspective of Meles Zenawi, we trust that his delamination of democracy from mercantile expansion is an unashamed and conceited justification for his compulsory sequence that he claims to be that of developmental state. This subdivision of mercantile expansion from democracy and tellurian rights is a straw-man justification to censor his common ability in governance that has resulted in a sum disfranchisement of a Ethiopian people from a domestic and tellurian rights and a right to mercantile expansion and development. The novel on a theme of a tie between democracy and mercantile expansion is enormous. As indicated above, there are several eminent economists who have won Nobel prizes and other recognitions for their grant on a theme of democracy and mercantile development.

The unaccompanied accountability of Meles Zenawi and his associates is their “winner-takes-it-all” or “leave-no-prisoners” form of operation in an area of tellurian try that indispensably requires good compromises, negotiations, and toleration and accommodations of different people and mixed of interests. To steal a word from my good crony Dr. Moges Gebremariam, no “political scrap” is left by Meles Zenawi and his associates whenever they go after a domestic thought contending with others for leadership. There is no “political scrap” for others to use to reconstruct and redeem in sequence to keep a domestic life of Ethiopia tarry in some form.

Facts on a belligerent bear my avowal that all that sprouts from Meles Zenawi’s mind is destined to do one and customarily one thing: to acquire or accept for any series of reasons as many tough banking (Dollar, Euro, Swiss Frank et cetera) that will be destined by all kinds of inclination and conduits to a control of Meles Zenawi and his associates. This recurrent office of tough banking was started even before a TPLF/EPRDF overshoot a heartless troops regime of Mengistu Hailemariam during a time of a good famines of a 1980s where millions of tough banking of assist income left in a byzantine universe of TPLF’s income stashing system. To this day there had never been a full accounting or auditing of such accumulate of money. Once a TPLF leaders were determined as a Government of Ethiopia, a economy of Ethiopia has been totally dominated by companies and partnerships tranquil by Meles Zenawi and his associates given 1991 for over twenty years. This led to a accumulation of a towering of Ethiopian currency, paper income called birr, that is value zero in a general banking marketplace for it is not straightforwardly exchanged or can be converted into tough currency.

The whole “economic renaissance” module instituted by Meles Zenawi, including a several mega hydroelectric generating dams, is a device and subterfuge, an elaborate intrigue for a acclimatisation of ill begotten Ethiopian banking into tough currency. Meles Zenawi does not give a scream for Ethiopians or Ethiopia, he never had; he does not caring a scintilla possibly Ethiopians prosper, possibly a inhabitant territorial firmness is respected, or possibly a emperor rights are enforced. As a matter of celebrated fact, he physically struggles to contend “Ethiopia” in his verbal presentations for a Word “Ethiopia” seems to throttle him. This does not warn me during all when we cruise his family credentials and how he grew adult in a village that shunned and angry him and his family, only like Mengistu Hailemariam who vented his deeply seated annoy opposite “Ethiopians” by committing large horrible murders.

We, Ethiopians, contingency be clever in selecting a inhabitant leaders, in following domestic antithesis leaders et cetera, a coax of a impulse form romantic outbursts and loathing driven choices will not do. The credentials of a person, how good practiced that chairman is in his or her Ethiopianness, possibly he has faith et cetera matters most. My frank advise to all my associate Ethiopians is that we never ever follow anyone petty, small-minded, and/or with no eremite conviction. Let us not support anyone only given he or she comes out from a disfranchised or bad family or minority racial group. we advise that we demeanour for sold qualities of generosity, compassion, courage, adore and honour in ancient and stream Ethiopia, and a chairman of prominence and prophesy for a good people and a nation.

God Bless Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Amen.

Tecola W. Hagos

May 27, 2012

Washington DC