Friedmantism Spawned the NSSF Saga

Privatization, deregulation, and cuts in social services are the mantras of the University of Chicago’s late Milton Friedman’s unfettered radical capitalism which has been in the vanguard of economics thought and practice in the last twenty plus years. When Keynesian and Developmentalist economics ruled the known world outside of the Soviet Union, Red China and other communist wanabe countries, Milton Friedman, his mentor Friedrich Hayek and their associates were in the Siberia of ideas.

Keynes’ mixed economy ethos created such safety nets as free medical benefits, public transpotation and social security in the developed world. These were good then and are good now.

Uganda’s developmentalism, which called for government participation in social services and economic activities of production, created UDC, well-serviced hospitals, well-run and funded government schools, East African Airlines—just to name a few of the collective wealth that uplifted a great percentage of the population. Unfortunately, while these were good then, they are no longer there.

As we all know radical fundamentalism--be it of the Nazi variety or of the religious kind-- succeeds best in chaos, terror and trauma of the population. And this atmosphere was created in Chile in early 70s, in which Friedman and his University of Chicago Latin acolytes were active participants. Soon the gains of a growing middle class achieved by Allende’s developmentalism were wiped out as inflation skyrocketed and local businesses were overwhelmed by imports. In the midst of all this a few people became filthy rich. This scenario repeated itself in the neighboring Argentina and Brazil, and became the standard too for neocolonialism and post-Soviet New World Order. If you see any resemblance to the Uganda of today, you may be right.

When Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan swashbuckled into the world scene and owned it, Milton Friedman was at last home, and his commandments became standard recipe’ for IMF and World Bank loans. Uganda, traumatized by war and a collapsed economy was the kind of candidate for Friedman’s experiment of unfettered capitalism —privatization, deregulation and cuts in social services—that would bring prosperity and freedom. Are you having a vertigo experience yet?

Soon when he took over the government by means of terror, Museveni toyed with the primitive barter trade. Before the population could blink, the one-time Marxist became an adherent of the IMF-World Bank-Friedmantism. Having a Mulokole family background —Uganda’s version of Christian Fundamentalism—the fanatic exactitude of extreme capitalism was a perfect fit in his mental process--free market will solve all the economic woes--accept Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Developmentalist assets were sold on the cheap giving rise to a new breed of super rich. Buildings sprouted in Kampala in a chaotic mish-mash. Meanwhile government schools, hospitals and roads became rat holes. While the economy supposedly grew at a clip of 6% or more, extreme capitalism has bred extreme poverty that is evidenced by beggars on the streets of Kampala.

It is in this milieu that the NSSF operates. The managers are bold enough to fib with processes, and a powerful man takes advantage because they don’t see any workers’ threat. Instead of this brand of capitalism bringing freedom, it can only be sustained by a police state that can arrest a workers’ MP out to organize his constituency. I bet, if the more than one million workers that contribute to NSSF were to organize a march of demonstration, they would be shot at or beaten. This is extreme capitalism, suckers—get used to it.


* The theme is culled from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism—Naomi Klein