Class struggles and the quest for 2030 Part 3

THIS should be the last instalment of a three part series that unpacked realities and possibilities of a middle class economy in a decade. Comrades, on Independence Day this year, President ED unpacked the character of a middle class economy. He spoke extensively on youth employment creation, protection of children, gender equity, investment in improving the public health system and political reforms that facilitate a sustainable democracy. This has been set as the national prescription and the public service should now start gravitating towards the invitation of national participation. Sisonke!

The last two instalments

This series has stimulated debate and discussion around economic transformation within a decade, moreover celebratory is how this space has been a café of class struggle discourse and how the peasants’ lives would be enhanced. Of interest in memory of the past and how it informs this instalment is how the first part howled the monopoly of ideas, democracy and opinion by the “town” class. I argued that a middle class economy should not sustain monopoly of ideas and beliefs to the extent of ridiculing the rural people’s aspirations.

Last week in the second part, I wrote extensively about how a worthwhile middle class will be sustained by a deliberate financing of our education sector which remodels thought power and manpower. What the two instalments achieved is an epilogue which argues that class achievement goes beyond crunched numbers but speaks to the social construction, consciousness and political re-organisation. These three are part of an indefinite cocktail of what will facilitate the achievement and sustain a middle class, which in fact drives the economy of any country.

Defining our poverty?

The intention of impelling towards a middle class economy is driven by a quest to relinquish poverty in Zimbabwe. Leo Zeiling in editing the book Class struggles and resistance in Africa advises that our poverty cannot be explained by problems of “corruption” and “governance,” but rather are rooted in an historic relationship of exploitation within a larger capitalist system.

As many of the essays in this book describe, the thwarting of industrial development under colonialism, followed by single-commodity export economies after independence and World Bank/ IMF-imposed austerity, have combined to produce debt crises, collapses of infrastructure, poverty, lack of access to health care, and high rates of HIV infection. This has always been a point of discussion all along, and it should remain a reminder going forward.

Class struggle is beyond figures Much discussion on the Second Republic economic and well-being’s aspirations rest on figures, and that has reduced everything to economics or politics of economics yet life goes beyond fiscal and monetary discourse. In fact, class struggles stretch far beyond notions of “how much money”. The middle class concept remains vague and limited to number crunching.

Economists tell us that the minimum threshold for entering a so-called middle class in monetary terms is an annual growth of plus eight to 10 percent, a GDP of $60 billion and that equitably, majority of the citizens should survive on not less than $2-$20/ day. In simpler terms, each person in Zimbabwe by 2030 should have an equal share from the resource profits of not less than $1 000.

Such monetary acrobatics aside, the analytical deficit which characterises such classification is seriously problematic. The so-called middle class appears to be a “muddling class”. Rigorously explored differentiation remained largely absent, not to mention any substantial class analysis. Professional activities, social status, cultural, ethnic or religious affinities or lifestyle as well as political orientations are hardly (if at all) considered.

A new middle class as a meaningful social actor does require a collective identity in pursuance of common interests. Once upon a time this was called class-consciousness, based on a “class in itself ” while acting as a “class for itself ”. After all, which “middle” is occupied by an African “middle class”, if this is not positioned also in terms of class awareness and behaviour?

Politically such middle classes seem not as democratic as many of those singing their praises assume. Middle classes have shown ambiguities ranging from politically progressive engagement to a status-quo oriented, conservative approach to policies (if being political at all).

Our planning for 2030 should not ignore that there is also little evidence of any correlation between economic growth and social progress. We have to be cognisant that while during the “fat years” the poor partly became a little less poor while the rich usually get much richer.

One Professor Dingilizwe Zvavanhu argues in support of a middle class rather than a pro-poor developmental orientation. He concedes that a sensible political economy analysis needs to differentiate between the rich with political leverage and the rest. This learned mentor remains nevertheless adamant that the middle class is an ingredient for good governance.

This is based on his assumption that continued economic growth reduces inequalities. He further hypothesises that a growing middle class has a greater interest in an accountable government and supports a social contract, which taxes it as an investment into collective public goods to the benefit of also the poor.

Where to now?

In this epilogue, lived experiences matter if one is in search of how to define a middle class as an array of collective identities. Such necessary debate has in the meantime arrived in Zimbabwe and the claim to ownership is also reflected in the past submissions that documented the need to deconstruct the mystification of the middle class being declared as the torchbearers of progress and development. But it is not only the class struggle between the ruling class and the exploited majority that has significance.

The struggles between competing factions of the same ruling class, or two different exploiting classes, also play an important role in determining the development of society and the ideologies that emerge. For example the competition between the different imperialist capitalist classes in the 20th and 21st centuries, or the struggle between the rising capitalist class and the declining feudal ruling class in the 17th , 18th and 19th centuries.

With a possibility of recreating social classes that have a potential hazardous historical evidence of othering the other, we shall note that modern economies are never sustained by the few rich but by a huge middle class that is employed and consistently demanding and spending. What is strategic about this middle class is that an ease of mind will facilitate mediation of class consciousness and belonging.

The calibre of citizens within this base is one that will begin to be critical of its political affi liation — an exit from “stomach thinking” (the disastrous use of hunger to think). While political economy is a product of how the economy functions, it will be largely fed by how its terrain is accommodative of progressive differences.

Freed from its prescriptive shackles, the middle class framework could however, prove beneficial to cut through some of the more polarised categories of analysis. Many more questions remain to be asked and so many of those deserve better answers than “the Zimbabwean middle class” wrapped in a bow and delivered to our doorstep courtesy of norm entrepreneurs and Money Incorporated.

At the bottom of the pyramid are those on whom narratives are imposed and who have limited means to resist; at the top are those who have decided on their narrative and are writing their memoirs already; and in between is where the action is, where narratives overlap, clash or fuse because Zimbabweans are playing the field unencumbered by the nay-sayers or the yay-sayers. There is much to be learned about that life; and who better to tell these stories of in-betweenness than members of the middle classes themselves, Zimbabwean journalists, artistes, bloggers and academics?

Phambili ngeZimbabwe!