I have recently had the good fortune to revisit an old book called Your Mind and Mine by Raymond B. Cattell. It looks like my father got the book from one Kenneth Shololo. It got me thinking about how silent our psychologists are in our national discourse. I do not believe a developing country can achieve much in the absence of input from psychologists.
According to the author, a gentleman called Spearman put forth the hypothesis that “our general abilities are constructed on a plan of a single general ability-which Spearman called g, but which we may prefer to call “intelligence” working in association with a large number of small special abilities- which he called s’-each operating in a restricted field, mathematical, musical, artistic etc”
Having put forth this hypothesis Spearman proceeded to map out the relative importance of g’s and s’ in all kinds of skill. Based on this it became apparent that success in mathematics and classics is a good indicator of high intelligence. This is rather interesting, for most people who end up in the administrative cadre hate and fail mathematics. They however end up occupying positions of power determining the direction that our country takes. I wonder how many of our influential columnists like mathematics.
Makes you wonder whether we have failed to diversify our economy because we have excluded people of high intelligence from positions of leadership. The majority of our members of parliament cannot claim to be good at mathematics. A look at our political parties shows that the majority of the people they put forth as leaders are of poor ability in mathematics. This suggests that changing political parties that rule without changing the personnel in terms of mathematical and classical attributes will not necessarily change the intelligence of the leadership of our country.
The author further puts forth the proposition that “g must be nothing other than the ability to grasp complex relationships to perceive the way in which one thing stands to another” This suggests that in the current crisis involving the government and the public sector employees if the general ability to grasp complex relationships does not exist then we are in trouble. The same applies to economic diversification. A leadership that does not have the ability to grasp complex relationships cannot by any stretch of the imagination come up with a workable diversification strategy.
The author also puts forth the proposition that a person’s intelligence ceases to grow after the age of 14. He further assets that “Experimental psychology points unwaveringly to the conclusion that, if all facts necessary to decide any question could be mustered, men of from twenty five to thirty five could draw more intelligent conclusions than older men” I have no knowledge of the age of the people involved in resolution of the strike. I can however confidently assume that they are above thirty-five years of age. This would tend to suggest that even if all facts are placed before the negotiators they are less likely than twenty five to thirty five year olds to come up with the most intelligent solution.
The mediators that I have heard mentioned are also above thirty-five years of age. This suggests that they are unlikely to really give us the most intelligent solution to the crisis. If one subscribes to the proposition that mathematical ability is a measure of high intelligence then we have a situation where we need to have negotiators with a proven record on mathematics, to help us gauge their intelligence, and also to have them aged between twenty five and thirty five years of age.
Apparently in psychology it is also possible to have a group test. It is said that a gentleman called Terman developed a group test that enabled the testing of hundreds of people at once, and used this test on American army recruits. Apparently the test made it possible to eliminate the dangerously stupid. The author suggests that “similar methods applied to generals and politicians may lead to staggering results in some future Utopian state” I see no reason why a similar test cannot be applied to both the government leadership and the trade union leadership.
Perhaps if Botswana had not made certain decisions in the past it would be able to absorb a cost of living adjustment for its employees. I submit that the decision to sell our stake in Anglo shows a low ability to grasp complex relationships that has landed our government in the current situation. It is not really prioritization and the world economic crunch that has hampered our government’s ability to pay a cost of living adjustment to its employees but rather a failure in the past to generate an income model that would enable the government in future to pay cost of living adjustments.
A small country like ours that imports a lot of goods and services also imports inflation. It is therefore a given that increasing the deficit is not really a solution to the problem of government’s ability to pay a cost of living adjustment. The solution lies in putting into positions of economic decision making people with the ability to grasp the complex relationship between our status as a net importer of goods and services, our imported inflation, our declining diamond revenues, our failure to diversify sources of income, and our general population’s dislike for mathematics.
Increasing the budget deficit or prioritization of spending where the amounts complained about cannot pay the increase in the public sector wage bill for more than two months is obviously a very short-term solution. Supposing all the money spent on the DIS and the State House Improvements were added to a reduction in the spending in the army, would these pay the increase in the public sector wage bill for a year? I do not think so.
We are rather wasting time identifying what are really superficial once off expenses, in relative terms, to the future wage bill if current public sector levels are kept constant. This shows remarkable failure to grasp the complex relationship that we have to grapple with. We are a country in trouble and the sooner we realize this, the better.
There has been talk that the United States of America may default in repaying its loans. We supposedly have billions in US Dollar denominated foreign reserves. What happens to these reserves if the US defaults? This suggests that a wage increase for the public sector aggravates the risk on the part of government being able to pay public sector wages in the near future. A decline in the value of our foreign reserves due to fears of US default increases our costs of borrowing. A public sector wage increase financed by external borrowing then looks unattractive.
If the government were to borrow in the domestic market to finance the public sector wage bill, it is the pension funds of the very same people who are asking for a wage increase that government will likely look at. Would the pension funds want the exposure given that they know that we have yet to figure out alternatives to diamonds? I doubt if the pension funds would be too keen to borrow the government to finance the public sector wage bill. If the public sector pension funds cannot gladly borrow the government money to finance the public sector cost of living then why should an external entity borrow our government money for the same?
China is stuck in a situation where it has borrowed the US a lot. The US is the largest consumer of Chinese production. There does not seem to be a substitute for the US. China cannot reduce production for it would have a huge unemployment problem. This will make China unstable. Up and until China and the US find a solution to their mutual problems the world economy will remain unstable. The G8 can meet and talk about democracy and climate change but the leaders know that their greatest fear is the unsustainable relationship between US debt and Chinese production.
The US-China dilemma presents an opportunity for Africa. We have the resources to guarantee the stability of the US-China relationship. The current approach of African governments of giving China concessions in return for development assistance lacks imagination. China needs African resources to keep its people employed, to ensure its stability, not to really maintain its production levels. It needs the US to absorb its production but is presented with a situation where it has to borrow the US money for the US to consume its production.
We may yet get a US-China situation, where government borrows from the public sector pension funds, and then with government under the current opposition defaults in repaying. It will be a very interesting situation. In fact if I were in Rre Khama’s position I would borrow from the pension funds to finance the increase. I would then watch the reaction of the unions and the opposition. This will provide a test as to how keen both the public sector unions and the opposition are on the idea of borrowing to finance the wage bill. Surely it is not expected that prioritization alone will finance the increase being asked for. It will provide a test as to how keen the public sector unions are to finance the increase themselves.
