Dambisa Moyo Offers Radical Ways to Fix Broken Democratic Systems
(Kitco News)- There is a severe mismatch between the long-term problemsour society faces and the short-sightedness of our policymakers, according toNew York Times best-selling author, Dambisa Moyo.
The celebrated economist, who serves on the boards ofBarclays Bank and Chevron, argued that liberal democratic government systemshave not been conducive to solving the world’s most pressing socio-economicchallenges.
Her latest book, “Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing toDeliver Economic Growth-and How to Fix It,” discusses ways to bridge the gapbetween what she describes as a “schism,” or “mismatch” between long-termeconomics and short-term politics.
“These long-term economic challenges from demographics toincome inequality, to natural resource scarcity, and issues around debt...theseare long-term economic issues that are deeply embedded in the economy, and yetwe have myopic short-termism embedded in the political process,” Moyo toldKitco News on the sidelines of the Mines & Money New York conference.
Her comments come as the U.S. national debt exceeded $21trillion for the first time earlier in March, while some economists anticipatethat President Trump’s tax cuts signed last December will widen budget deficitsnext year.
Moyo’s book offers “10 radical reforms” to these problems,one of which is to make voting mandatory.
“There are 27 countries in the world that have mandatoryvoting. Countries like Australia, Belgium, Greece, and the participation ratesof voters are much higher, perhaps unsurprisingly since there are fines if youdon’t vote,” she said. “In these countries, the participation rates are above80%, very often above 90%.”
By contrast, voter participation rates in the U.S. hover around50%, and even lower at 30% for low-income families, she said.
In the U.S., voter turnout has been on a steady downturnsince 2008. The 2016 U.S. presidential election saw a voter turnout of 120million votes cast, representing 56% of the population, down from 58% in 2012,and 62% in 2008.
Moyo noted that because of this apparent apathy amongstvoters, the political system has deviated from the “one man one vote mantra”people have associated with liberal democracies.
“I think the consequences of that are quite dire, becausewhat you end up with is basically narrow voting parties, and I think thatpolicymakers and politicians very naturally try to steer the political agendatowards the people who are voting and not towards the broad societal base,” shesaid.
“I think it’s really important that we get those voterparticipation rates up,” Moyo added.
On global growth, Moyo remains optimistic in the short-term,citing good employment numbers from the U.S., as well as rising GDP andinflation under control. Beyond the short-term, however, she remains cautiousas structural problems weigh on long-term growth.
“The IMF has just talked about how they think in2020, they’ll start to see a global slowdown. Those types of structuralconcerns, and of course, the eternal question of where the heck is inflation, Ithink those types of issues are still looming in the global economic debate,”she said.
By David LinFor Kitco News
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