A Paternalistic Social Program Undermines Independence & Entrepreneurship In the Youths.
Just as an over-caring parent can undermine a toddler’s growth towards physical independence by tending towards over-indulgent behaviours, an ‘over-caring’, paternalistic social program can do likewise to sustainable youth development and nurturance of entrepreneurial spirit in Nigerian youths. The best way to nurture self-responsibility and entrepreneurial spirit in people is not by giving handouts or special aids to them - whether they own small- or medium-scale businesses, or aim at building innovative ideas. A social program that tries to shield young people from direct orientation to real-life struggles, by churning out series of protectionist blankets undermine the risk-taking component of genuine entrepreneurship in them. A paternalistic social program weakens already-nurtured entrepreneurial spirit, creativity and innovativeness in youths. This is a major challenge to nurturance of authentic entrepreneurship in Africa today. It may suffice to assert that economic subsidies tend to make people complacent.
The hallmark of a disciplined entrepreneur is proactivity towards the provision of whatever resources his business needs to thrive. In other words, taking full personal responsibility for business success is what makes entrepreneurs bloom, not special care from social programs.
A rather counterintuitive
approach to strengthening budding entrepreneurs would be weaning them off protectionist packages and benefits. Entrepreneurs become stronger through “validated learning,” a phenomenon greatly discussed by Eric Ries in ‘The Lean Startup’. Capitalizing on learning from past trials to create value goes a long way to strengthen entrepreneurs. The best a socially responsible program can do for Nigerian youths is help them cultivate a comprehensive philosophy, with a moral obligation to pursue their self-interest in the most responsible and ethical way possible.
An unhampered market is the goose that lays the golden egg. Coercion of any form denatures the process.
#freemarkets #capitalism #liberty
Absolutely! And by the way, this is the essence of capitalist production—creating value on a massive scale. Capital is underutilized if its uses are restricted to niche markets, rather than mass markets.
Once a man gains cognisance of the fact of volition, and that he has the power to choose his actions and consciously steer his actions along a chosen course, he owes himself the intellectual responsibility of taking disciplined thought and logical implications of ideas very seriously. Most importantly he must become acutely aware that making the wrong choices and holding the wrong ideas could lead to his ruin.
#freewill #choice #responsibility #volition
FOR-PROFIT VS. FOR-SENTIMENT ENTERPRISES
The interests of the rational entrepreneur or businessperson are always at war with every form of chauvinism or bigotry. It is necessarily so, if profit-maximisation and sustainable business growth are to be their highest priorities.
The rational entrepreneur is “colour-blind,” gender-blind, religion-blind, ethnicity-blind, as a matter of principle, while conducting his business activities. It is in his best interest to dispense with every business policy rooted in irrational beliefs and sentiments and to uphold reason as the absolute guide to decision-making.
Sustained business growth and the consequent profitability requires the adoption of liberalism as an overarching economic philosophy. That is why the establishment or alteration of a business concern to serve such exclusionary motives as “Christian-only,” “Muslim-only,” “Black-only,” “Male-only,” “Female-only,” “Latino-only,” “Yoruba-only,” etc., would always seem hardly sustainable to me.
Now, my line of argument has nothing against serving a niche market—as long as “niche” in our context implies existing market segments with peculiar demands. My argument is directed at a policy of denying customer access due to prior sentiments—especially that originating in founders or the management of an enterprise—individuals whom, rather than override sentiments with reason, allow emotional biases dictate the course of business activities.
Once again, the ongoing question every entrepreneur must answer is: do you want to enjoy high business growth and high profits—or, do you prefer limited business growth and low profits merely because you prioritise the indulgence of some sentiments?
The fact that you were treated unfairly by a previous, chauvinistic employer, or client is not sufficient grounds to run a business on an unfounded policy of sweeping exclusion. A rational alternative would be acting better than your chauvinistic boss, or choosing not to do business with a particular client, rat he than indicting every member of a social group of the shortcomings of specific individuals. It is very important that one make business decisions amenable to the discipline of purpose—i.e., profit maximisation.
#economics #business #entrpreneurship #liberalism #growth #profits
The Nigerian People vs. NYSC Decree No. 24 of 1973: An Austro-libertarian Review####
Every year, thousands of Nigerian youths who are below the age of thirty and who’ve completed their undergraduate studies—whether in Nigeria or abroad—are compelled by law to give up one year of their working time in active duty to the country under the auspices of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), an agency of the government.
It has now been fifty years since the establishment of the NYSC mandatory program under Decree No. 24 of May 22, 1973 by the then–military regime led by General Yakubu Gowon (retired). Among other stated social objectives of the NYSC as written in the decree is “to raise the moral tone of the Nigerian youths by giving them the opportunity to learn about higher ideals of national achievements, social and cultural improvements.” Whether these social objectives have been reached is a different matter. However, looking back on these past years, and upon subsequent review of this enactment from an Austrolibertarian perspective, one cannot help but question the net impact of this decree in the lives of Nigerians.
It is then the purpose of this article to briefly show from the perspective of Austrian economic theory and libertarian law how the continuity of the mandatory service program sabotages the economic well-being of Nigerian citizens and occasions the violation of the property rights of Nigerians.
The Economic Implications of the NYSC Decree for Individual Nigerians
To quote Murray Rothbard in Man, Economy, and State: “The major function of praxeology—of economics—is to bring to the world the knowledge of these indirect, these hidden, consequences of different forms of human action.”
Austrian economic theory shows that coercive actions toward the unhampered market produce unintended consequences, which are the inevitable outcomes of the impairment of the market’s existing allocative efficiency—as well as its smooth social coordination—in the satisfaction of the most urgent wants of individuals. It also predicts that violent intervention, by means of the state apparatus, leads to contrary outcomes, which always prove unsatisfactory, even from the point of view of the initiators of such interventions.
As mandated by section 9 of the NYSC decree,
The Directorate [of NYSC] shall register each member of the service corps and shall deploy him for national service in the following undertakings and project, that is, in:
hospitals
road construction
farming
wafer schemes
surveying and mapping
social and economic services
teaching
food storage and eradication of pest
rehabilitation of destitute and the disabled
development of sports
all government departments and statutory corporations suitable for new graduates
development project of local councils
the private sector of the Nigerian economy
such other undertakings and projects as the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces may, by order, determine.
From the lens of Austrian theory, the Nigerian government’s protracted decree of mandatory one-year service by a proportion of the country’s educated, youthful labor force—in pursuit of social objectives other than those dictated by the market—diverts labor, qua a higher-order good, from those lines of production that aim at the satisfaction of the most urgent wants. In other words, the yearly intervention by the government in allocating a given proportion of the country’s labor force, without the guidance of the price system as a tool of economic decision-making, would inevitably result in a misallocation of labor as a productive and scarce resource. The virtue of the unhampered market lies in its capacity to allocate scarce resources the most efficiently, in accordance with the most urgent wants of consumers.
Individuals, in order to maximize utility, usually grade their wants according to an ordinal scale of importance and expect to employ available resources at their command in the most economically advantageous ways—that is, toward the satisfaction of their urgent wants. When productive resources are restricted in supply due to the coercive actions of the state or are diverted from those lines of production that furnish the lower-order goods that aid in the want of satisfaction, the utility maximization goals of individuals are impinged.
More so, the decree erects barriers to entry into the labor market by the population of educated Nigerian youths who do not currently hold the NYSC certificate usually issued at the end of the mandatory service. This tends to deprive these individuals of the opportunity to integrate themselves into the social division of labor. In regard to employment considerations, the decree states:
For the purposes of employment anywhere in the Federation and before employment, it shall be the duty of every prospective employer to demand and obtain from any person who claims to have obtained his first degree at the end of the academic year 1973–74 or, as the case may be, at the end of any subsequent academic year the following –
a copy of the Certificate of National Service of such person issued pursuant to section 11 of this Decree.
Furthermore, the maintenance of the NYSC program imposes fiscal burdens on the public treasury, which is itself maintained by taxes supplied by the Nigerian people. The government’s increased spending on the NYSC initiative has been decried amid the economic hardships faced by Nigerian taxpayers, together with the fact of the dwindling oil revenues that finance the program.
Legitimacy of the NYSC Decree of 1973 from the Perspective of Libertarian Theory
In reviewing the legality of the NYSC Decree from the point of view of natural law, from which the libertarian theory of property rights is derived and upon which the larger libertarian society is organized, we can categorically judge the legislation as a gross violation of the individual’s right to self-ownership. In compelling service to the nation through the state apparatus, the NYSC decree negates the right of the individual to freely choose where, when, and with whom to exchange his labor services.
While we may deem it moral to cultivate the spirit of patriotism in the youth, it is not the function of the law to enforce moral values. Using legal violence to enforce social and moral values necessarily violates the rights of individuals in society—especially the rights of those who may not currently share the patriotic sentiments of the lawmaker.
Clearly, liberty and compulsory service are incompatible and indeed diametrically opposed to each other. Compulsory service, regardless of the duration, is a form of slavery.
#Miseswire #Nigeria #Libertarianism #Austrian
https://nostrcheck.me/media/cb7e5da55ed33e10ccf394ad586cba0b09b676aa9e017edeae4b56c749fec484/e1bb7bfb12295bb637f44d43cf0c5fc6056971a76655d22af475024160bb3476.webp https://nostrcheck.me/media/cb7e5da55ed33e10ccf394ad586cba0b09b676aa9e017edeae4b56c749fec484/e1bb7bfb12295bb637f44d43cf0c5fc6056971a76655d22af475024160bb3476.webp
Here’s a link to my recent Mises Wire article on a mandatory youth service programme running since 1973 in Nigeria. Compelled service is clearly incompatible with liberty. https://mises.org/mises-wire/nigerian-people-vs-nysc-decree-no-24-1973-austro-libertarian-review
Moral persuasion and reasoned discourse would always remain most invaluable in the battle against moral degeneracy. One (in this case the father of the 12 year old) must logically show that particular actions and modes of being would be very costly if continued.
Market-determined interest rates—whether high or low—rather than artificially induced ones via credit expansion or contraction, help allocate capital to those lines of production which aim toward the satisfaction of most urgent wants. “Usury” would be a mere value judgment, not a valid concept under a free market regime. Sound economics must be propa. Cheers!
Hello! I am Michael, a 2024 Mises Institute apprentice from Nigeria. It all started with reading Ayn Rand as a young boy. Thereafter, a burning passion for the liberty philosophy took me down the long road to freedom, where I discovered the series of compelling literature on liberty and the free-market—including the works of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and the Austrian School of Economics. I believe that liberty is indivisible, most essential for self-actualisation, and that society can best attain prosperity under the institution of private property. I seek to spread the libertarian message across Africa and the rest of the world, realising that only political freedom can foster the economic prosperity that Africa and the world greatly seeks. Join me in making this a reality. Cheers! #introductions #introductions
Liberty is indivisible!