Kenya requires strong institutions to break the chain of inequality since Independence

Milton Friedman wrote in his book Free to Choose that life is not fair, attempting to believe that the government can correct the effects.

John Rawls, the late American philosopher, answered Libertarian laissez faire economists like Friedman that although life is unfair, we have to get over it and find ways of maximising the benefits that flow from it.

He said: “The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust nor are the persons born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.”

What we must then confront is what kind of principles we would choose to govern social and economic inequalities to guard against the risk of finding ourselves in crushing poverty and is the subject that David Ndii, an economist, tackled in a recent article in the Saturday Nation.

Rawls says that at first thought we might try and favour equal distribution of income and wealth, but it would occur to us that we could do better for those at the bottom.

The analogy he gives is the case of doctors offered a higher pay than bus drivers; we could be improving the situation of those who have the least — by increasing access to health care for the poor.

Rawls calls for permissible inequality, more so equity, as the principle of addressing moral desert and entitlement to legitimate expectations.

So if we were to ask Rawls about President Uhuru Kenyatta’s issuing title deeds to the landless, what would be his response knowing that an estimated 75 per cent of Kenya’s population is directly dependent on land yet land distribution is skewed?

Natural facts

That 17.2 per cent of Kenya’s total landmass of 587,900 square kilometres carries 80 per cent of the population while the remaining carries only 20 per cent of the total population, which is mainly made up of pastoralists. About 13 per cent of the population has no land at all.  

Rawls’s answer would probably be that natural distribution (talent, endowments) is neither just nor unjust, nor is someone born in a serfdom or marginalised group, but how our institutions address these natural facts (marginalisation, inequality, deprivations) is what defines what’s just and unjust.

Rawls’s theory is not meant to assess fairness; it is concerned with the basic structure of society, and the way it allocates rights and duties, income and wealth, power and opportunities. 

On whether we have ever made a leap from our social and economic position, let’s look back to Independence days and compare with the current situation.

If we did, there is no reason to say we are winding back. We have been making baby steps moving forward only to back-pedal looking for the horizon.   

There has always been systematic marginalisation, discrimination and deprivation, national disparities and poverty levels.

JM Kariuki, who probably we can call a Rawlsian, foresaw Kenya’s income inequalities in the early years of Independence when he talked of a country of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars.

In fact Rawls argues for permissible inequality, saying that if all we have is formal equality, job openings to everyone, the result is not going to be fair, it will be biased in favour of those born to affluent families and have gone to school.

Families living in Muthaiga have obvious advantage of securing a job compared to those from Mathare or Huruma who have same academic qualification.

If you are born into nobility, you have rights and powers denied to those born into serfdom. Have we moved away from that position of inequality?
The only difference is that we now have 40 billionaires and 40 million beggars. 

Massacres have happened in North Eastern, Eastern, Central and Nyanza where many innocent people have lost lives in the hands of both the police and fellow citizens.

Holla Massacres (1959-Tana River); Kisumu Town massacres (1969), Bulla Kartasi (1980-Garissa); Malka Mari (1981-Mandera); Wagalla (Wajir-1984);Bagalla (1998-Garissa); Elwak (2008-Mandera); Turbi (2005-2009-Marsabit); Mathira (2009-Nyeri); Isiolo (2009), any many more.

We have always been under a police State since Independence, where the State intimidates the citizenry together with the Fourth Estate into submission.

The police conduct arbitrary arrests and have been accused of extra-judicial killings under the guise of security swoops, crackdowns and operations.

From 2007-2009, we witnessed the disappearance of many youths who were suspected to be followers of the outlawed Mungiki sect.  We still don’t have institutionalised political parties, all we have are political properties disguised as parties, majority shareholders being what PLO Lumumba refers to us “low voltage ethnic warlords.”

We are yet to break away from the ethnic yoke of hatred to politics of ideology.  

If we would follow through Rawls train of thought, he introduces us to a method of justifying a theory of justice, which is a version of Socratic or dialectical moral reasoning he calls “reflective equilibrium.”

It’s moving back and forth between our considered judgments about particular cases and the general principles we would articulate to make sense of those judgments. That moral justification is a matter of mutual support of many considerations of everything fitting together into one coherent view. 

The increasing levels of poverty and inequality in the society is now a gulf between the poor and the rich, a gap that makes Kenya the third most unequal State in Africa.  

This divide entails differences in access to basic social goods and services such as education, health, enjoyment of political rights and freedoms.

The new terminal at JKIA should be creating job opportunities to the many have-nots who were at Uhuru Park during the Saba Saba rally, probably as casual labourers.

Vision 2030 envisions the JKIA to be a regional hub, which will be receiving more than 20 million visitors annually.

What would be the ripple effects of this? I don’t think it’s those that would like to add their flying blue hours are the only ones who want to see the airport upgraded. No, the big picture is different.

What did the Grand Coalition government leave behind for Jubilee to inherit and build a just social and economic system? Only scandals, unemployment, tribalism in government and systematic marginalisation.

It was under the coalition government that in 2010 the price of maize flour was Sh70 while the local currency traded above Sh100 against dollar.

Employment creation projects like Kazi Kwa Vijana was dismissed as a cash cow for the old people as the youth toiled for meagre pay.

We are not winding back, we are still where Jomo Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki left us, only for the next driver Mr Kenyatta to take us on a “Nascar lap race” as it has always been.

We should demand our share of public positions, we should demand inclusivity, inclusivity for the have-nots to at least enjoy the “meal” and not for the political elite.