I have been largely uncomfortable with the way the debate on
free SHS has gone. Today, Steven Landsburg’s words in “The Armchair Economist”
gave me some clarity… (I think)
“One of the first rules of policy analysis is that you can
never prove that a policy is desirable by proving its benefits. It goes without
saying that nearly any policy anybody can dream up has some advantages. If you
want to defend a policy, your task is not to demonstrate that it does some
good, but that it does more good than harm.” Thus on the flipside, if you want
to oppose a policy, your task is not to demonstrate that it does some harm, but
that it does more harm than good.
To demonstrate that a program does more good/harm than
harm/good, one must at least take an implicit stand on the fundamental
philosophical issue of what ‘more’ means, and how much ‘more’ is required to
implement a policy, or throw it out of the window. You also have to determine
the right standard for weighing one kind of cost (harm) against another kind of
benefit (good).
It is easy to get carried away with making long lists of pros
and cons, forgetting that sooner or later, we must decide how many cons it
takes to outweigh a particular pro, and vice versa.
We can commission experts to estimate costs and benefits, but
when the costs are measured in apples and the benefits in oranges, mere
arithmetic cannot illuminate the path to ‘righteousness’. When all the facts
are in, we still need a moral philosophy to guide our decisions. This is where
ideological differences come in and invariably leads to people on either side
of the fence.
Thus the winner of the elections (or any elections for that
matter), will not determine whether a manifesto policy is ‘good’ or ‘bad’,
whatever those words mean to you in this context.
The important thing to me then, is to ask how Ghana can
benefit from the dialogue about this free SHS policy or any other campaign
promise, no matter the outcome of the elections.
In the case of free SHS, if the NDC wins, how do we hold them
up to the standard of ‘not now’? How do we ensure that they put in place at
least some of the preparatory measures required for ‘later’, and at a pace that
will not make the ‘later’ effectively ‘never’?
Should the NPP win, how do we ensure that the catastrophic ‘now’
predictions of harm are minimized? How do we ensure that casualties will be
minimized even if it falls flat on its face like some predict?
Sitting down and folding our arms should not be an option, no
matter what side of the divide we find ourselves on. It is in no one’s interest
to just wait and be able to say “Aha! We said it!” especially when the future
of the nation is at stake.
But then again, that’s just my two cent’s worth.
PS: Talking this over with my Dad made me realize this may be
seen as a call for a national development agenda so that we are not swinging
from party manifesto to manifesto. But alas! We all know how that story goes…
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