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that economists and all those concerned with policy formulation usually choose policy options with greater utility. In this case, greater utility is the criterion of “better-offness” (Little 2002:8;
Bordley and Pollock, 2009). Economic policies that are chosen should deliver “better-offness” to people and hence reduce poverty.
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With poverty arguably being the greatest challenge in most post-independent African countries, policies that are aimed at reducing poverty and improving the well-being of the majority of the people would pass the utilitarianism test. After considering extensive debate, utility can be viewed as standing for society. The writer will now focus on the debates around the ethics principle of maximising happiness or welfare. It can be assumed that happiness can be quantified and that it varies in amount at different times. Though one can refer to utility as happiness, it can also be defined so as to mean the good of both individual people and the society. Therefore, in maximising happiness one may also be talking of maximising welfare or the good (Little 2002:39). For post-independent states in Africa, and the SADC specifically, policies aimed at maximising welfare or the good in the society should emphasise poverty reduction.
The entitlement theory of justice by Nozick (1974) is heavily dependent on just acquisition and accepts that much of the acquisitions made in the past caused harm to many people. In that understanding, Nozick proposes ‘rectification’ as an ethics principle. It is, however, difficult to identify individual descendants of indigenous African people accurately who suffered and got economically disadvantaged by discriminatory colonial policies. Similarly, it would be difficult to identify descendants of the original colonisers who benefitted from discriminatory colonial policies and make them pay. Noting these difficulties, Nozick suggested that the poor people in post-colonial Africa are most likely the descendants of those who were originally made to suffer and discriminated against by colonial policies. In this thinking, the state’s efforts to redistribute wealth on utilitarian grounds with policies such as indigenisation are justified (Nozick, 1974:231).
During the nineteenth century, the concept of utility was interpreted in terms of happiness and satisfaction in people. The thinking based on happiness sought to measure the levels of happiness in units of utility or ‘utils’. This thinking perceived utility as comparable and measurable. The adding up of utilities gave cardinal utility. This approach was later criticised as unscientific as its judgments were value-laden rather than looking at the variability of happiness. The debate on how best to describe the utility function led to terms such as well-being, subjective well-being, better-offness, betterself, and betterness relation, all meant to measure best and compare the levels of interpersonal, society and national utilities. However, the relationship between betterness or wellbeing with preference or choice. People normally choose what is best for them
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and a utility index for choice would be similar or the same with one for betterness (Burke, 1932).
The choices of people coincide with what is good for them. For almost all utilitarians, the coincidence between people’s choice and what is good for them is only perfect if people are
“rational, well-informed and self-interested”. As argued by Little (2002:14), people can be viewed by others as abnormal. Governments are regarded as some kind of a “better-self” kind of personality who is aware of the self-interests of its protégée, the subjects, and is rational and well informed to direct everyone’s choices. This role of government is recognised by welfare economics. In its well-informed and rational position, a government should then seek to maximise the utility or benefits derived for the greatest number of people.
While there can be variations in individual people’s goals and assessment of consequences of certain choices, the government should be able to deal with the challenges and differences in welfare outcomes likely to arise from differences in individual choices and still be able to deliver general social welfare. Looking at all the possible outcomes of policy options, governments should choose polices which conform to the Pareto like rule that one policy outcome is regarded as better “…if, and only if at least one person is better-off and none worse-off”. (Little, 2002:15).
The African economic ethic of indigenisation should therefore be assessed for success if it delivers at least an additional better off person without making anyone poorer or worse-off.
Utility may follow a concave function in which adding more good to a person who already has a lot of social good around him or her will have less effect than adding the same good to a person with less good (Burke, 1932). If indigenisation is structured to benefit a few well connected and already well-off people, then the social utility derived would be less than making the poor and less privileged benefit from indigenisation. For greater utility to be delivered from indigenisation, more focus should be given to the poor and less privileged. However, for utilitarianism the general welfare can be viewed as a sum total of the individual well-beings. The general good is represented by the addition of individual goods which is the key principle of utilitarianism (Rosen, 2003). An economic policy such as the economic ethic of indigenisation or regionalism can be regarded as ethical if they deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of people.
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The implementation of inward-looking economic policies such as import substitution and indigenisation in individual SADC states has not helped eradicate poverty. A tendency by states to have mixed economic policies and approaches is notable with neo-liberal economic policies of open economies meant to attract foreign direct investment. The mixed policy approach suggests a shift from inward-looking economic policies such as indigenisation. Such a shift confirms the failure of indigenisation to redistribute wealth and eradicate poverty. The majority people have remained poor. For over two decades now many countries in the SADC have been employing policies which are neo-liberal in character with increasing confidence and hope for success, but poverty has not been reduced. There is therefore a need to rethink the economic approaches which seek to redistribute wealth and eradicate poverty. The neo-liberal economic policy is meant to improve the welfare of the society through economic development. In rethinking the approaches or policies for wealth redistribution, a regional approach needs to be considered so that effective regional economic growth and poverty eradication can be achieved. With economic growth and poverty eradication social welfare is expected to improve. As the majority of the people become better-off the ethical concerns of utilitarianism will be addressed as more people derive greater happiness or utility from the policies.
Utilitarianism is regarded as comprehensive principle in applied ethics which should inform both personal and government policy option and actions (Singer, 1979). This principle of utilitarianism is generally regarded as having been founded by Bentham, (1789). Utility can be also understood as happiness and this is an earlier view argued by Aristotle taking earlier scholars as having utilitarianism in their thinking more than three centuries before the birth of Christ. Utilitarianism therefore aimed at maximising happiness or welfare, happiness being about living well and acting well (Little, 2002:39). By maximising happiness, the well-being of people is improved, and poverty reduced. For economic policies in SADC states to be viewed as ethical they need to aim at the eradication of poverty and maximisation of the social well-being of people.
Utilitarianism is one form of consequentialism in ethics which argues that an action can only be judged as right or wrong based on how good its consequences are (Singer, 1979). For the post independent SADC states economic policies which redistribute wealth and lead to a reduction in poverty to the majority of the people will be regarded as ethical. Both neo-liberalism and
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indigenisation in their current state as applied at the national level have not produced the good consequences such as reducing poverty, even after being pursued at the national levels for many years. There is need to rethink the approach in order to derive the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people, especially the previously marginalised black people. Consequentialism has been known to disregard a lot of what is taken to be of moral importance for example rights, virtue, duties and obligations and has a way of addressing these.
Utilitarianism has two distinct forms, rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism (Singer, 1979).
Rule utilitarianism has been presented to counter the argument that utilitarianism ignored important moral rules. Rule utilitarianism holds that some rules are important in ensuring good welfare in people and society. Therefore, rule utilitarianism tests a rule or code of conduct whether it is morally right based on whether the outcomes of implementing that rule are favourable or unfavourable to everyone. A rule utilitarian would choose to follow rules which maximise utility (Little, 2002:40). They would accept that rules can be broken in exceptional cases. In any case rules are generally meant to maximise utility. Countries in SADC have come up with laws or rules that are meant to promote wealth redistribution through some affirmative action or policies which favour the previously disadvantaged poor black people. Policies such as indigenisation, black economic empowerment and affirmative action are supported by laws. The morality of these laws is tested by the outcome or consequence of these laws. Ultimately, the laws and policies were aimed at eradicating poverty among the poor black people. Scholars have criticised the indigenisation policies as having benefitted the few well-connected and the rest of the society has not realised any benefit from such rules or laws. Indeed, the issue of poverty has not been addressed, thus rule utilitarianism would find the rules and policies of indigenisation as unethical because the consequences were not favourable to the majority of the people. In the form in which it is being pursued, indigenisation would fail the morality test. Arguably the spirit and intent in the policies and laws which favour indigenisation is understood to be focused on creating benefits for the poor people but so far, the consequences argue for a rethinking of the whole effort if the consequences are to benefit everyone.
The other form of utilitarianism is act utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism argues for the aggregation of happiness, pleasure and pain that are consequential to a given act. The act becomes morally right when the amount of pleasures exceeds pain (Mill,1998). The outcomes of actions which
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post-colonial African states have taken in implementing indigenisation policies do not warrant the justification of such actions as morally correct. The greatest expected pleasure that was to come after black economic empowerment was the improvement of the welfare of the previously marginalised black people. Unfortunately, the welfare of the majority of the people has remained poor, as indicated by the persistent high levels of poverty.
Further to the failure to eradicate poverty through indigenisation and economic empowerment activities, the confidence of investors has been seriously affected leading to low foreign direct investment in the SADC region. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been argued as a key economic development strategic option for most if not all post-colonial African states. The FDI approach to economic development follows the global neo-liberal economic practices.
Indigenisation appears to be inward-looking and contradicts the views of neo-liberalism. SADC countries have been calling for FDI to stimulate economic growth and development and ultimately to improving people’s welfare once poverty levels decrease. The overall effects of the actions taken in support of indigenisation have not delivered pleasure or happiness to the majority of the people, an indication of the moral failure of these actions from an act utilitarianism perspective.
Another dimension of utilitarianism is hedonistic utilitarianism which regards pleasurable consequences of a rule or law or an act as the only factor in the determination of the morality of such action or law. This is a rather restrictive approach which disregards all other outcomes which may cause pain or bring about unpleasant results. In response to this limitation in hedonistic utilitarianism, Moore (1903) suggested ideal utilitarianism which requires the determination of the effective sum total of what may be regarded as good and bad outcomes of a rule or law or action. This does not limit the aggregation to pleasurable and painful outcomes.
This ideal approach to utilitarianism would be better in determining the overall effect of an economic policy and strategy for social welfare. This is unlike preference utilitarianism which only looks at tallying consequences that meet the expectation or intended outcome of a policy or action (Hare, 1981). Such an approach would mislead in the determination of the overall welfare effect.
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In the implementation of the indigenisation policy in the SADC there has been argument that the approach was discriminatory and did not give equal right to all citizens. In that light, as some philosophers put it, there are some rights which cannot be overridden. They regard the rights to be lexicographically superior to whatever amount of utility. Property rights are often presented as such rights which cannot be overridden. By dispossessing property owners of certain percentages of their investment or property there would be a violation of their property rights. It is further argued that all citizens have equal rights to access and acquire property. Empowerment policies or laws such as indigenisation would be a violation of rights such as rights to liberty and property. However, noting the existence of previously discriminatory practices which were used by colonial authorities, it is clear that whites benefitted economically from laws and policies which were discriminatory and in violation of property rights. To address this discrepancy with a view to coming up with consequences which deliver the greatest number of people utilitarian ethics would be the only way to justify the morality of indigenisation. Utilitarianism would disregard the arguments of rights and only focus on the intended outcomes or consequences of indigenisation (Little, 2002:41). Whether implementation serves the intention or not becomes another issue of debate but expected and intended consequences would pass the test of utilitarian ethics. The rights argument would make it difficult for government to come-up with and implement wealth redistributive policies. This would leave little room for governments to implement welfare economics, given that almost all new projects or policies would cause harm to someone. With such limited room to manoeuvre the ethical justification of redistributive policies such as indigenisation can only be secured in consequentialism, or, more specifically, utilitarianism.
4.4 The Moral Issues of the State in Policy Selection and Indigenisation in the SADC