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I noted there is no hawking in Kyrgyzstan‘s capital Bishkek and Serbia’s Belgrade - the two countries that were once under communism. What a coincidence!
Hawking, which is so common in African cities seems not universal.
It’s the lowest form of entrepreneurship, a one-man show combining all the functions of a firm from sourcing to marketing, sales, accounting, supply chain, and operations.
As the country develops, there are few hawkers. Jobs are created in the formal sector. In addition, most city regulations make it hard to hawk unless in designated places.
Hawking in addition to indicating a country’s level of economic growth, shows the level of inequality.
Could the absence of hawking in former communist countries be a legacy of their “equality“?
The elders who lived in former communist countries are nostalgic about the good old days when everyone had a job and life was affordable. I heard that from a taxi driver in Belgrade.
Many democratic countries including Kenya once romanticised communism and its emphasis on equality and communal ownership of factors of production.
Karl Marx was once popular around Kenyan campuses. The term comrade denotes some dalliance with communism, now degraded by history.
The absence of hawking in these countries could also be a signal they easily transitioned to the market system but dealt with market failures, giving capitalism a human face. Is working on more than one job a cure for market failure or part of market failure?
This could explain by Belgraders are out late in the evening, to relax after long hours of work.
Market system
There is no doubt that on average, capitalism or the market system did better than communism or its variants in the last 100 years. Remember Communism or Marxism was a reaction to the excesses of capitalism after the industrial revolution.
In Europe, capitalism got a human face through a welfare society now very attractive to refugees and fanning right-wing parties.
The Scandinavian system is taken as the benchmark in giving capitalism a human face. How do we give Kenyan capitalism a human face without penalising men and
women who work hard every day?
Are affordable housing and universal healthcare signs of a welfare state? Why not higher education which is free in lots of European countries?
Clearly, Kenya‘s socio-economic system is evolving. Will it correct the mistakes of capitalism and communism? We can all wait and watch with bated breath.
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