Resident columnist Dickson Igwe
Education and learning are the most crucial elements in the building of Virgin Islands prosperity. The human element is the defining factor in the capital mix. The appropriate mix of the components of capital drives wealth creation, with excellence in human resources as Key.
Whether it is the sole proprietor, or tiny organization with a handful of employees, through to the multinational corporation employing hundreds of thousands, and even a vast nation state, the most important force for prosperity is the individual’s learning, and then that individual coming together with other individuals skilled and otherwise, in teamwork, to realize a vision.
The human element decides the value and power of the capital mix required for achieving any outcome; that is the reason enterprise as driven by the entrepreneur or businessperson sits by itself as the leading factor in economic productivity, and the most critical form of capital. Supply Side economics is the belief that the producer is king.
The objective of capital is simple: it is increasing profits, growing the balance sheet, and appropriating wealth and power for the owners of capital described as investors and capitalists. There may be other objectives such as where capital is managed for the common good such as is the case in nonprofit organizations, or under a socialist or communist state. The preceding forms of organization and governance are increasingly remote, as capitalism reigns supreme this 21st century. Private capital is pervasive and ubiquitous in today’s materially driven social and economic culture.
Capital has become nihilist. It bows only to the most adept and wily capitalist. A winner takes all culture has created a global ruling class of billionaires who rule the planet. Politics is subservient to capital. Today, 100 families control the world’s most powerful corporations. In essence, the tiniest minority of men and women rule the world. These people tend to be North American, western European, and white, although increasingly, global wealth and power is becoming more widely spread, especially as Brazil, India, South Africa, China, Russia, specific Middle Eastern states, and developed Asian states, compete with the west for the highest stakes in the global capitalist culture.
Then the human element is the most critical portion of the capital mix. The entrepreneur sits in control of capital and how capital can be managed and harvested to build wealth, create jobs, and supply the planet’s consumers with all they need to exist, from food and drink, to homes and household appliances, computers and cell phones, even cars, trains, and jet aircraft. The products of capital and the capitalist are as diverse as they are limitless.
The management of capital is the reason education is the most important ingredient in a country’s wealth creation armory. Wealth creation requires a socially healthy, well skilled, and well-educated population, to utilize a country’s capital. This is human capital.
Out of the education process, whether vocational or academic, comes the entrepreneur, the human resources manager, the healthcare professional, teacher, mechanical engineer, the computer programmer, the skilled roofer and mason, the chef, the boat captain and the airline pilot. The preceding, a tiny sample of the output of the learning system. Learning added to capital generates wealth and power for the society, with the capitalist, also known as the investor, in the driving seat.
Supply Side Economics argues that in generating wealth for the owners of capital, there is a trickledown effect: wages for management and employees, taxes for government, and charitable effort. What is good for Jack the Capitalist is good for the country, and everyone else.
Now, Germany and Austria are two nations that churn out highly skilled workers, in a variety of skills: heavy tools, heavy manufacturing, car making, chemicals, aeronautics, and so on and so forth. The two states are a type of industrial heartland of Europe.
When we board an Airbus or Boeing, we rely on the education and skills of hundreds of thousands of people to arrive safely at a destination. Likewise with healthcare. It is not only the capital – technology-of a hospital, and the millions of dollars in medical equipment, that saves lives: it is scientific capital, plus the skills of the medical professionals working in harmony with technology.
The wise investor, before deciding to place his eggs in any basket will first assess the human element: the work culture, skills, and management, of the people in the organization, town or city, even country, before committing his cash. A poor human element mixed with capital brings the organization and business crashing down, notwithstanding the high value of the non-human elements of the capital mix. Never take the human and social element in the capital mix for granted. It is the horse pulling the cart.
Dickson Igwe is an education official in the Virgin Islands. He is also a national sea safety instructor. He writes a national column across media and has authored a story book on the Caribbean: ‘The Adventures of a West Indian Villager’. Dickson is focused on economics articles, and he believes economics holds the answer to the full economic and social development of the Caribbean. He is of both West African and Caribbean heritage. Dickson is married with one son.
