Kenya's decadent four horsemen and why we should stop the slide

A sobering documentary from over a decade ago cuts through the current political noise like a prophet’s warning. The Four Horsemen dissects systemic failures of our global financial and political order.

It portrays a world captured by a rapacious banking system that creates money from nothing, funnels wealth upward in a pyramid scheme, and sustains itself through manipulated cognitive maps peddled by media and academia.

The film invokes the biblical apocalypse: war, conquest, famine and death, reimagined as converging modern crises comprising predatory finance, escalating violence, mass poverty, and environmental collapse. It is no conspiracy rant but a call to understand structural flaws for true liberation. In Kenya today, its message feels eerily prophetic.

Pre-colonial communities embodied the Pioneers; innovative, resilient societies with rich trade and social systems.

Colonial rule delivered brutal Conquests, alienating land and imposing extractive structures. Post-independence brought Commerce, with Harambee spirit, Africanisation, and corporate emergence.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries delivered Affluence for baby boomers and older Gen X through accessible land, stable public service jobs, and the phenomenon of old money built on lower costs and expanding opportunities. Intellect followed, with Vision 2030 ambitions, digital leaps like M-Pesa, and mass higher education.

We now languish in Decadence, and the symptoms are grotesque. A tiny elite clings to power through corruption that makes Roman senators look amateurish.

Wash-wash quick riches, sharp boys conning the system, slay queens and baddies flaunting transactional excesses define a culture obsessed with display, sex, and unearned spoils.

While Boomers enjoyed homes and stability on modest education, Millennials and Gen Z stack Masters and PhDs only to battle inflation, debt, joblessness, and unaffordable housing. Real wages erode as the old guard’s asset bubbles inflate. This is intergenerational theft.

Public debt hovers above 70 per cent of GDP, with servicing devouring revenues while crowding private credit.

Domestic borrowing enriches connected banks and politically exposed persons, echoing the film’s global pyramid scheme. Fiat money creation and speculation transfer wealth upward, leaving youth in debt slavery.

Protests met with roadblocks and tear gas signal escalating violence born of despair. Poverty persists for millions amid food insecurity.

Our cognitive map sustains the rot. Media distractions, political theatre as circus, and neoclassical dogma that prioritises markets and corporations over people and nature, as has been on display in the death of 15 elephants in Amboseli and unlicensed commercial gold dredging by foreign nationals on the Yala River sparking intense concerns about toxic mercury use and mass fish deaths.

Education, once a ladder, now mocks the ambitious; that previously less educated generations had more opportunities available to them than you may ever do.

Corruption isn’t a bug; it’s the feature of a decadent elite scrambling for spoils while preaching austerity to the masses. Apathy and amoralism thicken the air. We have broken the intergenerational contract, squandering posterity for present excesses.

Kenya must hit the stop button. Decadence is not destiny. The Four Horsemen urges reform through understanding: localisation over predatory globalisation, moral responsibility over greed, and structural overhaul. Kenya must reject this rigged capitalism for a genuine market economy rooted in classical principles.

Reform money and debt: prioritise odious debt, and explore mechanisms that prevent perpetual debt slavery. Enforce genuine anti-corruption with prosecutions by dismantling the revolving doors between politics and plunder.

Promote employee ownership and local content in earnest, building production over consumption. Invest in vocational skills alongside degrees, aligning education with opportunities.

The Sovereign Republic of Kenya stands at the cusp. We can tip into deeper redundancy and chaos, or harness our youthful population, entrepreneurial spirit, and cultural resilience for renewal. The horsemen ride because we let them.

Culturally, we need a moral reckoning. Reject wash-wash hedonism, no matter the attraction. Gen Z’s digital awakening and protest energy prove the internet can shatter old gatekeepers.