Transforming Illusions

As much as doff my hat to the comprehensiveness by which the ANC compiled its document, Economic Transformation For The National Democratic Society, I have my doubts about some of its statements like: “In overall terms the ANC's economic policy stances are both comprehensive and correct, and these perspectives have remained consistent throughout the era of liberation.” The argument of changing with the facts does not count when the facts have been the same from the beginning. The ANC made some crucial errors in its past economic vision that left the poor behind the country's economic success. It is the nature of its pragmatic strength that allows it to tone them down now as miscalculations.

The truth of the matter is that in our second decade of freedom, because of the short-comings of RDP, GEAR, and now ASGISA, “We are still some way from our vision of the economic base of a national democratic society. The ownership and control of wealth and income, the poverty trap, access to opportunity and so on are, are all in the main defined, as under apartheid, on the basis of race and gender. The basic economic tasks of the NDR [National Democratic Revolution] must remain the same a the eradication of the socio-economic legacy of apartheid, the creation of employment, the defeat of poverty and the drastic reduction of inequality” as the ANC admits in the document.

I hope in making the above statement the ANC is in actual fact admitting its short-comings and moving away from its parochial, censorious approach to open discussion of real issues. That it has finally realised the government is chasing a bouncing ball if it thinks the “'invisible hand' of the market” without government regulation will meet the demands of our social justice. As Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate in economics, summed it; “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” not social conscience.

“In the twentieth century,” the ANC document states, “the developing countries that succeeded in promoting industrialisation, sustained growth and development have all had in common developmental states that played a leading role in infrastructure development programmes and which had an active industrial strategy.” The real question then is; will the ANC government have enough nerve when it comes to the real crunch of intervening on the market economy for the “economic bias towards the poor”. If so, how does the government plan to interven for a more equitable distribution of wealth?

The document says “the ability of the state to lead economic development must come to the fore,” but shies away in coming with concrete terms of doing this besides suggestions of vague programmes as conduits of social mobility and empowerment of the poor. No one is calling for an idolised state as a redeeming force for the poor; or for the state to be a vehicle of political regimentation that will end up creating social dependence on the government. Neither are we demanding abandonment of liberty in favour of ideas of state control. All we are asking for are concrete tangibles, something that goes beyond the stagnation of stifling bureaucracy of the likes of Batho Pele, Youth Commission and Umsobomvu Youth Fund, for instance.

It is all agreed that things like “BEE should be linked directly to the expansion and diversification of our economic base. As well as ensuring that the ownership and control of capital is de-racialised, we must also seek to broaden the base of such ownership.” The question is how, seeing that parastatals, for instance, have become conduits for political patronage and sometimes corruption. Seeing that personal acquaintance have become transitive patronages for government jobs and deals.

Also does it not seem a strange vacuousness of our times that even the political rhetoric of “bias towards the poor” serves only to feed the coffers of market economic reality in maintaining the status quo in every government economic program. These programs, as tabulated in the document, seem to get their lifeline by a symbiotic relation to a market economy. Is it not the market economy which calls the shorts then? If so, why all these equivocations and maintainance of illusion as if the government is in control of the country's economy?

Despite all its rhetoric of “bias towards the poor” the document makes it clear that anything that goes beyond the recieved wisdom of market economy faddish thinking is still not kosher. Why maintain the illussion of economic emancipation of the poor then, since we all know by now that nea-liberal market economy is not about that?

The state's role, like in all developing economies structured on market economy, will remain a tool to help the country complete its historic transition into market economy, with windfalls of Social Grants for the poor there and there. Perhaps its time we admit that the poor in our country will remain the fodder for the perpetual ostensibly growth of our market. The fundamental truth is that, at this rate, “our most effective weapon in the campaign against poverty and unemployment is education”; that is if we are fortunate enough not to be overtaken by the uprising of the poor before this generation passes.