Fuller black participation in economy essential for SA growth

ECONOMIC participation, restoration of dignity and an inclusive democracy that is protective of its citizens – these are the imperative features of a modern African social order.

South Africa’s post-apartheid constitutional democracy should be characterised by democratic participation, equal rights, and a culture of rebuilding social infrastructure and integrity.

There is an urgent unavoidable balance that needs to be struck between economic and political power.

To this day, the political risks of failure to ensure full participation of black Africans in economic progress are incalculable.

The South African state led by the ANC will have to adopt certain values against which it constantly tests both its policies and developmental work.

South African leaders and their young leaders will have to work towards ensuring that this new democratic dispensation, which is premised on a bloody armed struggle for land and self-determination, is workable by satisfying certain key requirements:

ý A system that provides for inclusive decision-making at all levels;

ý A common destiny based on the need to move away from the emphasis on race-based structures;

ý Economic growth based on the need for faster economic growth and, within that, ready access to a more equitable redistribution of resources;

ý Tall-standing justice based on a need to reverse the erosion of the principles of justice so that the country can move positively towards establishing basic civil liberties.

Democracy is often more stable where most of the basic problems of society have been solved and the population at large has been able to reduce its political fervour.

In developing circumstances, such as our own, our most basic problems of material inequality and deprivation will, under the most favourable circumstances, take many decades to alleviate to the extent that they no longer generate political passion.

In South Africa’s large and diverse society with large masses of undifferentiated need, the popular demands on the government are immediate and powerful.

They are very easily exploitable by democratic opposition to the point that no government can enjoy the security to pursue its longer-term priorities.

Hence, in many parts of the less-developed and developing world, democracy fails.

This failure is not due to moral failings or political immaturity, but simply because democracy has to carry a large burden to survive.

A balanced society is one in which politics is not seen to be the cure for all ills.

It is a society in which there is community self-reliance in the processes of problem-solving.

Economic franchise must accompany political participation.

As active citizens, young leaders need to be ruthless in making sure that optimum conditions for investment in productive small to medium enterprises are established.

The ANC-led government should concede, in principle, the need to deregulate economic activity, stimulate small business ventures, spread the burden of taxation so as to not penalise initiative and reduce unproductive government spending and, with it, inflation.

In education, the critical challenge is to make a breakthrough that will allow a concentration of financial and professional resources to impact on the problem.

A great deal will have to be done to improve the quality of education and to redirect its focus so that school leavers are capable of absorption into the economy. Indeed, job creation and education are two sides of the same coin.

Adult education, especially for the previously disadvantaged, needs high priority attention.

The government remains the biggest employer, and the corporate private sector needs to step up its efforts to absorb and provide young people with the required work-ready skills.

A company like EOH must be applauded for its youth job creation initiative that seeks to address the social cost of unemployment and the threat it poses to the sustainability of our economy by offshoring just more than 20 000 jobs with the goal of securing 100 000 employment opportunities by the year 2020.

Another priority is to realise that the black African segment of our population, due to past and present structural disadvantages, is a disadvantaged segment with needs attributable to any developing society.

This segment of our population needs more than equality of resources and opportunity (which it still does not enjoy).

It also needs co-ordinated and massive facilitation well beyond the programmes that already exist.

We will never resolve the fundamental tensions in our societies until such time as black Africans have a greater sense of ownership and control over economic resources.

For as long as this is not so, there will be a constant pressure on black leadership to endorse socialist policies of a kind which will allow the state to acquire and transfer resources.

Let us understand and accept that freedom is indivisible – and economic freedom is certainly part of freedom itself.

Let us understand that if we want stability and growth in our societies, and the basis for an eventual democracy that protects us all, then real black economic empowerment is a fundamental duty we dare not shy away from.

If the National Development Plan 2030 is to fulfil its radical socio-economic transformation goals, then timid politicians, hostile bureaucrats and unreliable private sector partners should not be allowed to undermine it.

Pointing in a concrete direction, the ANC-led government needs to find ways to ensure alternatives to capitalist markets, for example, by decommodifying certain resources and services and promoting communal access to economic resources.

A socialist perspective, characterised by working class politics and democratic practice, and accountability of leadership, must inform industrial restructuring.

The government must build upon specific foundations that form the basis for deeper socio-economic transformation.

These include a new housing bank to blend state subsidies with worker’s pension funds (protected against repayment risk) so as to ensure loans are affordable.

The real problem is that when governments are in the grip of corporates, it is not a welfare state, which keeps the economy in debt.

It is a centrally-planned economy that needs land reform, and a financial and a real estate sector that reduces the rest of the economy to rent payers and debtors.

A great deal will have to be done to improve the quality of education and to redirect its focus so that school leavers are capable of absorption into the economy