Seeing state being stolen

ACOUPLE of years ago, at the same time that Justice Malala released his book, We have now Started our Descent ,I wrote a few short commentaries and analyses on some of the myriad problems that beset the country.

Amid the opinions that slipped into what I presented as apercus there were two strands that I recall, this Sunday evening, trying to hold together an immune system which, I was told today, had all but collapsed.

The first was what I described, at the time, as an emergent criminocracy.

I drew on readings on the political economy of organised crime and the state in Southern Italy. I smiled, cynically, then, when Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said, on May 21 this year, that South Africa was in danger of becoming a “mafia state”.

The signs have been there for about a decade, and the parallels are comically similar – though no less frightening.

Two years before Ramaphosa made his statement I explained that in a criminocracy “criminals and politicians assume the role of victims.

“This assumed position of innocence is held together by an impassioned pleading of ignorance, a crude sanctimony and self-righteousness, and a type of mantra: ‘admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter accusations’.

“When politicians or bureaucrats are caught in the act, the first response would be to deny everything, admit to nothing, and accuse opponents or observers (especially the press) of having a vendetta against said politician, or of being unpatriotic.”

It all sounds so terribly familiar, now, does it not?

The second strand in the apercus I presented was about the way that a Soviet-style system of governance was being put in place to preside over what is essentially a liberal capitalist political economy.

This is not outlandish when one considers that so many of the people in power were trained in or by the Soviet Union.

Their rhetoric is profoundly unoriginal, and they consciously or sub-consciously mimic some of the crusty old Stalinists without any sense of irony.

As I pointed out at the time, this is not a criticism of communism or liberalism, it was simply to point out that you cannot place Soviet-style governance over a liberal political economy. The two systems are incompatible. Finish en klaar!

Some historical evidence is worth reflecting on to help us form some kind of understanding of what is happening around us.

I want to take the liberty of calling the problem a meso-level crisis – because much of what is breaking down is not (just) at the top, nor at the bottom, but somewhere in the middle.

Just to be clear, we have such a dearth of trustworthy people at the top it is hard to imagine innocence . . .

Nonetheless, when the Soviet Union collapsed, in stages, as it did between 1986 and 1991, much was made of the political-economic failures of communism.

A lot was written, after the dissolution, of how the privatisation of state industries, resources and enterprises ended up in the hands of the old Nomenklatura.

In South Africa, today, you may find them at that watering hole in Saxonwold . . .

Much of the macro-level analyses were fairly straightforward, if predictable.

The focus was on economic inefficiency and problems with central planning.

There were tendencies to compare Soviet performance against Western achievements.

It was easier, someone noted, to explain why Soviet communism had to fall than why it actually did.

So, a few years after the proverbial dust had settled someone (else) established through detailed research that the Soviet collapse was not so much because of a stalemate at the top (macro level).

Nor was it because of a revolution from below (micro level). It was rather because of something rotten in-between, in that meso level which I suggested. The state had been “stolen”. Its institutions had been captured by the Communist Party through deployment policies.

And when politicians at the top started losing moral standing (or losing jobs), comrades in public enterprises took liberties at work and started seizing the institutional revenues they were meant to administer or manage.

In the decade or so before the Soviet Union collapsed public servants no longer looked at leaders for moral guidance and ethical conduct.

The Soviet state began to resemble a huge bank run.

Bank runs occur when all depositors who have lost confidence in the viability of a bank, or expect the economy to crash, cash in as fast and as furiously as they can. So we seem to have reached a point where, as in the old Soviet Union, the state has been “stolen” and everyone is trying to make as much money from it before it all comes crashing down.

It all seems so familiar, when we look at South African public institutions like the post office, Eskom, the SABC or SAA.

So we seem to have reached a point where, as in the old Soviet Union, the state has been ‘stolen’