Success is driving towards a shared goal

UBER, the metered-taxi association and a customer walk into a bar. The fight that ensues is not funny but is prototypical of a wider South African problem — we either no longer care to speak to each other or no longer know how.

Summarising Samuel Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies, political economist Francis Fukuyama says: “Political order emerges as the result of the achievement of some equilibrium among the contending forces within a society. But as time goes on, change occurs internally and externally: the actors who established the original equilibrium themselves evolve or disappear; new actors appear; economic and social conditions shift; the society is invaded from the outside or faces new terms of trade or imported ideas. As a result, the … equilibrium no longer holds, and political decay results until the existing forces come up with a new set of rules and institutions to restore order.”

Ask most South Africans to explain political decay and they will point towards Cape Town and the collapsing relationship between MPs. But political decay refers to the relationship between all social actors including you and me. Metered-taxi drivers are alleged to be resorting to intimidation and violence against Uber drivers and consumers, claiming the online service should have registered with the Gauteng Metered Taxi Council and that, by bypassing this requirement, it is now charging fares that make other operators uncompetitive.

There are very good reasons customers have taken to Uber. It is considerably cheaper and the ability of drivers and consumers to rate each other allows for a form of “performance management” between the parties.

This has put city officials in a precarious position. There is no side without a valid grievance. An “imported idea” has shifted the equilibrium and some are experiencing a relatively sudden and significant drop in revenue.

Throughout the world, there has been increasing concern about the “sharing economy” and how it has created a business model that allows entrepreneurs to treat employees as private contractors, allowing them to renege on their responsibilities towards their employees.

A new agreement has to be reached, and for that agreement to be meaningful and enduring, no one side will get everything it demands.

The question of social compact has dogged us for some time, and public dialogues on the topic box themselves in to the questions of government, big business and organised labour.

However, there is an opportunity to think through the question of social compacts not only at national or sector level, but also at the level of the city.

By extending their mandate beyond the management and the efficiency of cities, city managers can create a space for those who may be marginalised in national discussions to be part of decision-making at a local level, which matters to citizens. This puts the “social” in social compacting, a process that has mainly been used to discover economic consensus.

If our values are to have meaning, they must be felt where people live. Moreover, the people must live these values and their values must be tested. People can believe in equality and fair pay while simultaneously demanding the lowest possible fares, without ever asking themselves if Uber drivers are paid adequately, or what metered-taxi drivers earn at their current rates. Negotiations at a city level can force citizens to see beyond their own sides and consider taking positions that work for all of us.

We are struggling to find common ground at national level, but maybe through this situation, our cities can teach us how.

Ndlovu is part of Youth Lab and works in the Secretariat of the National Planning Commission, but writes in her personal capacity.

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