Daily Dispatch
Economy needs radical overhaul
IT STARTED off life in our political lexicon under strange circumstances, but it is now beginning to be picked up left, right and centre – even if most have little idea what it means.
It is now the commonly used catch-phrase “radical economic transformation”.
At first it came to light as a pledge by President Jacob Zuma, clearly aimed at deflecting attention away from the mounting storm over “state capture”, and was used in conjunction with “white monopoly capital”.
It transpired that these glib phrases were part of an information campaign drummed up (ironically) by a United Kingdom-based public relations firm.
But the phrase has not only stuck, it has been taken up across the political spectrum and applied to anything from centralised state control of the economy to complete free market philosophy.
The reason is simply because South Africa does need radical economic transformation, irrespective of who may have coined the term, or why.
Our present recession may be a creature of political mismanagement on an almost grotesque scale, but the harsh reality remains that we have a hopelessly skewed economy, deeply divided along racial lines, that if not changed – and changed as fast as possible – threatens to plunge the country into a vortex of turmoil which swallows all.
Political views from the left and right agree on this point – but disagree profoundly on exactly what it is that needs to transform, and how.
Greater central control of the economy may sound the easiest and most manageable path, but as seen in many other parts of the world, centralised governments are hopeless at “managing” an economy and end up with a small powerful elite controlling everyone else.
Similarly, leaving everything to market forces in the belief that markets make the best economic decisions may well not result in the kind of changes we need, or at the pace they need to be made. In fact, it may deepen inequalities that were made politically.
The solution will have to lie somewhere between the two extremes, and the greater issue is who will develop the plan.
The good news is that we have been here before – politically. Everyone knew apartheid was unsustainable, even its advocates, but there were vast differences over how to end it.
The answer then was the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa), started in 1991 and which resulted in our democracy in 1994 and later our Constitution, adopted in 1996. But while Codesa was hailed as performing a political miracle, it failed to change the underlying economic structure of the country which is now threatening to rupture and destroy Codesa’s handiwork.
The time has come for South Africans to think about how to get back to talking about our economy, and fix it in a way that everyone can begin to enjoy the fruits of our democracy.
We need a second convention, and we need to thrash out a plan that is workable and can lead to a second miracle – real radical economic transformation.