Gordhan got it wrong this time
Perhaps the burdens of his high office are causing confusion in the usually adept mind of our finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, our communist turned pharmacist turned politician turned tax collector turned economist.
As we taxpayers know, he transformed the South African Revenue Service into easily the state’s finest performer, although the competition was weak.
As finance minister he has been admirable, particularly in his exhortations, sadly unheeded, to his colleagues to cut down on their extravagant lifestyles. He drives a car even smaller than mine.
Much of his fine work has gone down the ANC tubes of corruption and incompetence. But this was never Gordhan’s fault. He skilfully extracted money from us while his colleagues blew it.
Be all that as it may, one was puzzled to read in Business Day of Gordhan’s reaction to a suggestion by the Democratic Alliance that the sale of state assets was inevitable and necessary. Business Day
Communism, or socialism or whatever one wishes to call it, has failed
reported: “The DA has proposed in its economic policy the sell-off of some state-owned enterprises to promote growth as a way of generating funds. Asked by DA MP David Ross during a meeting of parliament’s two finance committees whether privatisation was an option, Mr Gordhan said this was ‘an old word’ belonging to the era of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former US president Ronald Reagan. It was a policy which had left a host of problems in its wake, including the great recession, he said.”
Give me a break. Privatisation an “old word”? Come on, Pravin, communism has collapsed. Now two of the late 20th century’s greatest leaders, having turned their nations around, raised morale and boosted their economies on free market fundamentals, are accused by our finance minister of having caused the “great recession”, whatever and whenever that was. Thatcher, Britain’s longest-serving prime minister in 150 years, died last year. The Guardian commented: “She presided over the transformation of her own country, and also strode the world stage; she was a star in the US, a heroine in many former Eastern bloc countries and a point of reference for politicians in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.” By the time this Iron Lady left office, her principles, known as “Thatcherism”, had won disciples all over the world, said the New York Times. She believed that “economic freedom and individual liberty are interdependent, that personal responsibility and hard work are the only ways to national prosperity”.
She saw off the trade unions and, said the Wall Street Journal, privatised whatever she could, from British Telecom to water companies, transforming life in a country where it could take months to have a phone connected.
Reagan was a kindred spirit. He saw off the Soviet bloc and ended the Cold War. He asked Americans: “Isn’t our choice really one of up or down? Down through statism, the welfare state, more and more government largesse, accompanied always with more government authority, less individual liberty and ultimately totalitarianism, always advanced for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our founding fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom, consistent with an orderly society.”
Any literate person with a passing interest in history — and surely Gordhan fits in here — would be aware that collectivism, or communism or socialism or whatever one wishes to call it, has failed.
One was further confused when Gordhan later remarked that it was time for the private sector to undertake the burden of driving economic growth. Talk about the one-handed economist famously desired by Harry Truman. Gordhan appears to have at least three.
If we do not privatise our ruinously run state-owned enterprises, we will go bankrupt. Welcome to the R20 dollar.