We are not “frontiersmen”
AfriForum’s Ernst van Zyl claims to welcome the Free Market Foundation’s “embrace of a frontiersmen mindset”. That’s exactly the problem. In response to my dismay
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The privacy dilemma: when protecting the innocent also protects the guilty
We live in an age of exposure. Every transaction, search, and movement leaves a trace. Your phone knows where you’ve been. Your browser remembers what you think. The systems we depend on are quietly building a biography of each of
The battle of ideas cannot be democratised or domesticated
The demand that South Africans who oppose race law, expropriation without compensation, and the toleration of farm attacks “stay at home” and “win by persuasion” and votes treats the battle of ideas as a majoritarian device. That is a category
No room for compromise on the five US demands
South Africa’s relations with the US can only further deteriorate while the Trump administration remains in power. And as long as the ANC is in power in SA, and a Republican administration continues in Washington, the standoff will continue. Even
Embassy upgrades and diplomatic spats: where to, South Africa?
South Africa's diplomatic properties have recently become the subject of a familiar argument: with the country facing persistent economic and fiscal pressures, should it really be spending hundreds of millions of rands upgrading embassies and other overseas properties? The Department
In search of peace in the Middle East: three years since the October 7 massacre
Israel today marks the third anniversary of the brutal cross-border surprise attack by Hamas, which left 1,200 people dead, 250 abducted and taken into the horrific and unhealthy conditions of Gaza’s tunnels as hostages, and property burned and destroyed. The
SA slips further in global economic freedom ranking
Ongoing erosion of economic liberty in South Africa is reflected in its further decline from 83rd to 87th place out of 165 countries and territories ranked in the latest Economic Freedom of the World index. The Economic Freedom of the
The best industrial policy picks no industries
Some economists accuse business of an “investment strike”. Investors don’t strike. They respond to conditions that only government can fix. A year ago, the Stellenbosch economic historian Johan Fourie sat in a meeting room at the Department of Trade, Industry
Business confidence and rampant corruption
Busy seasoned readers of the Daily Friend will know that they may need to be enticed into a “long read”. This offering is a long read. It seeks to establish the connection between low business confidence and high rates of