The world is apparently telling President Cyril Ramaphosa to ‘do something fast to save South Africa‘. With our electricity grid failing, crime on a continual rise, money running out and corruption acting like it’s business as usual, international groups have put pressure on Ramaphosa to take action to save South Africa.
But action by state actors hasn’t worked in the past. On the contrary, state action in South Africa has put us into this mess. Ramaphosa shouldn’t do anything.
Ramaphosa has taken action since he took office in February 2018. He’s abetted the inevitable and destructive fall of Eskom, he has supported the cataclysmic arrival of expropriation without compensation, and he has overseen the oncoming demise of our healthcare system through National Health Insurance (NHI), as is made clear here.
Ramaphosa has done enough. Too much. And that goes for all the deadbeats in our government.
The time for government action is long past. It shouldn’t have started in the first place. What we need now is for the government to get out of the damn way and let the private sector and enterprising individuals fix this mess.
It’s all very well for the IMF and World Bank to harp on about taking action and suggesting structural reforms without giving clearer instructions, but action for a politician is anything that justifies their drawing a salary. Even if it is destructive.
Action for Ramaphosa is putting South Africa further and further down the road to serfdom. Some blind South Africans continue to support him as some sort of hope against the authoritarian left of the ANC, but they have failed to see how socialist Ramaphosa actually is.
He is not the businessman that the Ramaphorians hoped for. He was a trade unionist who thrived on extorting cash from businesses and scamming workers, and has repeatedly indicated his support for the National Democratic Revolution and the socialist project.
He even calls himself a socialist! Believe him.
Ramaphosa is not and never was the thing this country needed. He is, at best, a soulless yes-man who will do whatever his party wants. And, at worst, he’s a card-carrying communist who honestly believes that over a hundred million dead is not enough evidence of the failures of collectivism.
And people want this man to take action? No. I’d rather he sits back and takes a paid vacation. Better than him ruining things further.
It isn’t enough that our government takes action. It needs to take the right action. And it isn’t enough that it makes economic structural reforms.
It needs to make the right reforms, with some of these being:
- Unbundle and privatise Eskom and open up the electricity market to private competitors (here);
- Unbundle and privatise every parastatal;
- Stop restricting the rights of gun owners and let South Africans defend themselves. (here);
- Liberalise the labour market and stop letting trade unions dominate our politics and industry. Let South Africans work! (here);
- Secure property rights and scrap all notions of expropriation without compensation. (here);
- Shrink the size of government and service the deficit;
- Stop all notions of NHI and further privatise healthcare and allow private medical and nursing colleges to be founded (here);
- Scrap notions of free education and further privatise education (here).
There are other reforms that should be made as well, but these are a few. The theme is clear, however.
The solution isn’t for Ramaphosa and the government to do something. It’s for them to get out of the way and scrap as much government interference as possible.
What South Africa needs is less government, not more. And until we start realising that, we will continue to drift further and further into the abyss.
This article first appeared in the Rational Standard (here).
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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