South Africa has experienced political, social, and economic turmoil for over a decade, and there isn’t any promise of serenity on the immediate horizon. One theory attempts to explain some of the upheavals.
A headline screamed on Bloomberg recently: Ramaphosa’s Plans for Economy Pact Slammed by Business and Labour. The article quotes an unnamed source from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (SAFTU) and the head of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) Bonang Mohale as saying that both business and labour are ready to proceed with a new “social compact” for the country, but criticised the government’s part in the compact as lacking in detail and deadlines. Other news websites also quote various heads of NGOs, business organisations and unions slamming the government’s proposed plan as inadequate to tackle South Africa’s socio-economic malaise.
An astute citizen might say to themselves “ Wait a minute! I don’t remember voting for BUSA, COSATU, or Proudly South African, but they are drafting ‘plans’ for the whole country. How did this happen?”
Well, someone foretold this situation.
Managerialism
With the world still reeling from the first world war, a titanic battle of ideas was only getting started on the socio-pollical-economic front. Two main ideas were debated. One side argued that capitalism is the better form of social cooperation, while the other side argued socialism is the better form. In his seminal work “the theory of the managerial revolution”, James Burnham advances a descriptive thesis in which he argued that managerialism would upend capitalism and socialism as the dominant form of social corporation in the next few decades. His main idea is that countries would be led/dominated by a new and unelected ruling class called “managers” on the immediate horizon. This new class would come to dominate all spheres of life.
Who exactly are the managers? Managers are those who through appointment would take charge of the technical functions in both private and public institutions. Their titles include Chief executive, director, bureau chief, superintendent etc. Their positions enable them to gain control – with or without ownership – of a country’s scarce resources, receive preferential treatment in the allocation and distribution of goods and services, doll-out privileges to favoured groups, declare what is “public opinion” selling, and buying rents etc.
Managers effectively make and control what a state is, and their control is guaranteed by political institutions in place. They often seek economic interventions from other managers in other parts of the state, propose regulations, and conjure up plans for entire countries – directing how the citizenry ought to live their lives. The control of resources places managers on a pedestal for social domination, their opinions hold sway, and their actions are justified by intellectuals, media, scribes, philosophers etc.
In the South African context, managerialism largely takes the form of“representatives” at NEDLAC, the tripartite alliance, university professors(humanities), the president/CEO of x- organisation, commissioners of various government agencies and some media personnel to name a few who refer themselves as “social partners”. This ruling cabal churns up all sorts of rules, regulations, and X-point plans to “solve” South Africa’s problems. At the time of writing, the country is waiting with bated breath for the seventh “social compact” and its regulatory siblings to dock on its shores to guide the nation to prosperity.
Where is parliament?
It is no coincidence that there was and continues to be a big debate about parliament’s role in the country. The pace at which parliament has abrogated its powers has accelerated in recent years to the point where one might think the institution has become impotent or I dare say irrelevant. The trust in parliament is on free fall. The Afro-Barometer 2019/2021 survey found that only 27% of respondents had faith in the institution, down from a high of 56% in 2011. The Covidocracy that the country endured in the past couple of years has badly exposed the institution. Managers were able to declare stealth martial law without its involvement. Most people today cannot dispute the idea that the “laws” – which are regulations- are churned up by members of the managerial class. i.e. If you want to know what will be the” law(s)” that will govern the country in the next few years, you check the writings/opinions of the heads (managers) of administrative agencies/boards of the state, labour movements, business organisations, and some civil organisations. Parliamentarians are sleeping at the wheel; managers steal a march on them.
Fatal conceit
The hubris involved in thinking that one can design a system capable of steering a country into prosperity must be borderline narcissistic. Can you imagine planning for 60 million people? The managerial overlords think it is possible. That’s what FA Hayek would call the “fatal conceit” – the asinine idea that a person can shape/change the world through sheer fiat to reflect his/her aspirations. A more generous explanation of why most of their actions have been disastrous for the country might be that factors beyond their control such as global events have upended their plans. A closer inspection, however, shows that the decisions are taken with self-preservation in mind rather than being routed in candid social science.
Public choice theory buttresses this claim when you look at some of the decisions taken in the last few years: Price fixing (minimum wages, interest rates, fuel) protecting favoured businesses from the competition (tariffs), non-tariff trade barriers (foreign exchange restrictions), actively encouraging autarky (localisation), the selling and buying of rents (regulatory capture) etc. The list is endless. All these policies are designed to benefit themselves and their favourite groups at the expense of dispersed taxpayers and/or consumers.
The ratchet effect
In his magnum opus “Crisis and Leviathan” Robert Higgs explains why governments tended to expand in size to respond to a genuine or imagined “crisis”- especially political or economic ones- but seldom shrunk back to pre-crisis size. The “crisis” creates room for the “ratchet effect” which allows state leviathan to expand over time. South Africa is no exception, the state is expanding at a rapid rate.
I would argue that the 2008 financial crisis enabled the ever-growing state leviathan we are seeing in South Africa today. The country has been in a perpetual “crisis” since then. All these “crises” require a committee, a new government department/agency/company, a double-down of the current useless plan or policy, a board of inquiry, a “social compact”, or an X-point plan replacing the previous X-point plan that didn’t work. I would like to also argue that most of these “crises” are manufactured by South Africa’s managers for their own ends. A state of “crisis” enables managers to carve out spheres of influence for themselves – even if they would oftentimes work at cross purposes.
South Africa doesn’t have electricity, water, health, skills, education, employment, – just to name a few- crises. I contend these perpetual crises greatly benefit South Africa’s managers because they keep them employed in positions of influence where they can continue to dominate or maintain their ruling class statuses.
The supposedly ideological “enemies” (Government, civil society, business groupings, and labour organisations) working together to “solve” South Africa’s problems is a ruse. These are groups of managers who collaborate to solve their own problems. Their trail of destruction has distorted crucial socio-economic signals and left the country in tatters. Something has to give.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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