Martin van Staden, the head of policy for the Free Market Foundation (FMF), recently wrote a piece for the Daily Friend − Is the DA abandoning its values in the GNU? − that was quite critical of me, both in terms of my ideological convictions and my role as deputy finance minister in the Government of National Unity (GNU).
It is one of the inescapable realities of elected and ministerial life that one will attract criticism for one’s beliefs and actions. In my career, when such criticism has come my way, I have always tried to identify where it has contained valid truths for me to consider. However, quite often, I have found the critics that miss the mark most when it comes to my politics and, more recently, the policies I have sought to enact, are those who fail to see beyond their own assumptions or perceptions.
The attention Mr Van Staden has recently been paying to my doings is of course flattering and fair given my responsibility to help shape national policy, yet it is unfortunate that his most strident criticisms lack the substance that might otherwise have contributed to my own growth as politician and minister – and to the cause of economic liberalism and economic growth in South Africa.
Through both opinion writing and social media, Mr Van Staden has been vocal about what he considers my shortcomings, particularly since the tabling of the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on 30 October. As one of two deputy ministers in the National Treasury, I of course had a hand in this statement of the GNU’s fiscal and economic intent. It seems that a handful of public comments I’ve made over these last two weeks or so have been especially vexing to Mr Van Staden. As the FMF has a proud history of putting forth sound diagnoses of what has been costing our country in terms of economic growth, as well as well-reasoned prescriptions on key fixes, Mr Van Staden’s views, being the FMF’s head of policy, deserve some consideration – especially from a committed liberal like me.
Firstly, I should answer the notion that I have abandoned “classical liberalism” in my ministerial role at Treasury. That is simply not the case.
Vital to credibility
As a well-qualified constitutional jurist, Mr Van Staden has distinguished himself as a forceful and creative thinker on matters of law and liberalism. However, Mr Van Staden would have to agree that legal commentary, even of the highest liberal calibre, rarely has to shoulder the burden of stringent and unforgiving data-based modelling – something that in my field of economics is absolutely vital to credibility.
After all, liberals have always enjoyed the advantage of our beliefs proving empirically beneficial for human flourishing. Where the law allows time for abstractions to permeate practice, shaping economic policy, as I have been called on to do, has nothing abstract about it. Governance is not a theoretical exercise; it is a responsibility to balance ideology with data to produce tangible outcomes that serve the public. This is especially the case within the political reality of the GNU. In May this year, South African voters did not elect a government of perfect liberal purity.
The GNU, whatever Mr Van Staden’s misgivings about its formation, was the result of thoughtful and painstaking weighing up of pros and cons. It would come as no surprise that I would prefer a DA-only government that could perhaps come closer to meeting the current-day FMF’s high liberal standards.
However, coalition government always means compromise. Objectives that might seem self-evidently attainable from offices overlooking the green suburbs of Johannesburg, are considerably harder to achieve within the give and take of a multi-party Treasury that enjoys little of the comfort that abstract musings on liberalism might enjoy.
Ideological indulgence
Every day I have been a deputy minister in this government, I have been intensely aware of the fact that I am responsible for making and winning arguments within my department that will tangibly affect the lives of millions of people. This responsibility is daunting – and it leaves little room for anything like ideological indulgence.
As firm as I hold my liberal beliefs, I’ve never advocated for blind adherence to ideology without regard to data, evidence, and real-world consequences—especially when the actual decisions have consequences that affect millions of lives. Being a liberal, and particularly a liberal in a government like the GNU, requires an unapologetic adherence to data and evidence, not just theory.
If the allegation against me is that I am somehow unserious about economic liberalism, the only counter I can give is that my liberalism is one of real-world application rather than glib abstraction.
For me, economic liberalism isn’t some thought experiment – it is winning over colleagues and officials from different and even opposing persuasions to make specific decisions – often with vast and unknown consequences – day after day within the limitations imposed by the democratic decision of the voter. As part of this government, I champion my liberal beliefs in chambers that don’t have the luxury of any echo.
In fact, these chambers are not only almost always filled with people of opposing beliefs, but with representatives of a vast range of economic participants and stakeholders. My job requires spending a tremendous amount of time with key market actors and investors – time spent not opining about the market as an abstraction, but crafting growth-friendly and business-friendly solutions based on direct engagements that always require satisfying the dynamic demands and competition that lie at the heart of any free market.
Governance requires pragmatism
The investment and free flow of capital that fuels a free market isn’t something achieved in the abstract, but in the concrete discussions, decisions, and negotiations I engage in every day. Reasonable people, even liberal adherents of Mr Van Staden’s dedication, cannot but acknowledge that there will always be some give and some take in the execution of multi-party governance. Whether the FMF are amenable to it or not, the fact is that governance requires pragmatism.
At this point, I have to take issue with a particular criticism from Mr Van Staden – one that verges on the disingenuous. In his fervour to advocate for the liberal policies we both want, he suggested that, in my participation in shaping the MTBPS, I have endorsed ANC policies as “reality”. In the type of issue-driving commentary that entities like the FMF engage in, it is often effective to stir controversy for dramatic effect. Yet, this might sometimes lead to stridency where appreciation of nuance would be more prudent and credible.
Writes Mr Van Staden: “That a DA deployee in government would describe his own party’s (sensible, reality-based) free market policy preferences as ‘ideology’ – though this is not incorrect – but the ANC’s (destructive, fantastical) statist policy preferences as ‘reality’ is revealing.”
I am afraid that this representation of my views and my reference to the context of current economic policy making is wide of the mark. I do not for a second consider the ANC’s policy to be something of a reality check on the DA’s liberalism.
Quite the contrary: it is the DA’s commitment to fiscal prudence and a growth-centred approach to spending that has brought at least a measure of reality to the ANC’s ideological orthodoxy of the last two decades.
Subject to compromise
Mr Van Staden might wish to see in me a South African Javier Milei with the mandate and chainsaw to cut, cut, cut – but the reality my party, my cabinet colleagues, Mr Van Staden, and I have to deal with is that, unlike the Argentinian case, the incumbent government at the time of the election received 40% of the vote and, whether we like it or not, a mandate, albeit a weakened one, to at least pursue some of its policy preferences. It is a straightforward reality that both ANC ideas and DA ideas will be subject to compromise.
Despite this unavoidable compromise, the DA’s influence in the MTBPS has been welcomed by the markets. The DA, as the political inheritor of a century of liberal political activism, has insured a level of fiscal prudence that has not been part of South African government policy since the mid-2000s. Of that, I am proud. Securing commitments on spending control and finding liberal-orientated solutions that serve the country while also getting the buy-in of people beyond the DA is not capitulation. In fact, it is the essence of liberal leadership – the type of leadership the FMF has shown in the past.
It is to the historic credit of the FMF that it was a leading voice in winning the critical property clause in the Constitution. Much of the FMFs work in the late 2000s inspired my own policy views. If the liberal cause is to progress in South Africa, it is this type of leadership and advocacy that will be needed now more than ever. As liberals, we cannot meet the socio-economic challenges of today with superficial slogans or banners. Instead, we should be unafraid to think beyond the headline, to consult, to set in place liberal policies of such rigour that opponents cannot but be won over.
I do not pretend to command some moral or intellectual uniqueness when it comes to the rich history of liberal thought in this country, but I am one of the few liberal politicians in South African history to serve in the National Treasury, tasked with championing real and fundamental economic freedom. I comprehend the intensity of this responsibility – to my country and to the ideological beliefs I hold.
Disheartened
As such, I cannot but admit that I was disheartened by Mr Van Staden’s public criticism when I have had cordial and productive dealings with the FMF before. I was also surprised when a DA MP told me that a senior FMF member had been engaged in disparaging me with my own caucus colleagues at an event recently, particularly considering I have not had any communication from the organisation since I became deputy finance minister.
And that is what I am working to achieve as a liberal in government: a fiscal strategy, as announced in the 2024 MTBPS, that meets the tests of evidence, satisfies the challenges in the real world to get debt-to-GDP in line with our emerging market peers by the end of the decade, narrow the structural budget deficit by anchoring the budget in a primary fiscal surplus over the next three years, pursue structural reforms for growth, and ingrain fiscal responsibility in government through sensible fiscal consolidation.
I would not be so bold as to advise the FMF or Mr Van Staden on how they seek to promote liberal beliefs. I can only do my best in the job I have in government to champion substantive liberal reforms and solutions that will unlock the economic potential of South Africa. In doing this, I will always remain open to criticism, yet, at the end of the day, it will be my own conviction (which aligns with the mandate of my party) in achieving uplifting economic growth that will lead my decisions at the coalface of policymaking.
Some liberals might believe that entering government is about a scorched earth policy – one that takes no prisoners, makes no friends, considers no strategy, suffers no compromise. And while they are free to hold that view, I know, and my party knows, that South Africa will not be served by momentary and sensational liberal theatrics, but by sustainable liberal policies.
[Image: André Santana Design André Santana from Pixabay]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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