ANC leaders expect to be internationally respected for their ideals despite their indifference toward SA’s massive poverty and a global pivot toward pragmatism.
Of all the humans who ever lived, barely 1% escaped extreme poverty. In the 25 years following the end of apartheid, the portion of the global population living in such dire conditions declined from over 36% to less than 10%. The chief driver, globalisation, is irreconcilable with ANC policies, particularly localisation.
This era’s high-volume upliftment escalator, global integration, is incompatible with the ANC’s reliance on widespread, predominantly legal, patronage to hold power. Whereas localisation and patronage are highly compatible, globalisation emphasises competitiveness which directly conflicts with patronage. The ANC’s referencing of grave historical inequities to justify patronage doesn’t mitigate the damage caused by downgrading merit.
Past injustices created a political imperative for substantial forms of redistribution following our 1990s political transition. But the reckless redistribution which raged during the Zuma years devastated our growth prospects while swelling civil service wages and grants. By not curbing such reckless stewardship, the ANC under President Ramaphosa has entrenched the world’s worst youth unemployment crisis. Consequently, most of this country’s younger black adults have been condemned to lifelong poverty and this greatly diminishes SA’s long-term growth trajectory.
As dozens of countries have demonstrated, rapid large-scale poverty alleviation can be achieved through integrating into global supply chains. As long as the ANC rejects this path, a majority of black South Africans will remain poor. Nonetheless, Ramaphosa expects international recognition as a freedom fighter hero while he frequently criticises the prosperous Western nations of the G20.
The ANC has long sought to benefit from Western idealism while exploiting white guilt. Among the reasons this year’s G20, hosted by SA, is going so badly is that the tolerance of Western leaders for ANC hypocrisy has long been approaching a breaking point. A recent accelerant, last November’s US elections, ushered in a new era. To counter much idealism having been overindulged, a solution focus has emerged which favours transactional pursuits of pragmatic goals.
Idealism’s appeal was reinforced by leading information curators, academics, news outlets and social media, packaging information to emphasise values. Such broad institutional biasing of values was very effectively reinforced by encouraging judging and creating validation loops.
Those who accepted such conditioning were validated by being accepted by others who also sought validation by adopting idealised values. While teenagers obsessed about seeking ‘thumbs-up likes,’ adults of all ages gravitated toward news sources which confirmed their biases. The cost of such indulging was a decline in understanding issues and less support for the bumpy paths which produce solutions.
Invasion
Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it was perfectly fair and accurate to portray President Zelensky as a brave hero while depicting President Putin as a ruthless war criminal. But, in this case, indulging such desires to judge was contrary to pursuing a lasting peace.
There were never plausible scenarios whereby Russia might surrender. To negotiate a durable peace agreement was always going to require that Putin’s perspective be respected − at least to the point that it is understood. Voters who watch the news seeking to validate or cancel discourage politicians from pursuing solutions.
When then-President Biden labelled Putin a war criminal, his aides swiftly walked it back. Then Biden did it a second time and the die was cast. Inherently very difficult negotiations with Putin would be much harder still. Of course, they simply didn’t happen. Having wrapped himself in his ideals, Biden had chosen judging over pursuing peace.
This would have been less irresponsible if Putin thought Europe’s leaders might, independent of the US, adequately support Ukraine to thwart Russia’s invasion. However, Putin knows this is nearly impossible militarily and politically.
The larger point is that labelling Putin a war criminal is contrary to the US’s top priority, preventing China from undermining the global architecture which has supported eight decades of massive gains in global prosperity while avoiding direct Great Power wars. As those on the left have become so quick to judge, it is easy for them to criticise anything President Trump says or does. This makes it harder for those on the left to appreciate how their mutual admiration society overindulged their ideological biases.
Trump, a former Democrat, has never been a political ideologue. He is not a neocon who wants to settle differences militarily; he is a dealmaker who is willing to negotiate with anyone. He has been consistently anti-war and he is now reshaping the global order, not by parading ideals, but rather through rough and tumble negotiations. This should be a huge plus for SA by way of motivating the ANC to adapt to commercial norms and ever-evolving global politics.
ANC support
From an electoral strategy perspective, last May’s election results and the recent budget snafu demonstrate that the ANC’s reliance on buying voter loyalty through patronage has backfired. Pre-election surveys showed that voters’ top priority was jobs and our obscene unemployment traces directly to the party’s twin patronage pillars, BEE and localisation. And now we have a coalition government with members who won’t support the ANC’s patronage network through tax-and-spend policies. Meanwhile, a quite recent voter survey by the Social Research Foundation indicates that ANC support continues to decline.
The ANC can either reinvent itself or just continue to lash out at its growing chorus of critics. Of course, it is quite possible that the party lacks the organisational dexterity to remake itself. But if its leaders can find the courage and determination to remake the party, they must accept that this requires embracing pragmatism and focusing on solutions. And they mustn’t kid themselves about what this entails. That is, they must identify a realistic path to create millions of jobs.
The path pursued jointly by big business and the ANC has been investment-led growth. This initiative had some merit but it was never going to spawn large-volume job creation. It was further flawed in that a compelling investment thesis needs to identify what is to be sold to whom. Our domestic purchasing capacity has never been sufficient to sustain healthy economic growth and it has been stagnating for over a decade.
China, which has been growing at nearly 10% per year for four decades, still lacks sufficient domestic demand to support a growing economy. It could take us generations.
We can only rapidly grow jobs by emulating high-growth economies. That is, we must add value within global supply chains − irrespective of this being contrary to the ANC’s patronage model. Consider how the Western Cape government encourages and supports entrepreneurs to develop export opportunities. There are no limits to the number of jobs this could create and such entrepreneurial initiatives don’t inspire loyalty to the ANC.
Such initiatives, which can be supported by non-government organisations, are poised to hurt the ANC where it is most vulnerable − its inability to create jobs. Thus, the ANC − along with its GNU partners − should provide special dispensations from anti-competitive regulations, such as BEE, as there is no downside for any of the political parties.
Nor are there any reasons to wait. ANC leaders dare not ignore their party’s declining popularity, and hosting the G20 is an ideal time to pivot toward being more globally integrated.
[Image: Pete Linforth from Pixabay
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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