The slogan “Unburdened by what has been” that epitomised Kamala Harris’s US presidential campaign is also relevant here. While politicians exploit what has been, few SA jobseekers link “unburdened” to aspirations.
The bumpy budget debacle has enhanced our political landscape by repudiating low-accountability one-party rule. Our national psyche requires a similar upgrading.
We should have travelled a high-payoff path. Instead, the international community conferred high moral standing on ANC elites during our 1990s transition. The party’s subsequent leaders then exploited much goodwill and idealism to justify growth-inhibiting patronage. Now, as the budget squeeze spotlights our desperate need for growth, the international mood has tilted decisively from idealism.
Overcoming own goals to increase commodity exports is our most obvious option to increase growth. But there are no scenarios where we will meaningfully reduce unemployment through commodity exporting or through growing our domestic economy.
Our ultra-elevated youth unemployment is largely explained by localisation and other policies which preclude sufficient competitiveness to carve out niches in global supply chains. We are so out of sync with global norms that a majority of our recent school leavers are unlikely to become even moderately productive workers. Each of them is burdened by having to compete with so many who are similarly unemployed.
Our national psyche about job creation mixes discouraged jobseekers with a deluded national discourse. Nothing inspires creative solutions more than success. Yet we too frequently encourage our clever young entrepreneurs to focus on domestic customers. This destroys as many jobs as it creates.
Rampant patronage
The multiplier effects within our economy are heavily muted by high household debt servicing, a low-skilled workforce and how government’s funding rampant patronage reduces the private sector’s access to favourably priced capital. Consequently, we must independently pursue sustained high growth and job creation.
Our best options for rapidly creating many millions of jobs involve digitally integrating recent school leavers in global supply chains by carving out niches. Yet we continue to think in terms of domestic-serving jobs. We also gravitate toward job creation that relies on much capital mobilisation.
Our national history encourages the pursuit of validation. It is as if ever since whites did their bit to smooth the transition and blacks became fully enfranchised, we have sought to relive the ‘80s. That only a sliver of our young adults compete to add value to exports confirms our did-not-compete status in the globalisation era, which kicked off in the early 1990s.
The era which is now taking shape will involve just as much international interconnectedness. But supply chains will be more politically nuanced. AI will address education shortcomings and employers will favour youth and digital skills.
Burdened
Of course we are burdened by what has been. Apartheid was heinous and the ANC has subsequently entrenched the world’s most severe unemployment crisis while exhausting the fiscus.
President Zuma’s nine-year reign was costly and his legacy included an expectation that purging corruption would unleash economic vibrancy. Many of the worst aspects of state capture have been mitigated but unsustainable patronage still depletes state resources and slows growth.
ANC leaders sought to purchase voter loyalty as they justified unaffordable patronage by referencing historical injustices and ongoing inequality. Yet the heavy fiscal costs are exceeded by BEE and localisation legislation having devastated lifetime employment prospects for most “born free” school leavers. Progress stalled long ago but as patronage, via civil service wages and grants, is now vulnerable to budget cuts, growth is suddenly an ANC priority.
Pursuit of investment-led growth disappointed because it failed to trigger major policy pivots. As the global zeitgeist now favours deals over ideals, and as our political machinery has become more fit for purpose, we must update our thinking about growth drivers and employment. The ANC’s rising electoral vulnerabilities should unlock much needed reforms.
A further catalyst should be a commercially robust set of initiatives to fast-track much deeper integration into global supply chains. We must become unburdened by what has been by focusing on what we can accomplish through competing globally.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/53915838050/]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
If you like what you have just read, support the Daily Friend