“Was ist denn das für Quatsch?” I muttered. What sort of nonsense is this?
When excited, Bart Simpson switches to Spanish. I also switch languages, but to German. I was looking at Adriaan Basson’s column last week. “Ego before jobs: what Ramaphosa could have given Trump” appeared on Monday, 5 August, two days away from the imposition on South African exports of President Trump’s dreaded 30% tariffs.
“We are in no position to flip the bird at Trump when eight million (and counting) of our adult population is unemployed,” Basson wrote. A change of pace from much of the media commentary on the issue, this wasn’t a defiant middle finger to the American President, or a screed against his unconscionable venality, but rather a finger-wagging rebuke of Trump’s South African counterpart.
With a lucrative trade relationship on the line, Basson laid into President Ramaphosa for his hubris in the face of the looming tariffs. The episode was “one of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s weakest moments”. (The image headlining the article showed the meeting in the White House – no longer, apparently, an assertion of proud sovereignty and masterly statecraft.) South Africa’s authorities had done little to address the threat, and now tens of thousands of jobs were on the line.
Irritation buzzed about in my head as I read that.
There was a lot the President could have done, Basson continued. Specifically, four issues: amending the expropriation legislation to “clarify” that it wouldn’t be used to confiscate assets; conducting a review of race-based policy (BEE and Employment Equity), about which public opinion is in any event lukewarm; condemning the race-baiting and fear-stoking singing of Dubul’ ibhunu; and trying to get South Africa’s diplomatic relations with the US back on track, at a minimum by actually appointing a competent ambassador.
By this point, I was incandescent. Really, I hissed to myself, you think so?
I’ve always regarded copycats, plagiarists and counterfeiters as deserving of the deepest circle of the Underworld, along with mutineers, fornicators and scallywags. As far as I was concerned in that moment, Basson had cribbed my ideas.
“I’ll sue,” I seethed, in the best tradition of I’m-your-neighbour-Mr-Bastard (get-off-my-lawn!!!). “I’ll sue. I’ll bloody sue!”
I’d been punting all this for years. I was chasing the threat to property rights – Expropriation without Compensation – and warning about the impact of trade and investment since before 2018. I warned in so many words that there was very little more dissuasive to doing business than encroaching on property rights.
I banged on about this for years
I’m proud to say that I banged on about this for years. Took some slings and arrows too. Mostly, though, the great and the good just blocked their ears, la-la-la, can’t hear you. As far as the Expropriation Act goes, News24 published an “explainer” on the Bill in February 2021 that asked “will the state be able to take everything you own”? Absolutely not, it concluded, having consulted two experts sympathetic to the legislation.
“The Bill seeks to address land redistribution that is just and equitable in the South African context. It only deals with land redistribution, nothing else.” Complete Quatsch. Just read the actual text and you can see it deals with property as a whole. To its credit, News24 ran a reply from me, that this piece seemed designed to justify rather than explain. All of a piece, I’m afraid, with the idea that jovial “Oom Cyril” was just playing 4-D chess and was really outsmarting his own party. (No, he wasn’t.)
But let’s not let narrative get in the way of a good story. Hell, I enjoy fantasy too.
Race-based policy and BEE? Check. That’s me too, or rather, we – as in the Institute of Race Relations – as an organisation. I’ve said before that it’s striking how such a foundational policy, whose assumptions intrude into just about every facet of economic life, is seldom defended on its record. The best we typically get is broad brushstroke allusions to the wonders it’s done, and dire warnings of calamities that will follow should it be abandoned.
I’d say that there are plenty of grounds to argue exactly the opposite, not least the complaints from more than a few businesspeople, publicly and privately. Both American and European business groups have identified BEE as a major blockage to operating in South Africa. BEE has been an effective demand for a surrender of a large chunk of equity for the privilege of operating in South Africa. A stiff tax on investment, it’s been called.
Yes, yes, I know you might be able to skirt the ownership stuff, but it makes damn sure that you’re plugged into a patronage network that imposes steep costs for very little return. In a market that’s already uncompetitive – logistics, crime, failing governance – you just don’t get to make this sort of demand and see the money roll in. And that’s why our fixed investment rate is at a princely 15% of GDP, half or less of our emerging market peers, and why our growth rate hovers in the 1% range. (Sorry, factor in those tariffs and 1% is optimistic.)
Sorry folks …
How about incendiary songs and race-baiting politics? Yup. Been there, done that. Sorry folks, but if you’re not on the political inside, and you don’t see it as a treasured piece of the national fabric, then chanting about “shooting to kill” is likely to be a chilling visual and not one that says “healthy society”, or “great place to do business”. It’s also a message that says that a crime-ridden society is sort of okay with, you know, killing people (maybe only if they’re Boers – though the performance in the White House told the world that, hey, we’re trying to wipe out everyone equally.) That the President couldn’t rouse himself to condemn this is its own dreadful story.
As for foreign affairs, well, the ANC (and its offshoots), its Communist Party and trade union allies, and the state have been denouncing the US for two decades. I’ve been on about this one recently, including in the Daily Maverick and News24, as well as on our own Daily Friend real estate. My point has been that South Africa’s political leadership has been operating from ideological and geopolitical impulses. South Africa’s authorities are playing a hazardous game of brinkmanship: it has been provoking a confrontation with the US without the countervailing influence to mitigate the fallout.
Basson is right, though, about the ambassador. There’s no one to warm a seat in Washington, and those who’ve done so recently have probably degraded rather than assisted the relationship. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that the President’s imagination could extend beyond party grandees for such a plum job. I’m not optimistic.
And here we are now.
Still, before I reached for my dial-a-lawyer (“I’ll bloody sue!!!), I noted the title again. “What Ramaphosa could’ve given Trump”. Now that wasn’t from me.
Each of the policy choices Basson cites has taken South Africa down a blind alley; each of the remedies he proposes is something that South Africa’s future success requires. More in fact. We don’t just need a review of empowerment policy, we need a comprehensive change to it. We don’t just need an ambassador in Washington, we need a proper assessment of what South African can reasonably achieve on the global stage, the limits of its influence and how this translates into the wellbeing of South Africa’s people.
Misplaced reason
Basson’s piece had hit the right notes, but for a misplaced reason. He presents these changes as an offering to appease Trump. Das ist ja völlig Quatsch! We need to take these steps for the sake of South Africa and its future. They would be necessary, even with an eminently sympathetic American administration. We’ve been on a downhill slide for a long time, much of which squarely because of what the powers-that-be have chosen to do.
So, I guess Basson needn’t worry about getting a badly worded letter from a budget lawyer. I’m glad he’s punting some of the right changes. But this is something South Africa owes itself, for its own reasons, and as a precondition for its own prosperity and stability. Maybe Trump has done us a backhanded favour by forcing these considerations upon us – but it’s not for him or his administration that we need to confront them. For the moment, I’ll content myself with a bit of “I told you so.”
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