Post-1994 South Africa has shown how mixing idealism and institutionalism can encourage exploitation.
South Africa’s 1990s political transition, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union, and the reuniting of Germany, marked a peak in idealism. Our constitution was negotiated against that backdrop and it reflects a confluence of institutionalism and idealism.
Institutionalism describes the role of formal institutions – governments, laws, and organisations – in shaping behaviour, policies, and societal outcomes. Idealism, as used here, refers to justice guiding policy choices.
Our constitution provides a sturdy institutional framework to pursue the lofty ideals that still feature prominently among ANC leaders’ speeches. And yet hardships and disappointments continue to compound.
History shows that idealism and institutionalism often surge at the end of major conflicts. The League of Nations, the United Nations, and the EU were all born in such moments. The League did not survive the Second World War, and today the UN and the EU appear increasingly hapless in the face of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Our transition avoided civil war and the first decade sustained much optimism. However, over the past decade-and-a-half, our school leavers’ prospects have plunged. We do not lack institutions. What we lack are sufficient commercial efforts to integrate meaningfully into the global economy.
Commentators long praised South Africa’s strong institutions. Today, genuine pockets of excellence are few and they have frayed from living in a rough neighbourhood. The South African Reserve Bank has managed interest rates commendably. Yet if, like its US counterpart, it carried a dual mandate of price stability and employment, its performance would be judged abysmal.
While it is our national government’s policies that impede growth and discourage hiring, our central bankers have shown little ability to temper such destructive policymaking. While the SARB and some other public institutions have performed their core functions admirably, far too many have not. SAPS and Eskom, in particular, have disappointed the public in truly consequential ways.
Such disappointments have become routine despite an impressive constitution that is still hailed as one of the world’s most progressive. The ANC’s brand of idealism is not however commendable. It has hobbled the prospects of a majority of South Africa’s young adults.
Property rights
Our leaders have long sought to inspire investment-led growth. The countries best placed to benefit from today’s massive investments in data centres are those that are politically stable, respect property rights, and can reliably supply low-cost electricity.
Our constitution mentions many rights but also opens the door for government to restrict them if it is “reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society”. While this may sound reasonable, it gives judges excessive leeway to support government efforts to limit individual rights. By contrast, the US constitution is deliberately designed to limit government from impinging on individual liberties. This has proved remarkably beneficial.
The US’s commitment to individuals’ property rights runs deep – literally. If you drill for oil or gas on your land, you own what your wells produce. This “right of capture” has encouraged exploration and innovations such as fracking and horizontal drilling.
A decade ago few would have imagined that the US could become the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas. Last year the US produced about 25% more oil than second place Saudi Arabia, and 75% more natural gas than number two producer, Russia. In a world rapidly changed by innovation, a government’s commitment to individual rights is likely to generate much wealth. The hidden costs of an overly intrusive government are also extreme.
Institutionalising progressive ideals
For centuries the norm was feudal societies with absolute power vested in monarchs. The only Western organisation with broad institutional capacity was the Catholic Church. Then, as industrialisation gathered pace, bureaucratic institutions flourished. Material wealth increased rapidly, religions lost influence to nationalism, and governments became the dominant rules-setting institutions.
In the aftermath of the First World War, the League of Nations was created. When it failed to prevent the Second World War, it was replaced by the – hopefully more robust – United Nations.
Amid the Cold War, leading Marxist intellectuals realised the proletariat was not going to rise up against capitalism – as living standards were rapidly improving. Therefore they advocated for a strategy known as the “long march through the institutions”. This plan, which emerged in the late 1960s, called for hard-left progressives to dominate universities, media houses, and entertainment companies.
This plan spread like a virus while mutating to exploit emerging opportunities. The genius of the strategy was targeting the institutions that shape how people see the world. Top universities encouraged societies to see the world through justice-focused lenses. Major news outlets frequently use justice-based framing to depict events.
Many influential progressives, being ardently anti-religion, rallied around a movement dismissive of traditional beliefs regarding religion, family, gender, and reason. As they gained influence, such leftist intellectuals often sought to cancel opposing voices.
Many radical left-wing protesters of the 1960s and 1970s became professors and journalists. When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, bringing a surge in idealism, they were well positioned to advance their progressive agendas.
Institutionalising economic development
Little attention was paid to institutions in economic development until Douglass North’s 1990 book, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. His insights were promptly acknowledged by his receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993, just as the post-Cold War era of idealism was building momentum.
The 2024 Nobel recipients built on North’s work to show that institutions explain why nations succeed or fail. The left’s intellectual leadership is motivated to emphasise institutions because it has been so successful at capturing them. Strong institutions undoubtedly contribute to development. However, Asia’s rise over the past half century – perhaps humanity’s most remarkable achievement – was driven primarily by unlocking commercial dynamism. Institutional support helped, but it was not a primary catalyst.
Why progressive-led institutions underperform
Progressives seek political power for its own sake. They rarely manage institutions primarily to advance an organisation’s stated objectives. They therefore frequently prioritise criticising and disrupting rather than solving. This bias has compounded to the point where many progressives express contempt for those who actually seek practical solutions.
This unchecked pursuit of power, largely void of moral restraint or appreciation for trade-offs, always risked grotesque outcomes. This took the form of ardent antisemitism within hours of the 7 October 2023 savage attack on an Israeli music festival. That antisemitism became commonplace among so many progressive activists showed that the movement had lost its way.
Progressives gained much power by capturing institutions that shape perceptions. Their influence has more recently spread through dominating supranational bodies such as the UN and the EU, and their subsidiary bodies, where problem-solving routinely receives short shrift.
Pragmatism Needed
Before our government could begin in the 1990s to provide millions of RDP houses, choices had to be made regarding size and quality. Generous specifications would be more just for the previously oppressed, but that would slow delivery – which would also be unjust. The ANC struggled to manage those trade-offs and this foreshadowed the many governance shortcomings which have followed.
Today’s popular alternative is to create an institution to symbolise an ideal. Packaging development challenges as justice issues to be settled in court often distracts from, or even precludes, commercially robust solutions.
As progressives dominate many leading universities and news outlets, and as they train us to judge issues with meagre regard for trade-offs, we become collectively less discerning. Lies repeated often enough, and endorsed by compromised institutions, can eventually gain acceptance – outrageous lies can even serve as unifying myths.
A current example is the claim that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Some unlawful actions undoubtedly occurred, as happens in war. But Hamas deliberately attacked Israel and then hid among civilians near hospitals and schools to maximise collateral damage. People shouldn’t be so easily manipulated but this is a consequence of key institutions being captured by political operatives.
The pursuit of idealistic goals need not, and should not, require abandoning objectivity and pragmatism.
Emerging world order
Progressives gained influence by levering hard-left ideals within strategically positioned institutions. This benefited political and intellectual elites while pummelling prospects for ordinary citizens. South Africa is an extreme example among many.
Progressives claim the world is now more transactional. Rather, it has become less tolerant of destructive policies.
[Image: Drahomír Hugo Posteby-Mach on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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