The majority of whites in South Africa regard Affirmative Action (AA) negatively, as holding back the economic growth that the country needs urgently in order to raise overall living standards.

Without AA, it is argued, the South African economy would grow faster than currently, benefiting both blacks and whites. The greatest beneficiaries, however, would be the very poor, the people most in need of economic upliftment.

There is, however, absolutely no chance of the ANC eliminating or reducing AA, for reasons we shall consider shortly. Whites calling for its end are therefore wasting their time, and in doing so are, in fact, indicating a depressing lack of understanding.

The ANC will never drop AA, for several completely rational reasons. At the same time, AA will almost certainly not be in the best long-term interest of the black portion of the population. Some of their leaders may even suspect this possibility. But they will continue with it because to them, and probably to the great majority of blacks, AA is clearly the quickest way of achieving black economic empowerment.

From the moment that the ANC took power, its primary objective, naturally enough, was to introduce as many blacks into the white-run economy as possible.

This is certainly not the most fruitful way in the medium or longer term of achieving this, but currently it is the quickest route, and more significantly, such an objective is what blacks in general expected from their leaders once they took power; to transform the white-run economy into a black one. Had the ANC not introduced AA, it would rapidly have been replaced by a more extreme party that did adopt the policy.

More rational

Ironically, in regard to their respective attitudes towards AA, blacks are being far more rational than their white counterparts. This is not to say that AA is the superior alternative economically, or that the black population wouldn’t be much better off economically in the longer term were it abandoned, and a freer market introduced.

World-wide economic experience over two centuries indicates that the latter would very likely be the case. This is to say, however, that AA is definitely working to the immediate overall black advantage as far as the black leadership and the majority of blacks are concerned, and has done so since AA was introduced. From the black point of view, AA is highly successful and eminently rational.

For whites to condemn AA out of hand, therefore, and in its place to offer blacks a seemingly pie-in-the-sky alternative economic policy which would take some time to generate significant employment, without due consideration for existing black attitudes and beliefs, in the hope that black people will forgo the ever-expanding AA, is irrational and futile.

If whites are to have any chance of persuading the ANC to change its AA policy, we surely need first to understand what and how the ANC and the black population is thinking, in order to be capable of persuading them of the error of their assumptions.

Mindless policy

If we do not take the trouble to do this, then in practice we are simply hoping to persuade them to replace their prejudices with our own, a mindless policy that is hardly indicative of the superior knowledge implicit in our undertaking and our arrogance.

Any opposition to the ANC that offers the public a vague capitalistic economic policy, while calling for an end to AA and hoping to attract a significant number of black votes in the next election, seriously needs to reconsider its options.

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David Matthews is a Daily Friend reader.