Growing the economy is the most radical way to transform it - Sunday Times

Gabriel Crouse
Is there anything one can say about BEE that hasn’t already been said? Sunday Times deputy editor Mike Siluma seems to think so when he writes: “We should not shy away from rethinking BEE”, and I agree.

Siluma starts the desperately needed rethink with the caveat that “the need for redress” remains. Yes, apartheid was not only evil and stupid, but also horrifically long and large in scale. Much of South Africa has not yet emerged from its shadow.

He then notes that the Harvard Growth Lab report called for an end to BEE in public procurement and employment at all state-owned enterprises (SOEs). I agree with the Harvard recommendations — or, rather, they agree with ours: the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) campaign to cut BEE out of the public sector to reduce load-shedding, attract investment and create jobs.

Siluma then notices a potential tension between these two observations: “What comes first — the imperative to transform the economy, or the urgency to fix and grow it?”

The key term here is “transformation”, which Siluma wisely observes is one of those “buzzwords ... bandied about with nary an attempt to reach a universal understanding of it”.

Please allow me to try. I lack the fancy certificates professors and lexicographers have as authority for defining words, but I was born when the rainbow nation first came into existence and have thought about transformation (almost) ever since.
I think the best we can hope for is a potentially universal meaning of transformation that most people can support in the light of objective facts and values, even while knowing some will always reject it
First, transformation is an imperative. This falls foul of Siluma’s request for a “universal understanding”, since there are several BEE critics who think racial workplace discrimination should be legal, secession is lekker, and transformation is something we could all do well without as we settle into our racial enclaves.

Second, transformation is procedural. It requires different things to be done at different times, like any recipe. Again, some disagree. Hardened BEE proponents say BEE must endure forever, or until it works — even if it doesn’t.

I think the best we can hope for is a potentially universal meaning of transformation that most people can support in the light of objective facts and values, even while knowing some will always reject it.

Third, transformation is nonracial. This holds true in both ends and means.

Siluma mentions “good intentions” regarding BEE, and I must add the commonplace observation that an “intention” is not just a goal post — it is also the means to that target. One does not just “intend” to score, but rather to head, chip or blast the ball with the right toe into the goal. Furthermore, there may be occasional Maradona-esque “hand of God” moments, but we all know that someone who plans to score a soccer goal with his hands every day has a misbegotten intention.

Likewise, nonracialism is not just a goal post, but rather a full-bodied intention that limits both destination and route. The goal of nonracialism is a relaxed attitude to race, grounded in the reliable expectation that no-one suffers because of his or her race.

The means is facial racial neutrality as a default, with exceptions only in extreme circumstances. For example, in the early days of the rainbow nation it was vital to build faith in the criminal justice system and impossible, in my view, to do that without deliberately promoting black police officers. Is that today’s transformational problem with police? No — see the first point on process, and then the next on detail.

Third, transformation means that, whenever it is possible and fruitful to do so, the opposite of what was carried out under apartheid must be done. For example, if the apartheid government took away your or your parents’ land, then we as taxpayers must fork out to make you whole again.

If the apartheid government denied you a title deed, then we as taxpayers must compel the government to privatise the state land you live on, at our expense.

The apartheid government said to most people: “You cannot choose your child’s school, or syllabus, or language of instruction”, so we as taxpayers must do the opposite by respecting your educational choices. That, in turn, means redirecting the public school budget into your hands by giving you a voucher to send your child to the school of your choice. Not Pretoria. Not Tshwane. You decide. That is the opposite of “Bantu education”. That is redress.

The apartheid government said to most people: “When you look into the eyes of a police officer you will be suspected of communism or insubordination, and liable to be detained without trial.” We as citizens must do the opposite by legislating that you and your neighbours get to vote for your local station commander, so that he or she serves you. That unlocks the transformative power of democracy and locks up criminals. Again, that is redress.

In general, in the next stage transformation removes the scars of apartheid spatial planning by putting power back into the hands of the people, wherever they are. To me, doing the opposite of apartheid is a wonderful thing, and I think the fourth part of transformation is loving our rainbow nation.
In the BEE era (which began in about 2007), black unemployment on the official definition has risen from 21% to 36%. This is the biggest transformation challenge today
Siluma asks the reader to imagine a South Africa without racial preferences in jobs and contracts. “Then what? Will not what’s left be a society that professes adherence to equality and justice, but cynically chooses to make peace with its deep inequalities, among the worst globally? One that pretends that its ills will miraculously cure themselves?”

Emphatically, no. The day BEE dies, our laws will finally recognise that the opposite of apartheid is full-blown nonracialism. But redress for apartheid will have only just begun. In the BEE era (which began in about 2007), black unemployment on the official definition has risen from 21% to 36%. This is the biggest transformation challenge today.

We need five years of 5% GDP growth, then seven years of 7% GDP growth, and then 10 years of 10% GDP growth to transform South Africa from a country with the world’s highest unemployment levels into a working republic.

So we return to the question Siluma asked: “What comes first — the imperative to transform the economy, or the urgency to fix and grow it?”

By my definition, this is like asking: “What comes first — laying the bricks or building the house?” Growing the economy is the most radical way to transform it. If one thinks about an extra 7-million black individuals getting paid to add value each day, my definition comes out a clear winner. What could be more positively transformative than that?

When you think about children starving to death in the Eastern Cape and the devastating facts and figures relating to the political and economic circumstances in which we find ourselves, something cracks inside. Ultimately, perhaps, transformation is what you do after you look within for the change our rainbow nation so desperately needs.

Crouse is a policy fellow at the Institute of Race Relations

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/opinion/2023-12-03-growing-the-economy-is-the-most-radical-way-to-transform-it/