MICHAEL MORRIS | Political engagement crucial to escaping low-growth rut - Business Day

Michael Morris
For most South Africans, who are already working like beavers (trying to make ends meet, mainly, and keeping the country afloat), the idea of a brisk, solution-driven politics and leaders who get things done without fuss is appealing.

And no wonder; as my colleagues point out in the latest report in the Institute of Race Relations’ Blueprint for Growth series, we’ve “been stuck in a low-growth rut for over a decade”.

While global GDP per capita has grown 33.9%, South Africa’s unemployment rate has surged to 31.9% and more than 8-million people are out of work. Our total real investment shows a decline of almost 15%, from R775bn in 2008 to R661.1bn in 2024.

“Nearly half of households have reported experiencing water interruptions lasting for 48 hours or more at a time (33.7% or 6,589,000 households). The government provided 171,800 fewer housing opportunities in 2023/24 than in 2007/08.”

Who wouldn’t want a kind of politics that delivered quick, measurable gains if it meant snappily tackling these deficits? There’s no obvious drawback, but there is always a big risk in the public abdicating its responsibility to take politics seriously, to participate, to intervene, to tolerate delay.

Two excerpts from quite different texts came across my screen last week, catching my attention for what they had to say about the nature of politics. The first was (Donald Trump appointee) US judge Neil Gorsuch’s concurring opinion in the striking down of part of the Trump administration’s tariff regime. His concluding thoughts are memorable.

Noting that “most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people … are funnelled through the legislative process for a reason”, Gorsuch acknowledged that “yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design.

“Through that process, the nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.”

“Deliberation”, he said, “tempers impulse and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions”. What’s more, the process “helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us”.

Gorsuch concluded: “For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious. But if history is any guide the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.”

The second text conveys the sense of a not dissimilar intellectual generosity and wisdom: “The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and forgotten … for the lesson [is] that oppression and racism are inequalities that must never find scope in our political and social system.

“It could never be a correct justification that just because the whites oppressed us yesterday when they had power, the blacks must oppress them today because they have power. An evil remains an evil whether practised by white against black or black against white.”

When we think about who penned and expressed these sentiments today, we really are reminded of the importance of a vigorous, public politics that rises to affirm the rigour and independence of its institutions.

These last words, from 1980, were delivered in his victory speech by Robert Mugabe, a reminder — in contrast to Gorsuch’s recommendation — that the vulnerability of a whole nation’s politics can be fatally deepened by a complacent public’s reliance on a powerful politician, who will not always be in a good mood.

Morris is head of media at the South African Institute of Race Relations.

https://www.businessday.co.za/opinion/2026-03-02-michael-morris-political-engagement-crucial-to-escaping-low-growth-rut/