Capital will never save South Africa

Many commentators, columnist and South Africans (often at social gatherings or across dinner tables) are quick to talk about their sense that South Africa is plagued by various fatal problems and that it is sliding into the abyss. The narrative that has formed is not singular or focused but rather it is fragmented and often fatalistic. The narrative is so fragmented that it is perhaps paying homage to the cracks in our society that continue to contribute to the structural inequality, poverty and unemployment.

We are living all our “conscious life in the framework of institutionalised separate development”. The quote goes further to say that this separate development is found in “my friendships, my love, my education, my thinking, and every other facet of my life have been carved and shaped within the context of separate development”. Despite the doom and gloom, South Africa has in various stages of its existence “managed to outgrow some of the things the system taught” and brutalised us with but in order to do so South Africans had to confront that system.

Earlier this week, I listened to Moeletsi Mbeki, who spoke at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business about South Africa, economic trends, his previous comment that South Africa would also experience its own Tunisian (Arab Spring) moment and the shifting sands of the global architecture. A great deal of Mbeki’s talk was, of course, focused on the shortcomings of the governing party. But it was also about how South Africa has, in his words, been aligned to “the West for 360 years”.

Mbeki’s talk did not focus on the shift towards the left globally or even the South African leftist formation that is forming under the banner of the United Front and other such alignments. The conversation was very much about the macro issues and about corporations not investing in South Africa while they expand their reach (and market share) across Africa.

These conversations are important but they are also conversations that have already taken place in various spaces and among many other actors. A great deal of the broader conversation taking place in South Africa today is focused on capital and the role it should be playing in South Africa as well as issues of corruption, and a failure of broader leadership in the country.

When we engage about the role of capital, even on issues around corruption, talk tends to be structured on the basis that capital in South Africa is somehow infantile or helpless and that it requires hand-holding and our unfettered support. Somehow, capital is overlooked when there are allegations of corruption and is often treated with kid gloves when we need someone to take responsibility. We only need to look at the outcomes of the Marikana commission and the issue of providing compensation for the victims, survivors and families of that massacre to realise how generously we treat capital.

We must remember that capital is part of the “institutionalised separate development” and the only way to meaningfully confront issues of inequality is by accepting that South Africans (and this goes for capital too) have a responsibility to confront it.

In the same week as Mbeki’s talk, Thomas Piketty, the French economist and author of Capital, is due to present the annual Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture at the University of Johannesburg's Soweto campus. Piketty’s own view of capital is that “there is a fundamentalist belief by capitalists that capital will save the world, and it just isn't so". We should take heed of this warning when many try to adopt the idea that corporate South Africa will be the appropriate hero to save us all or the benchmark by which we should hold others to account.

The fragmented political spectrum does not help this broader and important conversation but rather it often stifles real progress. It would not have been an ordinary night in South Africa if the audience at Mbeki’s speech did not complain about the African National Congress or President Jacob Zuma or about the lack of vision from the Democratic Alliance or even about the threat of the Economic Freedom Fighters.

However, what is more concerning is the complacency and ambivalence that many South Africans display, in settings like Mbeki’s talk and elsewhere, to their fellow South Africans. South Africans are unwilling to accept or confront their own culpability for this fragmented system. Dangerously, they are willing to operate in the same old, tired, and fragmented boxes of yesteryear while the “institutionalised separate development” continues to pervade every facet of our society.

There is a massive gap. This gap is not simply in the Gini coefficient but rather it remains a gap in our thinking and discourse. We have clearly not challenged our consciousness sufficiently as Steve Biko called on us to do. Piketty’s proposition, which I quoted above, is that capital will never save our country and it is a proposition we must take heed of. We must accept that we should no longer be in the business of saving but should be rebuilding and redefining the collective future of South Africa by confronting the fragmented sectors that call South Africa their home.

I close this column with Biko's words in I Write What I Like: “I have lived all my conscious life in the framework of institutionalised separate development”. We can’t continue to live like this. We can’t continue to live in the shadows of those giants who fought for freedom and shaped our thinking especially when we are required to outgrow the status quo. DM