Despite popular South African folklore, the Guptas did not invent the template for State Capture. They did, however, milk and exploit the concept for all it was worth and contributed to the unprecedented institutional decline witnessed in the past 10 years. But the distinct dishonour of where the phenomenon was first noticed, studied and coined as such, belongs to the states in the Eastern bloc of Europe and Central Asia, which had just started emerging from the iron grip of successive dictatorships to transition into democracies.

Believe it or not, the World Bank came up with the term “State Capture” in the early 2000s as a descriptor of what it had seen unfolding in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. During that period, the World Bank conducted a series of seminal studies that culminated in authoritative papers on the subject. One of those papers was written by James H Anderson and Cheryl W Gray, and it was titled: “Anti-corruption in Transition 3: Who is Succeeding and Why?”

Just to clarity, State Capture is one component of a complex web of corruption and associated behaviours and is not strictly confined to emerging-market or frontier-market economies. Developed economies have not been spared either. Essentially, all, from poor, middle income and rich, are in the same boat, so to speak. And two of State Capture’s most invidious consequences on a state are that it undermines economic growth and chokes competition in the market place. There is a correlation between the prevalence of State Capture, underpinned by corrupt conduct and other murky practices, and economic stagnation.

In the course of conducting its studies, the World Bank looked at the conditions that gave rise to State Capture, its different manifestations, the extent to which it seeped into institutions and sapped the life out of them, and what types of political culture enabled rent-seeking.

In a chapter titled “Patterns of Corruption, 2002-2005”, Anderson and Gray observe: “Rhetoric about corruption increasingly permeated political speech in the 1990s and early 2000s, although reforms were often delivered with less vigour.” This has a familiar ring to it. If one were to conduct a study on how the topic of corruption has become in vogue in South African public discourse and measured this against tangible results, there is a high probability that we would come up short.

And here are the risks of talking a good game, without matching it with action: “Administrative corruption tends to weaken the rule of law by undermining a government’s ability to implement laws and regulations, while both administrative corruption and State Capture can have pernicious effects on economic competition by restricting market entry and distributing economic preferences to influential elites,” as noted by Anderson and Gray.

Although the papers were written almost 20 years ago, they remain relevant because of the period that South Africa has just existed and the epoch into which the country is entering into.

One can argue, successfully, that the Guptarisation of the narrative around the South African version of State Capture makes it devoid of complexity and robs us of the opportunity to analyse the true nature and extent of the beast. It allows others to hide behind the shadow of the Guptas and creates the space for them to recast themselves as moral agents without whom the South African body politic would be doomed. However, the current climate requires the diligent exercise of scrutiny.

The dichotomies we have created about State Capture and corruption stifle analysis because they push us into a “good vs bad” paradigm. But this is not the time to valorise anyone, as there are no heroes nor villains. What we have are flawed and fallible men and women entrusted with institutions, both public and private. And so, the era we are entering into demands that South Africans exercise caution and become more vigilant and questioning.

I’ll conclude on a quote from a public servant who warned at the beginning of the new dawn: “You guys [journalists and media] must be on guard. If you think corruption is going to disappear, you have another think coming. The tender mark-ups won’t be as inflated, but the corruption will be there and it is your duty to be wide awake.” DM