The radical economic transformation debate is a struggle at the top of the pyramid
To debate the merits of Radical Economic Transformation (RET) without reference to socio-economic data is nothing short of political sloganeering, diverting attention from poorer sections of society where, as the data shows, radical transformation is a pressing need.
The term RET was re-injected into South Africa’s public discourse by President Zuma’s speech at his second inauguration, in 2014. On that occasion he promised that, ‘the structure of the economy will be transformed through industrialisation, broad-based black economic empowerment and … strengthening and expanding the role of the state in the economy’. Others have used similarly imprecise definitions with deputy President Ramaphosa leading a group who argue that RET is nothing more than 'inclusive economic growth'.
But such a soft definition is evasive. It was clear when Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba's advisor, Wits economist Chris Malikane, published his views on the matter, that the definition of RET which resonates among its proponents is all about who own the 'commanding heights of the economy'. Malikane advocates nationalisation as a route to racial redistribution at the head of the economy; others, like the Black Business Council, are likely to favour a more direct transfer; 'BEE on steroids' as one commentator puts it.
Of course RET is, at one level, simply the election slogan of a political party – or at least the dominant faction within it – facing the test of a general election 2019. But rather than seeing it solely within an electoral context, it may be more useful to cast back to the strategic roots of the concept and ask whether it need necessarily be an elite obsession only?
RET originates in the idea of a national democratic revolution. The theory, it will be recalled, is essentially Marxist and regards South Africa’s 1994 transition as only the first ('bourgeois') phase of a 'revolution'. It is the event which, so the narrative goes, will transfer state power to the proletariat who will use this as an instrument to transform society in radical ways.