As far back as I can remember, I have been reading how commentators and journalists in mainstream publications bemoan the inequality in South Africa. It is usually in relation to how the ANC isn’t doing enough at a policy level to address this challenge through punitive measures. And many of them still attach an oversimplified racial dimension to it. It is usually mentioned fleetingly without much serious analysis expended on it.
Personally, I think inequality is a red-herring and unimportant. Yes, I am middle class and educated, but I have worked relentlessly to achieve it and compared to Christo Wiese and Patrice Motsepe I am basically poor. Does this bother me? Not in the least. I keep on aspiring to be more successful in my ventures, but I honestly don’t care if I am that rich.
My basic and some non-basic needs are met, and my relationships’ importance and personal growth far exceed the value of money. I have read countless biographies and articles on successful and wealthy people in order to learn from them, but I don’t spend my time begrudging them.
Just like most middle-class Americans don’t spend their days envying Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett. And what strikes me most about many rich and super rich people is that money doesn’t seem to preoccupy their lives either. Buffett is just as famous for his frugal lifestyle as his investment insights and nous. They realise that it has a diminishing (or even inverse) return in relation to happiness and satisfaction past a certain point.
Poverty is much more of a concern than inequality. If someone cannot meet their basic needs or find work to fulfil their purpose and provide them with dignity, this presents a major challenge to them; and if there are a sufficient number of “them”, then also to society at large and even the regions in which they live. This often, but not always (as I have seen first-hand in Asia), leads to socio-political unrest, crime and other social ills – South Africa is a case in point. Eradicating grinding poverty should be our main concern, seeing as for most of us there will always be someone who is richer and poorer than us.
Over the past three decades, the ANC – being the socialists that they are – has largely attempted to use its political heft to legislate black people out of poverty and combat inequality. Apartheid is certainly to blame for the still-prevalent racial income gaps, but to simply attribute it to this – as many analysts and politicians still do – is disingenuous or uninformed.
These ANC policies and laws have simply created an oversized, overpaid and mostly venal bureaucratic and political elite, and a predatory one in the private sector (that exploits government tenders). The unemployment rate among the black population and in the country is higher now than in it was in 1994.
It was recently revealed that R100 million was spent since 2018 on Cyril Ramaphosa’s official residences in Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban. The kicker? He doesn’t even live there most of the time. Apparently, he occasionally uses them as offices while he lives in his private luxury properties.
In deputy president Paul Mashitile’s case, R12 million was spent on maintenance at his official residence while he luxuriates at his son-in-law’s R37 million mansion in Waterfall Estate in Midrand. And yet, very few people care to mention how this flies in the face of their socialist ideals and lack of governance achievements. The inequality between them and the millions of destitute and jobless black people in the country at a time when their own policies have created the masses’ hardship, is glaring and conspicuous. Enough has been reported on the Phala Phala saga for it to merit further discussion here.
On this point, policy uncertainty (which, in essence, means that bad policy and unnecessary risk obtain), official corruption, an overstaffed state, abysmal state-owned enterprises (SOEs), trade union militancy and obtuse political decisions, have all contributed to this widening inequality.
South Africa is no longer the darling of the world and overseas investors take a hard-nosed and askance view of its prospects (Ramaphosa’s panegyrising about its virtues is clearly inadequate) while many local professionals and businesspeople (the ones that create jobs) emigrate or hold onto their money. Every business confidence indicator is unequivocal about this.
My last point pertains to grants and education. Millions of people in this country are dependent on welfare grants. It is doubtless somewhat of a lifeline, but a grant will not make you middle class, rich or provide you with the dignity you desire. And it disincentivises people from finding work – which, admittedly, is increasingly tough thanks to the ANC’s track record on the economy.
Another perverse situation is that the ANC has largely created a middle class through government employment and not through education. The irony here is that the very same middle class that earns much more than their poor compatriots, is responsible for the complacency, poor service delivery, corruption and incompetence that undermine and hinder upliftment and development of others.
There is no better example of this than the public education system. It is staffed with bureaucrats that have created schools with low standards and low success, while the vast majority of public schools today are packed with unionised teachers whose main concern is their exorbitant pay rises and not their calling to teach children how to read, write and do math. The principal path to narrowing inequality is education and the crisis in public education is indicative of how inequality will persist.
I hope this brief analysis helps to elucidate the reasons behind inequality. Much more can be said about this but for that to happen, one needs to be serious about why it exists and how it may be solved. It’s a shame that this is not happening to any significant degree.
Dr Brink is a business consultant, entrepreneur and independent political analyst
