Creating perceptions of a new normal is a popular trick among marketers and those seeking to grab and retain power - because it works.

For those who are ambitious yet allergic to accountability, becoming either an autocrat or a leftist intellectual are compelling career choices. The first group rewards ruthlessness whereas the second favours those whose weapon of choice is a keyboard. 

This week's BRICS summit spotlights their abilities to shift narratives and create perceptions of a new normal. Both groups benefit, though in very different ways, while those that suffer are the poor and unemployed

Even countries whose robust democracies are reinforced by a middle class majority and persistently healthy economic growth are susceptible to autocrats wrapped in populist garb - of the left or the right. Though Venezuela is now among Latin America’s poorest countries, before Hugo Chavez’s fervent socialism it had been one of its wealthiest with a substantial middle class. Putin’s Russia could be on a similar trajectory but its policies are hardly progressive. 

Autocrats prioritise holding power; not national interests. The power grabs of many leftist intellectual elites are more insidious. Unlike the capitalist business people they frequently criticise, what scholarly types often desire more than material wealth is the satisfaction which comes from shaping how issues are framed. That they trade in ideas does not preclude their being as greedy as money-grubbing tenderpreneurs.

Ideologically inspired professors and media elites have become increasingly successful at framing issues in ways which inflate their status as arbiters of social justice. That they see themselves as “progressives” is ironic in that they are so frequently quick to depict history not as a triumph of human progress but as a series of conflicts between oppressors and the oppressed. A more balanced perspective would help societies, such as South Africa, avoid overindulging a judgemental mindset at the expense of a solutions focus.   

By embracing Marx-inspired conflict theories, leftist elites avoid debating solution options to instead aggrandise their ability to identify victims and oppressors. South Africa would be vulnerable to such influences even if the economy were healthy.

Inequality

As South Africa’s history of oppression is so fresh and its victims so numerous, both leftist elites and our patronage focused ruling party need only utter the word “inequality” to derail debates about how best to grow the economy. Yet focusing on inequality makes no sense in environments with high unemployment and rampant poverty. Deng Xiopeng, whose policies lifted a billion people out of poverty, famously said, “Let some people get rich first.” 

If wealth was evenly distributed, there would be insufficient savings and productive assets would be less well managed. Wealthy people save more and many of them make much better than average business and investment decisions.  ‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’ Tolerant, diverse societies have abundant advantages and there are many aspects to such diversity.

Being against inequality is simple and satisfying. It also signals obeisance toward progressive dogma. The alternative is less satisfying and more demanding. It requires sufficient humility to objectively see the world as it is and to advocate for policies and practices which unlock abundant opportunities leading to broad prosperity.

Normative versus positivist

Social scientists use the awkward construct of normative versus positivist when referring to what should be versus what is known to be doable. Today’s South Africa depicts what happens when issues are recklessly framed around what should be with little regard for what solution paths have frequently succeeded elsewhere.

We have the world’s most severe youth unemployment crisis and we can confidently predict that it will not noticeably improve over the next few years. Firstly, our national debates on the issue focus not on solutions but rather on sub-subsistence grants. Secondly, median economic forecasts do not expect this decade’s GDP growth to exceed our workforce’s growth rate. And thirdly, the most insightful measure would be the number of young adult South Africans who are becoming permanently marginalised. We can be certain that this grim metric will continue rising.

Poverty

Experts know how to eradicate the world’s remaining large clusters of poverty (though no one knows how to do this while seeking equality). Politics and governance issues standout among the persistent hindrances. Further consider that most extreme poverty is in resource endowed African nations.

Leftist intellectuals promote the evils of inequality and wealthy rulers of resource endowed nations contort such perspectives into blaming their nations’ rampant poverty on colonialism. For this reason, self-serving autocrats are attracted to the shield-like attributes which the BRICS alignment offers.  

Poverty and inequality have been plunging globally as technology and geopolitics supported integration of affluent and less affluent national economies. As a consequence however, less affluent countries that reject such integration will struggle.

Power grabs

Disruptive innovations increase opportunities and productivity while intensifying the demands made on investors and managers. This core reality emphatically challenges the left’s dodgy embrace of inequality.

Today’s professors of humanities and media elites can artfully engage and manipulate ideas but they aren’t builders. Rather than respect the contribution of exceptional builders, they frequently resent not just their wealth but their ability to change the world. 

The internet and then social media radically disrupted information flows and this provided an opportunity to reframe perceptions of what is normal and what is to be disdained. Progressive intellectuals were offended that twentysomething computer coders could become billionaires and they launched their own power grab.

It started in the social sciences and it is currently spreading even to the hard sciences. The objective pursuit of knowledge and solution focused analysis became subordinate to judging using a progressive scorecard. Those less well off would need to stay that way or the project would lack a foil. 

BRICS

The views expressed here may seem abstract but this week’s BRICS summit will project them to a global audience in an ill-fated effort to undermine the rules based global order which has been central to uplifting billions of people. It is particularly appropriate that this BRICS summit is held in South Africa because no country has been more victimised by a false idolatry of equality.

Only failed states have youth unemployment crises comparable to ours. A majority of today’s young adult South Africans will never be meaningfully employed.

If this was something that concerned our ruling elites, they would not align with the current members of BRICS or the applicant nations. None of them is in a position to help us grow jobs. China’s ballooning youth unemployment has motivated it to discontinue publishing such data.

Only the West combines massive discretionary purchasing power and an ageing workforce. Deeply aligning with such a group of nations is precisely what SA needs to do before our youth unemployment crisis becomes as combustible as the recent Hawaain wildfire.

Instead, the SA-hosted BRICS summit will focus on how to diversify away from using the dollar to settle cross border transactions. Can there be a starker example of a government putting the interests of ruling elites ahead of citizen needs? 

The appeal of diversifying away from the dollar and the West generally is that western nations have learned that autocrats provoke injustices which spark terror and wars. Thus they try to use trade as a conduit to advance human rights and to encourage good governance. Autocrats see this as their being held accountable whereas the BRICS grouping holds out hope of their being able to escape such accountability. The cost is greater poverty and unemployment.

The new normalcy which is being promoted is a multipolar world where leaders of the BRICS countries are seen as no less important than their G7 counterparts. If there is one thing that SA’s participation highlights, it is that these leaders are not meeting to advance their nation’s interests.