One of the major obstacles in the way of economic progress in this country is the perception by many young black South Africans that the capitalist system is weighted in favour of whiteys. That was certainly the case during the apartheid era but even that didn't deter determined individuals like Richard Maponya who found a way around the rules and went on to become a wealthy and highly respected businessman. Maponya is perhaps the best known of apartheid era black business figures but there were plenty of others who had sufficient entrepreneurial spirit not to give up and blame the system.
The harsh reality of business is that only the best succeed and this, I suspect, lies behind the constant carping on these pages from readers who simply aren't cut out for success. Instead of coming up with the next big thing they prefer to sit at their laptops and fire off banal and ignorant comments to websites like this.
When I first arrived in South Africa over thirty years ago one of my clients was an elderly Jewish businessman who told me how Donald Gordon had started what would eventually become Liberty Life. Gordon had been a star accounting student in his day and dreamed of starting his own insurance business to compete with the giant Sanlam.
No fairy godmother appeared to give him the start-up capital and the banks weren't falling over themselves to offer funding. Donald Gordon had to convince friends and acquaintances that he wasn't completely off his rocker and find his own financial backing.
It's a tried and tested capitalist thing called raising capital. First you have to convince potential investors that you have a good idea, then you have to get them to part with their money and then you have to set up a business that will give a return to those investors. That can either be through dividends or, better still in the days before capital gains tax, through a rising share price.
I am told that Donald Gordon literally walked the streets of Newtown and Johannesburg selling both the idea of investing in his new company and in buying one or two of his policies. My shrewd Jewish business friend of thirty years ago pointed out way back then that becoming Donald Gordon's "partner" by buying into the company was a much better idea than buying one of the policies if you really wanted to get rich.