One of the
essential elements of a developing State is an insistence by the Government on
the maintenance and observance of private property rights. If a citizen is to exercise his or her
ingenuity and invest funds and time in the development of new businesses and new
ideas, that citizen has to have the assurance that the results will be
available to him or her. Would you take
the trouble to grow a vegetable garden if you knew that the products would be
taken by a passer-bye without even a ‘thank you’ for the trouble you have
taken, the money and effort you have invested?
Of course you would not! It is
more likely that you would join the ranks of the thugs that prey on the
far-sighted and hard-working citizens who become the victims. Investing the money, the time, the effort and
the risk required to create something that did not exist before, and would not
exist apart from your effort, would make no sense. If you had the drive to do it, the chances
are that you would move to a different neighbourhood where you could retain the
fruits of your effort, a neighbourhood where the prevailing view was that you
should be rewarded for those efforts, where the people in control could
recognise that what you take out of the work is a fitting reward for the
contribution you make to the good of the community. Soon, those neighbourhoods that supported the
‘rights’ of the thugs to take from the productive members of the community
would be denuded of those creative and hardworking members who drive the
economy of the community, leaving behind the parasites, the criminals and the
leaders who permitted and encouraged the institutionalised criminality. The neighbourhood that offers protection from
deprivation of your rights will benefit by the addition of the efforts, skills
and intelligence of those driven from the places where theft, in any form, is
not only tolerated, but also undertaken by the authorities.
South
Africa under the ‘leadership’ of the ANC, unfortunately, has come to view
private ownership as evil, except, of course, when that ownership is in the
hands of the Party favourites. The
change has taken place slowly, each step being promoted with plenty of rhetoric
about the need to protect the ‘poorest of the poor’. The private ownership of mineral rights has
been taken away. The right if a
businessman to choose his employees has been compromised. The contract between employer and employee
has been skewed to the extent that an employee has all the rights and the
employer none. There is a plan to take
50% of the ownership of productive farms from the farmers who have invested the
funds, the time and the ingenuity to build them to provide the food supplies to
the nation, and to hand that share to the workers, without compensation to the
farmers who have built them up to provide the nation with food. The argument that the workers also built the
farm is specious. They were paid for
their work, while the farmer took the risk, and, if the pay was not sufficient,
they had the right to withdraw their labour and apply it elsewhwere. The ownership of mines, banks, insurance
companies and all other businesses of any size is required to be ‘shared’ with
members of the ‘previously disadvantaged’ groups. The fact that such transfer of ownership is
paid for from the dividends received from the shares transferred is designed to
confuse the gullible – it is a simple donation by the remaining shareholders of
a part of the business and the income from it that would have flowed to them,
in the absence of this State-sponsored criminality. It is State-mandated theft.
Now the
Department of Trade and Industry is embarking on the next phase of the theft. It is planning to deprive the owners of the
patents that are sorely needed in this country of their rights, by enforcing the
granting of licences to use those patents at a low or zero licence fee. Of course, this is done to benefit the ‘poorest
of the poor’, so no-one can argue the morality of it. We all know that the ‘poorest of the poor’ is
a form of Holy territory, not to be exploited (except by the governing Party). We all know that the benefits of those
patents should be made available to the country, that we can’t afford to pay
for their use, so the jackbooted Capitalists who invested their ingenuity,
their time, their money to create those patents, must simply hand over the rights
to use those patents at a price to be determined by the noble political leaders
in the interests of the ‘poorest of the poor’.
To put the
story in a context that even the most obtuse can understand, let us imagine
that you, a hardworking man or woman, have sold a possession that has taken you
half a lifetime to acquire. You are
walking down the street in South Africaville, the money in your pocket, when a
thug steps out and sticks a gun in your face.
“Give me half of what you have in your pocket,” he says. Surprised (or perhaps not – this is, after
all, South Africaville) you respond. “Why
half?” The thug looks at you
earnestly. “I’m being fair to you, to
leave you with half of what you have worked for!” He is surprised that you do not understand
the fairness of his act. After all, half
is better than none! “What right do you
have to take half of what is mine?” you ask, flabbergasted. “My friends all agree with me that I am
entitled to take half of the fruits of your labour! That is the democratic system!”
That is
emphatically not the democratic system.
It is the socialistic system! It
is theft, pure and simple. The fact that
the majority of voters agree that the Government may act in a criminal way does
not make it less criminal. We need to
evaluate our actions, and those of our Government, on an objective basis of
right and wrong. That objective basis
must comply with the standards of the civilised world.
As citizens
of a country, we have an obligation to support the provision of certain
services, such as (effective and honest) policing, the construction of roads
(preferably roads that will not develop potholes in the first rainstorm),
education (of a standard to make our children able to earn their own way in the
world). We do not have an obligation to
pay a bloated, ineffective and corrupt Civil Service. We do not have an obligation to pay for
thirty-two Cabinet Ministers, none of whom seem to have any understanding that
they are the servants of the people and, as such, they have an obligation to inform
the people of what they are planning, what they have done in our behalf, and
the real truth of the areas for which they are responsible. As citizens, we are entitled to expect value
for our money, and a true accounting of the use of it. As citizens, we are entitled to retain all of
the assets and income that we and our ancestors have worked for.
We are not
the fiefdom of the ‘new royalty’, the band of thugs who believe that everything
we own is ultimately the property of the State (a different way of describing
the Association for Nepotism and Corruption), to be exploited for the benefit
of the people who can’t or won’t work to produce their own income. We are not a resource to be exploited by the
Government for its own ends.
To revert to
the proposed change in the laws relating to the rights of the owners of
patents, it is clear that the ANC-led Government is determined to undermine the
rights of ownership which are an essential of a law-abiding economy. The proposed changes will continue to reduce
the incentive for people to invest in the future, or, possibly worse, to move
away to a new country which understands that an entrepreneur will invest only
if he can reasonably expect to receive a return. There will be an increase in the stagnation
of the economy that is already evident, and the only likely promoters of a
recovery from that stagnation will choose to escape to a more enlightened, more
honest country.
Some of the
readers have asked what can be done, in the face of a Government that is
increasingly irrational in its actions to preserve the power of the ANC. Short of an uprising by the enlightened
citizenry, the obvious solution is to employ the tactics of Ghandi. Apply passive resistance. Make every action by Government as difficult
as possible. Raise objections to every
tax, delay payments to Government, and compliance with its demands, as long as
is possible under the law. Talk to
foreign investors and inform them of the true situation in the country. Write to foreign newspapers to tell them of
Nkandla, the Arms Deal, the deprivation of private rights of ownership, the new
Apartheid, Marikana. The greatest
strength of the Marxists who are running the Government is the apathy of those
who are being exploited by it. The
situation in South Africa will not improve unless the people who are supporting
the policies of the Government by paying their taxes, tolls, levies, licence
fees, airport taxes, electricity bills and the numerous other demands of
Government and Government-owned organisations show their dislike of them. In the end, the person who pays is entitled
to call the shots.
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