Joe Slovo and Economic Predictions

 The extract below from the eBook ‘Marloth’ is a frightening statement of the situation that exists right now in South Africa.

“Shortly after 1994, when the new democracy was instituted, Joe Slovo, the leader of the South African Communist Party, was asked in a television debate with the Chief Editor of a major newspaper why, when almost every other Communist government around the world had collapsed, he thought that Communism would succeed in South Africa. His response was that Communism needed a stock of capital to succeed. South Africa had that. The Editor asked what would happen when that capital stock was exhausted. Slovo replied that they would then move to another system! I know several highly competent economists who believe that the country is heading rapidly towards that point. The South African Government bonds have been downgraded by the ratings agencies, as have the major banks. The exchange rate is heading south, major companies that were proudly South African are relocating their head offices to other countries, and many of the companies that had major investments in the country are pulling out. The best of our university graduates can hardly wait until they graduate to start looking for jobs in more civilized countries. The signs are clear if you care to look for them.”

The book was written and published in 2014, and the prediction made then has become a stark reality in the lives of the average South African. Even without the ravages of Covid-19 and the poor handling of the epidemic by the government, it was clear to any thinking person that the roadmap the government was following was destined to lead to an economic and fiscal cliff. The pandemic has served to speed up the bus in which we are all passengers, all of us relying on the driver to correct his course before we reach that cliff. Several of the smarter passengers saw the facts early, and jumped off the bus, accepting the injuries they would suffer as a small price to avoid the collapse that they saw to be inevitable. The rest sit in the bus, holding on, white-knuckled, as the bus veers erratically but inevitably towards the economic collapse now looking to be not far ahead.

If the citizens of the country are really earnest about saving their country, now is the time for them to act. Now is the time to take Joe Slovo’s advice and find another system of economic management. Now is the time to force the voters to understand that no others will come to our aid, not Russia, not China, not the AU.

South Africans are, in general, good-hearted and hardworking people, willing to do what is needed, if someone shows them the goal and the way to get there. Most of them would rather work at a job to earn their living, rather than relying on ‘gifts from the ANC’, gifts which can only come if there is an economy capable of earning the profits that will be taxed. Most of them are capable of understanding what the economic facts of life are, what needs to be done to dig themselves out of the hole that the Marxist promises of ‘their’ Party have trapped them in. It will be a slow and painful process, much slower and more painful than it could have been if it had started in 2014 or even earlier, but it will have a result that every honest citizen will be able to point to with pride. It will set the country on the road to taking its place amongst the leading countries of the world.

Marloth is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NAXHGG0