White Monopoly Capital

There is an ongoing call from the Zuma camp of the ANC that White Monopoly Capital must go. The fact that this call is based entirely on the same demand by the EFF is a clear statement of the lack of ideas in the ANC. But the questions still remain: Why must it go? And do those mouthing the slogan really understand what they are asking?

The story that all the ills of the South African economy stem from the domination of the economy by White Monopoly Capital is a myth created for reasons of political expediency, and is demonstrably devoid of any truth. Almost every medium-large company, and every large one, is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and the shares in them are available for purchase by any person, including persons who are not part of the supposed White clique whose sole aim in life is to dominate the economy at the cost of the Blacks. The simple fact is that a large proportion of those shares is already owned, indirectly at least, by Blacks, through their pension funds and insurance policies, and more could be purchased for a relatively modest sum.

Even if we were to ignore those facts, the question is why should Whites, monopolists or otherwise, not run those companies?

The companies in question represent the vast bulk of employment opportunities in the economy, apart from the Government jobs which are a form of grossly-overpaid unemployment insurance for mainly unqualified persons, a system of subsidy that has come at great cost to the South African public, but which forms an effective way of buying the votes of those so employed. If the supposedly White-dominated companies were to disappear, the present rate of unemployment would almost certainly soar, probably to more than double the 35%+ that it now is. If you doubt that figure, consider the fate of the numerous successful commercial farms that collapsed within, at most, two years after the Government handed them over to Blacks. It is rumoured that the failure rate of those farms lies at about 97%, notwithstanding the huge amount of public money that has been sunk into them. The fault for that did not lie in any inferiority of the new Black owners, but rather in the fact that to be a successful commercial farmer, the managers of the farm must have extensive training after receiving a good education. In most cases, that is added after the farmer has acquired a cultural background of the processes and mindset of such farming. A man does not become a good farmer, a successful commercial farmer, simply by acquiring the land. The same applies to a manager in a business. It is something that is learned over many years, and the number of Blacks who have acquired that learning is small at present. That number will increase, as the best of the current crop of young Black employees work their way through the system, in exactly the same way as their Indian, Chinese, Coloured and White counterparts, and they should be encouraged to compete for the relatively few jobs available at the senior levels, to ensure that the new generation of senior managers are the best that the country can produce.

The fact that those shouting the slogan do not have even a low level of understanding of what realization of their demands would imply is evident from the catastrophic shape of the economy. They are making the call on the basis of a background of political training and political, communist, brainwashing by others who were equally unaware of the hard facts of business life. Jacob Zuma was a herd boy, and then a terrorist, neither of which could give any understanding of the thinking and economic background of the way the world operates, which are required to be effective at even a low level in a modern business activity. He has made numerous statements that are proof of this assertion, and his performance as a manager of the economy and of the activities of the members of his Cabinet is abysmal, to say the least. Zuma’s chief protégé at one time is Julius Malema, another man with absolutely no understanding of the business world. These two men know how to buy favours, but neither of them has contributed to the promotion of economic activity. Do they seriously believe that the disappearance of White Monopoly Capitalists would create a stronger economy or more jobs? Who do they think would create the profits to pay the taxes that their polices would distribute so profligately?

Quite apart from these considerations, the insistence by the political leaders on the use of the term ‘White Monoply Capital’ places a heavy emphasis on the ‘White’ element, placing on the broad group of Whites by implication an accusation of wrongdoing, that the Whites are to blame for everything that is wrong in the society, even after 23 years of rule by the ANC. Surely that would be long enough to rid the country of those ‘evil’ whites if, in fact, they are evil. That term is creating a racial disharmony that threatens to undo much of what Nelson Mandela and Ahmed Kathrada worked to achieve, a non-racial South Africa in which every person is free to contribute what he or she can to the country, and to benefit from the common welfare. By the very nature of the situation that existed at the start of that time, the Whites had more knowhow and capital to contribute, which they did with delight, in the knowledge that their efforts would assist their Black (and other) compatriots to step up to their own level of capability. However, as the racism propagated by the ANC and the EFF has grown, so the willingness of the Whites to play that role of helper and equal partner has declined. The stronger and more unfair the rules of Black Economic Empowerment have become, the closer the country has come to a White Economic Empowerment backlash. That may take the form of a faking or downgrading of the BEE activities so essential to the development of a Black managerial class, or the emigration of White capital, or, worst, the emigration of the skilled Whites to countries which value their capabilities more than do their own countrymen.

Political sloganeering is dangerous at the best of times, but the type of sloganeering typified by “White Monopoly Capital’ in the South African context constitutes economic suicide.

Black Advocates – Equal Opportunity or Government Racism

 

The law and the policy of South Africa is designed to ensure that Black people are given equal opportunity to act in the economy of the country.  There is no profession more committed to that ideal tan the legal profession.  The lawyers were in the forefront of the fight for equality, both Black and White lawyers.  However, it is a concern that there is now a discussion about the preponderance of White advocates in the people used by Government and large corporations in their legal battles.  The Black lawyers are calling for the use of Black advocates to a much greater extent, and for a binding policy to enforce this.

The simple reason for the use of White advocates is that those advocates offer the best opportunity to win the Court action, which is the purpose of the litigation.  This simple reason introduces a range of other considerations.

First and foremost, the Constitution calls for equal opportunities to be available to all qualified persons, regardless of race.  Any Government policy that goes contrary to that intention is contrary to the Constitution.  The Government has progressed a long way towards negating that principle of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ in its BBEEE legislation, which clearly denies White males the opportunity to realise their potential, regardless of the superiority of their qualifications or their capabilities.  It is very clear that the Government is exercising racial discrimination on a broad base, to the prejudice of the economy and of its general population.

The standard of Government education in South Africa is too poor to provide the minimum requirements for an effective advocate.  Unfortunately the fact is that a majority of the people who obtain a good education are Whites, partly because the White population recognises the need for an adequate education and are willing to pay for it.  The Law Society issued a report several years ago that a large proportion of newly-graduated lawyers were not functionally capable of using language, an essential element of legal training and education, adequately.  Many of the university students entering universities need to undergo corrective education in language, mathematics and science.  What chance do these people have of becoming effective legal professionals?

Another important factor is that the home background of the Whites is often more modern and aligned to the needs of the modern society and its legal thinking.  A ‘herd boy, growing up in the rural areas’, as Jacob Zuma proudly claims to have been, is exposed to the tribal systems of ‘law’ and thinking, which are very far from the modern society of the cities, and adapting to a modern system of laws is a big jump in his mental structure. 

A further factor is that the White advocates have gathered experience that enables them to be more effective in the task, experience which can only be gained from years of doing the job, taking on increasingly responsible and complex tasks and learning on the job and from peers.  It is very seldom that an advocate who graduated ten years ago will be as effective in a legal dispute as one who graduated forty years ago and has practiced his profession since then.  A quota system cannot impose that experience or replace it.

The imposition of a formal quota system in the use of legal professionals, reinforcing the informal quota (or even exclusive use of Black professionals) will be another step in the imposition of a new Apartheid, and will be even more damaging to the effectiveness of Government in its work.  Government has an obligation to use only the best legal services available for the job.  That is part of the requirement that Government use its financial resources most efficiently, and that obligation cannot be satisfied if the obligatory use of a less competent Black advocate results in the Government losing a Court battle, with the result that it has to pay legal costs as well as losing the ‘meat’ of the action which, almost by definition, has a value in excess of R100 000 per case.  This is clearly shown by the annual awards by the Courts of damages for wrongful arrest of over R100 million per year against the Minister of Police.

All of this is not to say that there are no excellent Black advocates.  There are, and they should be retained in exactly the same way as the excellent White advocates.  However, the requirement that Black advocates should be used because of a quota system, rather than their legal and Court excellence, can only result in the standard of legal representation of the State declining even further.  Before the advent of the ‘Rainbow Nation’, an advocate had to earn his or her place in the legal profession the hard way, by achieving good results in all of the courses leading to the law degree, including examinations in English, Afrikaans, Dutch and Latin as background knowledge essential to an understanding of the law and the legal precedent cases, and by doing excellent work over a long period of time and so gaining a reputation that would attract further and more responsible briefs.  There can be no reason why a Black skin should be a reason to sort-circuit this process.

Mugabe and the New Order in Africa

The hate-filled and inflammatory speech of President Robert Mugabe during the State Visit to South Africa, following on the inane and giggling speech of Jacob Zuma must give cause to fear to any intelligent and discriminating observer.  Mugabe, as the current President of SADEC, left no doubt as to his allegiance to China and Russia, and as to his hatred for Britain the America, as representatives of the West.  His derogatory comments about Cecil John Rhodes made it clear that he is the motivator behind the current rash in South Africa of hatred against Rhodes and the Whites who did so much to develop the Dark Continent to what it is now. 

One must take the speech of Mugabe against a background of election-rigging, killing of the family members of the Opposition candidates, torture of thousands of Zimbabweans, unlawful expropriation of productive White-owned farms which were handed to Party favorites, internal terrorism by teenage ‘military veterans’, siphoning off of huge amounts of money to his personal bank accounts, and ‘peacekeeping actions’ by the Zimbabwe military in the DRC, at a time when Mugabe vetoed the payment to a South African country of the cost of water treatment chemicals to be used in an Opposition-held city, in order to gain a shareholding in a diamond mine in the DRC.

Mugabe attacked the West for the lack of equality by African nations in the United Nations Security Council, mentioning in a rather threatening way the role that might be played by the Arab nations against the West.  Given the influence by Mugabe in the African Union, the West should be concerned at the implicit threat by Mugabe to withdraw Africa from dealings with the West.  The drift to radicalism by several of the Arab and African Muslim nations is a trend that Mugabe could easily use to widen the gap between Africa and the West.  Mugabe went to considerable lengths to condemn the actions of the West in Libya, in Iraq and Iran, praising the leaders of those nations, particularly Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi as worthy leaders of democracy in their countries.  Of course, in comparison with Zimbabwe under this bloody dictator, they might have been examples of good governance, but in a comparison with any of the true democracies, there can be no doubt that those men ranked alongside Stalin and Castro.  The thought of permitting African countries under the control of genocidal dictators such as those men and Mugabe to dictate the policies and actions of the United Nations is a cause for many sleepless nights.  During his rambling discourse, Mugabe stated that the ‘colonial master of Rhodesia, Britain, threw helpless men and women down a mineshaft.  It has been conclusively proven that Mugabe’s ‘war veterans’ were responsible for that act, as part of a genocide of the opposing tribe.  However, as both Mugabe and Zuma have frequently demonstrated, truth is a concept that is foreign to them and their ilk.

The fact that Zuma, and the ANC, would welcome a man like Mugabe to a supposedly civilized country such as South Africa speaks volumes about their true views, allegiances and objectives.  The fact that he was permitted to make such a speech on a public platform, with Zuma giggling his acquiescence in the background, must be taken as a warning by any thinking person in the country.  It has long been suspected that the ANC views the Mugabe dictatorship and its actions and policies as a role model for an African government, and the speech by Mugabe now leaves no doubt as to where South Africa is headed.

The title of this blog is ‘Questions for South Africa’.  The answer to many of those questions is now clear.