In a world of stupid politicians, sometimes the most you can hope for is the opportunity to pay someone to do the right thing.
Barely a day goes by in South Africa without someone accusing someone else of being corrupt. Newspapers are filled with scandal after scandal involving “millions” or “billions” of misappropriated funds; we remain, more than ten years after the event, completely unclear on what really transpired in the infamous “arms deal”, and the country’s current favourite whipping boy, Julius Malema, is repeatedly accused of earning money in various shady manoeuvres.
On the other side of the coin are the relentless denials: “I didn’t”, “she didn’t”, “he didn’t”, and to accuse him of such things is “indicative of counter-revolutionary, racist, white tendencies”, that kind of thing.
Apart from being bored of these exchanges, I am also two other things: worried and relived.
I’m worried because the level of this dialogue between politicians, on the one hand, and the media on the other is so banal, foolish and petulant I can only think it points to a profound lack of intelligence on both sides. To call a politician stupid is to call a fish wet. It’s more concerning that the media in the country is so easily bamboozled, so quick to react, and an active participant in fuelling the dull, mainstream perspective. Rather than critique, most of the media simply relays. From Malema’s mouth to a headline near you. Sure, it sells, but it’s the garbage in, garbage out school of journalism.
As a consequence of this two-handed plodding down Stupid Street, it feels like South Africans are actually getting stupider as a group. That worries me.
The thing that relieves me is that our politicians are open to persuasion. God help us if they were steely ideologues committed to eating tins of cat food and sticking to their principles. We are blessed with a shortage of Pol Pots or even Che Guevaras. South Africans are for sale. And that means we have a chance.
The complaints about corruption are obvious: selling political power to the highest bidder leaves open the very real possibility that the highest bidder is a dodgy, I dunno, strip-club owner or something. And this level of corruption rots the middle layers of society, creates some moderately wealthy members of the middle class, and means that I can get my car licence faster than you or pay less speeding fines because I’m willing to buy someone some “lunch”.
However, to think that power is centred on the middle of society is profoundly wrong. The very rich, almost by definition, have a vested interest in the status quo. The last thing they want is for South Africa to plunge into an economic no-man’s land filled with nationalised mines and farms owned by people whose single talent is making incendiary weapons out of Pringle’s tins. Too many rich people have too much at stake to allow this to happen.
And so they use the tools at their disposable to make sure their interests aren’t threatened. The media is, indeed, one such tool. So is legitimate lobbying, campaign contributing and so forth. The DA is perhaps not much more than an official representation of wealthy views and interests in parliament.
But when all else fails, making sure there’s something in it for the other guy is always an option. And when this option is exercised by people who, broadly speaking, have society’s interests at heart, we shouldn’t be getting all morally twitchy about it. We should be celebrating it and being grateful that this option is open.
You may dispute that the mega-wealthy have society’s interests at heart, but in a capitalist country on which they depend for their continued wealth, you are wrong. They aren’t doing it for you, of course, but they are keeping the machine going. Sometimes the machine breaks — as in the recent economic meltdown — but then this isn’t an argument about capitalism’s virtues or vices. That’s for another forum. This is about stability versus chaos. And the rich want stability.
It is, of course, in our natures to want honest, smart politicians who will lead us into a bright new future. And there are, fortunately, some of these in the mix. But worldwide they are few and far between. Being a politician is a kind of “booby prize” job, at best a stepping stone to true wealth as an international businessman (George HW Bush, for example); a lush post at Goldman Sachs (Tito Mboweni) or a philanthropist and sought-after speaker (Bill Clinton). The men in South African who have genuinely profited from the post-apartheid zeitgeist are not politicians, at least any more. Cyril Ramaphosa is the obvious example. But Patrice Motsepe is perhaps the best.
And so if you wind up in politics and want to get rich you’d better either have a plan or a malleable conscience. We are overflowing with the latter variety and it is this that will steer us, safely, through the course of the coming years.
The South african has always enjoyed the fine things in life and has always been aspirational. He would be feeling stifled by idealogues before the week is long.
The secret to stability and peaceful enjoyment of wealth is swelling the ranks of those who have something to lose in chaos. It is called positive self interest. When the “have nots” burn buildings they burn the buildings of the haves.
The other way of doing it is creating a society where you can be whatever you like whatever that means in anything other than material terms. It helps sustain one’s spirit to know that your big break may come but if it does not, the kids at least still have a shot. It says you do not like the indignity of being a charity case. It means you work harder and smarter and not envy the haves who in Republican speak are a lot who have worked hard to be where they are. Problem is in SA we have not come up with this encapsulating philosophy like that of “the American Dream” of what is possible in a stability.
On the other hand chaos breeds opportunity for a new set of haves to be born, but the problem is to enjoy the benefits in peace there has to be stability.
I too am relocating!
I spent 18 years outside these borders and was so excited when the ANC was elected as government. Their ineptitude, manipulation and corrupt politics over the past 13 years with no relief in sight mandates my departure.
So sad, but no alternative.
I begrudge every cent paid in taxes to keep them in a lifestyle they have no experience of and don’t deserve.
Jarred, read Michaela Wong’s “Its our turn to eat” and tell me if you still feel the same way. This is the “too clever by half” argument that ends up tripping over its own tail.
Sorry, “Michela Wrong”not “Michaela Wong”.
Can’t quite figure out whether you’re being tongue-in-cheek provocative here, are cynically peddling a self-serving argument, or are just deeply naive…
If policies that favor corporate profit above all else so consistently merge with the interests of the public at large, as you imply, why would ‘the rich’ even have to ‘bribe’ politicians?
By way of recent example, how do you see fitting into your argument: BP’s skimping on safety in the Gulf of Mexico to maximize profits, and the US government’s complicity in that via lobbying-induced lax regulation?
Good for you, James Mashele. In this world of self-absorption, if you can’t beat them, join them. BTW, I totally agree with Jarred’s opinion of our new-age journalists; too terrified to put a single opinion on the line. As people meant to have all the facts at their disposal before putting pen to paper, we need journalists who are prepared to make a noise. We don’t have to like their opinions, but we need to hear them, along with their motivations! For the rest, I’m not so sure; I suspect the rich black empire has taken over the slot it still believes is held by whites; all whites and every white. The white excuse probably is that it must save the plane fare. What’s theirs? They are merely heading to become despots.
Mr Cinman – as one of the slaving, but no longer susceptible to the carrot/stick-method-of-ruling “middle layers of society”, I must protest to your glib theorising that my socio-economic type will only too happily follow the fatcats to the trough for a (small) piece of the pie. Yes, a few will, there is a breaking point to the ability to survive and hope and suffer and we don’t all see the “big picture” of the Mafia State or have the moral backbone to say no to the Don or his family.
The truth is, most of us busy little insignificant statistics are far too busy delivering the can and worrying what to do with empties and occasionally acquiring our own little can to be available for much “rotting” of our social mores. There will be a breaking point, I’m afraid, round about the time we hear the words: “If they don’t have bread promise them retirement instead”, once too often.
We see deeper into the lie of the “economy machine” everytime it suffers from bad maintenance, or a bit of pension money goes astray. Once everyone has got a taste for underling’s leg and everyone seems utterly happy, there will always be this one sod who refuses to be a cannibal and manage to make the guys at the bottom of the pyramid see that: The society who eats itself from the inside out soon finds itself with nothing but empty skin.
Diana R
How does a person become a businessman? What does he offer for what he wants in return?When are his methods legal and when not? Are some legal methods not questionable?Who is a businessman accountable to and how is accountability ensured?
How does a person become a politician? What does he offer or commit to? When are his methods legal and when not?Are some legal methods questionable?Who is a politician accountable to?
So can a politician and a businessman have any aggreement and who should benifit?
Hey there, ordinary mortals, thanks for engaging!
Rather vague questions, not sure quite where they’re coming from, but will rally round and do my best to respond to what I think you’re asking…
Q 1 & 2: One possible answer: businessmen sell goods and service that others think will enhance their lives and are thus willing to pay for.
Q 3: Weird question…when they do or don’t observe the law?
Q 4: Couldn’t agree more. In so many cases the law needs to be changed. So much skullduggery that is legal needs to be made illegal. Wall Street shenanigans and subsequent current remaking of US regulation is prime case in point.
Q 5: Consumer watchdogs in concert with good, strong consumer protection laws; and also workers’ unions.
Q 6: Gotta feel that fire in your belly! And have the stamina and savvy to climb a very greasy pole.
Q 7: As per Q 3.
Q 8: Absolutely; some legal methods ought to be made illegal.
Q 9: The people!
oops, typo– meant “ordinary mortal”
Q 10: Of course they can work together! It’s just conceptually sloppy and lacking nuance to imply that what’s good for short-term corporate profit is *consistently* also good for the greater public good.
I also take issue with the patently undemocratic idea that it is hunky dory for the voices of the rich –because they can use money to lobby for their interests– to gain more political traction than the voices of the poor.
To me, this mode of thinking is particularly repugnant in a country like South Africa, with its apartheid legacy of deep inequality. Capitalism is not an absolute value, and I think needs to be practiced differently in different settings. For example, I really do believe that SA business has a moral and practical obligation to think creatively about and act on mitigating those inequalities.
It’s a bit like Zim’s white farmers who continued to hold to hold onto vast swathes of land without thinking until it was too late: “What does it really mean to hold onto so much land in a country where so many have so little? This makes for an inherently unstable situation. Maybe we need to think about what it means to be so privileged in this unequal place; we don’t have to wait for the government to lead—let’s reach out to disenfranchised poor, sharing land, teaching skills, etc.”
The silliness in this blog-post around celebrating corruptible gravy-train politicians is going to get South Africa nowhere fast, and looking like Zimbabwe before you can say Jiminy cricket.
@Jared I suggest you read the Architects of Poverty by Moletsi Mbeki. Corruption is the mis-allocation of public resources in order to meet personal requirements rather than the public’s requirements. Corruption destroyed Zimbabwe and it is in the process of destroying us. Corruption is probably an even bigger social problem than Apartheid, which also massively mis-allocated public resources, ever was. In the case of Apartheid the mis-allocation was to serve an ideology not just individual selfish interests.
Mugabe seems to be happily sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, except that he is not actually sitting on it.
He personally has money stashed away and places to go, if the devastation starts affecting him.
This may be what happens here – the self-interest of the powerful is no safeguard – they may either by design or unwittingly destroy the country for their selfish gain and move on with their ill-gotten gains.