By Xhanti Payi
Is it possible to say the public education system has collapsed without saying there are no good and effective public schools in the country? Is it possible to say black people in SA are poor without being understood to mean that there are no rich black people in SA? Is it also possible to say white people refuse to do their part in the reform agenda without dismissing the immense contribution of many white people in this regard?
The recent furore over the “racist” employment policies of Woolworths exposes a much less evident although talked about phenomenon on the use of economic power to hold back legitimate transformation in our society. Since the demise of apartheid as a formal and official system of repression many of us who had the ambition to thrive in the main economy have found it stringent and with strong barriers — many of which are covert. There still exists a strong force to hold the economic establishment intact by using the very economic power and networks that characterise it.
My earliest memories as a young boy during the last days of apartheid are of being at political rallies without the permission or knowledge of my parents. I would peer through the legs of “comrades” carrying wooden guns in an open field as Winnie Mandela addressed them. I remember strikes and boycotts of white-owned shops and businesses in an effort to use whatever power black people had to fight against the racist and brutal system of apartheid. I remember that people who would ignore boycotts and buy home items from these shops would have their grocery bags emptied in the street and sometimes force-fed what they’d bought, including cooking oil and dish-washing liquid.
In a bizarre and shocking twist, the Woolworths boycott brigade — as termed by City Press editor Ferial Haffajee in her column of the same name — is employing the same tactics as an offensive against the “racist” employment equity policies of Woolworths.
It’s no longer worth repeating the reasons we need employment equity policies across the economic system in this country. Also not worth any reassertion is how much racism still exists in South Africa and who is hurt by it. But perhaps it is worth asking some questions about Woolworths’ alleged racist practices against white South Africans — which one would guess the Woolworths boycott brigade has asked and answered.
Have they asked themselves how many white cashiers they have seen at a Woolworths till as the lady from the roof calls out “next customer please”? If they have, do they suppose the answer is related to the fact that white people are prevented from working those tills because of the racist employment equity practices of Woolworths? Have they asked themselves how many black people serve on the executive committee of Woolworths? Is the fact that the executive committee is predominantly white a result of their racist policies to exclude white people in a majority black country?
The worst of this situation is not so much the unfair accusation against Woolworths but the deliberate distortion of and repudiation of the process to transform South Africa. It makes the serious and dangerous assertion that these groups are not only uninterested in the building of an equal society, which we all agreed to as the basis of a New South Africa, but will stand in its way. It is an assertion that all proud South Africans must repudiate.
In his book The Social Contract 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau made this point: (which could be related directly to the social contract South Africans entered into in order to form the New SA) “Under the pact by which we enter into civil society everyone makes a total alienation of all his rights … the rights they alienate are the rights based on might, the rights they acquire are rights based on law.”
In our context we said we agreed to the supreme law of the Constitution that forces us to give up might, which is based on physical force and would have seen us descend into civil war. We also abandoned the use and abuse of economic might with all its unfair practices in our economic system and aimed to redress whatever legacy remained. It should be said, in parenthesis, that we committed to becoming a nation of laws.
These policies, which are now called racist, flow from the Constitution, which organisations such as Solidarity claim to support and protect. This document, which represents a solemn social pact among all SA citizens belongs to all who live in it. It further says that because we recognise our twisted and perverse past, we would all work together, making sacrifices so that we can live in a country characterised by peace, unity and justice. Through this Constitution we also said that all property and dignity of every South African would be protected.
That right to the protection of private property ensured that economic power would remain set at the hands of those who held it at the time of adoption, despite how they came to accumulate it. We therefore would rely, largely, on the goodwill and integrity of those who had economic power to adhere and promote our social contract.
The Woolworths boycott brigade has torn that contract before our very eyes. These people (including those who support and fund organisations such as Solidarity, which has on many occasions used its economic might to disrupt the process of transformation) said they absolutely refuse to support and, with personal sacrifices, promote the contract we all signed in the name of a peaceful and just society. A contract that would with time guarantee not just economic prosperity, but security for all South Africans.
As the Marikana tragedy has shown, we dare not abandon our responsibilities to live up to the social contract that is our Constitution, which we signed together as we migrated from the old state into the new one.
We dare not put our personal interest ahead of the common good because those actions expose us to anarchy, which would be the situation we sought to avoid when we said we agreed to the ideals and spirit of the Constitution.
The use of economic power, as has been shown by the Woolworths brigade, and the covert actions of the empowered across our corporate establishment are putting our future as a country in jeopardy because they’re telling the majority of South Africans, who without their goodwill and commitment, would only rely on other forms of might to force change.
When Nelson Mandela stood before the millions of poor and disenfranchised South Africans and pleaded with them to be patient and avoid vengeance, which would have seen our country go up in flames, he was not promising black South Africans permanent seats at the Woolworths till as cashiers while only a minority of blacks would have seats at the executive table of that corporation. He was saying together, through great pain and personal sacrifice, we would in time secure a more equitable and prosperous SA.
Abandoning that agreement, no matter how small you think you are, and no matter how much personal culpability you think should rest on your shoulders for the horrible acts and legacy of apartheid, will see us in the untenable situation our heroes sought to avoid.
No doubt employment equity does on occasion disadvantage white South Africans. But it must be understood as a personal sacrifice we must all make to live in a good society characterised by peace and prosperity. All citizens in all societies make personal sacrifices for themselves, their children and in the name of national pride for living in a progressive and prosperous society.
The acts of the Woolworths brigade makes it possible to say that only black people are living up to the contract we made. A contract not to let anger and its bitter fruits get in the way of the hope for a better future despite the continued disadvantage we face and the legacy of a system that disempowered us.
If it does not soon become possible to make general statements about the goodwill of white South Africans and their evident commitment to an equal society we all stand on the verge of a serious calamity.
Xhanti Payi is an economist.
@Wynand:
My bad, I saw I can play with the data. Celtic Tiger from circa 1995. See what happened to Ireland’s unemployment then? Would you say the current unemployment is a direct result of the Tiger?
Seems to me that the Tiger did a good job of alleviating unemployment until the financial crisis. Ireland was hit hard due to its housing bubble.
@Wynand:
You are contradicting yourself. If Estonia had less debt, then started spending to offset the crisis, then incurred debt, then surely Neoliberalism did in fact work to alleviate its debt?
Government spending in and of itself is not indicative of Keynesianism. If this were the case, then the Celtic Tiger is not an example of Neoliberal failure, like you would like to have it, but another Keynesian failure, as the Irish spent quite a bit of money – and quite a bit of EU money – during this economic miracle too.
The Irish unemployment rate went down during the Tiger phenomenon. This contradicts your idea that the Tiger did nothing for their unemployment. The entire world experienced more unemployment circa 2008 for obvious reasons. Would China be able to recoup after such a shock? I have a feeling we’ll learn the answer soon.
Venezuala is a dictatorship, although I very much wish it weren’t, as I would love for the impoverished people of South America to enjoy economic freedom and prosperity. Again, ownership or audience of the press does not indicate freedom of the press. It’s not relevant. Human rights abuses are relevant:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022401884.html?hpid=moreheadlines
This is where Chavez fails.
@ Gargie
You don’t understand Keynesianism. It refers to the role of the state during boom and bust times. The state should not crowd out the private sector during boom times which it does by running surpluses and reducing govt debt and should offset the fall in demand during the bust by spending and running deficitis, which is what Estonia did DURING the crisis,.
Ireland did implement Keynesian policies during the boom by running surpluses and reducing its govt debt, but it turns out the boom was largely based on a bubble so demand fell very sharply when it burst. The Irish govt was subsequently allowed to bail out the banks (Keynesian move, but done badly with no strings attached for bad banks, should have gone the Iceland route), but was not allowed by the EU to spend to further stimulate demand because it has no control over its own currency, and depends on the EU for money. The de facto neoliberal austerity imposed by the EU is killing the Irish economy and has taken its unemployment levels back to those of two decades ago. The difference between it and other countries such as Iceland is that they have managed to bring their unemployment down substantially while Ireland and Spain have not. Iceland has now also begun drastic austerity and the result is a predictable fall in output.
Venezuela: In a dictatorship, respected international election observers don’t give a thumbs up to election results. You don’t get to change the meaning of “dictatorship” at your…
@ Garg
“The entire world experienced more unemployment circa 2008 for obvious reasons.”
Hate to break it to you, but wrong again:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/unemployment-rate
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ecuador/unemployment-rate
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/bolivia/unemployment-rate
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/unemployment-rate
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/argentina/unemployment-rate
Take them back to the earliest years for which data is available. There might have been 1 or 2% increases after 2008 in some cases, but nowhere near the double digit jumps seen in Europe.
@Wynand:
So you have no problem with alleged Neoliberalism when it drives a boom, but you have a problem with Neoliberalism when the bubble bursts and governments do not start spending? Or was it Keynesian all along, and they merely stopped spending in a crisis? At which point does the spending magically become Keynesian or magically recede to Neoliberal austerity? When the governments are bankrupt? When they start bankrupting other countries in the single currency region?
A dictatorship relies not on election results, or free and fair elections, but on why people felt they had to vote a certain way. Venezuela’s human rights abuses under Chavez are well-known. He does not need a one party state to have his dictatorship, he just needs to intimidate the rest, as he is on record as doing. Why would a benevolent democrat amend the constitution to ensure he can remain in power longer?
@Wynand:
Yes, and in all of those you’d notice an increase in unemployment circa 2008. You don’t see the double digit jumps there because those countries are not part of the same currency region. You aren’t comparing apples with apples.
You’d notice a decrease in unemployment in the regions above after 2008 because most of them are part of emerging economies. They are enjoying a new rage of outsourcing from the developed economies, coincidentally at the same time as these developed economies are experiencing ‘double digit’ unemployment. Interesting. Could it be that Euros go further when converted into various third world currencies?
@ Garg “So you have no problem with alleged Neoliberalism when it drives a boom, but you have a problem with Neoliberalism when the bubble bursts and governments do not start spending?”
No, neoliberalism did not drive the boom. Cheap credit from Northern European countries to the private sector (banks) in the South did.
The governments in Spain and Ireland and the others did what they thought was right during a boom, fake or real, to run surplusses and reduce govt debt, these are consistent with both positions. Neoliberalism thinks govts should always run surplusses, but it runs into trouble during a recession due to its insistence on pro-cyclical policies under all circumstances. It is slightly flexible on monetary policy, but Ireland and Spain have been denied even this because they have no control over their own currency and because of hard-core ideologues in Germany and other core Europe countries. The ECB has finally seen the light here. But insisting on even more austerity will be self-defeating.
You cannot shrink your way out of a recession. After 4 years of austerity in these countries, the results are obvious.
If neoliberalism is so successful, how come it is so easy to erase almost all the gains made during the boom in only a matter of a 2-3 years? Estonia and Latvia are also emerging countries, although their economies have really crashed compared to the centre left DEMOCRATIC countries in Latin America. Estonia’s crash was gratuitous.
@ Garg Re: Venezuela
Now Chavez is using psychic powers and subliminal messages to compel people to vote for him. Haha! The OAS report talks of “threats” and “risks” and the article does not mention one instance of abuse, even though I know of a few. A number of isolated incidents of firings of judges and fines for protesters are not going to induce a population to vote for you. The high violent crime rate and prison riots are major issues which actually threaten to unseat him and don’t exactly bolster his chances, so I don’t see that forces the population to vote for him either.
Consitutions get amended everywhere all the time. They become dated too and aren’t like the stone tablets that god gave to Moses on the mountain. Hugo Chavez was elected to carry out a mandate. If the backwards constitution at that time forbade him from carrying out this mandate, then amending it was perfectly legitimate. And he put even that to a popular vote, which he won. He has delivered on his mandate to reduce poverty and inequality. All the country’s health and education indicators have gone up as a result. The country continues to grow economically and people have continued to elect him until now.
You might not think that elections certified by international observers as being free and fair makes a difference to whether a country is a dictatorship or not, but I think most people would disagree with you.
@Wynand:
For consistency, your claim is the switch to Neoliberalism only occurred once the boom was bursting?
You’re not criticising Neoliberalism at all, you’re merely criticising governments going bankrupt and not being able to continue their spending to sustain artificial cheap credit booms.
The EU did not apply Neoliberal austerity measures, they bailed out the ailing governments. The austerity measures were only austere in name and part of the bailout package agreements. This is more a problem with the single currency situation in the EU and their lender of last resort that does not really function as a lender of last resort.
Neoliberal austerity measures would be privatising ailing government industries, deregulating in the sense of removing inefficient trade barriers and generally shifting control of the economy from the public sector to the private sector. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the EU only fired the public sector workers and shafted them out of some of their state pensions.
You are blaming the failure of a trade protection cartel with a single currency on Neoliberalism because they ran out of money…
@ Garg “For consistency, your claim is the switch to Neoliberalism only occurred once the boom was bursting?
You’re not criticising Neoliberalism at all, you’re merely criticising governments going bankrupt and not being able to continue their spending to sustain artificial cheap credit booms.”
Now running surplusses is not consistent with Neoliberalism? You clearly do not know what you are talking about, the EU did NOT bail out govt’s who were running large deficits, at least not in the cases of Spain and Ireland, because both were running SURPLUSSES and reducing their debt to GDP BEFORE the PRIVATE SECTOR bubbles burst in their respective economies:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/government-budget
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/spain/government-budget
“To sustain artificial cheap credit booms” So, you’ve exposed yourself as an liquidationist/Austrian:
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1998/12/the_hangover_theory.html
There are NO trade barriers between the members of the EU, it is a free trade zone, a single market.
Greece is about to embark on a firesale of its state assets. Let’s see how it turns out, if supergrowth will magically appear. I sincerely doubt it.
The peripheral EU countries might not have been ready for low interest rates, but low interest rates did not cause huge bubbles in Northern Europe.
They haven’t run out of money, the ECB refuses to give them money unlike almost every other…
@ Garg
“Neoliberal austerity measures would be privatising ailing government industries, deregulating in the sense of removing inefficient trade barriers and generally shifting control of the economy from the public sector to the private sector.”
This is a fairytale that both Neoliberals and Libertrians/Autrians keep telling themselves to sleep better at night. Govt = bad, market = good. Another false dichotomy.
I have news for you, the government is AS MUCH a natural product of human evolution as the market is, it has not been imposed by some external force/aliens out of cruelty on mankind. It is a natural response to ever larger societies needing better organization.
The govt need not know better than individual businesses to regulate them. The point of regulations is to LIMIT the complexity of the choices facing market players, because TOO MUCH choice can be a bad thing too. Just like we need strict laws to regulate drunken driving, we need rules and oversight to avoid market failures getting out of hand because there is too much information and we have a too limited capacity to process this info even with modern technology. The banksters thought they had risk all figured out with their tech wizadry before the financial sector in the US imploded, unfortunately the complexity of risk overwhelmed them in the end.
@ Garg
We also need the govt to take the risks that the market won’t when it comes to the initial phases of innovation, because it is almost impossible to find collateral for the loans necessary to fund risky capital-intensive innovations.
The market fails badly in this realm because innovation occurs optimally when the exchange of knowledge and learning is unimpeded/free. In the case where there is a free flow of knowledge, businesses underinvest because by the very nature of the way a business is run, to make a profit, they do not factor in spillover effects to competitors and other stakeholders. So why go the extra mile if my competitor is going to benefit from all the hard learning I’ve done to design and produce an innovative new product?
On the other hand, where there is a natural monopoly, i.e., spilllovers are by the nature of the innovation not possible or due to patent/copyright protection, innovation does not occur optimally because there isn’t a free transfer of knowledge/learning, and as a result the industry remains smaller than it otherwise could/would have been.
This is where the govt comes in, it is a large player with resources that can take these risks by subsidizing the innovation or by setting up agencies/SOEs to do the risky basic research/learning which can then be put into the public domain for businesses/individuals to take further:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/22/without-state-spending-no-google-glaxosmithkline
@Wynand:
I haven’t exposed myself as anything. The cheap credit driven boom was a paraphrasing your own own words (your exact words: “No, neoliberalism did not drive the boom. Cheap credit from Northern European countries to the private sector (banks) in the South did”). Looks like a credit boom to me?
Instead of going on a witch-hunt for the wrong ism, rather just deal with the facts and with how I’ve presented them (there may be a discrepancy there). Also google false dichotomy for once and for all.
For the record, I’m not for or against any particular ideology, especially in economics which is a dismal science without much of a foot to stand on. All the different economic schools are flawed.Surplus is not the only criterion of Neoliberalism, just like public spending is not the only criterion of Keynesianism. In fact, Keynesianism has very little to do with Keynes, the ‘Neoliberalism’ of the Tatcher era and the Reagan era have very little to do with economic liberalisation, free trade and open markets.
Are you sure you aren’t confusing EU free trade agreements with ‘no trade barriers’? I happen to work for an European company due to their internal trade barriers and labour laws. They can get away with hiring South Africans cheaper, with more flexible labour laws than what they have back home.
I’m merely pointing out inconsistencies in your logic as you presented it here, not defending one ism over another. For example, government is a monopoly.
@ Garg “Looks like a credit boom to me”
Not at the govt level, both Spain and Ireland were adhering to balanced budget principles, which might not encompass all of neoliberalism, but is an important tenet of the ideology nonetheless and also just happens to coincide with an important tenet of Keynesianism too (austerity during the boom).
“Also google false dichotomy for once and for all.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy
“A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, BLACK-AND-WHITE thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option”
Govt = bad, business = good when it comes to the economy is a false dichotomy just as neoliberals’ (in general) and austrians’ (always) belief that there can be only free market capitalism or socialism is.
“In fact, Keynesianism has very little to do with Keynes, the ‘Neoliberalism’ of the Tatcher era and the Reagan era have very little to do with economic liberalisation, free trade and open markets.”
I’m not going to engage in splitting hairs about whose neoliberalism/keynesianism/libertarianism is of the purist form, so don’t waste my time.
Neoliberalism = Govt sponsored trickle up economics justified by an appeal to free market principles. Most austrians I’ve debated agree with me on this one…
@Wynand:
So the countries in question were Keynesian during the boom, but magically became Neoliberal when they hit their first speedbump? Sounds kinda lika exactly what I saida, with the Keynesian part initially being interchangeable with the Neoliberal part according to your current story.
The false dichotomy here is between Keynesianism and Neoliberalism, neither of which were characteristic of the policies followed by the EU. There’s a reason why Ireland and Iceland went leg-up, while Sweden didn’t. You appear to be on the right track with debt and credit booms, but you’re wasting your time when you’re going on an ideology witch-hunt. To do so successfully, you’d have to be more familiar with the ideologies.
There are a few things that all the countries who experienced a crisis had in common. Paying lip service to Neoliberalism was one of them, but actually implementing Neoliberalism wasn’t. To make better use of your time, try to identify what they had in common.
Your time is not as valuable as you presume if you can spend it on reading thoughtleader blogs. Regardless of your confusion regarding economics, thanks for the trading economics links. Their datasets aren’t as complete or easy to work with as Google’s public data, but they are quick and dirty and useful.
@ Garg “So the countries in question were Keynesian during the boom, but magically became Neoliberal when they hit their first speedbump?”
The govt of at least Ireland was the closest of the lot to being neoliberal before the crisis: high labour market flexibility, low taxes, balanced budget principles (the latter is consistent with Keynesianism during a boom). Yet, cheap credit from core Europe to the Irish private sector caused financial instability in spite of this (yet, did NOT cause similar bubbles in the core countries. Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpId56I8ibs )
If the success of neoliberal policies are contingent upon only the strictest of adherence to them, then we’re dead in the water right from the start because we don’t live in a world that is even nearly perfect. But this is exactly what happens with such oversimplistic and unrealistic models, their adherents always claim that for them to be successful, they must be very strictly adhered to. Hence, communists claim in debates that the Soviet Union was a failure because govt elites (reality) distorted communism and hence that the soviet union wasn’t truly communist. Austrians claim the same with regard to free markets and usually refer to neoliberalism as only ‘paying lip-service’ to the free market. In my exchanges with people from the Mises Institute SA and other Austrians, this is the standard response to the failure of neoliberal policies which they regard as a distortion of the free…
@Wynand:
It’s not about strict adherence to a particular ideology. The same argument counts for Keynesianism and Neo-Classical economics. There is one aspect where Austrian Economics is greatly superior to the rest (even given all its flaws and its allergic reaction to arihmetic) and this is that a depression is one of the states that are acknowledged and modelled in its core. There are a few Austrian school economists who had a great ‘told you so’ moment when the financial crisis hit, together with a few others from different schools who’ve been critical of Neoclassical economics all along. The rest are all misrepresenting Black Swans.
You are still being inconsistent when you claim that Neoliberalism failed, when it was only implemented as far as it was consistent with Keynesianism in the first place. This does not rule out either of the possibilities. It should give us a clue that there is a different way that was followed – one that does overlap between several schools, but perhaps not overly characteristic of any of them?
If your hypothesis held water, then most countries that followed Neoliberal policies (for argument’s sake we’ve identified Neoliberalism accurately – we haven’t but let’s pretend) should be in the same boat as Ireland. Only they are not. Back to the drawing board and perhaps reading more than 23 things that is wrong with capitalism.
@ Garg “It’s not about strict adherence to a particular ideology. The same argument counts for Keynesianism and Neo-Classical economics.”
“You are still being inconsistent when you claim that Neoliberalism failed”
I don’t only read Cambridge development economist Ha-Joon Chang’s works such 23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism.
http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/20432.pdf
“In Latin America, for example, Chile is the only
country that has grown at a faster rate over the last 25 (1980 -2005)
years than it did previously. Whatever Chile did that was
successful, it would not explain why the last 25 years have
been such a disaster for Latin America. It is simply not
plausible to argue that Chile is the only country in the
region that carried through the recommended reforms far
enough to achieve benefits. If the nature of the reforms
are such that anything less than full implementation leads
to sacrifice without gain, and the political obstacles are so
great that few countries can attain this level of reform,
then most countries would probably be making the right
decision by not attempting to follow the reform path. A
handful of success stories cannot explain the sharp
slowdown in economic growth in the vast majority of low
and middle-income countries” in 1980-2005 as compared to 1960-1980.
Good, because there are more than 23 things that’s wrong with his analysis. Of course Chile’s success (and a handful of other Latin American countries) does not explain the failure of the rest. The rest all had a few things in common, while the successful countries all had a few things in common too. The notable exception there is Argentina, which should have been a Neoliberal success story like the rest, but it wasn’t. Why is that?
@ Garg “Good, because there are more than 23 things that’s wrong with his analysis”
You are of course entitled to your own uninformed opinion, but not your own facts, to employ a tired old cliche.
“and a handful of other Latin American countries”
Which handful?
“The rest all had a few things in common, while the successful countries all had a few things in common too. ”
Be more specific.
“The notable exception there is Argentina, which should have been a Neoliberal success story like the rest, but it wasn’t. Why is that?”
Because neoliberalism doesn’t work. E.g., Chile never privatized its copper cashcow Codelco, not even under Pinochet. Pinochet wasn’t compleletly taken in by the neoliberal Chicago boys after all.
Now Argentina and Chile are neck in neck on the UN’s human development index in terms of standards of living.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/trends/
Yet, Argentina did this without the aid of neoliberal policies.
@Wynand:
Let’s leave it then at you are also entitled to your uninformed opinion.
@ Garg “Let’s leave it then at you are also entitled to your uninformed opinion.”
Yes, I agree, especially because I can’t just continue to point out in detail the actual problems with a particular economic perspective, while you just keep referring to them vaguely while not being sure when to use Neoliberalism or Austrian economics to suit your agenda.
I’m not saying that these perspectives don’t have anything to contribute just like I’m not saying that communism has nothing to contribute either, but both extremes have been proven to fail to bring greater prosperity to the whole world.
@ Author
Do you think white people are looking at the Woolworths job vacancies because they want to complain about an employment practice? Do you think that they are looking for a second job because they are greedy?
No – they are looking at the vacancies because the NEED a job (not event want a job).
Breaking this down to it’s lowest form, being told you cannot apply for a job because of the colour of your skin is, quite simply, wrong. Surely South Africans know this better than any other race in the world.
If you want to level the employment playing fields for all South Africans, improve education at grass roots for all races for the next generation. Make the candidates of all races equal. We have had 18 years to get this right, we could have had middle management completely representitive by now (25-30 year olds from South African schools should have had equal qualifications if this was government’s focus), without the racism.