MBALI NTULI: Business needs to lead the regeneration of an ethical and dynamic state
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We live in an age where we seem to conceptualise the South African economy as this broadly abstract Keynesian paradigm which is separate from the lived reality of our existence.
That glosses over the inconvenience of our working poor, while hoping somehow that the same old recycled platitudes expressed ad infinitum in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework will eventually cause our woes to magically evaporate into the ether.
In the post-Covid economy, we now run the risk of engaging in interventions that do little more than rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need a new economy, a caring and ethical economy.
Our economy is not just made up of nondescript adjectives such as “households” and “firms”. The SA economy is made up of real, living people, stakeholders who count, who matter and whose lives depend on and are sustained by its systemic and structural functioning.
Our government, to a degree, has the power to regulate the interactions we have in our economy through policy instruments to be fair and equitable, to prevent anticompetitive monopolies and to ensure the system of economics it enables supports the wellbeing of our population.
Every economy is a human construct. It functions with intent and it is of our own making. In that narrow band of influence where the government exerts its power, we can create an enabling environment for our citizens to thrive and for the creation of jobs and prosperity.
Executed ineffectively, it can just as easily cause their decline and even encourage rampant corruption.
For us, in one of the most unequal societies on earth, we face the immense task of trying to address what is, in very real terms, consolidated generational inequality. It is a fact, and one so ingrained in the lives of many of our citizens, that it goes far beyond just being an economic concern.
It is an ethical and moral dilemma which can only be addressed by approaching the economic question through the lens of a renewed human empathy and decency.
The challenge this poses is simply that for our society to change, the economy must, too. More people need to share in our bounty and our wealth, just as they often already do in the risks we take to create that wealth.
The values we attach to the economy and policy, and the way we approach both, need to evolve. The economy cannot just ...
That glosses over the inconvenience of our working poor, while hoping somehow that the same old recycled platitudes expressed ad infinitum in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework will eventually cause our woes to magically evaporate into the ether.
In the post-Covid economy, we now run the risk of engaging in interventions that do little more than rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need a new economy, a caring and ethical economy.
Our economy is not just made up of nondescript adjectives such as “households” and “firms”. The SA economy is made up of real, living people, stakeholders who count, who matter and whose lives depend on and are sustained by its systemic and structural functioning.
Our government, to a degree, has the power to regulate the interactions we have in our economy through policy instruments to be fair and equitable, to prevent anticompetitive monopolies and to ensure the system of economics it enables supports the wellbeing of our population.
Every economy is a human construct. It functions with intent and it is of our own making. In that narrow band of influence where the government exerts its power, we can create an enabling environment for our citizens to thrive and for the creation of jobs and prosperity.
Executed ineffectively, it can just as easily cause their decline and even encourage rampant corruption.
For us, in one of the most unequal societies on earth, we face the immense task of trying to address what is, in very real terms, consolidated generational inequality. It is a fact, and one so ingrained in the lives of many of our citizens, that it goes far beyond just being an economic concern.
It is an ethical and moral dilemma which can only be addressed by approaching the economic question through the lens of a renewed human empathy and decency.
The challenge this poses is simply that for our society to change, the economy must, too. More people need to share in our bounty and our wealth, just as they often already do in the risks we take to create that wealth.
The values we attach to the economy and policy, and the way we approach both, need to evolve. The economy cannot just ...