TESSA DOOMS | SA is a nation of poor people, rather than a poor nation

I have often argued that SA needs to mobilise around a common set of goals for the future, rather than to endlessly seek a common enemy. Inequality, however, offers us a clear common enemy if that is truly what we need to exchange inaction with radical solidarity.

Radical solidarity for us all to abhor social and economic inequality, even when we currently benefit from it, is necessary to build the SA we all deserve. SA remains the most unequal country in the world, but we are not only a society characterised by inequality statistically.

A simple drive through any large city or small town easily throws up stark geospatial inequalities. Apartheid’s legacy of segregation lives on almost 30 years into democracy as the leafy suburbs of Sandton, with the richest square mile in Africa, has the most sophisticated infrastructure while neighbouring communities of Alexandra and Diepsloot are underserviced, lacking even the most basic infrastructure like roads, water, sanitation and electricity.

We further experience inequality in pay gaps along the lines of race and gender. Unequal access to opportunities like jobs and business support are compounded by social divisions and the continued burdens of care work disproportionately placed on women at the expense of opportunities for education or career development.

We do not even enjoy equal access to cultural rights with suburban by-laws infringing on the customary practices of many African cultures, and the inability to fluently speak English or Afrikaans as a barrier to success at job interviews.

Our levels of inequality are not only high but vast. A sprawling tapestry of values, conventions and regulations that systemically include some while excluding others. The ANC’s framing of SA’s challenges has often reduced them to fundamentally three things: poverty, unemployment and inequality.

While social grants are heralded as government’s greatest success in alleviating poverty, tax incentives, short-term public employment programmes and some entrepreneurial support have become the best markers of efforts to redress unemployment. What remains elusive is a clear and bold plan to address and reverse inequality, economically and socially.

The idea of reducing inequality has since the growth, employment and redistribution (Gear) policy in 1996 had limited intentional focus on how to translate a larger economic pie into much needed economic opportunities and redistributed wealth that benefits the majority of people.

Government is complicit in ongoing social and economic inequality. SA is a nation of poor people, rather than a poor nation because we have failed to confront our structural apartheid legacy systems or follow through on policies and programmes that redress systemic inequalities.

While black economic empowerment programmes were designed with redistribution in mind, its failures have been well documented as overly relying on the goodwill of trickle-down economics at best and at worst the power of corrupt patronage networks.

For those who argue building on an anti-capitalist agenda that disrupts economic patterns be prioritised over a focus on state power, it is worth remembering that the state has many levers of power that are able to determine the country’s economic structure. The sweeping privatisation of public goods under Gear and poorly implemented and too often corrupted BBB-EE is as much a function of poor governance as it is market forces.

When we add the failures in service delivery that keeps millions of people living lives of indignity, we must admit that effectively dealing with inequality must include a focus on improving governance and government.

We need a government and state committed to public and private sector reforms that results in increased share in the country’s wealth and social norms that preserve the dignity of all.

There are three policies and programmes that those who govern much revisit and enact. First, we must rethink social protection. It can no longer be a stop-gap measure. It must include a comprehensive social security programme, linked to economic returns and redistributive systems, and a social protection floor with a base of entitlements available through the social wage and service delivery.

Second, redistributive programmes in the form of land and infrastructure. Beyond basic services, building social and economic infrastructure including markets, community development centres and arts centres and parks, are necessary for enabling economic agency and community participation in development.

Land, in rural and urban low-income areas, is an essential asset for unlocking the potential for increased economic activity.

Finally, investments must be made into social and care economies. The work many people do to care for their families and communities physical and mental wellbeing add both economic value and contributes to building stronger societies with greater access to dignity, care and justice. None of these proposals are beyond what the state is enabled to do today, if those who are at the helm of power have the vision and will to do their part in creating a better and more equal SA that all its people deserve.