That title is just 👌🏾👌🏾.. I remember someone telling me- you economics people are so obsessed with numbers!
And I was like, of course we are… if you are going to make decisions that affect lots of people you better have data and deep analysis that backs the decision-making.. Lived experience is too narrow and also biased to be a guiding post for decisions that affect millions
Beyond the ideological tagging, i think people think that when we analyze these numbers, it’s all made up and they don’t mean much…there is idea that when we talk people it has to be story driven only and not numbers driven… av heard people talk about “GDP are just made up numbers that don’t really reflect living conditions”…
So I think the tying the stories to the numbers is super important..which is what you are doing..
Is there perhaps a gap in this article that needs addressing?
The neoliberals have been vociferous critics of socialism and then profit seeking US and western business jumped unto the socialist bandwagon.
The ideologies of past, that was really self serving for a select group, at the cost of many, dragging in its net the so called thinkers, professionals, ideology teachers/defenders, opportunists and brain washed is not going to deliver anything different in the future than it has in the past. Neoliberalism delivers to a few elites, encourages productive destruction in the long run & corruption- the redemption is a hard push. Neoliberal evangelists demonised socialism, then came China and showed those pen pushers up with the help of the same profiteers because business seeks economic profit and monopolies when it is not Governed well by Effective Governments.
Today even as these elites are profiteering from Israel & Ukraines hegemonic profiteering genocidal wars and the writing is on the wall for the neoliberal evangelicals, the “thinkers”are being rolled out to redeem neoliberalism.
Meantime economists acknowledges economics need a rethink, but the different groups cant agree on the fundamentals.
Too often the true thinkers are shut down to fit a particular agenda. So lets face it Economic theories stand exposed for its failures.
Still when the objectives become the economic development of a nation for the benefit of all its people, without the theft of others resources or slave wages for people, then some economic thinking helps, along with pragmatism & governance. Who today is the best examples of such an approach, dear reader?
#"Neoliberalism in South Africa: Crisis, Continuities, and Contested Futures
South Africa's relationship with neoliberalism represents a complex paradox—a liberation movement turned ruling party embracing economic policies that perpetuated apartheid-era inequalities while creating new forms of economic exclusion. The country's current crisis of stagnant growth, record unemployment, and extreme inequality cannot be understood without examining how neoliberal frameworks have shaped its post-apartheid trajectory.
1. The Neoliberal Transition: From Liberation to Economic Orthodoxy
- Abandoned Redistributive Promises: Despite the ANC's historical commitment to radical economic transformation, its post-1994 governance adopted textbook neoliberal policies: tariff liberalization, central bank independence, protection of established property rights, and financial openness. This aligned with World Bank structural adjustment programs rather than addressing structural inequalities .
- Oligarchic Continuity: Apartheid's economic architecture—dominated by mining, finance, and agribusiness—was not dismantled but incorporated ANC elites. President Cyril Ramaphosa, a former union leader turned billionaire, epitomizes this fusion of political and oligarchic power. Corporate profits and JSE market capitalization soared (61-fold increase since 2003) while poverty deepened .
- The "Choice-less Democracy": South Africa became what scholar Thandika Mkandawire termed a "choice-less democracy," where major parties converged on neoliberal fundamentals despite rhetorical differences, marginalizing alternatives .
2. Dimensions of the Neoliberal Crisis
Economic Stagnation and Exclusion
- Growth for the Few: The economy relies on capital-intensive, export-oriented sectors (mining, agriculture) benefiting from low interest rates and rand depreciation. This model actively suppresses wages and domestic demand, as prosperity for the majority would increase interest rates and strengthen the rand—undermining export competitiveness.
- Social Grant Limitations: Cash transfers (e.g., $16/month in Kenya, $7/month in Zambia) are promoted as poverty solutions but function as state-shrinking mechanisms. Amounts are deliberately set below survival thresholds, reflecting Milton Friedman's "minimum standard of living" concept rather than transformative welfare .
- The Five Lows:
Neoliberal management has produced chronically **low investment, productivity, wages, employment, and social infrastructure**—a self-reinforcing cycle of underdevelopment .
Social Reproduction Crises
- Housing Catastrophes: Johannesburg's deadly shack fires (e.g., Selby settlement, January 2025) expose how state retreat from public housing forces workers into flammable informal settlements. Over 25% of South Africans rely on open-flame cooking, while utility exclusion creates deadly electrical hazards .
- Educational Epistemicide: Universities prioritize English as the "language of markets," entrenching colonial knowledge hierarchies. African languages are marginalized, restricting access and perpetuating epistemic injustice under the guise of global competitiveness .
- Academic Exploitation: Neoliberal university governance subjects academics to surveillance, metric tyranny, and precarity, causing widespread anxiety, sleep disorders, and depression."
If even a third of this is true (I didn't paste everything), then it all sounds pretty neo-liberal to me.
You can say these sources are biased in favor of the argument it presents, but how do we know you aren't bias in favor of the argument you present that may well be tied to an agenda you favor?
How can you omit the 2008 financial crises?? How can you omit the reason for the increased demand of expenditure?? There has never been genuine state led development in this country since the dawn of democracy! The RET was just pure rhetoric, to keep the alliance in check. Neoliberalism thrived under JZ.
Why are you even in Occupied Azania? You are the descendant of rapist murdering thieves. Your analysis is unwanted and unneeded. You people are deranged lunatics to even think we need your opinion on anything other than how quickly you can leave. Get the fuck out! You are an invading parasite.
Talking about “economic growth” leaves many questions unanswered. Growth for whom? For what? It’s clear in the US that climate catastrophe will not be solvable* without radical economic and therefore political equality; the same is true for the Constitutional crisis and fascism. While South Africa shares the climate and larger ecological crisis and the reasons behind its political-economic problems with US, and the broad solutions are probably the same, details and political actions have to meet local needs.
* Note that “solvable” does not mean solved; just that solving the interlinked crises is impossible without addressing inequality, possible if it’s wisely and strategically addressed. Whatever is done about inequality, fascism, institutional racism, misogyny… will take time we can ill afford, and the climate and larger ecological crisis will deepen. The turn to the right we’ve been suffering in through since the late 1970s is slowing every solution and may be enough to end civilization in chaos, violence, suffering, and destruction. To prevent as much of this as we still can, we have to act radically, globally, comprehensively, and immediately, implementing progressive policies and ecological solutions while working long term to heal the complex psychological condition that is causing that turn, and all our problems.
"Seeing Wetiko: on Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition”
That title is just 👌🏾👌🏾.. I remember someone telling me- you economics people are so obsessed with numbers!
And I was like, of course we are… if you are going to make decisions that affect lots of people you better have data and deep analysis that backs the decision-making.. Lived experience is too narrow and also biased to be a guiding post for decisions that affect millions
Beyond the ideological tagging, i think people think that when we analyze these numbers, it’s all made up and they don’t mean much…there is idea that when we talk people it has to be story driven only and not numbers driven… av heard people talk about “GDP are just made up numbers that don’t really reflect living conditions”…
So I think the tying the stories to the numbers is super important..which is what you are doing..
Loved the post! 😊
Well written, reseached and argued, Johan.
Is there perhaps a gap in this article that needs addressing?
The neoliberals have been vociferous critics of socialism and then profit seeking US and western business jumped unto the socialist bandwagon.
The ideologies of past, that was really self serving for a select group, at the cost of many, dragging in its net the so called thinkers, professionals, ideology teachers/defenders, opportunists and brain washed is not going to deliver anything different in the future than it has in the past. Neoliberalism delivers to a few elites, encourages productive destruction in the long run & corruption- the redemption is a hard push. Neoliberal evangelists demonised socialism, then came China and showed those pen pushers up with the help of the same profiteers because business seeks economic profit and monopolies when it is not Governed well by Effective Governments.
Today even as these elites are profiteering from Israel & Ukraines hegemonic profiteering genocidal wars and the writing is on the wall for the neoliberal evangelicals, the “thinkers”are being rolled out to redeem neoliberalism.
Meantime economists acknowledges economics need a rethink, but the different groups cant agree on the fundamentals.
Too often the true thinkers are shut down to fit a particular agenda. So lets face it Economic theories stand exposed for its failures.
Still when the objectives become the economic development of a nation for the benefit of all its people, without the theft of others resources or slave wages for people, then some economic thinking helps, along with pragmatism & governance. Who today is the best examples of such an approach, dear reader?
#"Neoliberalism in South Africa: Crisis, Continuities, and Contested Futures
South Africa's relationship with neoliberalism represents a complex paradox—a liberation movement turned ruling party embracing economic policies that perpetuated apartheid-era inequalities while creating new forms of economic exclusion. The country's current crisis of stagnant growth, record unemployment, and extreme inequality cannot be understood without examining how neoliberal frameworks have shaped its post-apartheid trajectory.
1. The Neoliberal Transition: From Liberation to Economic Orthodoxy
- Abandoned Redistributive Promises: Despite the ANC's historical commitment to radical economic transformation, its post-1994 governance adopted textbook neoliberal policies: tariff liberalization, central bank independence, protection of established property rights, and financial openness. This aligned with World Bank structural adjustment programs rather than addressing structural inequalities .
- Oligarchic Continuity: Apartheid's economic architecture—dominated by mining, finance, and agribusiness—was not dismantled but incorporated ANC elites. President Cyril Ramaphosa, a former union leader turned billionaire, epitomizes this fusion of political and oligarchic power. Corporate profits and JSE market capitalization soared (61-fold increase since 2003) while poverty deepened .
- The "Choice-less Democracy": South Africa became what scholar Thandika Mkandawire termed a "choice-less democracy," where major parties converged on neoliberal fundamentals despite rhetorical differences, marginalizing alternatives .
2. Dimensions of the Neoliberal Crisis
Economic Stagnation and Exclusion
- Growth for the Few: The economy relies on capital-intensive, export-oriented sectors (mining, agriculture) benefiting from low interest rates and rand depreciation. This model actively suppresses wages and domestic demand, as prosperity for the majority would increase interest rates and strengthen the rand—undermining export competitiveness.
- Social Grant Limitations: Cash transfers (e.g., $16/month in Kenya, $7/month in Zambia) are promoted as poverty solutions but function as state-shrinking mechanisms. Amounts are deliberately set below survival thresholds, reflecting Milton Friedman's "minimum standard of living" concept rather than transformative welfare .
- The Five Lows:
Neoliberal management has produced chronically **low investment, productivity, wages, employment, and social infrastructure**—a self-reinforcing cycle of underdevelopment .
Social Reproduction Crises
- Housing Catastrophes: Johannesburg's deadly shack fires (e.g., Selby settlement, January 2025) expose how state retreat from public housing forces workers into flammable informal settlements. Over 25% of South Africans rely on open-flame cooking, while utility exclusion creates deadly electrical hazards .
- Educational Epistemicide: Universities prioritize English as the "language of markets," entrenching colonial knowledge hierarchies. African languages are marginalized, restricting access and perpetuating epistemic injustice under the guise of global competitiveness .
- Academic Exploitation: Neoliberal university governance subjects academics to surveillance, metric tyranny, and precarity, causing widespread anxiety, sleep disorders, and depression."
If even a third of this is true (I didn't paste everything), then it all sounds pretty neo-liberal to me.
This is ChatGPT-generated nonsense. LLMs are powerful, but they tell you what you want to hear, Mr. Dogo.
Maybe, maybe not, but they are also great at gathering information. I didn't post its sources that just happen to come from a variety of places.
Here's one https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-69766-2
And another: https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/395
Or
https://sajip.co.za/index.php/sajip/article/view/2234/4226
This one is interesting too: https://soas-repository.worktribe.com/output/505804/post-apartheid-south-africa-a-neoliberal-disaster-made-and-in-the-making
You can say these sources are biased in favor of the argument it presents, but how do we know you aren't bias in favor of the argument you present that may well be tied to an agenda you favor?
How can you omit the 2008 financial crises?? How can you omit the reason for the increased demand of expenditure?? There has never been genuine state led development in this country since the dawn of democracy! The RET was just pure rhetoric, to keep the alliance in check. Neoliberalism thrived under JZ.
Why are you even in Occupied Azania? You are the descendant of rapist murdering thieves. Your analysis is unwanted and unneeded. You people are deranged lunatics to even think we need your opinion on anything other than how quickly you can leave. Get the fuck out! You are an invading parasite.
We have the empirical proof : the West. Property rights, low taxes and regulations and fonctionning courts. It’s not rocket science.
Talking about “economic growth” leaves many questions unanswered. Growth for whom? For what? It’s clear in the US that climate catastrophe will not be solvable* without radical economic and therefore political equality; the same is true for the Constitutional crisis and fascism. While South Africa shares the climate and larger ecological crisis and the reasons behind its political-economic problems with US, and the broad solutions are probably the same, details and political actions have to meet local needs.
* Note that “solvable” does not mean solved; just that solving the interlinked crises is impossible without addressing inequality, possible if it’s wisely and strategically addressed. Whatever is done about inequality, fascism, institutional racism, misogyny… will take time we can ill afford, and the climate and larger ecological crisis will deepen. The turn to the right we’ve been suffering in through since the late 1970s is slowing every solution and may be enough to end civilization in chaos, violence, suffering, and destruction. To prevent as much of this as we still can, we have to act radically, globally, comprehensively, and immediately, implementing progressive policies and ecological solutions while working long term to heal the complex psychological condition that is causing that turn, and all our problems.
"Seeing Wetiko: on Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition”
Alnoor Ladha, Martin Kirk.