SA's poor prop up the rich as genuine redress remains elusive

The country's economic crisis didn't begin with the latest austerity Budget. It is rooted in decades of political consensus on neoliberalism - and 'black empowerment' that has come to benefit only the rich.

- By Jeff Rudin

The poor continue to be the constant losers, regardless of the specific crisis afflicting the economy at any time.

Some 20 years ago, for instance, the collapse of the rand was offered as part of the explanation of why most people were experiencing economic hardship.

Then as hard as it is to remember or imagine - the rand began to strengthen, doubling its value against the dollar. But the hardships of most South Africans remained. Indeed, the very strength of the rand was presented as the cause of growing poverty and unemployment.

I wonder how many people remember AsgiSA, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, launched in 2006. It was supposed to introduce policies to achieve sustainable economic growth of 6%, which would halve poverty and unemployment by 2014.

No sooner was it announced than the global economic gurus, to whom our government is beholden, warned that too much growth was inflationary. Then, as now, inflation was presented as a deadly disorder.

Interest rates around the world began increasing accordingly. Following this lead, our Reserve Bank claimed that a growth rate of only 4.1% was sustainable if inflation was to be controlled.

Leap into the present and the same pattern persists. The urgency of economic growth as the means of solving our myriad problems was central to the brouhaha over the new national Budget. All 10 members of the government of national unity claimed that the interests of the poor were primary. The final Budget, however, still left most South Africans the victims of the same macroeconomic policies accepted by all parliamentary parties since 1994, despite occasional rhetoric.