STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Private sector can determine whether the government changes the economy, or loots it
Efforts to avert rating downgrades show business can work with sectors of government to overcome the patronage faction
The governing party will seek either to change the economy or to loot it – and which way it goes will depend partly on what private economic players do. As several commentators recognised, last week’s budget speech confirmed that the ANC economic argument has shifted: it is no longer about whether the economy should stay the same but about how it is to change. Last year, the battle centred on protecting the economy from the looters and preventing a downgrade to junk status — this meant that it was about hanging on to what exists. Now the battle is between two models of change. Against the patronage faction’s cynical claim that it is fighting “white monopoly capital”, its opponents hope to gain the initiative by recognising the obvious — that poverty, inequality and exclusion are blocking economic progress — and proposing their own path to economic change.The budget speech confirmed this: much of it was about spelling out a vision of change that will include more people, not enrich t...
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