CENTENARY OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
Stifling black entrepreneurial class is the big SA crime
Echoes of Russia as the tripartite alliance’s parasitic patronage system trumps black entrepreneurial project
In the last year of his life, Karl Marx had his beard shaved off by a barber in Algiers. He couldn’t stand the African heat. But he made sure that a photograph was taken beforehand of him in his world famous hirsute visage — the last photo of him. Keeping up appearances — that’s what history’s greatest dialectical materialist understood very well at that stage of his career as a revolutionary. Beards stood for bravery, manliness and, above all, wisdom. Marx knew by then he was none the wiser after a lifetime of writing tomes — he had not yet begun the second phase of his investigation of political economy, had not yet thought through where the state fit in. Much as he revolutionised human thinking, he died before Freud discovered what really motivates us, before antitrust laws easily defeated monopolies and before John Maynard Keynes worked out what the state should do and not do to run an economy. The pretence of wisdom had always animated Marxists and communists, the intellectual ...
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Subscribe now to unlock this article.
Support BusinessLIVE’s award-winning journalism for R129 per month (digital access only).
There’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in SA. Our subscription packages now offer an ad-free experience for readers.
Cancel anytime.
Questions? Email helpdesk@businesslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00. Got a subscription voucher? Redeem it now.