PETER BRUCE: How earnest lefties press the Zuma faction’s case

What do you do if you suddenly find yourself on the same side of a potentially ruinous political argument as Ace Magashule or, say, his aide, Carl Niehaus? That is where left-wing economist Neil Coleman found himself last Tuesday soon after he published an article in Daily Maverick proposing that we begin to think out of the box on the economy because, clearly, what we have now isn’t working.

A few hours after Coleman’s piece appeared, Magashule told a press conference that an ANC lekgotla the previous weekend had agreed to expand the mandate of the SA Reserve Bank so that it could take account of the need to encourage employment...