DAVID FORBES: The neoliberal ANC and its 'radical economic transformation' hot air
It’s extraordinary that hardly anyone is interrogating the inconsistencies and contradictions in the concept of radical economic transformation that is being bandied about with increasingly carelessness by those in power. Let’s look at a bit of history here: 1991: the ANC stood for the Freedom Charter, socialism, and a non-racial future of peace and prosperity that they would create. Fast forward to 2001 and the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) — a mixture of socialist and neoliberal policy — had disappeared and had been replaced by Growth Employment And Redistribution (Gear) — paradoxically a move to enhanced neoliberalism and away from the socialist ideals of the Freedom Charter. In 2005, just a few years later, Gear was replaced by the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of SA (Asgisa), and then, after Zuma seized control in 2010, by the New Growth Path. In 2013 it morphed into the New Development Plan, former (neoliberal) finance minister Trevor Manuel’s brill...
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