While Europe is wallowing in the global economic crisis, South Africa has weathered it well. And, say several mainstream commentators, “the country” has done so because of the astute management of former finance minister Trevor Manuel, who is still being touted as a possible future head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Many – if not most – trade unionists beg to disagree. As they see it, the IMF and the World Bank represent the apex of a fundamentally corrupt and exploitative world system in which Manuel – “a shop steward of business” – is a junior partner.
They point out that “the country” has not weathered the crisis; only the already rich and a new minority of often politically well-connected individuals have so far done so. This tiny elite has accumulated greater wealth, but at a frighteningly high cost to the majority.
Many unionists also see the much lauded social grants, barely enough to sustain individuals let alone extended families, as small compensation compared with the billions of rand salted away by the monied aristocracy and filched by the tenderpreneur gangs.
But they are also aware that this is not a peculiarly South African phenomenon: a similar situation applies in Europe and the US, as well as in a number of other regions.
In Britain, for example, the Trades Union Congress is fighting retrenchments and cuts in social services demanded by the UK government in order to deal with the crisis. At the same time, the Sunday Times “Rich List” states that the country’s 1 000 richest people last year increased their combined wealth by £60 billion (R678bn) to £396bn.
One of Europe’s collapsed economies, the formerly hailed Celtic Tiger, Ireland, provides a classic example of the pillage and the plunder of national wealth by a politically well-connected elite.
Irish historian and journalist Fintan O’Toole details this sordid tale of avarice and the subsequent bailout to banks in his latest book, Ship of Fools.
What O’Toole reveals, and trade unionists in Europe and the US have pointed out, is that the money spent on bailing out banks could alone have provided sufficient social services – including adequate income grants – to the increasingly impoverished masses. Of course, South Africa did not have to bail out banks, but money was – and is – squandered in other ways that short-change the majority and further enrich the minority.
It is now broadly conceded that hosting the 2010 World Cup was an overall drain of billions of rand from available resources that could have gone instead to houses, hospitals and clinics.
The once proposed huge financial benefits failed to eventuate and there is still the problem of maintaining under-utilised and expensive stadiums.
An even bigger drain was the controversial arms deal that was predicated on a massive inflow of “offset” investments that never materialised. But, as with World Cup tenders, financial benefits accrued again to a minority.
This much was conceded by Manuel when he advised then ANC MP Andrew Feinstein to drop probes into the arms deal. He noted that if there was bribery involved “no one will uncover it. They’re not that stupid.”
But it is now also being realised that the R30bn spent on ships, submarines and aircraft may only be the tip of a substantial financial iceberg of payments for spares and other maintenance. Talking of the hi-tech corvettes and submarines in Simonstown, a retired admiral noted: “In the lifetime of the vessels, the cost of purchase will probably be far exceeded by the cost of spares and so on. That’s where the sellers really make money.”
In this environment, trade unions have joined with other groups to demand that working people should not be made to pay for the greed and stupidity of the wealthy minority and their politician supporters.
Along with serious suggestions dealing with everything from exchange rates to monetary policy and tariffs, there is also some humour, with a serious message.
One such tongue-in-cheek suggestion for dealing with the crisis in Britain that is now doing the rounds on the internet proposes that, instead of spending billions of pounds bailing out the banks, the government could have used the money to solve the unemployment and housing crises and to rescue the ailing car industry.
This could be done by giving a £1 million (R11m) early retirement package to the estimated 10 million workers over the age of 50, so creating 10 million job vacancies. This would absorb the estimated 10 million unemployed people.
But the £1m would come with several conditions: each retired worker must buy a new British car and either buy a house or pay off a mortgage, so salvaging the local car industry and dealing with the housing crisis. Additional disposable income would also be spent domestically, so boosting local services and industry and providing the government with more tax revenue.
To this has been added various barbs about the pay and perks of parliamentarians and the satirical suggestion first made by New Zealand psychologist and lawyer Alan Nixon that the elderly be put in prison where they would be better cared for.
With the exception of a “psychotic” minority, who would remain incarcerated, the generally younger prison population, in their productive prime, should be released to be trained to work for the benefit of all.
In this apparently insane world, there is food for thought in the satire. But there are also very serious suggestions, especially those supported by trade unions that continue being ignored. Prime among these internationally is the Tobin or “Robin Hood” tax, a call to replace personal income tax and value-added tax with a small tax on financial transactions.
Locally this hasn’t yet been taken up, but the labour movement is well aware that the rate of corporate tax under apartheid was 48 percent. Today it is 28 percent, designed to encourage greenfields investment that still remains largely an illusion
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