Black economic disempowerment

Given the exaggerated praise that BEE received at its introduction, one would have expected that all of us — blacks — would be rich by now. Not so; we are still wallowing in the same poverty as we did before this empowerment arrived, save for a few black politicians and business people related to one another, politically or otherwise.

The economic “stroke of genius from the student of Sussex” (Thabo Mbeki), as some media institutions dubbed it, has really turned into a master stroke at recycling. Apart from benefiting just a few who are connected to the upper echelons of the ruling party, BEE has resulted in super-wealthy black elites who tend to be recycled time and again.

This is not to mean that I have a problem with blacks being rich per se, but can someone tell me why a Motsepe, after winning back-to-back bouts of empowerment on a BEE ticket, still qualifies as a disadvantaged person? Something ought to be sinister here!

Only those who would want to maintain their access to sections of the South African economy would want BEE to go on indefinitely. These include those who would want it retained forever, to have permanent racial privilege in the tender market over their white counterparts.

If the government is serious about fostering a united and prosperous South Africa, it ought to start placing an empowerment ceiling on all people qualifying for BEE. This would do well to decrease the racial animosity that has developed as a result of BEE and make possible for BEE to reach a larger quota of the South African black populace. Anyway, can BEE reach any quota of the South African population? I think not.

Apart from the few issues I have raised above, I do not think BEE as an economic intervention in the skewed and race-dominated South African economy is a correct way of reversing racialised accumulation fostered through years of systematic economic exclusion.

Business fronts have been the order of the day since BEE came to town. These show clearly the bankruptcy of BEE as an economic intervention or insertion in the mainstream economy, both on a developmental and socialist basis.

First of all, capitalism presupposes the accumulation of resources by a few at the expense of the majority, or anyone else for that matter; therefore, there is no way that the entire black South African population can be turned into capitalists. If any were to catch the BEE train, it would be a few, as history has taught us already, and our government knows this. Why then does it keep on misleading poor black people, making as if empowerment is meant for all?

Many black South Africans support BEE simply because they believe the government’s assurance to “hang in there, empowerment is just around the corner”. If it were not because of that, we would have all realised that this empowerment nonsense is a hoax, only real for a few; we would have started looking for alternatives by now. Maybe a socialist initiative would do well.

In fact, as Saki Macozoma asked: “Can a capitalist system produce socialist results?” The answer should be no. However, the lie “BEE is for all” is kept intact, despite the experience of the years since its introduction.