Peter Bruce, editor of Business Day, sees nothing wrong with the Washington Consensus — “a perfectly sensibly statement of the obvious”. And for him, while there are many ideas about running economies in the 21st century, most of them pay obeisance to WC principles such as keeping inflation down and not borrowing too much money.
For Bruce, speaking at the Rhodes politics teach-in on Friday September 28, the more intriguing question is how market-driven economies can deliver goods to poor people. “We’ve experienced how a government with the best will in the world, with a great constitution and a huge political majority, still can’t get it right.”
The systemic change that’s needed, he says, is for “stakeholder capitalism”, where it is legislated that company boards have to include people other than those who have only invested.
In addition, state-owned land like that used by the army or navy should be given to poor communities, who could then lease it back to the same military institutions. They could use the revenue for collateral, or to send their children to top universities.
“If you legitimise the market among the poor, not create wealth but capitalists, you can withstand anything,” according to Bruce.
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