by LUKE ZUNGA
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – PROFESSOR Jefrey Sachs attacked Donald Trump during the G20 adumbrations of solidarity, equality and social justice, and said that Africa or Global South must reclaim the future.
He spoke at the University of South Africa (Unisa), Pretoria, South Africa over the G20 Summit.
I have led a small team of researchers to guide the way to reclaim that future. But our voices are not heard.
Except for this on-line news, the main media and television stations refused to publish any of our articles or views and the court case contested the assertion that the real cause of economic slowdown is not politicians, Ministers or Presidents.
The real protagonists, exerting the slog on the journey to economic growth, are the technocrats, the bureaucrats employed under the Ministers.
Follow the 3 articles and excerpts from a book ‘What Economists Are Missing – Keeping you poorer’ https://whateconomist.org/ to discover how the technocrat or bureaucrat is the culprit.
The laws are correct, but the technocrats refuse to implement them, sabotaging the freedoms the country gained.
It starts with the diagnosis of the economic problem.
If the diagnosis is wrong the solution is also farfetched. It is the technocrats, as the learned fellows, who bring misleading diagnosis, directing parliamentarians and Presidents to chase the wrong goals.
Reflecting from the South African situation and reading from commentators, nobody knows why the economy is not growing. Comments that ‘US has power and dominates the economy’.
That ‘South Africa cannot afford a standoff with the US’ as the US is the lender. The premise is borrowing from US controlled lending institutions.
To start with, why would South Africa want to borrow? That the US will stop all payments and subsidies. Why should South Africa be subsidized?
That ‘white people were killed in the country, and their farms were randomly taken, an allegation South Africa had denied’. Reporting like this is not defending South Africa.
That the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expired yesterday, ‘it is a shock to the foundation of US-South Africa trade – our members demand decisive leadership’. One can see where this is going. ‘Trump also imposed 30% tariffs.
That ‘Trump is showing US power and dominance’. That ‘South Africa’s economy is tightly closed to Western companies’, adding that ‘the situation requires a change in leadership in South Africa’.
That we ‘wouldn’t be surprised to see an investment strike from US companies. That ‘South Africa is light weight’.
That ‘Trump decision will sabotage the economy.…. the African National Congress (ANC) is punching above its weight’, and this shows that the governing party did not learn from the experiences of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF).
These comments, coming from the cream of South African media and technocrats, are not helpful and seek to project the United States (US) as the mighty ruler or source of economic reprieve.
So, what is the diagnosis? Three founding arguments must be understood in the diagnosis of the solution. First, wealth is distributed on the markets, either as labour or products.
People must be employed to earn wealth (labour or services) and products manufactured for distribution onto the markets. Second, the number of formal businesses must be 5% of the population to create enough employment and growth. There are ways of organising capital within any country.
This points to manufacturing as the necessary entry point for faster economic growth – to start new factories, employing labour and distribute products to the markets.
That ties with the orthodox definition that ‘economics is a science of production and distribution of wealth’.
This is what early economists, Alfred Smith (b1723), David Rocardo (b1772) and John Stewart Mill (b1806) said. But our technocrats sway governments to attract foreign investors. Nowhere does ‘economics’ say one must wait for foreign investors.
A policy hedged on attracting foreign investors is a false start.
China moved away from this false start. The Boers of South Africa, on recommendations of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation in1932, moved away from the false start. That is why South Africa developed faster In Africa but halted after freedom when technocrats took over.
The technocrats have no clue how factories are started or method or organizing capital to start factories. Instead of tackling the issues, they rely on so-called foreign investors.
Further, technocrats’ perverse governments policy by declaring that there is no funding or assistance or facilitation to start factories or any other business.
“We do not finance to start., ” wrote the Director General. Where does it come from? There is no book which says that. In South Africa the BBBEE Act instructs the Minister to increase the number of black people with factories, to facilitate them, and invest in such.
Then the Minister, through the widely followed principle of separation of powers, is not allowed to interfere with the Director General, the technocrat, in the execution of policy.
So, it is not the government slowing the economy but the implementor, the technocrat. The complexity is that voters strive to remove the government and replace it with another.
But the economy does not respond to change of government because the problem is below, at the technocratic level. How many countries have changed their governments in Africa but made no progress in their economies?
In article 2 we deal with the issues to be resolved to start factories and grow the economy. They are tricky but surmountable and are not solved by the US or foreign investors. In Article 3 we define the solution.
– CAJ News