INEPTOCRACY

The following article by David Hill was published in The Times in February 2012.  It is still totally true and I thought it may be of interest here.

 INEPTOCRACY 

by David Hill 

SOUTH AFRICA IS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WHOSE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICY FAVOURS A MAJORITY WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO HAVE COMPLETE POLITICAL CONTROL

Much like inheriting a billion pounds only to die broke or forfeiting a three goal half time lead; ineptocracy is one’s failure to succeed from a position of strength.

A political example of ineptocracy would be South Africa’s ruling party the ANC; who after 18 years of leading one of the most fertile and resource rich countries in the world hasn’t developed any sustainable solutions to generating wealth for its people beyond affirmative action, land redistribution and the nationalization of assets. 

After almost two decades of rule, the ANC’s sole solution to endowing its people is still to merely take wealth away from others. Surely this is their failure?  Consider that South Africa is the only country in the world whose affirmative action policy favours a majority who also happens to have complete political control. In the rest of the world affirmative action is designed to favour the politically un-represented minority, not the politically strong majority.

South Africa now appears to have a system of government whereby the ruling party is elected by the non- contributing majority, who in turn are then rewarded with subsidies, goods and services paid for from the earnings of the contributing minority. The flaw with this system is that nowhere does there exist a plan, nor an incentive, for this impoverished majority to actually start contributing to the economy and hence they continue to demand more from their elected leaders who in turn continue to deflect the wealth generation burden onto the contributing minority. 

Clearly this cycle of diminishing returns is not sustainable as eventually the expectation of the non-contributing majority will become too high and the burden on the contributing minority will become too great. In the end something has got to give as no economy can bear 20 million people supporting 50 million people. 

To further illustrate just how poorly the ANC has done at generating wealth solutions for its people over the past 18 years, consider Germany and Japan who at the end of World War II were completely decimated by the Allied bombings and were thus economically distraught. Neither had any industry, agriculture nor natural resources to generate wealth from, yet within 20 years both countries had uplifted themselves to being highly employed, economic powerhouses. Clearly both these governments achieved vastly more for their people with significantly less over a similar period of time and without disadvantaging any demographic. 

So the fact that after two decades of complete political control the ANC has failed to secure wealth generation systems for its people beyond affirmative action and nationalisation, well is that not the very definition of ineptocracy? 

Published in The Times on 13 February 2012.